GP1

What we, and many schools like us, got caught up in was the "building process". Universities were building buildings for the sake of building buildings. Akron went through a much needed construction cycle. There was little thought put in to what would happen other than "if you build it, they will come". It was magical thinking but it made people happy because everyone likes new things. New provides a good energy and something leaders have to capitalize on. Ours didn't. When things started to go bad, they took it to another extreme and made cutting everything in their path the priority undercutting the mission of the university, which is to educate people and develop people into better citizens. The cutting process makes people upset because it is a symbol of failure and a very public one at that. As soon as possible, they need to stop talking about what is being cut and transition to talking about what the university does for the students alumni and larger NE Ohio community. Getting off of the negative should be a priority.

I think the current trend will continue for MAC level schools. The days of picking up a hot coordinator at a P5 school like we did with Brookhart is over and has been for a few years. They are making too much money at P5 schools to leave for less money and more responsibility. MAC level schools will take a risk on a much less proven position coach at a P5 school or a less proven coach from a lower division. I think the price point we got TA for will become a starting norm.

Paragraph 1: The problem is the only news you hear about the university and probably a lot of universities like Akron is what they are cutting from their budget. What the Idaho president was saying was these cuts are self defeating in many ways and we could be in much worse shape today. Again, takes me back a couple of decades now, but Jack Welch was the "cutting" guy. Basically, he became famous for making obvious decisions look complicated by wrapping Six Sigma around them. Did it really take a 12 month Six Sigma study to figure out that after NAFTA, a company could make more money off of a $15 toaster made in Mexico vs the USA? Over time GE became a shell of itself and could not support itself after the endless cuts. Five years ago, the stock closed around $30. Yesterday it closed around $8.50. Cuts may be needed, but they are not the same thing as thought and should not be defined as a success. Paragraph 2: Lofty goals are a good thing. I can't think of a worse idea than to tell the general public they no longer need their money. A university will always need money and in big chunks. On a positive note, I like the administrative changes our current president has made at the university. The consolidation of administration will cut a lot of overhead without sacrificing the mission of education. It was a thoughtful direction. Unlike how cuts at GE impacted their customers in a negative way, these changes should not impact the students in a negative way.

“College presidents are just not thinking this through,” former University of Idaho president Chuck Staben said. “I cannot believe they are making all these probably bad financial decisions for their university when what we need them to do in the face of this pandemic and pending budget cuts from tuition shortfalls and state funding shortfalls is to make good financial decisions that benefit students.” source Seems Dr. Staben understands the purpose of a university is to create societal leaders. There needs to be a connection between universities, their students, alumni and communities with the idea of exposing the existing students to the alumni and broader community in a way that enhances their college experience. All three are important and some of the financial decisions universities are now making need to take that into consideration. Athletics can be a big part of bringing those three elements together. Athletics is too often looked at as something separate from the "normal" parts of the university and that is wrong. Schools like ours and conferences like ours need to get together and decide how they can do that together. How do you use athletics to give those three groups a great experience with their universities? Are current athletic directors and conference leaders capable of looking in this direction or are they just paper pushers and opportunists? You know where I fall here. These universities and conferences badly need to get together and decide exactly how they want to improve the experience of students, alumni and communities or when this is all over, it's going to go straight back to the "building process" and we all know how that ends. Years ago now, a division leader of a company I was working at asked me what I thought the company did wrong. I already knew the answer and pretended to think about it for a couple of seconds. Since I really didn't like working at the company, I decided the best thing to do would be telling the truth. So I said, "Fred, there are too many action plans and not enough action". He looked at me like I called his mother a bad name. He was perfect athletic director material. The MAC and conferences like ours need to get together and take action and stop being victims of the current landscape of college athletics. It simply isn't giving us what we need.

It's actually on my computer right now. Written by a former MAC player.

It should not be lost on people that college athletics provide many black kids the opportunity to lift themselves out of generational poverty. As scholarships are cut, so will those opportunities. Hard decisions have hard consequences.

It's a long masters thesis. You'd have to read it to fully understand it.

There is a better statistical correlation between cultural fit between players and winning than the number of stars they have next to their name. UNLESS you have both going in your favor. Miami is in a great position right now.

I'm not the one asking someone else to do his thinking for him.

Apples vs. Oranges

I estimate$1.00 more than the Rubber Bowl itself.

Some boats have drain plugs that drain water while the boat is moving. It's possible to do two things at once.

People like Pj get the right people in the boat.

This is one of those times the University has to delicately tell a high profile alum, "no".

Yes and yes. It's a bit more than that though. You have to make the fan experience a good one and I don't mean bouncy houses. Who you play and when you play is critical to fan interest. They need to play good teams when people want to go to a game. They haven't been doing that. Your other point isn't the real problem. No presidents or BOT members know anything about sports at almost every school. I'd rather them take a risk on a visionary with minimal AD experience than the safe paper pushers they hire. We need a young PJ Fleck type as AD.

His study is not a fair analysis. It is lazy journalism.

Well, that's still a better chance than me driving over to Clemson.

Some schools are starting to look at their condition realistically. This is a good thing. Some conferences are starting to consider joining together to pressure the NCAA. This is a good thing. More of this please. Sanity is starting to wake up from a long slumber. BTW, why are media outlets in Michigan so much better at reporting on the Mac than Ohio outlets?

Magical thinking.

You couldn't get a decent assistant from a P5 school to apply.

If you don't think a coach can be successful, you shouldn't hire him. You hire coaches assuming they will be successful. This is a ticket sales conversation. The extra year between four and five is irrelevant. It is the cost of doing business. It is customary. Not offering it can impact recruiting because other schools will use it against us. We would be the only school offering contracts like that. It would be setting ourselves up for failure, again. How does Akron do when it acts unilaterally?

4 years would be good after taking over a disaster. I heard Lou Holtz once say that if a coach isn't winning after 3 years, he's probably not going to. I figure Coach A gets an extra for the circumstances he took over the program. Eating one year of a coach's contract is peanuts compared to the $300 million budget. Bad coaching creates a bad product. This is far worse than the one year cost. The goal should not be counting pennies. The goal should be to create a good experience for players, students, alumni and fans. Eating a year of a contract is part of that process.

If G5 schools got together and made a decision to reduce scholarships from 85 to 74, it would be a meaningful cost savings that would not impact the quality of play. It would be a number higher than FCS. It would help create a structure where these schools could complete against one another on a playing field where they are equal. The players will go somewhere else? Where? There is nowhere else to go. There are limited teams and limited scholarships. 74 players is plenty. The coaches just have to do a better job of recruiting.

Good questions. I would change them to not just UofA asking these questions, but G5 schools getting together and deciding exactly what in the heck they are doing with their athletic departments. I'm interested you use the word "sponsored" in your post above. In my opinion, this word is not used enough in discussing college athletics. In reality, schools are not sponsoring college athletics, the taxpayers are. Most schools do not make a dime with college athletics so the taxpayers are sponsoring the sports. G5 schools need to get together and decide how much of a burden they are willing to put on the taxpayers of their states and what those taxpayers get in return for their sponsorship. The people who sit around on this board arguing about the price of tickets are nuts. It will NEVER be enough to cover the costs. This is an intellectual hurdle G5 fans need to get over. G5 schools are part of larger communities. Hopefully, those schools are taking the opportunity to expose what their students do in the form of arts, engineering competitions, community service and yes sports among other things. Is the engineering team making money for these universities? If you read much of this board, if the engineering team isn't making money, it shouldn't exist. That line of thinking is complete bull crap and contrary to what the purpose of the university is, which is to develop the human mind and spirit. How many university mottos are, "Pecuniam Facere Moriatur" (Latin for Make Money or Die)? I don't know, but probably not many. With the right focus, the G5 schools can provide a lot to their communities and make the taxpayers more tolerant of and maybe feel good about where their money is going. What if all the taxpayers want is a nice day at a sporting event and this experience made it OK for them to rationalize some of their money going in to college athletics? From personal experience over the past 13 years, I have learned I will pay roughly $1,000 per year to watch football at a mid to low level ACC school with a 27,000 seat stadium that in every measurable way is not as nice as The Bid Dialer. My games involve the following: Two tickets sitting on the 48 yard line in a nice chair back seat that is in the shade because the sun falls behind the giant pressbox behind me by 12:30 on a fall afternoon. Parking less than 200 yards from the stadium in a clean lot with porta johns that are perfectly serviced for each game. 3-4 food trucks in the stadium in addition to the normal concession stands. Beer sales. Clean and ample bathrooms. Short lines to get in the stadium. And oh by the way, competitive games. After the game we go uptown in a city roughly the same sized as Akron, have some more fun and spend the night (tying the university to the greater area). Am I asking a lot?... Of course not. It's actually very simple. There is nothing going on at this place that could not be done at Akron or any number of G5 schools. They don't have bouncy houses for kids, fireworks or any of the other happy horse crap minor league baseball teams pee away money on in an effort to draw fans. The have a grass hillside people with small kids can buy tickets to and let them explore around if they want. How dare they offer simple, good clean fun as a solution! A friend of mine transitioned his career from working for a manufacturer to a distributor. A well respected roofer in the Carolinas told him, "David, All you have to do is not suck and you will be better than most". There are too many G5 schools that suck at what they do. It shouldn't be this hard. G5 schools have been going down the wrong road for years and this insanity has to stop.

Dear Niles, Ohio, How is your minor league franchise doing? Respectfully, The Great GP1