The Georgetown Football Puzzle (Part Two)

  

For the second part of this discussion, there must be a consensus that one of the major drivers that relegates Georgetown football to where it is situated has been, and continues to be, cost. 

Georgetown underfunded this program relative to its Patriot League peers when it joined, it is underfunded today, and it is likely to continue to be underfunded going forward--not with malice aforethought, but that the absence of a scholarship tradition at Georgetown coupled with the financial tightrope Georgetown walks with a 30-team program and one major revenue source has been restrictive at best and a constrictor at worst. 

In theory, the Georgetown Way calls to mind an Ivy League model of days gone by, where men were admitted to a university and paid their way, not merely to play football In practice, and in a world where the cost of education approaches figures unthinkable by the likes of Percy Haughton, Tad Jones, or Lou Little, it's become untenable. In 1980, the cost of a year at Georgetown University was roughly 25 percent the cost of an year's earnings for a middle class family- sizeable, but not completely overwhelming. In 2025, it's now at 126 percent for that same family. Affordability, or the lack of it, is a deal maker and deal breaker every football program that does not offer scholarships for admission.  

In 2000, Georgetown was one of 33 schools in the Northeast which did not offer athletic scholarships in I-AA football. In 2025, Georgetown is one of just ten--eight are in the Ivy League, the other is Marist. Seeking to be more the former than the latter, Georgetown's financial aid is aligned with that of the Ivies, leading to this paradox: it competes (with Ivies) where it does not play, and plays (with the Patriot) where it does not compete.

The next three topics address how Georgetown could consider a more competitive approach for recruiting and retaining student-athletes in football. Note that, at least in public, these are not current approaches and if they are being used in some form or fashion, it's certainly news to me and a lot of other Georgetown fans and alumni. Assuming they are not, we begin to look at three approaches with medium cost and with a change to the program as it currently stands.

1. Ivy-Plus Recruiting (medium cost, low program change).

Since 1978, Georgetown University has subscribed to a financial aid model which has, more than any single external factor, has elevated it to the elite of American higher education. Known as "need-blind, full need" admissions, Georgetown does not consider the parents' ability to pay when making an admissions decision, something only very few schools are financially confident enough to do. Secondly, once accepted, it is committed to meeting the gap between the overall cost of attendance and the family's ability to pay, otherwise known as the "expected family contribution," or EFC. 

In 1978, Georgetown allocated $2 million for this gap. As of this week's Board of Directors announcement, that number is $286 million, the largest single expenditure at the University outside faculty salaries. As a result, Georgetown spends more on aid in a single year than the total endowment of Xavier University.

Full-need financial aid makes a Georgetown admission offer extremely valuable, but less so for families where the EFC is not favorable. For a family with an annual income of $50,000, an offer to Georgetown is close to a full-ride grant, athletics or not. For a family of $125,000, considerably less so. As such, one of the underreported stories of the last generation has been the evisceration of the middle class at Georgetown, which is, as much as any time in our memory, a place for  the children of the working poor and for those of means.

Putting aside some recent litigation on this issue, if the EFC number was a consistent figure that applied across all schools, a student would have a truly rational decision on where to attend, but it's not: an offer from Harvard and an offer from Hillsdale College would be comparable. It's not.

At Harvard, applicants with a household income of $100,000 or less pay $0 for tuition,  room, and board. Families with a household income of $200,000 pay nothing for tuition but would need a parent contribution for room and board.  Each of the Ivies, along with schools such as Vanderbilt, Rice,  Johns Hopkins, and Stanford, are similarly generous, while others commit to full aid by grant, without loans of any kind.

These schools share one thing in common: an endowment in the tens of billions to cover such costs. Georgetown University, with an endowment one-fourth that of Hopkins and  one-fourteenth that of Harvard, cannot compete with this. Thus, a Georgetown offer, while competitive to those of lesser means, quickly becomes less so when it requires loans and a higher EFC for middle income applicants, particularly those above $80,000.

Back to football: the Pell Grant recruit who considers Georgetown and an Ivy program is going to have comparable offers and one comparable with a PL football scholarship at Colgate or Lehigh. Beyond $80,000 or so, a middle class family will begin to see gaps of $5,000 to $15,000 from Georgetown and the others. Above $150,000, an Ivy offer may be significantly more favorable. 

As long as Georgetown is competing among this cohort for admissions, that's a big deal. That's not to say every GU recruit is going to an Ivy school, but absent football scholarships and a separate admission track afforded to sports as GU basketball enjoys,   grades and aid are the drivers between playing football at Georgetown and playing somewhere else. More often that not, aid wins out.

Prior to 2013, the Patriot League funding model allowed for what was called the "buyout" of the parent contribution: for example, an EFC of $15,000 could be assumed by the athletic department and recorded on its budget, not that of the financial aid office. This became the need-based equivalency for FCS purposes, allowing some PL schools to offer as much or more than as 56.7 equivalencies for FBS guarantee games without the definition of a scholarship. The move to a scholarship model in the PL converted these amounts to athletic scholarships at al schools but Georgetown, rendering competition with these schools for recruits even more daunting. A kid from Delbarton with a choice of paying $20,000 a year to go to Georgetown or getting a free ride at Holy Cross will, all things being equal, go to Worcester.

Money offered by the financial aid office is, and remains, based on demonstrated need. For this argument, there needs to be some conversation about targeted fundraising that would allow Georgetown football to compete at a figure (for argument's sake, a household income between $80,000 and $125,000) where the gap between Georgetown's offer and that of a comparable Ivy school would be matched by the athletic department beyond Georgetown's need formula, and independent of the loan buyouts. This fund would effectively create a range of income  beyond the Georgetown EFC where football would meet and cover the gap between Georgetown's EFC and that of peer schools, perhaps even to include PL scholarship offers.

No, it would not be for everyone, but not every recruit fits into this category. If a $200,000 annual fund could support 20 students that had a $10,000 gap by an "Ivy-Plus" offer, that's still no more than five recruits in a cycle which the staff could offer it to, and likely it becomes a decision for the coaches whether to use this on a recruit. Unlike financial aid, it's a budget item that Athletics would have to absorb through philanthropy, and if the fundraising isn't there, neither is the offer. 

There's room for discussion if this stretches the need based model of Georgetown too far, and that's a fair argument. Would such a model introduce athletic performance to the aid formula, or merely meet the need that is otherwise offered in the marketplace? It's a discussion worth having.

2. Flex Aid (medium cost, medium program change).

The Ivy-Plus approach to financial aid works, if up to a point. Many Georgetown recruits will come from families where financial need will not be available under any measure, and others simply can't reasonably justify Georgetown  against comparable programs that will offer more generous aid, whether in a scholarship or a full aid, loan-free package. A discussion about whether there is capacity among the donor pool to support limited equivalency grants is a healthy one.

Before someone sounds the alarm and says "That means FOOTBALL SCHOLARSHIPS!", let's take a step back.

Georgetown University hasn't offered a grant-in-aid for football in 75 years. Far be it  some sort of statement of academic purity, such a belief was always about cost: they did not want to be saddled with the cost of 81 grants, even when tuition was $1,400 a year.  When football returned in 1964, administrative opposition was not about academic slippery slopes, it was about cost. The "Football For Fun" movement carefully used its words in its proposals to the University, stressing it would not be "big time"; which, then or now, connoted universities that spent beyond Georgetown's means. 

Whether in the club football era or Division III, "cost containment" was the driver, from the players themselves right down to the part-time coaches which served the program selflessly and more than most ever knew. It was also a tacit reflection that Georgetown didn't see a community of interest to support anything more than what low level football would provide: opportunity, but not enough support to get in the way of institutional commitments to its bellwether programs in basketball and track.  

This theory endured in the move to I-AA, where football pivoted to the MAAC and thus  could continue to play similarly-situated (read=low budget) schools. Eight years later, the move to the Patriot was framed, in part, among similarly situated schools that kept costs low. 

In 2012, Georgetown was the only PL school to vote no to the league's move to scholarship football. Former president Jack DeGioia drew the line on football grants with his claim that "I don’t believe that [football scholarships] fits the ethos and the culture of Georgetown", though no one called him on the follow-up: do soccer scholarships fit the ethos and culture? How about volleyball? Do golf and tennis and baseball, each of which receive small but worthy scholarship opportunities, contribute to the ethos and culture that football is somehow unfit to do?

DeGioia's follow-up in that quote bears a second look. 

He continued, "I’m not supportive that Georgetown would follow the move that Fordham did and go to 63 scholarships. It’s just very expensive and I don’t think it’s commensurate in who we are and in our aspirations for our athletic program." 

Once again, it was about "very expensive". That Georgetown has been able to tread water through a decade of PL scholarship football is a credit to Georgetown teams and a couple of teams they can surprise now and then, but as Holy Cross proved under Bob Chesney and the three CAA arrivals are about to magnify, there's no surprises anymore.

By 2026, at least nine games, maybe as many as 11 of 12, will be against scholarship opponents--some will spend more, others less, but each will have the flexibility to recruit and admit from middle-income and high-income households that Georgetown cannot  m match. A full need approach is an increasing challenge to the coaching staff to address and remain reasonably competitive.

DeGioia's comment about 63 scholarships as "just very expensive"  begs this question: does Georgetown need 63 scholarships? Probably not, though it wouldn't hurt. What it needs, and sooner rather than later, is a discussion about what sum of annual giving, directed at a fundraising pool which could fund additive aid for a limited number of impact recruits (say, three or four a year) would give Georgetown a fighting chance at recruiting against comparable schools.  

Could the Gridiron Club raise $300,000 a year for five grants of $15,000 annually, presumably covering a four year commitment, that would allow the staff to combine this with a financial aid package? A recruit from a six figure family income may still have an hefty EFC from Georgetown, but could an additional $15,000 grant, (literally, an equivalency) make Georgetown competitive? 

Five $15,000 grants isn't 63 scholarships and not even close--it's literally less than one equivalency. On the margin, however, it may be enough, with need aid, to land the impact QB or RB which GU has been visibly missing for years on end. and it does so with outside giving, thus freeing the University from the institutional angst that it cannot afford to do so. If the support club can't raise the funds, the grants aren't awarded, full stop. 

But if it can, it should be discussed. If baseball (a proud program which labored without a winning record for over  three decades) was given the green light to raise over $5 million for partial grants, the ethos and culture of Georgetown didn't come crashing down, and neither would it for football.

3. NIL (medium cost, high program change).

The cloud that hangs across all college sports takes a darker turn this fall, and if you think Patriot League football is immune from such concerns, think again.

In 2022, athletic director Lee Reed and former board chairman Paul Tagliabue warned alumni at the John Carroll Weekend in Nashville of the perfidy of name, image, and license opportunities being co-opted by Southeastern Conference schools. A year later at John Carroll in San Francisco, with new coach Ed Cooley in the room, Georgetown did a 180 and announced it was in the NIL game as well. The combination of a Supreme Court decision and the inability of the NCAA to police its own members led Division I programs outside the Ivy League to jump into the pool. 

Beginning this fall, following the House decision, NCAA schools that choose to opt in to the settlement may offer up to $20 million per school annually in what is loosely called revenue sharing to student-athletes. Few outside the major college programs will offer anything close to $20 million and fewer still have identified exactly which sports they'll actually cover, though Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione named six: football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, softball and women's gymnastics. The last three may surprise some but they are sports where donors, not just media contracts, can provide the dollars that can elevate the Sooners to national championships. The OU softball team, for example, has won four of the past five NCAA championships and lost in the 2025 final to Texas Tech, a school which has gone all-in on softball NIL.

Georgetown hasn't announced which teams figure to join in revenue sharing. Basketball is a given. Football isn't likely, but it doesn't have to be a byproduct of media rights. As in the previous discussion, the ability of Georgetown to externally raise some amount of money annually for targeted football NIL/rev-share/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is another tool in the recruiting toolbox.

But is this even necessary in the Patriot League? 

Well, don't look now, but the days of the collective, either in-house or externally run, have arrived in the land of The Last Amateurs.  The PL will never be the land of SEC and Big 10 football, where dozens of  players will receive $3 million or more each next season, but by 2026 this will be a factor at the higher levels of PL recruiting, as sure as it is in the Big East today for basketball.

A conversation about football NIL may be a contentious one for a school which hasn't even made a move on scholarship aid. A conversation is appropriate, however. Georgetown has an unusual issue on NIL in that, for its recruits, any such award would actually be counterproductive since the income received would negatively affect their aid award from the University. 

In the case of recruiting an impact grad transfer, an FBS transfer, or a high income recruit that isn't getting aid to begin with, the program needs to do the math and determine if outside giving could or should be solicited in advance to cover limited NIL grants for this cohort, much as was discussed above for flex aid.  Maybe it's not a priority unless and until scholarship support is settled, and that's OK, but the football staff knows that other PL schools will be going down this road soon, and Georgetown isn't doing itself any favors by looking away.

Think of the three topics in this article as variations on a theme: Ivy-Plus as addressing the gaps for the lower income recruit, flex aid as addressing Georgetown's competitive gaps in middle income applicants, and NIL as a selective option for a high income, high impact candidate. These are externally solicited giving to support program needs, in a way that is more transparent than Georgetown has been to date with its football donors. Unlike the ideas discussed in Part One, these involve some five and six figure donors, and that needs to be considered in a period of change in the Georgetown athletics model. Properly positioned, however, this could open up opportunities for football in a way that the current opaque fundraising model does not meet, and one will be severely tested otherwise in the years to come.

In part 3 of this series, a look at three other expensive and impactful options that may also be considered in a changing athletic world.

The Third Man

 

The worst kept secret in FCS football is a secret no more. 

In a matter of a little more than 13 months, the conference where time stood still has added three nationally prominent programs, including two former national champions, and positioned the Patriot League as the most interesting conference in FCS football. The addition Thursday of Villanova, the third jewel in the PL's triple crown of expansion candidates, is stunning in its impact, and remarkable that the stars aligned as they did.

For forty years, Villanova was the school that wanted nothing to do with the PL, and did its part to steer clear of the Last Amateurs while they were still amateur. The Andy Talley era positioned Villanova as the school which took I-AA and FCS football seriously, something to which Patriot schools were not altogether seen in such company. Yet, much like their fellow CAA stable mates in Richmond and William & Mary, the ground had changed underneath them, and the Patriot had changed to offer them a competitive home where one was fraying around them in the CAA.

Unless you're a Georgetown fan who grew up in or around the Philadelphia area, chances are you don't know much about the Wildcats, inasmuch as these schools never played each other in football over the last 75 years.  How Villanova got to this position is a story worth telling.

A football program since 1894, Villanova was the smallest of the three Philadelphia area programs behind Penn and Temple. A major college program throughout, Villanova played larger opponents at Shibe Park or Municipal (JFK) Stadium, but more often than not at the 12,000 seat on-campus stadium which still stands along Lancaster Avenue. Though it had not been ranked nationally since 1949, the Wildcats were invited to the 1961 Sun Bowl versus Wichita State and the 1962 Liberty Bowl versus Oregon State, the latter played at Philadelphia's Municipal Stadium before its move to Memphis later in the decade.

Following a 9-2 season in 1970 with wins over Maryland, Navy, and Temple, the Wildcats managed just two winning seasons the remainder of the decade before a 6-5 season in 1980. The year 1980 is a seminal date for Villanova football, for it was following that season that, citing a $500,000 loss, that the program was discontinued.

"Interest had dwindled to the point where we sold only 750 season tickets in 1980, and we had 95 players on scholarship,'' said athletic director Ted Aceto, himself  the quarterback of the 1961 and 1962 teams. 

Rather than dutifully accepting its fate as Georgetown had done two decades earlier, alumni pushed back. A group known as the Committee to Restore Football began to get attention, even going so far as to book the legendary Bob Hope for a fundraiser later that year at the Philadelphia Academy Of Music, titled "Hope For Football".  According to local reports, the event covered expenses but "we got about $5 million in free advertising from the papers."

What really got the school's attention was getting alumni to show their dissatisfaction over the decision. 

"During those years the university realized it had dropped a notch in prestige and how people viewed it,” said sports information director Craig Miller to the Philadelphia Inquirer.  “People would send checks and write "Void" on them, saying they wouldn’t continue to make donations until football returns.” Homecoming attendance dropped over 90 percent in two years. University officials saw the issue and understood that it needed a second look. 

"We have 54 (alumni) clubs throughout the country--including three in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego,” said its alumni director. “And 52 of the 54 club presidents returned to campus the day we urged [Villanova] to reconsider.”

In 1983, Villanova restored football, to begin at the Division III level with a move to Division I-AA within four years--a lower scholarship threshold and a perceived better positioning for the school as a whole, now a member (in other sports) of the Big East conference. 

"You simply have to look to the overall benefits (of playing the game) instead of the financial benefits (of not playing),” its school president told the Inquirer., “Football is a unique college activity that has the strong support of the alumni and the school’s other friends." 

"If it’s that important to them, it’s that important to the university.”

With a new coach in Andy Talley, a non-scholarship team debuted with an intrasquad scrimamge at Homecoming on November 3, 1984. 

"We weren't going to have a team until the following fall, we still hadn't recruited a single player and yet we had a capacity crowd of 13,400 people who had paid $10 each to see the game,'' said Aceto in a story picked up by the Los Angeles Times.  "It was absolutely amazing. Except for three players, who had accepted scholarships before the football program was abandoned, everyone was a walk-on, and we were so short of offensive linemen that some guys had to keep running on and off the field to change jerseys.''

Beginning with a Division III schedule in 1985,  Talley won 17 of its next 18 over the next three seasons, and the Wildcats were off and running. Amidst early opponents such as Iona, Pace, Fordham, and even Catholic University, Talley took care not to schedule, or even be compared to, Georgetown. To this date, and at least until 2026, Georgetown remains the only PL school Villanova football has not played in its modern era.

Villanova joined the Yankee Conference in 1988, hosting Wake Forest at home but finishing 4-4 in conference against the likes of Delaware, UConn, and UMass, and with a run of four consecutive weeks versus nationally ranked teams. The next season, Villanova won its first Yankee title, one of five such titles across the Yankee, A-10, and CAA nameplates. The Wildcats have 16 NCAA appearances, including the 2009 national championship.

In 2011, Villanova gave serious consideration to upgrading to FBS and joining Big East football, with a move of its games to what is now known as Subaru Park in Chester. One week before the trustees' meeting, Pitt and Syracuse announced a departure from the Big East and the vote was tabled.

In the intervening years, Villanova was a loyal and successful CAA program. The loss of James Madison in 2021 stirred some questions among the fan base, as did the addition of unfamiliar and disparate programs: Bryant, Campbell, Hampton, Monmouth, North Carolina A&T. In 2023, its  major CAA rival, Delaware, announced a move out of the conference. With Richmond and William & Mary moving to the Patriot, the stage was set to join them.

So what does this mean for Villanova? 

At the forefront, stability. The PL is a conference of like minded schools that the Villanova fan base is familiar with. Richmond and W&M renew regional ties, while Lehigh and Lafayette are nearby regionally. According to a report, the average distance for road games across the PL will be just 175 miles compared to trips along the CAA schedule which ranged from Buies Creek, North Carolina to Orono, Maine. 

As to home games, Villanova should see a boost in attendance. Lehigh fans will buy tickets. So will Lafayette and Bucknell, Fordham and Holy Cross.

"The geographic footprint of the Patriot League is a perfect fit for Villanova," said  athletic director Eric Roedl.

"We believe this move will foster strong regional rivalries while maintaining our commitment to excellence on and off the field,” said ninth year coach Mark Ferrante. “It’s a natural fit that positions us well for the future.”

Second, it allows the Wildcats to remain nationally competitive. Villanova is 72-42 (.632) over the past ten seasons and has made the NCAA playoffs four of the past six seasons. The PL, in its scholarship era, allows them to continue to compete at a high competitive level for FCS be seen (by opponents or fans) as not deemphasizing the sport.

Third, it mitigates risk. The CAA has endured its hills and valleys over the years and the next few years may be challenging for that conferences. In an era of turmoil ahead for college athletics as a while, the PL is one less thing for Villanova athletic leadership to worry about.

What does this mean for the Patriot League? 

It's the big prize that gives the PL a 10 team conference without the need for further expansion. Short of the Ivy League breaking apart or the service academies dropping to FCS, there are really no other schools that fit the PL model in its footprint, and now the league can sit back and say they have the optimal collection of football teams in this region, including a school in Villanova which is a Top 60  academic university nationally.  For the first time in its history,  multiple bids to the NCAA playoffs  from the PL is not a hope, it is an expectation.

It's also an addition of affirmation. Were Villanova to consider this even a decade ago, it would have brought back a lot of pushback, if not outright revolt, from players, the coaching staff, the alumni base, and the local press. In 2025, there's no grumbling that Villanova is downgrading or given up its national ambitions. 

There's not a team in the league who will not be a better program, competitively speaking, by adding Villanova to its schedule.  That said...

What does this mean for Georgetown? 

At the outset, pain. 

Villanova is leagues ahead of Georgetown across the board on football: reputation, recruiting, player development, coaching, strength and conditioning, and, of course, results. Villanova is 72-42 since 2015. Georgetown? 32-66. Villanova's operating expenses are nearly twice that of GU, while its budget of $8.4 million doubles that spent on the Hilltop. While Georgetown plays Wagner in its second game this season, Villanova is playing Penn State.

The Georgetown program can compete alongside Bucknell and Lafayette, and can hang around with a Lehigh or Fordham. As presently constructed in 2025, it can't compete with Villanova.

Therein lies opportunity. 

The football program needs to have a real conversation about the ingredients it needs, inside and outside the University, to be successful going forward in a PL where eight or nine other schools are prepared and ready to compete at a national level. The ongoing series on this blog, the Georgetown Football Puzzle, is an example of such ideas, but there are others. Georgetown doesn't have to outspend everyone to compete, but first, it must compete. Football isn't fun if this is a one or two-win program within four years. 

For a student and alumni body which can struggle to hold back a yawn when mentioning Georgetown's football opponents, this is the only name out there to which people will sit up and pay attention. In nearly a half century, Georgetown fans know the name and know the rivalry. This isn't a rivalry from another era a la Fordham and Holy Cross, this is twice a year, every year, in basketball and 20 other sports. Now, add football.

Properly positioned and marketed, this series can reignite real support for Georgetown football, something that's been missing for decades as the Big East overwhelmed the sports landscape at Georgetown. This is the kind of event where Georgetown fans could take the Amtrak from Union Station to 30th Street, change to the SEPTA or regional rail, and walk right to the gate. 

Conversely, it's an open invite for Villanova fans who haven't visited Washington for a football game in decades to make this game a destination. Maybe that destination is Cooper Field. Maybe it's Audi Field. Maybe it's the new Commanders Stadium someday, no matter.  This game must become a destination on the calendar of every Georgetown and Villanova fan, and their communities at large. 

Marist can't do that. Neither can Bucknell or Lafayette. Villanova can.

From time to time, I've quoted a 2001 article by former coach Bob Benson on what football can do at Georgetown. This is a good time to revisit it.

"The move to the Patriot League is an expensive one," he wrote in 2001. "For Georgetown University to make this decision, the change must not only be a positive move for the football program, but for the entire university. There must be a vision!"

"It is really quite simple," he continued. "Utilize the game of football to create an environment and atmosphere among our students, faculty, and community on an autumn Saturday afternoon and bring to our campus a school spirit on a fall day that is desperately needed."

The Villanova Wildcats arrive to the Georgetown schedule in 15 months . Let's be up to the challenge.

The Georgetown Football Puzzle (Part One)

 

 

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”--Albert Einstein

Entering its 25th season of Patriot League football this fall, upcoming changes to Patriot League football figure to test a competitive model at Georgetown University that has largely been unchanged in decades.

With an alchemy of philosophical, institutional, and financial constraints, Georgetown is one of just two Division I schools in the East playing nonscholarship football outside of the Ivy League, and is the only nonscholarship program in all of Division I competing in a scholarship conference. That the Hoyas have been able to compete in the Patriot has been due in no small part to the resolve of its coaches and players, but the league is poised for a significant upgrade in the years to come.

The arrival of two, perhaps three new member schools is one part of the change, but revisions to the league bylaws put additional scrutiny on how the Georgetown model, once dubbed as "football for fun", will compete going forward in recruiting, admissions, and ultimately for wins.

In the midst of the uncertainty of NIL and pressure on men's basketball to support the budget at-large, there are no clear paths to determine which tactics are best aligned to a strategy to meet competitive and institutional obligations. Priorities that once relegated football within a narrow definition of the "ethos and culture" of Georgetown require a second look to see what can be retained, and what must be realigned for the future.

To address a problem, of course, first one must identify that there is a problem.

Plainly speaking, Georgetown's 25 years in the Patriot League have been a challenging (at best) exercise in competing against better funded programs to whom it does not compete on a level playing field in terms of resources or results. Since 2001, Georgetown is 29-111 against PL teams. In almost any other program, that would be wholly unacceptable. It's not that Georgetown can't do so, but often times it has chose not to.

The Rubik's cube analogy is especially appropriate here. The balance of recruiting, admissions, retention, staff, facilities, and competitive outcomes are all weighted against drivers that are equal parts experiential (a worthwhile student experience), expectational (a record of success worthy of the effort) and economic. A coach, an athletic director and even a president at Georgetown is expected to make it all work, in every sport, and at every time.

However daunting at times, the Frank Rienzo-era model of Georgetown athletics has, for the most part succeeded, but 2025 is not 1975. Football is a visible example of this. Even if Georgetown doesn't seek to compete with Auburn or Syracuse, how can it even compete with Richmond or William & Mary on a 50 year old competitive model?

This column, in three parts, will attempt to raise issues through a nine-box chart, comparing opportunities based on cost versus program change. It's not a risk model in that neither cost nor program change is inherently more or less risk-averse, but that competitive improvements come with an impact to the model to which a sport is situated at Georgetown. Some are optimal, some are disruptive, and still others may never gain the momentum to act upon it, but they bear discussion.

In part one, let's look at three issues with relatively little cost to the Georgetown football model, but with some degree of program change.

1. Local recruiting (low cost, low program change).

All politics is local, so they say, and so is football.

Take a look at the Georgetown roster of 2024. Just one player played high school ball in the District, another five played inside the Beltway. Georgetown is not even an afterthought to the All-Met or all-conference selections among nearly 200 high school programs in the region, and not merely the ESPN Top 300 selections for whom a major college program offers opportunities to play in the NFL. Of the top 20 teams in the Washington Post's 2024 high school rankings, just one current GU player graduated from one of these schools. In the past 10 seasons, a total of just seven Georgetown players  are alumni of any of these 20 high schools.

This is not new to football or to the University. For much of the 20th century, Georgetown took a patrician view of local high schools, passing over most public school applicants (before and after desegregation) and limiting its private school interest to a coterie of schools such as Gonzaga, St. John's, Landon, or Georgetown Prep, ostensibly over grades and academic reputation. Outside a period in the early 1970s where Georgetown picked up recruits from the now-defunct football program at Montgomery Junior College,  local recruiting in football remains an anomaly.

Today, a competitive FCS-level candidate from Good Counsel, Churchill, or DeMatha would be more likely to end up on a roster at Holy Cross or Lehigh than Georgetown. The 2024 Villanova roster has more Washington kids than Georgetown does. So does Richmond.

For the majority of its PL existence, Georgetown could shrug its shoulders and point to the Patriot League Academic index as the governor on local recruiting. For the first 20 years of PL football at Georgetown, the restrictions that limited Georgetown to a narrow subset of recruitable athletes based on GPA and SATs within one standard deviation of the admitted pool of students largely wiped away any recruit below a 1200 SAT, and that was a lion's share of the local market. Even if one were to have the numbers,  Georgetown's competitive standing would lead the high-score recruits elsewhere.

Quietly, this has changed.

The Patriot League began to take a look at SAT's during COVID, where six of the seven schools (Georgetown excepted) went test optional. In 2023, the NCAA ruled that SAT scores were no longer required for eligibility. By late 2024, references in the Patriot League bylaws were revised from "Academic Index" guidelines to "Narrative Reporting". By many accounts, the banding of recruits to a strict index is no longer maintained.

While no one will say so publicly, this subtle change, along with expected changes to the league's redshirting policy, persuaded Richmond and William & Mary that PL football would not be a competitive stranglehold on the recruiting bases it already maintains.

Potentially, this change should open the recruiting window a little wider on Georgetown recruits, including local ones, to whom the GU staff could not even look at before, but to whom its financial aid would be otherwise competitive among lower-income and Pell Grant eligible applicants (the latter of which is a public priority of the University at large). This is not to suggest that low-performing rockheads are suddenly in the consideration set, only that the coaches can cast a wider net at talent to whom the opportunity to study and compete at Georgetown is no longer a deal-breaker. But will it?

The lack of an academic index is not the salvation of Georgetown recruiting: it's still an difficult proposition to attract talent without sustained success. I have called it the Cornell paradox-- a top prospect with an offer to Harvard or Princeton wouldn't go to Ithaca because the Big Red aren't successful, even if the aid was comparable. Cornell hasn't won an outright Ivy title ever and its last shared title was 35 years ago. The Big Red have 32 wins in the past 10 years, the Hoyas 35. 

To paraphrase an old argument, before you win the game, you must win the recruit. However, successful programs are built with a local (or regional) foundation: an Alabama or a Penn State can recruit nationally, but they had better in the mix for every top recruit in the state. To the degree Georgetown can be a realistic option for local and regional talent, it needs a foundation.

Georgetown has posted only 17 first team all PL selections since 2001. Of these, one was a local product. There is too much talent in the region not to prioritize local recruiting and not just settle for the boarding schools and the second team all-county selections to compete in today's Patriot League.

Recruiting is about relationships, and the turnover in assistant coaches doesn't make that job any easier for the Hoyas. (On its web site, a page titled "Who Recruits My State" lists Steve Thames as the contact for DC and suburban Maryland; unfortunately, Thames left Georgetown for Rutgers two seasons ago.) Assistant coaches can't go very deep with dozens, if not hundreds of high schools in their assigned region, and must rely on the trust built with high school coaches who understand the PL model and Georgetown's place within it. The Hoyas' two veteran assistants (Rob Spence, Kevin Doherty) recruit the tried and true of Georgetown recruiting: the New York Tri-State area and New England.  However, fewer players are coming from this region: in 1996, 44 members of the team came from either New York or New Jersey. In 2024, just 12. Personally, I'd like to see more signees from Texas and Florida, but that comes with a cost. 

Local recruiting remains a low cost, value-added approach and one which could open the door to more talented recruits that want to make a difference close to home.

2. Focus On The Transfer Portal (low cost, moderate program change).

One of the unfortunate byproducts of this era is the transitory nature of college athletes through the increasingly volatile NCAA transfer portal.  Between the transfer portal and name, image, and likeness, the tenures of the four year player is an increasingly rare one in Division I athletics.

Georgetown University is not immune to these trends, and not just in the revolving door that is men's basketball. The transfer portal opens for baseball today and players from a lot of teams, Georgetown included, will be out the door. Head baseball coach Edwin Thompson hasn't hesitated to make his case online.

"We welcome anyone interested that is looking to come play @GtownBaseball," he wrote on Twitter. "Want a chance to develop on the field?  Get a world class degree? Come grow in Washington D.C. Come join us for the next chapter! DM’s are wide open!"

 By contrast, Georgetown football hasn't made inbound transfers a priority.

It's still "Four for 40" for Rob Sgarlata and staff,  not "One or two for 40" and that's understandable--he's been with the program for 35 years and understands the importance of class ties that extends from one's arrival as freshmen right through life as alumni.  As a result, the four year development is part of the program's fabric: more than many programs, most Georgetown underclassmen won't see the starting lineup until their junior season. To bring someone into the starting lineup that didn't go through one, two, or three years learning the ropes is a big change, but an increasingly necessary one in this era of college football.

Georgetown has accepted transfers in the past, but few if any have been game changers as the program goes. Most of the transfers over the years have been walk-ons at FBS programs that didn't get time there, and many didn't get time at Georgetown, either. I recall one WAC transfer in the mid-2000s who arrived that summer and didn't even make the team (though he stayed to graduate), another was a kicker from the University of Texas that played in the Georgetown spring game but then transferred back to Texas and finished his degree there. The current team's most notable inbound transfer is WR Nick Dunneman, but he arrived from a Division III program. More often than not, transfer admissions have been rare at Georgetown and not changed the trajectory of their respective teams.

Other PL schools have seen an impact from transfers. The 2024 Patriot League offensive player of the year was Bucknell QB Ralph Rucker, was a transfer from Oklahoma. Fordham quarterback J.J. Montes arrived from New Mexico and was a Walter Payton finalist in 2023. But what the portal giveth, however, it can taketh away: Lafayette lost nine players this past season to transfers, Richmond lost ten. Lafayette head coach John Troxell told the student newspaper what is driving this.

 "Agents [are] becoming more active in communicating with players [which] gives them an enticing opportunity to leave and chase money or a higher level,” he said. “We lost more guys [in 2024] than we lost probably in the first two years combined."

"My ultimate goal is to become a pro,” said all-PL first team RB Jamar Curtis, who left Lafayette and is now enrolled at Sacramento State.  "I’ve got a better chance of reaching my potential and our goals from where I’m at now.”

Georgetown is unlikely to be the place for such aspirations, but there is a sweet spot where, for a sophomore or a redshirt freshman, a commitment to a Patriot League school makes sense. Richmond is positioned for that this season, adding three well recruited players that did not see time at Maryland, North Carolina and Appalachian State, respectively but still want to play football.  Bucknell and Holy Cross have three adds as well.  The Hoyas have apparently added one transfer, though they never announced it.  Luke Daly, a reserve WR that played at Villanova for three seasons, announced a transfer to Georgetown on January 12.

Three transfers seems a good number for Georgetown to aspire to each year: impact players that were either previously recruited by Georgetown and took offers elsewhere before entering the portal, or those with previous FBS experience elsewhere but wish to return closer to home. One or two years of grades provides the staff and the office of admissions with a review of what they are capable of, and if admitted they arrive to the team with the intangible asset of experience. This is especially valuable, and needed, in impact positions like running back and the offensive line, where Georgetown simply does not recruit as well, and often wears out during the season.

It's also a good number given that, maintains the high school recruiting strategy, so that Georgetown does not become a way-station for 10-15 transfers in and out every season. A limited number of transfers replaces experience with experience.

The Patriot League isn't at the stage where it is ready to sign off on grad transfers... well, not yet, anyway. Georgetown's place in that discussion needs some internal consensus as this is where a Georgetown degree may be most impactful to a graduate with excess eligibility, and how to make that case to commit to a fifth year at the program.

3. Alternate Degree Programs (low cost, high program change).

A four year residential experience is a traditional one for Georgetown student-athletes. As recent years have shown, it's no longer the only path to an education.

Some will transfer in, others will transfer out. Online education is now a factor. At a University which is actively trying to create a separate campus in downtown Washington, some majors, particularly in public policy, face a different student life than those in dormitories. As this column has discussed, the opportunities to draw more local recruits and more transfer opportunities, it must discuss, if not engage with, academic opportunities which align with nontraditional degree opportunities.

In 2024, two men's basketball players, Jay Heath and Akok Akok, received bachelor's degrees in liberal studies (BLS) from Georgetown University. Each were transfer students (from Arizona State and Connecticut, respectively) who joined the team. A BLS is not a degree from the College, or the SFS, or even the business school. It's a degree from the School of Continuing Studies (SCS), which has quietly become the largest degree granting school at the University. Primarily known for a wide variety of master's degree and professional certificate programs to working professionals, the downtown campus has been offering the BLS degree for a number of years, primarily to those who have completed up to two years elsewhere, in concentrations such as Business & Entrepreneurship, Cybersecurity, Analytics, & Technology, Media, Communications, & Humanities, Politics & International Relations, and Interdisciplinary Studies.

Two items distinguish the BLS from its A.B. and B.S. brethren: flexibility and cost.

First, it's an online degree. Some may object to say that an online education isn't a "real" education, but two years of Georgetown students navigated online coursework during COVID-19 and did fine. It is a degree in course per the University. For transfer applicants who have completed as many as two years elsewhere and do not expect to retake core courses to fit the requirements of a specific four year College or MSB program, such a program gives them the flexibility to earn a degree and stay on focus to graduate on time.

Watching a lecture online may not be the same as sitting in the back of a classroom at Hariri, but the coursework is designed to be held up to the same standards as a classroom environment. As online education grows more comfortable within the 18-24 audience, it's an option for some candidates which heretofore has gone unnoticed.

The second issue is cost. The need award for a football player coming to Georgetown will be based on a 15 hour per semester commitment at an average of $2,550 per credit hour. This, plus the cost of attendance, is a University commitment of somewhere short of $92,000 per FTE per year and that's what the program must work to get an aid package that a recruit and his family can afford.  The cost of a credit hour for the BLS degree is $412.

And you read that correctly.

A full year's tuition in SCS, therefore, runs $12,360 versus $71,136 for the main campus. Even adding in the cost of room and board, a year in SCS would be as little as one-third the cost of a main campus undergraduate degree program.

While a note in the online undergraduate bulletin notes that "undergraduates in the [SCS] may be eligible for loans, federal grants, private scholarships, and other external awards, but are generally not eligible for [University aid] scholarships," an SCS applicant of a middle class household income has a much, much lower threshold of affordability than one where the expected gap between the parent contribution and the coat of attendance is much higher, and even less should the applicant be local to the area and thus not opt for  room and board (required on main campus, but not within SCS). It also suggests that if the football program bought out the loan or work study portion of the gross cost, the gap could come in at a much lower cost and be much more competitive.

Generally speaking, Georgetown football hasn't had commuting students since it made dormitory living a requirement in the 1980s (and gained the annual revenue from doing so). To no surprise, perhaps, on-campus housing now runs between $15,000 to $19,000 per year in financial aid calculations. For those families that can afford it or who have a full aid package,  living on campus is a good thing. For those that don't have that financial option, it can be a deal breaker.

Granted, an online education is a marked change from where Georgetown football is right now--there will always be those who want the four year finance degree and the entre to Wall Street. For some transfers, and that's the group in discussion here, it may not be. For them, it may be more about a Georgetown degree and less about the view from Village A or the food in the dining hall. Were it to be an option down the road, an online program could be an opening to recruits who, with transfer credits, can earn their degree and compete for the team, and be able to afford both.

These three topics are about change as opening doors. In part 2, we'll talk about looking at new ways to fund such changes.

William & Mary's Move To The Patriot League (Part One)

 

It was not a year ago that news of the arrival of the University of Richmond to the Patriot League foretold a tectonic shift in the regional football landscape. If so, Friday's announcement of a ninth PL school is the first of two earthquakes to reshape the landscape of Eastern football.

But this took years. The move by William & Mary was, by contrast, mere weeks. What happened? And what does this mean for Georgetown?

"It was very obvious to me,” said former W&M coach Jimmye Laycock, "[that] it’s not the CAA that we used to know, and it’s not the Patriot League that we used to know.”

"Once upon a time, Patriot League members did not offer athletics-based financial aid and had little hope of competing nationally," wrote columnist David Teel. "[In 2012] the dinosaurs realized that athletic scholarships do not equate to academic decline, and their pivot to modern times enhanced Patriot League football, witness its subsequent playoff encounters with CAA programs.

"In the last 10 postseasons, Patriot teams are 5-5 versus the CAA. In 2015, Patriot champ Colgate defeated the CAA’s New Hampshire and JMU en route to the quarterfinals, and last year Lehigh rallied for a playoff victory at Richmond. This one week after the Spiders had routed W&M 27-0 to finish 8-0 in the CAA."

The word "Richmond" is at the center of this move.

In hindsight, Richmond's move to the PL was surprising but not altogether shocking. Despite its roots in the capital of the Confederacy, the school has longed looked north for students and within athletics. It left the Southern Conference in 1975 in search of a major college home and, finding none for the next decade, joined a league literally called the Yankee Conference. It joined the Atlantic 10 for basketball and most of its sports over 20 years ago, and seemed a more plausible fit for the PL's somewhat parochial view of college football at the time.

Richmond's move was years in the making. Twenty years earlier, UR alumni were in open revolt over a plan being floated to join the PL at the conclusion of the A-10's sponsorship of the conference.  "The decision came after a frantic week that began with a Richmond Times-Dispatch article that revealed that the board of trustees was considering...a move to the non-scholarship Patriot League," wrote the Richmond Collegian. "Within days, flyers had been posted, petitions had been circulated and the overwhelming opinion of the student body, alumni and supporters became apparent they wanted Richmond football in the CAA. According to a university representative cited in the Times-Dispatch article, the administration office received more communication about the proposed league change than the tuition increase."

"If the school does want to move to the Patriot League, it seems as if they are just trying to get rid of football in the long run," said Stacy Tutt, its all-conference quarterback.

Two decades later, no such opposition. Football scholarships made the PL model more palatable, as did a league wide move to FBS guarantee games (except Georgetown, of course) that was comparable to CAA football aspirations. The ongoing loss of rivalries that had dated to the Yankee Conference was no small factor: UConn, UMass, Delaware, and James Madison were gone, and the likes of Bryant, Campbell, NC A&T and Hampton were poor substitutes.

As stated above, this change took 20 years at Richmond but a matter of months or even weeks at Williamsburg. Why? An article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch offers some clues.

"I think it comes down to a couple of things for us," said W&M athletic director Brian Mann. "First is, we wanted to be connected to the University of Richmond and play them in football every year, and when we can do it the last Saturday before Thanksgiving with the hopes that that game will have some postseason implications, that’s a place where we want to be.”

Mann added the missing piece to the puzzle: by adding Richmond, the PL was, in his words,  "serious about becoming a nationally relevant football conference and building on the successes they’ve already had. And Richmond going in, without reducing anything that they were doing in football, we took notice of that. And so when the conversation started up not long ago, we had a different perspective on how the Patriot League was viewing their future.”

The Newport News Daily Press compresses the timeline even further. " As outlined by Mann, the Patriot-W&M courtship began only a few weeks ago, the process streamlined by mutual interest and a football-only focus. A quick and enthusiastic endorsement from Mike London, Laycock’s successor as head coach, made Mann’s sales pitch to other constituents even easier."

"For us it’s great because it’s the same number of conference games we’re used to playing,” Mann said, “and our (non-league) schedule is built that way for the next few years.”

In one sense, Richmond jumped into the PL pool and called over to the Tribe: "Jump in, the water's fine". This isn't the Patriot League that sneered at the playoffs, that eschewed scholarships, or would aspire to play nothing more than Ivy League teams in their off weeks. In the 2025 season, PL teams not named  Georgetown will play the likes of Air Force, Boston College, Northern Illinois, Oregon State, and Syracuse this fall, not dissimilar to Richmond playing North Carolina nor William & Mary at Virginia.  For a William and Mary program which also has games with Duke, Stanford,  and Wisconsin on its plate through 2030, this was an affirmation that a move alongside Richmond, preserving its signature rivalry, would not be in vain.

Conference moves are not easy, of course, because they affect the college as a whole, endure significant exit fees, and can be institutionally acrimonious. How did William & Mary pull it off? Someone did their homework. 

Yes, W&M is a member of the Coastal Athletic Association and has no interest, for now, in moving its teams elsewhere. The reported exit fee to leave the CAA is $1 million, a pittance compared to $30 million and 27 months advance notice for the Big East Conference and over $100 million in the power football conferences, but no small sum, either.

But CAA football isn't the CAA, at least not exactly. The CAA is a successor in interest to the conference previously sponsored by the A-10 and the former Yankee Conference and was always a separate entity, which allowed schools like Richmond, Villanova, New Hampshire, et al. to play football but not move all its sports there. A reported exit fee of just $250,000 for schools under the CAA football entity is more than manageable--a $420,000 guarantee fee for W&M's game at Virginia on September 13 covers the entire cost and then some.

What does a move offer William & Mary? Playoff opportunities, sure. Marginal savings on travel? Yes. What is really protects is 1) the Richmond rivalry and 2) a hedge against further instability in the CAA, where a house divided between the likes of Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and a southern flank of Campbell, Elon, and NC A&T is increasingly unstable. 

If the proverbial ground shook the Tidewater region, rest assured it was felt in McDonough Gymnasium, too. The arrival of two very strong football programs to a league that has not changed in over 20 seasons does not go unnoticed, no less so for a Georgetown program that has long been in its own peculiar orbit for years. It's the school that aspires to be Penn State in one sport (men's basketball) but is closer to Penn in 29 others. It's the only non-scholarship football program within a Division I scholarship conference.

Some of this was tolerated to the fact that Georgetown was seen by some as an insurance policy of sorts to maintain a minimum number of PL schools for playoff consideration and that, while the Hoyas don't win very often, they play by the rules and are a nice addition to the annual schedules. But as the quotes above suggest, Richmond and William & Mary are coming to compete, and to win. It's raising the game for Holy Cross and Lehigh, Colgate and Fordham and at the very least, may be a walk-up call at Lafayette and Bucknell. How this changes Georgetown, if at all, bears watching.

More in part two of the series.

Week 9 Thoughts

 

A bye week can dull, but not the dim the opportunity lost in Georgetown's 43-6 loss to Lehigh.  It wasn't so much that they lost but how they did, and the recurring theme in the world that is Georgetown football.

Lehigh was a five point favorite entering the game, and that lasted about 15 minutes and 12 seconds. With Danny Lauter's interception on the first play of the second quarter, the progress of the 2024 season began to unravel before a crowd at Cooper Field who, if they have been to enough games, has seen this before.

One play, 7-0.

Three plays, zero yards, Georgetown punt to Lehigh. Three plays, 14-0.

Three plays, six yards, punt to Lehigh, 57 yards on second down, 21-0. 

A late field goal with 22 seconds to halftime and it's all over. Oh, there was still 30 minutes and two more interceptions to follow, but this has never been a comeback program and PL teams know it. When a Patriot League team has scored 24 points on Georgetown since 2001, their record is 85-4. When that team is not named Bucknell, it's 78-2.

As has been said for many years, the defense can't do it all. Danny Layer has thrown two or more interceptions four times this season. The run game, always a victim of underrecruiting, grinds down in November and can't threaten a defense which knows the Hoyas run short of options thereafter. Georgetown ranks last in the PL in points scored in conference games despite leading the league in first downs. When the Bucknell video announcer saw the score later that day, her remarked on ESPN+ that it seems that when the "bright lights" of PL play dawn every year, Georgetown just isn't ready. Looking in the mirror notwithstanding, that's the perception in other schools.

Two games remain on the schedule. If the Hoyas can't beat a 1-9 Fordham team, there's little chance against Holy Cross. A 6-5 mark versus 5-6 is a big deal, especially at a school which hasn't enjoyed a real football "moment"  among students or alumni in, well, when? 

Until then, it's more of the same.

A Letter To Students

 Dear Georgetown Students:

As you are no doubt aware, your University is always busy with acronyms and slogans. For every ICC, SFS, or GUASFCU out there, so too the slogans: cura personalis, interreligious understanding, community in diversity. As to the latter, I would suggest that a community is not defined simply by being diverse, however one defines it, but a true community is that where people gather and celebrate each other's accomplishments.

The next few days offer two opportunities to do just that, and it's something that has been frankly missing around the place in recent years.

Being a student in 2024 isn't what it was in your parents years, and that's not your fault. While an 18 or 19 year old of days gone by could celebrate the Hoyas winning an NCAA championship or marching en masse to Wisconsin and M when the Redskins won a Super Bowl, that's not the Georgetown you've been a part of. The COVID years and its aftermath have made large group gatherings less common, not as much for health reasons but that it isn't what people do as much now. 

If your candidate happens to win the general election next week, well, you have every right to march triumphantly to the White House as countless other eras of Hoyas have done, back when political parties respected each other and being a D or an R was simply how you voted, not your tribe. But many will keep to themselves and trade thoughts over their phones.

As this is a sports column, let me draw your attention to two upcoming activities worth your collective time and interest.

Saturday, Georgetown hosts Lehigh for a football game with some consequence. A win puts Georgetown two games from its first NCAA "tournament" appearance in football (otherwise called the playoffs) in school history, and marks its first winning season in 13 years. Yes, here are a lot of students who look down on football for not being good, when most don't know why that's the case. Without a history lesson, Georgetown University doesn't want to spend the money on football other schools do, and as such the team can struggle against schools with more resources. That doesn't make those players, your fellow students, any less committed to playing and winning--not for a scholarship or NIL money, but simply for being a team that wears the blue and gray, as students have done, more or less, for 150 years. 

Some students will tell you that football is not for "smart" schools. Ask your friends at Duke what it was like beating Clemson at home on national television. Ask your friends at Vanderbilt what it was like beating Alabama and carrying goalposts down Broadway en route to tossing them in the Cumberland River. These were not only great moments for the teams, but seminal moments for the student body, memories for a lifetime. 

No one is suggesting you to take the goalposts and deposit them in the Potomac, inasmuch as there is still one more home game. What is suggested is that you take the opportunity for you, your dorm floor, your housemates, to show up at Cooper Field at 12:30 Saturday and give them sixty minutes of support en route to a successful season against a team that has more resources than Georgetown and usually wins as a result. You can cheer, shout, sing, bang your shoes on the bleachers, do whatever, but your fellow students could use the support.

Four days later, another group of students welcomes your support as the men's and women's basketball team play in the first on-campus doubleheader in 20 years. Much has changed, unfortunately, in the intervening years, and while you are at Georgetown at the low point of college basketball on this campus, it doesn't mean you can't give these students the support needed to take the next step forward.

Yes, we get it. You won't have any memories of going to a Final Four, or that the President and Vice President shows up for a game one afternoon. Students are not going to march across downtown in the snow to defeat the #2 team in the nation. This is not the Georgetown of 10, 20, or more years ago. The steps forward begin this week, and playing on campus is a rare opportunity to skip the buses and the Ubers to soulless Capital One Arena for a walk down the hill to where basketball once meant a lot in the life of a Georgetown student. 

Support is lacking for these teams because there's a lot going on and, well, losing basketball games isn't fun. It's no fun for those that compete, either. It's no secret why a lot of names and faces from the last couple years aren't around campus anymore, but those that remain and 12 newcomers are less interested in past history and eager to begin some new history. Your support, for the men and women's, helps Georgetown begin the process of getting out of a ditch and take the steps necessary to remind people why Georgetown plays the game.

In the end, going to a game should be about fun. The world is a serious place and none moreso than Georgetown, where half the student body expects to solve the world's problems and the other half are worried they won't get the right job in New York. It won't hurt you to enjoy a sunny, 60 degree day at Cooper Field for a few hours, tell a few stories, and maybe see some really good football. Neither will these vagaries hold it against you if you put the cell phone down and see a basketball game from up close up, and leave the electoral minutiae for a couple of hours. 

Years from now, you won't remember how many hours you spend in the library or how often you checked your Instagram. Sometimes, it's as simple as remembering where you were and who you were with, and this week is a great time to do both. 

Together.