kreed5120

Which players entered the portal? Edit: Never mind. I took @zipsbb as basketball, but now see it's baseball.

And that's exactly why tuition has been raising so rapidly. Schools aren't competing with one another to offer the highest level education at the lowest cost possible. They're competing with one another to build the tallest rock climbing wall, coolest lazy river, most extravagant dorm apartments, etc. then pass that cost along to the students. Schools are doing this because not so street smart 18 year old kids are willing to borrow thousands of extra dollars per year for these things and thanks to the government they have access to near limitless capital. Of course these same kids after graduating then complain once they have to start repaying those loans. That's a whole other discussion.

You can look at my post history. I've long advocated that the scholarship cost is greatly overstated as it really doesn't cost 25k-30k to educate, house, and feed 1 additional student or multiple those figures by 10 if you want to look at 10 scholarship reduction. The cost of coaches, staff, travel, facilities etc are very real. Finding ways of reducing those overheads should be the focus. Ideally making all the olympic sports like baseball where it's self sustaining, or at least close to it, should be the goal. The point I was making was we fail to complete 1 goal before moving to the next. Having overly ambitious goals can certainly have negative consequences. Look at all the debt Akron took on to expand its campus to accommodate an enrollment that it envisioned would surpass 40k. Now we're at less than half that and are still forced to service those debt payments on building we don't really even need.

I've been hearing the last 3 or so years how the university has in its budget a plan to reduce the athletic deficit by x-number of dollars. Often times built into that figure was some unrealistic boost to ticket revenue. In that time the athletic budget has only increased, not decreased. This year is the first time they actually followed through on making the cuts they said they would. The thing is they should have followed through on their plan 3-4 years ago then they wouldn't have needed to make such drastic changes now. I don't think this is an AD problem as much as a university as a whole problem. Every few years the university releases a new plan. I don't remember all the quirky names. The most memorable one for me is the landscape for learning. They set lofty goals of raising hundreds of millions of dollars. They never come close to hitting all those goals nor do they publish progress reports along the way. They might accomplish 25%-50% of what they wanted to do before they roll out the next one and it's even grander than the previous one. I'm waiting for the day the University sends me an email that says "Thank you for your contribution! We have currently completed our fundraising goal and don't need anymore of your money at this time."

I'm surprised that number isn't higher than 97. I'm sure more sports would have been cut had the NCAA approved dropping the minimum teams required.

This comment didn't age well. BG added baseball back after cutting it 2 weeks ago. https://www.toledoblade.com/sports/bgsu/2020/06/02/BGSU-reinstates-baseball-program/stories/20200602125

A 6-6 record wouldn't make them "one of the best teams in the MAC." Historically Buffalo has been about on par with Akron when it comes to football "success". I do agree though it does appear Leipold does seem to be building something there. It will be interesting to see if he sticks it through or hops to another job.

Buffalo hasn't had a coach with a winning record since Dick Offenhamer who coached there 1955-1965. Leipold seems to be building something there, but 2 years is hardly a trend. It's way too early to be looking at class rankings for 2021.

People were griping about Dambrot and he led us to how many straight MAC finals? Moral of the story is some posters will always gripe.

It makes those comments a select few posters made about how big of a loss he was when he transferred because he's 7' all that more comical. Height certainly helps, but I'd take a 6'7 skilled big over an uncoordinated 7' big any day of the week.

Currently there are 130 FBS teams and 78 of those go bowling (60%). We'd only need 40% to cancel their season.

It wasn't a good look for Scarborough to plan a major renovation on the presidents mansion at the time he was slashing the budget. I feel a lot of the stuff he was trying to do was for the betterment of the university long-term. I just think he lacked the people skills necessary to do it in a way that would get people to buy in.

Yeah, Akron wouldn't have cut cross country if it only saved them 8k.

Arth's 2nd best offer would have been staying at Chattanooga making ~170k. I didn't see anyone offering him $300k or even $250k. We were bidding against ourselves.

Janitors don't add much value, but they're still needed. I'm just saying what I feel they get paid isn't representative of the value they're adding to the university. As athletics slashes budgets, you're going to see a downward trend in pay. It's already happening with coaches at various universities taking 10-25% pay cuts.

What they're getting paid relative to the value they're adding. Athletics as a whole has been running at a $20 million deficit. The only reason it's still functioning is because the government is throwing money at it to keep it afloat. That's not really a free market.That's an artificially inflated market. Personally, I don't think there is much of a difference between the 100th best volleyball coach or the 200th from a bringing money into the university perspective.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. As an example, I want the UA to continue as a university, but recognize they must find ways of reducing costs and minimize the deficit.

The market is over inflated because the subsidies the schools currently throw at athletics. You reduce those subsidies and the amounts universities can "afford to pay" go down. I don't think it's just football or basketball head coaches at G5 schools who have inflated salaries. It's also the volleyball, t&f, and softball coaches who are making 6 figures despite playing in front of dozens of fans.

Yes, I'm not saying giving 5 year deals hasn't been the norm in the past. I just don't feel it should be the norm moving forward. It seems our logic is very similar behind this as I actually mentioned the WMU hire in my edited post. The guaranteed money is the bigger thing for me. If they wanted to sign a guy to a 5 year deal, but only the first 3 years were fully guaranteed, I'd have no problem with that. Ianello was the university's 3rd (behind Dambrot & Bowden) highest paid employee for 3 years despite working as an assistant at some other college. That can't happen.

We've been doing this and where exactly has it gotten us? There is no rule that states you have to give a coach 5 years nor is there a rule that says you have to pay them $500k/yr. When we extended Bowden after his deal expired, we give him a 2-3 year extension, not 5. The vast majority of FBS coaches have less than 5 years left on their current contracts. I suppose all of them must have it used against them when it comes time for recruiting... Edit: Also, I think you're going to see things change. Coaches are going to be getting lower salaries and fewer fully guaranteed years. You already seen it happen at WMU with their basketball coach. Akron throwing money around loosely for the previous 3 decades (not just on athletics) is why we're in the financial mess we've been in and that predates covid. Continuing to try to operate the way we have in the past won't fix anything. Maybe to you 500k isn't a lot of money (must be nice), but that's probably nearly enough to cover the cost of cross country for a year, which is one of the sports we just cut

This right here. If we're not prepared to keep a coach around for 5 years, we shouldn't be offering him a 5-year deal. If it's deemed it takes 3-4 years to effectively evaluate a coach, we should be offering coaches a 3-4 year deal, especially inexperienced ones. I didn't see anyone else bidding for Arth so his only other option would have been to stay at Chattanooga for about 1/3 of the pay.

He should get 5 years because I believe that's how long his contract was signed for and frankly we're in no financial position to pay someone $500k to not coach for us, even if only for 1 season.

The bottom 10-11 scholarship players on FBS rosters would definitely be getting scholarship offers at FCS schools. I'm not opposed to it. I just feel it's disingenuous to state those players would have no other options. I've actually stated a few years back I'd like to see the NCAA reduce the scholarship to 80 as that would trickle some of the talent from schools like OSU down to schools like Iowa. In turn players who normally would go to Iowa would then trickle down to other schools like Akron. This would help create a more level playing field. The current 85 scholarship limit makes it easy for OSU to hoard a player like Warren Ball on their 3rd or 4th string when in reality he's good enough to start at a school like Akron.

I believe what he's referring to is that full cost of tuition stipend the NCAA started allowing schools to pay 3-5 years ago. It's something in the neighborhood of $1500-$3500 per full scholarship. Akron eliminating paying it would impact all sports, not just football.

I went to college during the Ianello days so I use to pregame for the games then leave near halftime when I sobered up and realized we were down 4 TDs. The football team hasn't improved much, but at least they serve beer in the stadium now. If I was a student now I may have actually been able to make it through all 4 quarters.