It’s a long-running joke among students, faculty and staff that U-N-F stands for ‘University of No Football.’ But will the University of North Florida ever escape this infamous moniker?
According to the State University System of Florida, eight of the 12 public universities in Florida have football teams. UNF has the largest enrollment of the four remaining schools without football teams.
Even so, UNF Athletic Director Nick Morrow says the university isn’t large enough to support a football program.
“We’re not a big enough state institution at this time to support a football program,” Morrow said. “Look at all the other state schools that have football. Look at how big their enrollment is.”
According to Morrow, the university explored the possibility of adding football over ten years ago. One of the main reasons why they didn’t was and still is because of costs. Adding a football program wouldn’t just cost the athletic department money, it would also cost students some cash—up to $300 per semester.
“You would have to add a stand-alone student fee,” Morrow said.
This doesn’t even include capital money into building a new stadium, football facilities or operation centers, according to Morrow. He also mentioned that Athletics doesn’t have the resources to fully fund its current teams. Under the current NCAA rules, Athletics would have to give out around 160 scholarships each year to fully fund the teams, and according to Morrow, they typically hand out less than 110 per year.
“Financially, it doesn’t make sense,” Morrow said.
Whether they’re aware of the financial obstacles or not, UNF students want a football team. A Spinnaker Instagram poll found that 63% of students are in favor of adding the popular American sport.
Student-athlete Jacob Harris thinks having a football team would bring the community together more than an NFL team like the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“It is pretty cool that we have an NFL team here,” Harris said. “I think college football is different; very community-focused. A lot of people are more connected to it if they went to the school.”
Morrow has a different view. He would rather have no football program instead of a failing one.
“The only thing worse about not having a football team is having a losing football team,” Morrow said. “So if we’re going to do this we’ve got to do it 100%, all in, and do it right.”
UNF Senior Dustin Carrigan believes a football team can become an investment for UNF.
“If it’s a strong program, it’s going to be an investment,” Carrigan said. “[UNF] is going to make a lot of money from it if they put a lot of care into it.”
First-year student Erlanda Cherizar said football could give UNF more of an identity.
“Having a sport like football that’s so popular around the United States helps define a university’s identity,” Cherizar said.
Cherizar understands why UNF does not have a football team, citing similar concerns to what Morrow brought up.
She said if people don’t attend the games, having a football team “wouldn’t make sense.”
However, all three students said they would buy tickets if UNF had a football team. Increasing enrollment to 25,000 by 2028 is one highlight of UNF’s ambitious strategic plan. If this comes to fruition, Morrow said it could increase the university’s chance of having a football program.
“If we get to 25,000 students by 2028 and we properly fund the 19 teams we have—and we want to keep growing as an institution—then football becomes a more serious discussion,” said Morrow.
Football isn’t profitable for smaller schools that don’t have major television contracts. Therefore, Morrow said most smaller schools have football for exposure and community engagement.
“If you’re [adding a football team] to make money, that’s a bad investment,” Morrow said.
There are other options for adding football, including non-scholarship football. Stetson, a private university in the same conference as UNF, uses this model. However, these schools have more expensive tuition, making it easier to fund football teams.
It can be assumed this model is unlikely for UNF because its tuition rates are lower. Private schools can fund large roster sports because some students go to these schools to play specific sports while still paying full tuition.
“It’s a little bit cheaper for them to do it,” Morrow said. “What [Stetson] is relying on is 100 guys that want to play football and not get a scholarship doing it.”
On the quality side, Morrow said non-scholarship football can be tough to watch.
“You definitely don’t want to put out a product that’s not attractive,” Morrow said.” Then people won’t come out.”
Looking ahead, UNF doesn’t seem too far from starting a football program and there are still ways students can get their football fix, even if it requires leaving campus.
Many students treat the Jacksonville Jaguars as UNF’s pseudo-team. The Jaguars have also made efforts to claim UNF fans, such as reserving a student section at EverBank Stadium and partnering with the university to sell discounted tickets.
For now, there are still plenty of on-campus events and 19 other sports for the North Florida community to cheer on.
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