A program that was handled by the death dealers in the 1980's and endured a horrific plane crash killing half of it's team in 1970 and was historically one of the dirtiest football programs of all time, the Wichita St. Shockers. Would they, Could they, and If they did revive football could they become relevant again and how quickly could they do it?

As college football has become a big money game, programs are racing to become D1 (FBS) status to get a share of conference TV deals and bowl payout sharing. What would it take for the Shockers to get the band back together?

WSU has a some good things going for it. Wichita is the largest city in Kansas at over 382K residents. The MSA ranks 84th with almost 625K people. WSU's enrollment is nearly 15K which puts it 3rd behind Kansas and KSU in the state. 15K is a relatively small student body, but Arkansas' was at that level less than 10 years ago.

There really is nothing else competing for Wichita entertainment dollars in the sporting world. They have no major professional teams, only minor league junk teams. They have a rugby union and a cricket team... Wichita needs a sports identity of their own again.

For a manufacturing town, it is actually experiencing booming growth. Population is up 11% from 2000, which was up 13% from 1990. nearly 80K new residents in the last 20 years in the city of Wichita alone, this doesn't include the suburb areas.

Lear, Cessna, Beechcraft are based in Wichita, Spirit, Boeing, and Airbus have a big presence there. The wheat industry of western KS & OK spends it's money in Wichita. Most importantly Koch Industries is based there, and Cargill is as well. These are the 2 largest privately held firms in the country. Coleman, known for coolers and camping gear is based in Wichita too.

There is a sufficient population base to sell tickets to with an ample enough corporate base for sponsorships. The wichita TV market actually covers the western 2/3 of Kansas. Done right, WSU could overtake KU and KSU (historically atrocious football programs) as the top football team in the state.

Their stadium, Cessna Stadium (cap. 31,500), would need a complete overhaul if not be completely demolished and built again from scratch.

It has a track around it, and looks like a 4A Texas HS stadium.

Wichita St's Board of Regents would be dumb to not start football back up. They need something to create interest in their university to boost enrollments. They have not grown while the rest of the nation's universities and especially those that have successful football programs to bring in $ and support are in an arms race of facilities construction and bursting at the seams with new students.

Kansas has a well developed Juco system that annually has the some of the strongest juco football teams in the country. They could allow a few more out of state scholarships for each team, and WSU could get mildly competitive pretty quick by keeping the juco kids that come from all over in state.

The Bevo conference probably wouldn't have them, but would the SEC welcome the Shockers? I know the MWC, Big East, Sun Belt, CUSA would. I'd like to see Montana, Montana St. and North Dakota/ S. Dakota jump up to FBS status as well, there is a gaping hole in that part of the country when it comes to major college football. Teams like Eastern Michigan, Bowling Green, ULM, Tulane, Ball St, FAU, Toledo, Rice etc. bring nothing to college football that these plains states state schools couldn't bring better.

I think WSU could be a viable D1 (FBS) program in under a decade. They definitely need a nice new stadium courtesy of the Koch brothers, and they need to be in a conference that has growth potential and isn't just adding members to stay alive. When the next round of SEC expansion occurs WSU needs to have something to offer because the SEC can't go further south or further east. We can only expand north and west.

Thoughts? Sleeping pills? TL:DR's?

for reading all of that, here's a hot chick in a wheat field.