kreed5120

Have you looked at their OOC schedule? They should be favorites in I believe every game, heavy favorites in a large chunk. Edit: BartTorvik has them as an underdog in 1 OOC game (+0.7) @EKU. Obviously preseason projections are severely flawed. I'm more just illustrating how soft their schedule appears on paper. https://barttorvik.com/team.php?team=Miami+OH&year=2026

The University isn't spending ~30 million a year just to provide life lessons to ~400 student athletes (if you even want to call them that anymore). That would be absurd. That might have been its intended purpose 100 years ago, but we've long moved past that. Now it's about enhancing the college experience, keeping alumni engaged, getting your name out there, and building good will in the community.

The comment was more the market it out of wack due to delusions of grandeur. Athletics is a marketing arm for Universities. It doesn't have to necessarily turn a profit to provide value. It exists to bring in new and retain existing customers, which at Akron its not doing. We're not getting the value out of it given the money we're pouring into it. The same is true for 75%+ of the other G5. Changes need to happen across college athletics as a whole.

I agree that college athletics has gotten out of hand. Even at a school like Akron the head coach is getting a multi-million dollar guaranteed contract before even coaching a game here. Not to mention he can't even field a product good enough to get 10k+ fans to consistently show up. I saw an interview from our former assistant AD and he said ticket revenue a crossed all Akron sports was something like $1.3-$1.4 million. Let's say football football generates $800k-900K of that. How does it make sense to pay a head coach $650k and each of his half dozen or so assistant coaches ~$150k. If this was a private business it would have long been bankrupt. I'm not necessarily picking on Akron here. Just pointing out the flaws in the system and Akron is who I'm most familiar with. Something needs to be done to better align what we're spending with the value said coaches bring in. Perhaps pay these coaches like a salesmen. Give them a lower base pay then give them bonuses for each win, making a bowl, etc. I wouldn't even be opposed to giving them a percentage of gate receipts. Success should be rewarded. Right now it doesn't matter if you succeed or not, you're walking away with a bag.

Point shaving scandal incoming?

My comment was more about I'm not sure they would be willing to lax academic standards. An Alabama, Miami (FL), Auburn, etc will admit a kid with an 16 ACT score if they thought it could help win them ballgames. Stanford prides itself too much on academics for that to be the case (I don't fault them. Just speaking the reality). The same with schools like a Northwestern or Vanderbilt That's not to say you can't win at these schools. Vanderbilt is currently in the top 10. Stanford was nationally relevant ~15 years ago. Its just that those higher academic standards are going to handicap them so they can't really be a perennial contender. They can have windows of being really good, but they will soon later fall back to irrelevance.

I think a lot of people quit caring long before that. Joe Akron probably quit caring around the time of the Ianello years.

YSU getting 12 offensive rebounded and outrebounding us in total wasn't great. Those were issues that plagued us early last season as well. You have to limit 2nd chancs point opportunities, especially when a team is shooting as well from the perimeter as YSU. Hopefully we can get more from Barre or Brisco once real games are being played.

I was hoping you forgot.

So you want them to be ranked ~#125 instead of #136 as that will somehow dramatically improve the state of the conference. Thanks for answering my question

I would make a guess, but I don't want to risk winning the bobblehead.

I would add in alumni base. I mentioned Mark Cuban and Ellison emerging as big boosters. Neither accumulated their fortunes in the states they attended college. You need a large network of successful alumni. Theoretically a school like Stanford could generate an unfathomable amount of money given their connection to Silicon Valley. At the same time they likely pride themselves on academics too much for that to be the case.

What exactly is MAC-strong? Per Massey, the MAC has 8 out of the bottom 25 teams in all of FBS.

This NIL era is still new and programs are still jockeying for position. I think some programs are a given such as; Ohio State, Texas, Georgia, Michigan (especially since Larry Ellison's wife who is a former alumni has took an interest), and Texas A&M to be at or near the top in spending. Oregon is certainly up there in spending, but much of that comes from Phil Knight. Who knows if that money keeps flowing in once he passes. I know Oklahoma State appears to have suffered from their billionaire philanthropist passing away. Indiana was a minnow in the college football world, but ever since NIL several wealthy alumni, including Mark Cuban, have become more involved. I'm sure more billionaires boosters will emerge and some might just get bored and quit giving.

I feel part of the issue with highlight reels is that you only ever see the good, not the flaws. The league he played in I frankly never heard of. I'm sure it's a higher level of competition than the MAC, but from my own ignorance I'm not sure how it compares to college basketball as a whole. He was an 8th or 9th man on his team. He's coming to Akron, which already has a lot of guard depth. He also joined the team late so he has just maybe 2 months now to learn the system. Compared to ~5 months to years for the other guys he'll be fighting for minutes. He can certainly earn playing time, but I see his minutes ramping up as the season progresses.

No clue, but I've wondered the same.

Naming rights generally work that they would cut us an annual check. My guess is we still financed the bulk of that $60 million (likely $55+ million) and we receive a check from Summa and Infocision for $500k-$1M (depending on the length of the deal) annually, which we then use towards helping to pay that $4.5 million payment. Also, I don't know if the $4.5 million is accurate anymore. Those were the numbers that I read 10-15 years ago and reflected the original terms of the loan. If it got refinanced the amount we're paying annually would have changed. Edit: that's generally how interest works. If you borrow $60M for 25 years at 6% interest, the total of 300 payments would add up to about $116 million. You will always repay far more than you borrow.

While I agree beating Purdue would be a big boost, I penciled it in as a loss because beating them is unrealistic. Then again so is going 30-3.

It's just you. Purdue will probably be the only Q1 win opportunity. There might be another 2-3 Q2 win opportunities on the schedule. Most of these games that we feel are quality matchups will likely be Q3 games, which the committee doesn't care about (unless you lose) when picking at-large teams. Akron would have to go something absurd like 30-3 IMO to get an at-large. That would pretty much be 1 loss to Purdue and another in the MAC tournament. That would leave just 1 other hiccup the rest of the way.

Yes, there is still value in continuity. College football is not much different than the NFL now. The NFL teams that most often succeed are those who draft well, can retain their talent, and then look towards free agency (in this case the portal) to just plug a few missing gaps. Also, like NFL draft classes, you can't really grade how good they are until 3 or 4 later. Recruiting rankings are more educated guesses than a factual guarantee.

The margin of error is really thin in the SEC now that Texas and Oklahoma joined. There are at least 7 programs (Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, and LSU) who expect to be in the playoffs every year. There are another handful that expect to make the playoffs every 2 or 3 years. Then you randomly have programs like Kentucky or Vanderbilt who can surprisingly be good at times. When you consider only about 5 of these schools can make the playoffs each year there is going to be a lot of disappointment. The B1G is a different animal. In recent years only OSU, Oregon, and Penn State have been consistent top 10-15 programs. With Franklin gone who knows what happens with Penn State. That makes it easier for a program like Indiana to emerge. Maybe at some point USC and UM will get their sh** together and live up to their blue blood names, but right now it's much easier to succeed in the B1G vs the SEC.

The data AI looked at in my post included OOC play. Perhaps that's where the numbers differ.

I don't think anyone is arguing it wasn't a problem before, but it has grown worse. The average margin of victory this season is the largest it has been since at least 2000 based on what AI is telling me. Before if there were 4 or 5 games on TV at least 1, maybe two or 3 would be good. Now it's a struggle to find one game.

I wouldn't be terribly heartbroken if he decides to leave on his own free will. Getting to 5 or 6 wins is kind of his ceiling at Akron IMO. He comes off more as an old school coach and not the smooth talker who can get boosters to open up their checkbook. In this NIL era you need a salesman. Not someone who just complains about the shitty hand they're being dealt. Edit: All that said I'm also not cheering for him to leave either. We can and certainly have done worse.

Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Oklahoma aren't going to be able to raise NIL money like an OSU, Texas, Michigan, etc. can. Oklahoma also no longer has the benefit of building its resume by padding win totals against a weaker Big 12. Oklahoma probably can still fundraise enough to be relevant to make the playoffs fairly often, but they will infrequently be one of the favorites IMO. Wisconsin and Nebraska are even a step behind Oklahoma and likely need a homerun hire coach, like a Dantonio or Cignetti. Someone who excels at being able to do more with less. Even then I'm sure there are many P4 programs Dantonio's tenure wouldn't be deemed good enough given today's unrealistic expectations.