GP1

Thank you General Pickett for your spirited defense of a bad plan. Where to begin. Winning in college soccer at a high level is easier for a school like Akron than winning at the highest level in football. Is signing KD a commitment to taking the basketball program to another level beyond where they are now? We will see in the next couple of months. Maybe that contract extension was given too soon. You have an odd view of success vs. failure. Faust never once finished higher than third in the Mac. In three years, they went from third to fifth to ninth. The guy was terrible, contacts and all. Brook hart was a disaster in your view? He won a Mac championship and took us to a bowl game. To say JD had no coaching experience of any kind is a flat out lie. JD was one of the big name offensive coordinators during his time at Pitt. Odd view of what makes success.

Does anyone know how those numbers have changed between December 16th and today?

I'm not a big fan of the Mac, but there is strength in numbers. If we left, who would take us? We left 1Aa years ago alone, and nobody wanted us. It was a disaster. You are going to get your wish. The bcs schools are going to break away. We will be in another division. The reason we need to stay in the Mac is because they are going to be part of a new division. Without them, we are hosed. With them we have a fighting chance with other mAClike conferences. The thing I am most surprised about now is how fast the talk of bcs separation is happening. I thought it would take about ten years, but I can now see it happening in the next five years. Lots of changes in the near future.

I wouldn't follow either. I don't think people on this board appreciate how good non bcs football can be. We can be a contender in a division between bcs and IAA. We have won games against bcs schools before so we have proven we can win at the highest level for at least one game. We could duplicate that level of performance on a weekly basis in an in between division. We may be down right now, but we aren't out.

What if the teams were those now in the Mac along with names like Houston, San Jose State, East Carolina, Marshall, etc.? Our own national division with a playoff and chance for a national championship?

Kind of my point. If it is happening, wouldn't someone be able to prove it? Not make an argument in favor of it, but prove the existence (there is a difference). Newton dropped an apple and proved gravity, or so the story goes. The Earth going around the Sun and not the other way is provable. There are 9,125 hours in a year. Three hours is 0.000329% of a year. Not everyone watching a football game is making a decision on where to go to school. In fact, an aging population shows that most people watching football are not making decisions on where to go to school. It just seems counter intuitive to me that the "exposure" gained from the move to FBS football makes financial sense.

Ok, how much does it make schools? Does what it bring in outweigh what it costs? What is the long term economic benefit of a school making a bowl game? I know all of the arguments. What is missing is any evidence that the arguments make real sense. When I was playing football in college, I was a very good student and later graduated with an advanced degree (that's a Masters Degree for those of you who don't know what "advanced degree" means). At the age of 18, I thought many of the people working in the Athletic Department weren't very smart. The older I get, the more I realize that 18 year old was right. Not only are they not smart, but in many ways, they are dangerous to the schools they work for. The problem is not many people understand how to do their jobs, so they do what they say to do because they think they know what they are doing. The truth is, most people working in college athletics have no idea what they are doing and they are the ones spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the "building process" of which they have no idea about. It's a cycle of stupidity. When I worked in corporate America, the last company I worked for before owning my own business had a bunch of ex GE executives working for it and they had their own Six Sigma cult going. I've never seen a bigger pack of idiots. Six Sigma has little buzz words they all speak in and if you don't know the buzz words, you are sort of out of the club. I'ts how they hide the fact they don't really know anything about the business they are managing. In college athletics, "exposure" reminds me of one of those Six Sigma buzz words. In any event, I was on a conference call and the people at the corporate headquarters were all speaking what I called Six Sigma babble. I sent a note to a counterpart of mine in Florida saying I had no idea what they were talking about. My counterpart was a really smart guy about a year from retirement and he wrote back, "Don't worry, they don't either." Whenever anyone hears a buzz word like "exposure" being used to describe why something should be done, you should see red flags. People who work in college athletics are long on buzz words and short on brains. Unfortunately, nobody else wants to work a crappy job like that.

I did overreach on my comments about Lombardi. My guess is he told the lie for a while and now is honest enough to back off.

Has anyone ever measured the benefit of making a bowl for a university? Or is it one of those things that has just become fact because everyone has said it so much? If it creates a measurable effect, what is the final measurement? The evidence presented in Dave's link from a guy who studied it for 15 years for the NCAA of all places says there is no real benefit for almost every team. Actually, it isn't a sign of academic power. Ever hear of the Ivy League? Case Western, Marquette, MIT, Emory, Boston University, Georgetown, etc. are all excellent schools that do not field D1 football teams. There is a difference between academic power and the ability to field a football team. Don't believe the lies you hear from athletic directors. As someone with a website, you should be questioning those lies and not parroting them.

Dave, Thanks a million for posting this article. Reinforces what I have believed for a long time. Two interesting characters in the article...Fulks and Lombardi. Fulks is a money guy who can look at numbers and make sense of them. He is the fact based, reality character. He knows there is no financial benefit for 99% of schools jumping to D1 and has the guts to say it. He has the guts to say it because the facts are behind him. He would never get a job as an Athletic Director. Lombardi is the pie in the sky guy. How do I know that? He uses the word "exposure" as a reason for jumping to FBS. He knows the benefits of "exposure" can never be proven so someone can hide behind it basically forever. How come nobody ever says, "Expose them to what?" "Is this exposure good exposure?" "What are the consequences of bad exposure?" "If the exposure is 100% good, will we still be able to make money at it?" The final point, I have been making for years...there not only needs to be, but there will be a division between I-AA and BCS level football. The writing is on the walls and if anyone can't see it, they don't want to admit it is there. If we are lucky, we will be part of that division and I believe we can compete well. The big lie that ADs have told for years is there is a way to make money in college athletics. For a handful of schools, this is correct. For everyone else, it is a money sink. As long as UofA can limit the damage, we'll be fine. I'm dying for a real publication like the NY Times to do a story (it's probably a book) on how Athletic Directors have scammed universities across the country into the "building process". The real crooks in college athletics are the ADs my friends. Thanks again Dave. Great read for the Great GP1. It made my day.

With most sacrificial lambs, they get killed, cut up, eaten and crapped out the next day never to be heard from again. We kept the rotting carcass around and didn't flush the toilets. Sort of stinks up the house if you know what I mean.

Like most things that go bad, people remember the end more than what happened prior. There was a time when Faust had more talent on BOTH sides of the ball at the same time as any coach we've had. Not just a guy or two who had NFL potential with the rest of the team being crap, but an entire team with very good college football talent. However, when it went south, it went south in a hurry. Of course, not all of it was Faust's fault, but he is the one who fell for the pass and pitch idea and kept hold of a hack like Junko on defense too long. At the end of his tenure, I would say the talent on the field was far worse than what Ianello left us with. How was Faust being a "good guy" a problem? He let too many douche bags stay on the team after repeated off the field problems. He set a tone that you could do just about anything you wanted to do as long as you confessed your sins. "I made a mistake" is something we should hear on Jerry Springer, not Gerry Faust. With both Faust and Owens, our ADs kept guys around who had no shot of improving the program beyond what it was about five years in to their term as coach. The one thing Faust does not get enough credit for is the excellent staff he assembled is first go around. A young Terry Bowden. Hal Hunter who is O-Line coach with the Chargers. Chris Ball, now secondary coach at Arizona State, was a grad assistant. Mike Woodford, on our staff now, was one of the assistants and he has had an excellent career. Bob Shaw was at Akron for a year and went to WVU and was the dcoordinator in their national championship game against Notre Dame. When things went south, he had to hold on to hacks like Junko because he couldn't do better. It became a high school staff like it did with Owens because no decent college coach wants to jump on a sinking ship unless he is forced. Faust did some really good things early. It was hopeless for him and he just didn't have enough to keep the program from sliding into a bad situation. He is also a constant reminder of the failure of our football program the past 25 years. It really isn't an either/or thing with Faust.

If only the typical former student did that much... I guess if it takes having a building named after yourself is the benchmark for whether or not someone has done enough for the University, I, Captain Kangaroo, ZipsWin!, JZ84, Big Zip, InTheZone, DrZ, SeeTeeZip, Le Adams and the hundreds of others on this board have done nothing for the University. Congratulations to all of us for our wasted time and money. Sorry if you didn't like my response, but you asked.

If only the typical former student did that much... I guess if it takes having a building named after yourself is the benchmark for whether or not someone has done enough for the University, I, Captain Kangaroo, ZipsWin!, JZ84, Big Zip, InTheZone, DrZ, SeeTeeZip, Le Adams and the hundreds of others on this board have done nothing for the University. Congratulations to all of us for our wasted time and money. Sorry if you didn't like my response, but you asked.

I give him a ton of credit for being a decent person. With that sais, he is an ongoing reminder of the failure of our football program. That doesn't make him a bad person though.

To name a few, I represent the University by working hard, I put to use a great education, I try to attend as many Universitybevents as possible given my distance, I once volunteered to captain part of a fundraising drive, I bought tickets to sporting events, I have served on panels to help students understand how to best get a job when they graduate, I donate to the University as well. I could go o, but I won't. Any other questions?

He gave name recognition for about two years. Perks are earned. We are giving him perks he hasn't earned and he is an ongoing reminder of failure. I have a problem with it and in a sane world, the University would as well.

Or, an AD with a major college background from where they went to school to where they have worked. An AD who "cares" isn't nearly as important as an AD who knows how to do his/her job. Mike Thomas comes to mind. Mike cared about doing a good job and had the background that helped him understand major college sports. Our current AD is a D3 basketball player with stupid ideas on what makes success in college athletics. He has a D3 mentality at a D1 school. from the Reno disaster to the hiring of Ianello, the guy has been a train wreck. He also is the "work in progress", one of the worst terms to describe someone. Like everything else we do, Proenza was hoping he would "grow" into the job. Nonsense. Mike Thomas was ready from day one, which is what a good hire should look like. With any luck, we will be going into more depth about how to hire an AD in the near future. It won't be soon enough.

I don't think it is a mystery at all. We confused building thing with winning for too long. It's the building process vs. the winning process. We chose the building process. With that said, the question is what to do and how to do it? We made the move to D1 on our own and disaster has taken place. That tells me we should not make another move on our own. Our league has to make a move along wit other mAClike schools. Since that will never happen because it isn't healthy for ADs resumes, our only option is to unfortunately wait for the BCS schools to decide for us. If we think it is bad now, wait until the BCS schools start making decisions for us.

I don't think it is a mystery at all. We confused building thing with winning for too long. It's the building process vs. the winning process. We chose the building process. With that said, the question is what to do and how to do it? We made the move to D1 on our own and disaster has taken place. That tells me we should not make another move on our own. Our league has to make a move along wit other mAClike schools. Since that will never happen because it isn't healthy for ADs resumes, our only option is to unfortunately wait for the BCS schools to decide for us. If we think it is bad now, wait until the BCS schools start making decisions for us. Please delete this duplicate.

I wouldn't get too down on the Mac. They are competing well and have a couple of win. Don't bank too much on bowl results. If OU doesn't get an injury bug late season, they go to bcs in lieu of NIU and I like their total package better against FSU than NIU. If the Mac ends up 2-5, I don't think it cuts into the league having a solid season.

The Zips are going to get diabetes from this holiday season.

Actually, no it isn't. I've been to App State games where their stadium is packed with around 28,000. That happens every home game up there. People drive from all around to watch them play because the place is in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. A full stadium like this could happen every week for Akron. The people who go App State games actually pay for their own tickets as well, which seems to be our stumbling block at Akron as the community is conditioned for free tickets. Ever watch the I-AA playoffs. The kids are playing their butts off and the quality of play is very good. It's like watching a bowl game between, say CMU and WKU, except a national championship is on the line and not a trophy for having the team that was willing to show up and play hard in an exhibition. It's debatable, but non BCS football is better than I-AA. In my opinion, the MAC champion would easily beat the Southern Conference champion in a meaningful game. The MAC is just a little bigger and a little faster all around. NIU is a much better team than anyone in the So. Con. My point being, it isn't I-AA or D1A. It's a league between with all of the other non BCS teams.

This is going to be the problem when a playoff is instituted....the number could actually become smaller. Ever notice that it is basically the same teams every year in the playoffs of other divisions? Why is that? After years of success, they have a recruiting advantage over the other teams in their leagues. Mt. Union has a huge advantage in recruiting over the rest of the teams in their league. Teams that win tend to recruit well because good recruits want to go to teams that win. There is a greater connection between recruiting and winning than winning and say...indoor practice arenas (but don't tell any athletic directors). The worst thing to happen to any business (major college football is a business) is a monopoly. Mt. Union has such a monopoly over DIII that their winning/being in their national championship game isn't even an interesting story at this point. Even Terry Pluto probably rolls his eyes at the prospect of having to write another story about them. Major college football can't get to that level and the people at the ncaa aren't smart enough to figure out how to make it competitive from top to bottom. This is why a division of say 60 schools will need to be created to play at the highest level and have a playoff. Ideally, they would not be part of the ncaa, but if they are, the ncaa needs to hire a person with experience in the NFL to bring in a structure that will help to prevent monopolies from springing up. A layout of divisions and scheduling designed to create competitive games early in the season for those teams that had success they year before is the best way to do it. Never punish teams for success, just make it more difficult the following year to have the same success. The NFL did it for decades and it became the most competitive/popular league in North America.

Solid win by CMU last night. Wednesday night football between Christmas and New Years is a good thing. It was a good game and close to the end. I get that it isn't BCS level, but I was still entertained and that's good enough for me.