DURHAM, N.H. — There's no way to put a price tag on the emotional high of winning a playoff game. But there certainly is a real-world payoff for having a successful FCS program, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga can expect to benefit from its football team's time in the spotlight.
The Mocs' 35-30 quarterfinal loss at New Hampshire was the only college football game being played Friday night, showcased to a national television audience. According to Joe Johnson, CEO and president of The Johnson Group Advertising and Marketing Agency and a UTC alumnus, the school will benefit greatly from that exposure.
"As far as branding of the program and the school, the football success will help in a lot of areas," Johnson said. "Research says they'll already see a higher quality of student and athlete and more overall student applications as well as larger donations from boosters and alumni. There will be a ripple effect and even word of mouth with student pride and morale going up and having them tell other people what a great school they have.
"There would be a rise even just from the first playoff game, but now you add in the national exposure of being on ESPN, and those numbers really start to jump. That's a few hours of national advertising for the university, having 'Chattanooga' and their logo on the screen for millions of people to see."
Johnson added that market research showed a 20-percent jump in student enrollment at Appalachian State the year after its first football national championship in 2005. Two years later, App State saw a 17-percent increase in applications after its upset win over Michigan.
Both Johnson and UTC athletic director David Blackburn referenced the "Flutie Factor" as proof that a college football team's on-field success can translate into millions of dollars for a university and surrounding city. That is in reference to former Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie and the role his Hail Mary touchdown pass that beat Miami in 1984 supposedly played in BC's large increase in student applications the next year.
"When I was at Tennessee, the year after we won the national championship we saw a student application rise of about 22 percent," Blackburn said. "Now that's a program on a larger scale, but all of our research shows that the further your football team advances, the more national exposure you get naturally, and that translates into more interest from prospective students. A larger pool of student applications also means a higher quality of student, which attracts more business.
"Coach (Russ) Huesman and the football program are doing a wonderful job promoting not only UTC but our city."
According to the UTC athletic department, when Jimmy Fallon featured the school's basketball team on his late-night talk show in 2009, it was worth $500,000 in national exposure. Three years later, when Mocs golfer Steven Fox won the 2012 U.S. Amateur in dramatic fashion, the two-day television event was good for an estimated $2 million of national exposure for the school.
"Because of social media, things are different than when our basketball team made that run to the Sweet 16 in 1997," said Chuck Cantrell, UTC's associate vice chancellor for marketing and communications. "There was a gradual upswing in interest for our campus then, but now it can be instant. We can promote it on our website right then, and our logo and brand will be featured nationally.
"We're anticipating more interest. It doesn't always pan out that there'll be more new students, but it gets our name, our brand out there in ways and in far more places than we ever would otherwise."
One area that certainly will benefit from the national exposure of the Mocs' playoff run is in recruiting future players.
Once the regular season ended, college coaches have spent the last few weeks visiting and recruiting prospects. UTC coaches normally would be on the road as well, traveling throughout Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Florida to make contact and continue building the personal relationships and a comfort level that lead to signing those targeted players.
But this year Mocs coaches remained in the office, studying video of opponents, practicing and preparing for postseason games. That's also meant they haven't yet hosted recruits on campus and it has relegated their recruiting efforts to mostly phone conversations, text messages or inviting players to come watch practice.
"We would usually have eight to 10 kids coming on campus to visit in December," said Mocs receivers coach and recruiting coordinator Will Healy. "We'll just have more visits in January now, and in the meantime we're telling all those kids to watch us play on national television. We're definitely using that angle. We're making sure they know that if they come play for us, they'll get that chance to play in the playoffs and be on TV.
"The media and national exposure we get from this week is better than anything we can say to them. Winning is taking care of us as far as getting a lot of people's attention."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293.