Arkstfan

A reporter quoted an NFL GM as saying if Hannibal Lector had size and could run a 4.3 they'd dismiss his issues as an eating disorder. A player doing something stupid isn't shocking, the Deadspin report quoting the police officer as saying that the coaches refused to cooperate shouldn't be tolerated.

Cousin used to teach at Arizona Med School. She and her husband are outdoors people and liked it there but one of my uncles who lives in Phoenix asked how she liked living in God's Country. She responded that it wasn't God's country because God made green things.

Everyone who wins half their games, no one is advocating 1-11, 2-10, 3-9, 4-8, 5-7 teams go to post-season yet somehow a bowl for a team that went 5-3 in CUSA is offensive and everyone getting a medal? MTSU finished second in the east and didn't get a participation medal.

Didn't have their finances all together. Soon as LR announced they were out, Austin called the Sun Belt and got a contract signed. CUSA had agreed but never signed the contract.

That's who the organizer said http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/12600613/austin-tucson-little-rock-orlando-apply-host-ncaa-bowl-games

Might want to get a second opinion from MTSU.

Austin was announced as CUSA vs. AAC, CUSA backed out. Can't blame that on AAC.

Southern Miss is the only school to play every year of CUSA football. I once saw a comic who juggled as part of his act. He held up a hatchet and said "This is the hatchet George Washington used to chop down the cherry tree...... well the handle has been replaced....... and the head, but it occupies the same space."

Here is the downside of being hugely reliant on student fees (I think FIU is north of 70% of revenue from student fees). We know that over the next decade or so total national college enrollment will dip. Now some schools will stay steady, some will even grow, but many will lose students. If student population falls 2% and 70% of budget is from student fees, you have to cut 1.4% from your budget. You won't cut contracted salaries, chances are your cost of employee benefits will rise (they have risen for decades so no reason to expect that to change). Your school will probably increase tuition which means you get billed more athletic scholarships. Very quickly to get a 1.4% cut in budget you are looking at cutting about 10% of a budget area that is discretionary because much of your budget is not discretionary. Right now the trend is for states to not increase or even cut higher ed funding. So budget shortfalls in the general university budget have to be made up elsewhere, money spent to help athletics will be on the chopping block. We also know that student loans are starting to become a political issue. If student loans become harder to get or more expensive, again we are looking at possible declines in enrollment along with more price sensititivty from students and parents. Having a high athletic fee is not good in a price sensitive market.

Interesting they elected to shut it down "for five years" on the heels of dropping men's tennis for financial reasons last year and the announcement comes just two weeks short of one year after that announcement.

Unless you are San Diego State who is playing a non-scholarship FCS. They can't count them.

What is wrong with scheduling in the 2020's? AState goes to Iowa State in 2024 and hosts in 2025. We wanted earlier but we took what they were offering rather than get nothing. Terry Mohajir was on CBS Radio yesterday. He was asked how he finagled a home and home with Mizzou. His answer? "We asked. That's how."

Signed them back in September to a home and home 2018 and 2020. It was probably a joint effort to screw UNT.

I figured someone would cite AState vs. Tulsa.

In the Big XII at Iowa State you are pretty much guaranteed two road conference losses though. The 1976 Earl Bruce team is arguably the best ever at Iowa State and they lost at Colorado and Ok St and at home to OU. McCarney's 2000 team is the only ranked Iowa State team since 1976. They only lost once on the road (at Kansas State) but lost at home to Nebraska and TAMU.

Smart AD's know that unless the coach really stinks and has alienated fans, that the fans generally like the coach more than the AD. You try to keep them happy because someone is always wanting to interview a coach or big donors are spending time with them. Don't want them blaming you for the coach's shortcomings.

Odd to have FCS that far out. We don't have any past 2016. I expect to add some but just none scheduled yet.

Why 30? We both know if there are 30 then sixty spots after the playoff spots are going to the P5 then AAC, CUSA, Sun Belt, MWC, MAC get what's left. The increase in bowls shifts the power from bowl directors to conference commissioners. When there were fewer bowls non-AQ commissioners went to bowl directors begging for games and had to take games on terms they dictate. Now there are more games, commissioners can extract terms they like better or go somewhere else and put the game out of business. The International Bowl folded because no conference other than the MAC would agree to a new contract. The Motor Pizza Bowl wanted to move to Tiger Stadium when they were kicked out of Ford Field. No one other than the MAC would agree to sign on. When there were few bowls you had: Today's Capital One Bowl moved from a lower division to major bowl by tying to the MAC. Soon as they get that status, goodbye MAC. Fiesta was created as a WAC bowl. Booted them Holiday was created as a WAC bowl. Booted them Independence was created as Southland bowl. Booted them (year before the reorganization to I-AA). Las Vegas Bowl was created as MAC vs. Big West. GoDaddy was WAC vs. CUSA, WAC bailed because they couldn't afford the travel. MAC replaced them with a multi-year deal that expired after the CUSA deal. When CUSA expired, bowl signed ACC who never had a team eligible. Constrain the supply and the bowls hold the cards and they will maximize profit by ditching G5 programs whenever possible to get P5 who bring bigger TV audiences and generally do better selling tickets. Wanting to reduce bowls is like being a person who does not have capital investments favoring a low capital gains tax. Low tax capital gains tax encourages people to cash out so they can get the gain at a low tax rate, a higher rate encourages staying invested to defer the tax as long as possible. When USA Drug sold out to Walgreens and the large bank chain in Arkansas, Liberty Bank sold to Centennial, being able to take advantage of the current low rate was cited in both cases and in both cases resulted in hundreds being laid off. Low rate has its benefits but if you are living paycheck to paycheck it generally means you are at higher risk of losing your job when the owner cashes out early. Fewer bowls = more chance G5's get left out in the cold.

AAC's western-most bowl on a regular basis is Birmingham. Unless you are drawing at 3 or 4 million viewers TV isn't paying a bundle to show your bowl. If you aren't making a lot from TV then you have to make it by keeping costs down and selling tickets. AAC's additions in the west are perfectly logical. Orlando not so much.

You want a model that works? Starts at the CEO's office. Most university CEOs are not athletics people even if they are fans and enjoy sports they don't get the nitty gritty. So they are looking for an AD, they look at the athletic budget and the first thing that jumps out is athletics needs more money, donations seem too low, ticket revenue seems too low. Conclusion. I've got to hire someone who can solve that problem. So the final list of five candidates will be made up of three types of people. 1. Someone with a fund-raising background who has some awesome project to their credit. Never mind that the skills involved in getting T Boone to donate to OKST or the Gaylord family to donate to OU do not transfer to Denton, Jonesboro or El Paso. 2. Someone with a ticket sales background even though the skills involved in selling tickets in Austin or Baton Rouge are not the same ones needed at a G5 or struggling P5. 3. Some locally connected business person who knows how to run business but knows little of NCAA compliance, government budget process or fair rates for games and salaries. A quality AD is going to miss on coaching hires but should get it right more often than not, should be able to watch a team and be able to figure out if an 8-4 football team is more likely a 5 or 6 win team but for some good breaks and not over-react to the winning in making decisions, likewise has to be able to see if the 12 win basketball team was well coached and is suffering from inexperience or injuries and should improve enough the next year to warrant riding out a bad year. They also have to understand the big picture. When Malzahn was at AState, a new operations center for football was priority one and the AD had drawings done and all that. New AD comes in and first thing he says is "I'm not making a $20 million project that produces no revenue and has a limited impact on competitiveness my top priority". Press box renovation with suites, loge boxes and club seating became the top priority, spending $7 million for a project that will generate over a million in direct revenue was a higher priority especially once he secured a $5 million gift and another just short of a million to build it without borrowing. Indoor practice facility was priority two (construction began on it first because you can't gut your press conference during the season) because it was cheaper to build and impacted more sports (football, soccer, baseball, and track) and depending on the year the impact on competitiveness could be huge (for example AState baseball this year got in like two practices in four weeks because of the weather, football has had rain at two of three practices so far this spring other years we lose few if any practices). Ops center is up next but it has been redesigned to include suites and loge seating so it will generate some revenue and the revenue from the press box will help fund it. Understanding and thinking strategically about these things is a big deal, Maryland nearly had to drop numerous sports before the Big 10 rescue because they did a massive department wide construction project that they borrowed a lot of money for and planned to fund with new premium seating even though there was virtually no wait list for existing premium seating. Someone who understands you need to hire people to help you win and understands college athletics finance is far more important than hiring the person who handed T Boone his receipt or managed to increase ticket sales 15% when the football team had its best year in a decade.

Baseball is a money pit if you are in a region where you can't play at home the first third of the season. Across the south (especially near the gulf) it can be a nice revenue source, ditto the far west like Arizona and southern California.

It causes nightsweats for AD's because of the outlaw reputation but if I were hiring a hoops coach I'd look really hard at a juco coach. Anyone successful in juco is tight with AAU coaches and Division I coaches who have placed players with them. Those connections can be a real boost.

The NCAA wanted to reopen the TV contract and had to do something to get CBS to kick in more money. The original idea was to expand the tournament to 96 teams and that was received like feces in the punch bowl. Then the NCAA cooked up the idea of the "first four" that was going to be the eight lowest seeded teams playing for the right to win and get the brains bashed in by the four 16 seeds. CBS yawned and said how about have the last eight at-large teams play to come into the bracket as the four 11 seeds. So they split the baby and two games feature teams playing to enter the field of 64 as 11 seeds and two games where teams play to enter as 16 seeds. My idea of going back to 64 but spreading the first two rounds over six days instead of four and cutting out or back on the games during work hours was apparently not considered.

Technically they don't sign because they are transferring FBS to FBS. They could sign an NLI but it isn't binding. AState is adding one DL and maybe an OL from UAB

CUSA looked at FIU for five months and took them in the first wave.