GP1

Hell or High Watermelon Wheat I like a beer that is refreshing to drink and was shocked at how much I liked this when I had a glass last night. Liked it so much I had a second. Great summer beer.

Much of the success or failure of an offensive line is familiarity and cohesion. Looks like injuries may be cutting into the development of those two elements of this group. Depth doesn't matter unless the group can play in sync with each other. Not a lot of positive to take from the article, but there is still a long way to go between now and Week 1. Lots of time for improvement.

Interesting move to Arkansas and then a quick bail out. In the SEC, football is everything. The hiring of Bret Bielema will be a disaster. The third disaster in as many coaches...John L. Smith and Bobby Petrino. The writing may be on the wall for this AD and MW needed a soft landing because when the AD gets fired, everyone goes. One thing I find interesting is we have had two former "right hand guys" in the past 18 months leave an AD position for a lower level position at a BCS level school (MW and Hunter) with a former boss. I wonder if being an AD at a IAA school or lower is a career killer for someone?.?. I found Hunter to be a smart guy. MW was a hard worker, but I never thought he had much in the brains department. In every career, people find their level. Maybe this is the level Hunter and MW function at best. Ooops, what's this? Missed this. Wish I would have written this. The pock marked resume line is a classic and could be said about most people working in college athletics. MW always had a uniquely large self promotion streak in him. Article Looks like Waddell got into an argument with the Maryland Comptroller....and lost. Did I say something about not having much in the brains department? The abrupt trip to that poop hole in Arkansas was no upward career step. It's what survival looks like in college athletics. Hunter, on the other hand was smart. He made a decision to hire a football coach and everyone thought he was nuts to hire the guy. In two years, the guy went 8-5 and 12-3. Having the vision to hire someone unusual and then have that person be successful is a sign of real smarts. My God, if UofA would have only hired him in lieu of TW, we would be so much better off. Hunter didn't leave CCU with a stench.

Always on your horse coming to the rescue of the honor of tosu. Nice job LZip. One and all, please make this the last comment about tosu on this thread.

I'd have more respect for fans in your situation if you would just say, "Ya, our OOC schedule hasn't been the strongest and our conference is almost as bad. We haven't done very well against really good teams in recent years. It's something they need to work on."

Nobody, or you wouldn't pay that amount? I wouldn't pay it either. Many will if it is part of a season ticket package. It all becomes one cost and we were talking about ooc play. My Wake tickets for Gardner Webb are right around $50 ea (I have two tickets.). I'd gladly pay an extra $50-$100 ea to watch them play a real team regardless of the outcome. I pay around $700 a year for everything involved in getting tickets and a parking pass. Going from $700 to $800 isn't that big of a jump for the right competition. I'd gladly pay $250 per ticket to go watch the Zips in a bowl game if they could just freaking make one. If we aren't already there, the future brings three types of buyers for BCS level colllege football: A corporation, a well to do person and a person willing to use credit lines to pay for the tickets (probably very similar to NFL ticket holders.), which brings me back, once again, to the "building process". One thing we have learned from the "bp" is university Presidents and ADs have no problems with saddling existing students with high student fees, frequently financed through student loans, to pay for the "bp". If Presidents and ADs are so shameful that they are willing to do that to their existing students, what would they be willing to do to their alumni or the general population? The would have no problems with forcing the general population to finance tickets. They have already done it with building initiatives. Why wouldn't they do it for tickets? g-mann17, You are looking at college athletics through the lens of a completely sane and intelligent person. That automatically disqualifies you from working in college athletics. In order to relate to the enemy, you must think like the enemy. In order to lower your IQ to think like a MAClike athletic director, I prescribe a 24 hour Three Stooges marathon for starters and we will go from there.

I don't disagree that a lot of people show up for tosu games to party and see a win. They do. Many of them go because it is the one game a year they can get a ticket to so they go. As far as people not paying $150 to watch tosu against a good team or only for a playoff game or Bowl....cough, cough.

They won't play 8 home games. They will play each other and triple the ticket prices and advertising fees for those games and make more money. People will pay for it like they do NFL games. If people are stupid enough to pay $50 to watch tOSU demolish Florida A & M, then doesn't everyone think they would be willing to pay $150 to watch a game against Oregon? How much more could they charge for advertising for those games? I don't know, but I'd bet a lot of money it would be much more.

I do believe it and I think we are already slowly heading down that road. In the near future, BCS schools will cut back on cupcakes from two a year to one. With supply of non-BCS victims remaining the same and few opportunities to take an ATM game, the cost for bringing in a victim for a team like Purdue will go down. I also think it will be beyond 5 years from now as well like you say, but we shouldn't create any illusions that it isn't moving in this direction. In fact, we need to think about what our next move will be. The one thing I have always said is many of these schools don't want to move in this direction. You're right, Purdue is royally screwed, but the television money is too great for them to ignore. In reality, what's the difference between 4-8 or 2-10. Fans know they suck either way. However, places like Purdue are in a position where they have to do it because they have extended their facilities footprint to the point where they will be desperate for money. The real money is not in attendance....it's in television revenue. In fact, it could become like the NFL. An NFL game is nothing more than a reason to schedule television commercials for 3.5 hours (Thank God for the RedZone Channel). That's why going to an NFL game has become so unpleasant. Currently, most BCS level teams play an ooc schedule consisting of a guaranteed win (we have one against Howard), two non-BCS D-1A and one BCS team. I ignore the guaranteed win because everyone is going to continue to do that, which is an almost criminal way of stealing money from the public. They will trade a non-BCS D 1A school/guaranteed win for another BCS school in the near future. Some conferences have already eliminated the guaranteed win. Once they see how much money they can make in ticket sales (Many schools already have a price structure for tickets that takes quality of opponent into consideration. My Wake tickets for Gardner Webb are $48 ea., my tickets for Clemson are $59 ea.) The big mistake college football observers make is thinking college athletics are first about competition and winning. Maybe it is for coaches/players and people who want things to be one way when they are in fact another way (and have always been that way), but they aren't the opinions that really matter for most schools. At most schools, the ADs and Presidents make the decisions. They first care about money and ways to make a lot more money. Ticket sales aren't the real money maker. If it was, the time it takes to play a game wouldn't be going up. It's about selling more commercial time and making money that way. Big time schools aren't really interested in the idiots willing to sit around for 3 hours watching a game like South Carolina vs. Wofford. The more the general public sees BCS vs. BCS ooc competition, the more they will like it. The more they like it, the more they want it. The more they want it, the more they will be willing to pay to go watch it. More importantly, the more they want it, the more they will be willing to watch it on television. The more people want to pay to go watch it, the more they will be willing to pay to watch it. The more people watching on television, the more they can charge for advertising revenue. The more they charge for tickets, the more they make. The more advertising revenue there is, the more there is for conference television networks so the schools make more. The more advertising revenue there is, the greater the network deals will be and the more the schools make. We haven't even started to talk about secondary revenue streams like scoreboard advertising, parking, field naming rights, banner advertising, etc.

DrZ dials up another insult directed at Reghi.....

I have a question JZ 84. You mention they are bigger and faster. Are they more physical than last year? Last year, I thought we could have been more physical on the front line, on both sides of the ball. Not dirty, just putting that strength and speed to good use.

A good analysis.

Sorry if I'm not crying a river for KD. He is the highest paid coach in the Athletic Department and should be expected to perform at a high level regardless of the circumstances. Loyalty? Maybe. Not long ago, a business manager for one of the companies mine represents resigned (He was probably going to be fired by the end of the year. A perfect example of how bad middle managers in American companies have become....too many Action Plans and not enough action.) and his boss told me he was having trouble keeping up with the pace of the industry. My response to that comment was, "That's a really nice way of calling someone lazy." Maybe there is a difference between being loyal and unwanted, but they can look the same sometimes.

O'Bannon Wins

I learned a lot watching the coverage of the World Cup this year. One thing that stuck out to me was what a great job ESPN (owned by Disney) did of creating excitement around the tournament and driving viewership. The US played a good first game against a poor team and then proceeded to "fail up"; Meaning, they played worse and had worse results while advancing (American indifference to soccer is the only reason I can think of that would allow Americans to think the World Cup results were acceptable). All the while, ESPN/Disney created an illusion that US Soccer was on the rise and getting stronger in the tournament. At the end, the US commentators had a gushing love fest about US Soccer and, with the exception of the European guys on the ESPN panel who know better, probably had a lot of people excited about US Soccer. What does this have to do with college basketball? If there are five power conferences with 13 teams per conference, there are 65 teams. People get excited about first round NCAA games and here is a list of some of those games: VCU vs. Stephen F. Austin, UCLA vs. Tulsa, OSU vs. Dayton, Oklahoma vs. ND St. Sorry, I had to take a break to yawn. Is it impossible to believe that television marketers couldn't create just the same amount of excitement around a tournament with only the Big 5 in it consisting of games that might include Wake Forest vs. Duke or Illinois vs. Indiana (assume there are no longer any conference tournaments)? Another thing we learn watching sports and the World Cup reinforced my belief in this is, people will watch anything as an excuse to take time off of work to get drunk if is acceptable within the work environment. If soccer provided an excuse for young people to get together, drink some been and try to get laid, then I say viva Drinking FC, which would be the name of my soccer team...Actually, I wouldn't want to appease the phony Americans who want to be like Europeans and put FC in my teams name...I would call my team the Charlotte Quarter Bouncers or the Charlotte Shot Pounders...I need to work on that name. Where am I going with all of this?....Oh, I remember..... Further, is it impossible to believe the NCAA couldn't make just as much money with this tournament as they could with the existing format? I think all of this is in the world of possibility. I've been saying it for years and it remains a matter of concern for me...The MAClike conferences need to figure out what the heck they are going to do in the near future to survive and become less victims. If not, we are in big trouble.

All of them would find a way to survive. They are losing money like crazy anyhow so why not heap more on to the taxpayers? How much is baseball, tennis, softball, golf, track, etc. costing these schools and could they bridge some of the gap between the lost revenue and expenses while maintaining Title IX compliance? I bet they could find a way. Remember, college athletics are not necessary. They are a luxury schools make a decision to have. Conferences would just have to be more flexible about the requirements for non-revenue sport. Let's drop back for a second though and think about the ATM games. They are played for the BCS schools to get a big pay day and a risk-free easy win. What has changed recently that eliminates the need for the easy early win and opens the door for the BCS schools to take more risk in scheduling early seasons games? The answer is, the BCS playoff now exists. A team can take a risk and maybe lose an early season game now and still make the playoffs. No longer will it be necessary to go undefeated or have only one loss to make the championship game. Maybe, if a team thinks it can win their conference when the day comes when conference champions automatically get in, they can eliminate one cupcake and add a legitimate team to their schedule. As the number of ATM games decrease and the number of ATM game victims remains the same, the cost of bringing a victim to your stadium becomes less because there is more desperation to schedule a game for the victims so they are willing to sell themselves at lower prices. The assumption we will get $2 million annually from these games may not pan out to be reality in the near future. Let's take out the BCS playoff for most of the BCS teams because let's be honest, almost all of them don't have the ability to win a national championship. What have they all done though? Without going too deep into the "building process", most of them have burdened themselves with supporting a much bigger footprint of facilities, support staff, etc. and the money will have to come from somewhere. Based upon the report from yesterday, they are all also going to be burdened with additional costs for players and their families. ADs are going to have to start making decisions without winning in the forefront of their thinking and replace it with dollar signs, which is what they all want to do anyhow...they are all a bunch of shameless a-holes. In addition to their regular duties, athletic departments are going to have to have someone handling family travel, which will probably lead to 10-15 more athletic department employees sitting around their offices most of the year with their fingers in their noses. I digress.... Let's take a school like UNC for example. Their OOC schedule consists of Liberty, San Diego State, @ECU, @ND (part of the ND deal with the ACC). Would they make more money with that schedule or let's say home and home with the following schools: Wisconsin, Oklahoma State, Arizona, ND (pick other BCS schools if you would like)? They can charge much more for the tickets, advertising revenue for their conference TV network, etc. to these games than they can to Liberty and SDSU. Both schools can make much more money and say adios to the non BCS schools. At this point, the BCS schools are in a position where they need the extra money just as bad as the non-BCS schools do. If they didn't, we wouldn't see many of the changes we are seeing. BCS schools are doing what they want to do and what they NEED to do also so there are two different dynamics. The "building process" needs supported at every level and is a burden at every level. Money pays for the "building process", not wins against Liberty. A middling BCS school is better off being one game under .500 while making more money in their OOC schedule than they are winning with a win against Liberty and making a low to mid level bowl game that will cost the school more than they bring in for making the bowl game. Welcome to the future my friends. It's all around us and it isn't smelling very good from where I sit.

The are keeping the cash cow. The cash cow is the NCAA Basketball Tournament (source). I always ask this question. I'll ask it again. Instead of worrying about whether or not the big five break away, why don't we and the rest of the MAClike conferences break away? Why do we continually allow ourselves to be a victim of their decisions? The people who run the MAClike leagues and MAClike ADs have no balls.

That's a pretty big "if". KD has never been a hot commodity in college basketball. Don't get me wrong, I think he is a really good MAC coach and I'm glad he is UofA's coach, but not someone other schools are searching out. You are right though. You don't know what you got until he's gone. That's a two way street. We could get someone worse (ie: If TW puts his mind to it, we could wind up with another Ianello if TW is still AD, which he probably won't be), or we could get someone better. The assumption you make is we will get someone worse and I'm offended by that type of thinking.

Who let the adults in to run the University?

I'd rather compare attendance to win/loss records. Quite honestly, I could care less about minor league sports and hate the idea of comparing a D1A sports department to minor league sports, so I won't. Besides, different leagues and sports have different ways of calculating "attendance". Jacobs Field vs. Cleveland Stadium. The Indians were a horrid franchise for my entire life until they got good and played at Jacobs field. They got good and crowd size increased along with interest in the new stadium. They have had bad years since then and attendance fell. Great stadium, why didn't attendance stay up? I'm also old enough to remember when the Cavs were good and played at Richfield. It was a much better place for a fan to watch a game than the current arena. They played a really exciting brand of basketball and were fun to watch. Couldn't find an empty seat. When they stunk, you couldn't find a fan. Exclude the first year of the Big Dialer and my guess is attendance is pretty dismal. In fact, I'm old enough to remember the Acme/Zip game and there used to be huge crowds for it in the horrible Rubber Bowl, which tells me, "If you give away free tickets,they will come." Average attendance during the Acme-Zip years when we played Can't was probably pretty good, but an average can be driven up with one event. "If you build it, you have something you built." The easy part is building the arena. All that takes is money, engineering/architecture and workers. The other 80 years are the problem. "If you win, they they will come." The BB team gets good crowds, but they aren't very exciting to watch. A new arena isn't going to change that. They would have to do better than last year, every year, to significantly increase crowd sizes. I don't see that happening for a lot of reasons I'd rather not get in to. "If you win and are really entertaining doing it, you'll have to beat fans away with a stick." I'm hoping this can be accomplished with Bowden Ball or whatever they call it. Win in a way that makes people want more of what you are selling. I think that's the type of excitement we have never seen with a UofA sports team. We've had good teams, but something was always missing. The thing missing was the entertainment value for the fan. "If you lose, you have lots of empty seats."

More changes.

Doing nothing is a perfectly fine decision right now. They can't afford a new arena and any "upgrades" to the JAR will be a waste of money. KD isn't going anywhere. No school is looking for a 55+ year old coach who has as performed as poorly as he has with Akron in the NCAA Tournament and has such an unimpressive record against decent out of conference opponents. It just isn't in the world of reality.

I will be releasing a GP1 Guide to Charleston for those making the trip. It will include things to do, places to stay, place to eat and such. If you have not made your plans yet and are going, how soon do you need this done? BTW, why isn't Charleston playing in their own tournament?

It never is. That was an illusion created in a movie designed for Baby Boomers to feel bad about their childhood. We shouldn't be making decisions centered around millions of dollars being spent to build and maintain a potential white elephant based upon that idea. Anyone see Real Sports last week and the segment on golf courses? It made me think of this topic. They used the same phrase about the boom in golf courses when Tiger Woods got popular. Today, those same golf courses are closing at a rate of one every 48 HOURS. The entire golf industry is in free fall. At some point, everyone has to put down childish things. Spending government money on things so adults can go play is a childish way to think and masks the inability of government agencies to put forward any ideas to improve communities in a meaningful way that will have a long term impact on that community. Better schools, roads, bridges, sewer, etc. (the sort of stuff that separates us from our knuckle dragging ancestors) improve communities, not arenas. In ten years, Youngstown and their new arena will still be the armpit of Ohio. Further, universities spending money on play pens for adults is a childish way for them to attract students. Attract childish students, get childish results. I'd rather them spend money on research and top notch education than an arena.

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