SIUE is not currently considering adding football

Andrew Gavin doesn’t try to pronounce the whole word. He just refers to it by one letter.

“I call it the F-word,” said the second-year SIUE athletic director.

And Gavin doesn’t talk about Fudge. He only cares about football.

As the athletic director of one of the 101 Division I schools that doesn’t offer football, Gavin is often asked if the sport will soon come to campus.

“I’ve been at a non-football school for a while now (I was at Wisconsin-Parkside before SIUE). I get asked that all the time,” Gavin said.

And the answer to that question? If there is going to be football at SIUE, it will be much later than sooner.

“What is the future of football at SIUE? I can’t talk about that forever. It’s not a point of discussion for us right now,” Gavin said.

The NCAA Division I football landscape consists of two divisions: the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). There are 134 teams in the FBS and 129 teams in the FCS.

Among the 101 non-football colleges, SIUE is the 36th largest with 14,055 students enrolled, making it the 28th largest among public schools. Saint Louis University is 37th with 13,785 students.

SIUE is one of six Division I schools in Illinois without football, along with the University of Illinois-Chicago, DePaul, Loyola Chicago, Chicago State and Bradley. Chicago State has attempted to introduce football at the Division I FBS level.

SIUE currently offers 16 sports, including eight each for men and women.

Men’s sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, indoor and outdoor track and field, and wrestling.

Women’s sports include basketball, cross country, soccer, softball, tennis, indoor and outdoor track and field, and volleyball.

The Cougars compete in the Ohio Valley Conference in all sports except men’s soccer and wrestling, both of which are part of the Mid-American Conference.

In June 2016, SIUE discontinued men’s tennis and women’s golf.

According to a press release from SIUE at the time, the decision was the result of a seven-month financial analysis conducted by the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee (ICAC) caused by the State of Illinois’ ongoing budget crisis. The ICAC was forced to approve a $200,000 cut to the Department of Athletics’ budget.

“This is one of the most difficult decisions we have ever made as a department because of how it impacts the lives of current student-athletes,” former SIUE athletic director Brad Hewitt said in the release. “However, it quickly became clear that with declining state funding and the university’s established approach to addressing this budget issue, we would not be able to continue to fund and support 18 athletic programs at a level that would be consistent with the culture of this department.”

Since 2011-12, the SIUE Cougars have been members of the Ohio Valley Conference in 14 of their 16 sports.

SIUE, Little Rock and Southern Indiana are the only three OVC schools without football.

Eastern Illinois, Lindenwood, Southeast Missouri, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, UT Martin and Western Illinois are all part of the Division I FCS OVC-Big South. The two conferences only merged for football in 2023. There is an agreement for the merger to continue through 2030 and possibly beyond.

Morehead State plays in the Pioneer Football League of the NCAA Division I FCS.

If SIUE were to add football to its program, many steps would be necessary before this became a reality.

Most likely, the school would conduct a feasibility study for college football.

In 2016, Winthrop conducted a feasibility study and found that building football facilities would cost nearly $11.5 million. Annual operating costs, including personnel, would be $3.18 million for a non-scholarship program and $1.5 million for a scholarship program.

According to the report, this does not include likely additional expenditure for “the need for additional teaching staff, tutoring, accommodation, etc.”

The total cost of playing football for two years before it hits the field has been estimated at $4 million to $5 million.

College football on campus could bring many benefits, including increased enrollment, increased game day revenue, increased sports sponsorships, increased donations to the university, improved community relations, increased merchandise sales, and the possibility of payday games against larger universities.

According to Gavin, there is a lot to investigate.

“There’s a lot that goes into that (personnel, equipment, facilities). The university made decisions years ago. The thinking was different back then,” Gavin said. “There’s a very different decision-making process when you’re thinking about adding any sport, let alone one that starts with F.”