Doc: No Power 5 doom and gloom yet from Tuberville
Paul Daugherty, pdaugherty@enquirer.com 12:35 p.m. EDT August 8, 2014

UC coach: "We can do something. We can afford stipends.''


Tommy Tuberville and the Bearcats will scrimmage Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium.(Photo: Enquirer file)

The walls are closing in or tumbling down, or whatever metaphor you choose to apply. That's the way it seems for the University of Cincinnati. Just as UC is putting $80 million into a stadium renovation, in part to keep up with the big boys, the big boys are wanting to leave the Bearcats behind.

Tommy Tuberville doesn't like to hear that, and he doesn't necessarily agree. "We can do something,'' the UC football coach said. "We can afford stipends.''

Maybe. Can Cincinnati afford Ohio State's stipends? Those of Michigan, Notre Dame and Tennessee? Those are the sorts of places the Bearcats need to beat for recruits occasionally, if they want to maintain their football momentum.

On Thursday, the NCAA approved a measure granting more "autonomy'' to schools in the so-called "Power 5'' conferences. They can make their own rules, specifically in the way they compensate their athletes. Technically, their rules have to be approved by every school, not just those in the Power 5. That's a formality; if the rules are blocked, the conferences could split from the others and form their own organization. None of the lesser leagues wants that.

The first rules expected to be adopted cover money allowed to be paid to athletes. The figures being mentioned range from $2,000 to $5,000 a year, per jock. It's not specific to football. In fact, Tuberville wonders how a school can pay its football players and not its women who play volleyball. "Ever heard of Title IX?'' he asked.

There is also the very real question of where the money is coming from. If you are Ohio State, it's not an issue. There aren't many Ohio States.

An NCAA report from April declared that only 20 Division I schools make enough money to cover all their athletic expenses. "Almost every one lost money without paying players,'' Tuberville said. "There are a lot of folks in the Power 5 that can't afford it. They're trying to keep up with the Joneses and they're mortgaged to the teeth right now.''

That might be so. "It will simply raise the stakes, raise the salaries, raise the expenditures, raise the professionalism,'' someone named Gerry Gurney told the New York Times. Gurney is president of the Drake Group, an organization advocating "academic integrity in collegiate sport.''

We can argue philosophies. We can debate who can pay, and how much. When Tuberville was an assistant at Miami and the Hurricanes were winning football championships, they were also eliminating men's golf.

We can wring our hands and bemoan this latest pox on queasy, quasi-amateurism, in the name of money. "It's starting to be more about money (than about) putting a good amateur team on the field,'' Tuberville said.

Starting to?

It's all relevant discussion. So is this:

UC is also "mortgaged to the teeth'' when it comes to paying for athletics. The difference is, UC's house is no longer in Indian Hill. When it comes to divvying future TV contracts, the Power 5 will be sultans; everyone else will be beggars.

Some Power coaches are even advocating eliminating from their schedules all non-Power schools. Their thinking is, when it comes time to pick playoff-worthy teams, the committee might not look kindly on schools venturing beneath their class.

Cincinnati is dolling up Nippert Stadium. What if the old gal is all dressed up with nowhere to go?

"Will this hurt your recruiting?'' I asked Tuberville.

"It will if (the Power 5) start doing things we can't do,'' he said. Tuberville spoke generally about how UC would fund stipends: "We'd have to cut a lot of things. Some travel. Equipment and recruiting budgets.''

He chooses to wait and see. "You really don't know how all this stuff is going to shake out,'' he said. At the moment, Thursday's action "kind of leaves (UC) out, and that's all right. We need to find a bottom line. We don't need a pro sport, on a college level.''

He has been around the college game most of his life, and he has seen this day coming. Now that it is here, and his team is out of the inner loop, he faces challenges he never faced before.

"If we keep a level head, we won't ruin what's been good not only to players and coaches, but to fans and alumni,'' Tuberville said. And all the money that UC has put into football in the past decade will have been well spent."

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/c.../13777399/

Quote:Maybe. Can Cincinnati afford Ohio State's stipends? Those of Michigan, Notre Dame and Tennessee? Those are the sorts of places the Bearcats need to beat for recruits occasionally, if they want to maintain their football momentum.

WRONG.

(08-09-2014 12:50 PM)cinbinsportsfan Wrote:  

Quote:Maybe. Can Cincinnati afford Ohio State's stipends? Those of Michigan, Notre Dame and Tennessee? Those are the sorts of places the Bearcats need to beat for recruits occasionally, if they want to maintain their football momentum.

WRONG.

Tennessee, maybe. UC really just need to beat out all the MAC schools the lower to mid level power five teams to stay on track. Good player development is always important.

I am sure UC can afford to pay the stipends. The school has a billion dollar budget. They can always raise ticket prices, donation levels, and tuition. Heck if UC was in a power five conference does anybody believe or ticket prices or donation levels will stay the same. The burden to support a winning program is always going to placed on the students, alumni, and the fans themselves.

Why does Doc like to compare UC to OSU? There are a handful of programs in the country that compare to OSU....why not compare UC to metro urban research P5's like Miami, Pitt, Gtech etc. I mean, most of the B1G doesn't compare to OSU...he gets a fail on this article imo

(08-09-2014 09:45 PM)Bearcats#1 Wrote:  Why does Doc like to compare UC to OSU? There are a handful of programs in the country that compare to OSU....why not compare UC to metro urban research P5's like Miami, Pitt, Gtech etc. I mean, most of the B1G doesn't compare to OSU...he gets a fail on this article imo

Let's face it Doc is an to$u troll. Remember his kid went to to$u.

CTT's direct quotes scare the heck out of me....

An NCAA report from April declared that only 20 Division I schools make enough money to cover all their athletic expenses. "Almost every one lost money without paying players,'' Tuberville said. "There are a lot of folks in the Power 5 that can't afford it. They're trying to keep up with the Joneses and they're mortgaged to the teeth right now.''


If "a lot of folks in the Power 5" lost money with their huge TV revenues, how is UC going to come close to keeping "up with the Joneses" when we will get less than 1/10th of those TV dollars?

Tuberville spoke generally about how UC would fund stipends: "We'd have to cut a lot of things. Some travel. Equipment and recruiting budgets.''


So UC would have to cut travel, equipment, and recruiting budgets - the life blood of staying competitive.

This is not just some blogger's opinion, its a direct quote from our head coach.

Man, doc is going to beat the realignment horse to death this year, isn't he?

(08-11-2014 09:19 AM)uccheese Wrote:  Man, doc is going to beat the realignment horse to death this year, isn't he?

Why not? We sure as hell do.....

Enough money to cover all athletic expenses is a bit misleading. Most make a decent chunk on football. It's all the other sports you add in that causes issues.

Also, given the athletic department is basically your best dollar for dollar source of advertising (vs. say billboards, mailers, etc), some cost is acceptable to most schools (which is why the entire MAC is still I-A despite some schools probably being a better fit in I-AA).

(08-11-2014 09:21 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  Enough money to cover all athletic expenses is a bit misleading. Most make a decent chunk on football. It's all the other sports you add in that causes issues.

Also, given the athletic department is basically your best dollar for dollar source of advertising (vs. say billboards, mailers, etc), some cost is acceptable to most schools (which is why the entire MAC is still I-A despite some schools probably being a better fit in I-AA).

Good post. In the grand scheme of things its not a big chunk of money for schools with billion dollar budgets. Athletics is still best way to advertise, build school loyalty, and generate merchandise revenue. Athletics is a key element of higher education branding.

(08-09-2014 09:45 PM)Bearcats#1 Wrote:  Why does Doc like to compare UC to OSU? There are a handful of programs in the country that compare to OSU....why not compare UC to metro urban research P5's like Miami, Pitt, Gtech etc. I mean, most of the B1G doesn't compare to OSU...he gets a fail on this article imo

To compare UC, rightfully, to P5 institutions in a similar mold, ie Miami FL, Pitt or a Gtech, would destroy his narrative on UC. Koch and PD love to paint UC as this awful, near bankrupt institution, whose teams are/should not be on the national landscape.

Economically speaking, the schools he mentions are top 10% in college fball. Under his rationale most other P5 institutions are in dire straights as well.

What's going on is a power grab for cash. A bunch of institutions realizing the landscape was going to change due to the O'bannon case and possibility of players unionizing. They do not want their current profit margins invaded by the legal system or the thought of a G5 team gaining a share.

If I were the top P5 players I would look to the institutions, within their conf's, who are happy to take the tv money/bowl revenue, while continually marching out an inferior product.

By the way - where is all the outrage for the P5 institutions, who are near bankrupt ie Rutgers or Maryland? Or a top institution, such as Tenn, which is continually millions in the red every year recently?