UAZipster0305

I support all of these things. The problem is, it costs the average student who doesn't participate $1500 / year, and they get little to no personal benefit. These are values of sports in general that anyone who participated at the high school level should already have. If our athletes were not on scholarship and coaches weren't making six figures, I'd feel differently. The objection I have is that academics and research are sacrificed for athletics that benefit <1% of the student population. Something had to give.

Golf and cross-country have roughly the same number per sport, per gender though.

The loss of men's golf, men's cross-country, and women's golf is about as good as the UA community could have expected. Though I feel for the individuals who are affected, historically bad decision making led us to a course that was already unsustainable. I wonder though, why not cut both men and women's cross-country OR men's and women's golf rather than one gender from each sport? And how in the world do those 3 programs cost $4.4 million per year?! In general, I feel that Dr. Miller's messaging has been favorable, especially relative to what we've been used to through recent history. Let's hope he chooses to not renew Williams' contract next year and that the academic changes will be equally as reasonable. I wrote to him to advocate for some specifics related to the latter.

This has been mentioned here in the forums before. It is intentionally misleading and convoluted for the sake of supporting flawed logic. That $1 million + could have been applied to other expenses such as reducing the debt on the Info or better supporting the Athletics Department as a whole. Instead, it was burned to pay a coach 2 years not to coach and replace him with a guy who needed bought out at his old job in spite of being mediocre at best there. What a waste! If I were a student paying fees to support athletics, I'd be pissed! No wonder enrollment has been sagging. The UA community deserves better than this.

We'd be holding on to him for another year then not renewing his contract. And we'd be more than 1 million dollars better off because of it. To a financially strapped university, that's a huge deal. And after next season, we'd set off on a legitimate coaching search early in the season so the new guy would be well positioned to recruit in his first year.

Except it's not just us saying this. It's a member of the national media in a publication that reaches tens of millions of people.

I did. As I said then and is true now, nothing matters besides winning the MACC. And no team wants to see us on their NCAAT bracket. Yes, we've had a rough season, but the talent is still there to go far in the post-season.

Not holding my breath but still hoping he can for the sake of the program and the University. And I say this as someone who supported Bowden coaching out his contract.

We aren't arguing, we're looking for solutions, which is what I wish more of us were doing. If the program is in this shape in 2-3 years, it is in grave danger. Meanwhile, many of us are defending past decisions and hoping or expecting Arth to turn this thing around. Those who are might as well be just praying to the football gods, and that is exactly the kind of thinking that got us in this position for the second time in less than a decade.

Because Bowden was relieved of his duties for the sake of installing our next great coach, Arth. It is therefore impossible to dissociate the two. We are a severely cashed strapped university. The only responsible time to move on from Bowden would have been after his contract expired. And yes, if we had another season or two like the 2018 season, I would have been okay finding a new coach at that time.

It takes talent to recognize the skills and value of others. Those assistants need to be managed efficiently as well.

Gee, that sounds familiar! You mean he didn't win a bowl game?

And if he had been at Akron, we would have fired him by year five.

I am not a lawyer, but to me "termination" implies a separation of parties. Meaning if this happened, we wouldn't still be on the hook for a salary. I'd say he was "relieved of coaching duties". And if we are paying two coaches, we have the right to define that arrangement unless there is language in the contracts that is limiting. I'd love to see the contracts. What akronzips71 proposes here is a creative potential solution. We are far beyond relying on precedent to get us out of this mess. If that requires swallowing some pride and ruffling some feathers, so be it. In the context of the financial position of the University, the football program renders itself a terrible investment, particularly given it's recent performance, future trajectory, and options. Without serious, out-of -the-box thinking, we are looking at drastic changes that could justifiably include downsizing. I do not favor this outcome, so I welcome all ideas, regardless of how unusual...ideas which will likely not come from our administrators who do not have the courage or career flexibility to find a creative, viable solution.

I'd love to have a guy like Frank Solich here...and we did. In the MAC, most teams are competitive for the division title until the last game or two of the season. It takes a special kind of poor staff to have us out of the race by the mid-point of the MAC schedule.

To me, the problem in the past 15 years with football has been overly-ambitious AD's prematurely firing coaches to advance their own career by trying to hire the next MAC Urban Meyer or Brian Kelly but not having the experience to recognize good candidates. Of the last 4 coaches (Brookhart, iCoach, Bowden, and Arth), two were terrible candidates (iCoach and Arth) and were arguably not at all qualified to coach at this level. I felt that Brookhart was ready after serving as offensive coordinator at Pitt, and Bowden won everywhere he coached including a P5 school and a smaller D-1AA program he turned around. I recall when iCoach was fired, it was late in the process and there weren't many (if any) qualified candidates. Then Bowden threw his hat in. We got lucky. Firing a guy like Bowden who literally saved this program got us another weak pool of candidates and there wasn't another Bowden waiting to save us. Hence Arth: a terrible hire. This rolling the dice for the next great coach has to stop. Bring competitive football back to UA!

Great idea! This needs to happen. Worst case scenario is that we have two highly paid coaches. Best case scenario is that we are off the hook for one of the contracts, and if Arth leaves and the team does not improve under Bowden, we can restart the coaching search. Message the BoT and AD about this. Seriously!

Thanks for your contribution. Really unique insight.

See my comment shortly after that one in which I specified academic achievement as the only potential bonus.

In other words, Arth will earn $500k unless there is a bonus associated with academic performance.

UA doesn't and didn't have the money to buy out one coach, and hire another while buying him out of his previous job either. I'm not at all his supporter, but Arth stays.

We didn't have the resources to fire Bowden so we definitely don't have the resources to buy out two more large contracts. This dumpster fire needs to burn itself out over time. It's the only responsible way to proceed.

This is the only scenario that I could see as justification for Bowden's firing...if the AD told Bowden he could stay if the OC was removed and Bowden refused. Even then, it's irresponsible for a cash strapped university to do so. However, I feel that this was a resume' building ploy by our soon to be replaced AD.

It's appalling to me that so many here have risked epic failure on an entirely new level (and that's saying a lot from a program that was recently 3-33 over a 3 year span) by firing a coach who recently had the most successful season of any coach in UA history (on 2 of 3 relevant measures: 1) most wins in a season, 2) bowl victory in a very entertaining game against a respectable program, but 3) not a MACC, but we did make the MACC and lost, finishing second). This is particularly ridiculous given the financial struggles of the University, which made national news for its unprecedented level of academic program cuts. But why stop there? Let's make note of being the worst D-1A program in the country by earning our first winless season in program history. Balsy is right, the approach from most of you here is to just roll the dice hoping to come up with a coach who gets us to that magical and unprecedented plateau of a Top 25 finish. That's delusional. You can't just be satisfied with new levels of success even if that bar is relatively low for UA Football? What's wrong with a few down seasons every once in a while? That's what happens when a great coach like Fleck leaves for greener pastures anyhow. What's wrong with continuity? Continuity matters. See Steelers versus Browns success. We are the Browns of college football. Y'all are enablers! (Not you, akronzips71.)

I didn't get to see the game, but a result against a very solid team is a sign of progress even if we gave up a late and potentially illegitimate goal. Win the MACC!