Agree to disagree.
According to the link you provided:
Boise St. = 37K
Baylor = 45K
TCU = 45K
The stadium size doesn't prevent those teams from having powerhouse football teams.
As for the BCS conference reference ... In addition to still being larger than, or as large as, Vandy, Duke, and Wake ... A 40K seat stadium would still be on par with Oregon State, Utah, BC, and Washington State, at between 35K-45K. and though not BCS conferences, Cincinnati and Connecticut have been seen as candidates, and both have comparably size stadiums with much larger enrollments. UCF also has a similar sized stadium.
I just don't see how the stadium size would be a knock on the school when the enrollment is less than 16K students ...
I think a 40K seat stadium for a school with Miami's enrollment would work.
We'd still have a bigger stadium than Wake Forest and Duke, and it would be about the same size as Vanderbilt's stadium.
Again, based on the location of the school and the enrollment, 40K would be ok.
But I'm guessing 40K would still be too big for soccer??
Boy oh boy, be careful what you wish for or think would be acceptable for a school our size.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_football_stadiums_by_capacity
At 40k, we'd be in the bottom five of BCS conferences off the top of my head. With all of the conference realignment I'm not sure who's in what on any given day.
That's not the company you want to keep if you're trying to be a football powerhouse. I've said it before, this program is toast if this deal goes through at 40k. 50 or 55k, then you can make an argument, but not below that or with MLS as a partner since that number is far too high for them.
Ultimately the stadium size shouldn't matter, but when you combine it with the wrong hiring, poor extensions, etc....it's a problem. In particular when everyone wants your local talent and has all the bell's / whistles every program wants.
Boise has had some good teams for a decade, but they were in a bad conference. They had a good run of coaches, but how long is that going to last? They are far from the norm.
TCU and Baylor only came up recently as well. Same sort of thing as Boise in that they've got solid coaching. I can see them being relevant longer than Boise due to being in a talent rich and football crazed state. I do believe some of the departures from the old Big12 conference has benefited them as well.
I agree with you in some ways, but sustainability, I just don't see it if we want to lower the bar in any way. We're not a powerhouse or even close to it anymore, but instead a sleeping giant. We never had the best of anything in college football in terms of facilities and I'd argue they mattered less back then than now. It's an arms race these days with out of control spending IMHO. A 40k stadium would be a colossal step backwards in that race.
While I can't stand Joe Robbie, it's got all the bling factor kids look for today, we just need to start winning again. We don't need anymore negative recruiting fodder for other schools to use against us. Do you want to play in front of 40k or double that many coaches would say. At least now we can point to super bowls being player there along with all the other Tom foolery it has.
