You have to ignore the state of our facilities, you have to ignore our attendance numbers, you have to ignore fan base size, you have to ignore the history, and you also have to ignore what most P5 programs look like. They don't look like Alabama. They don't look like Oregon (facility-wise). They look more like Pitt, or Oregon State, or Illinois, or any number of mid-to-lower tier P5 programs. We don't get the same media money they do, but our financial situation is every bit as strong, if not stronger. We match up far better with P5 programs than we do with G5, by any measure you want to use. That's not to say that we don't have disadvantages in some areas, because we clearly do. But it's not ALL about the disadvantages - we have a lot of good things going for us, as well. Things that no G5 can touch.

But whatever. Even if we were still a lowly G5-like program, it's still the right move to use the strengths we have to try to break away before the gulf between the haves and have-nots becomes so wide that it will be forever impossible to make the jump. Many of those that cry "independence is killing us" fail to see that returning to a G5 conference is like declaring a fatal illness with no hope of recovery. As if G5 is some sort of hospice care where the hopeless go to receive whatever comfort they can before slipping away.

It's a shallow view of the program to merely look at recent wins and losses and to compare with our glory years. No, we won't generally have those types of records playing better competition, but so what? Do we want to play big-time college football or not? If not, then fine - who cares what conference we're in, or not. But if we want better things for our football program, G5 ain't where we're going to find it.