(09-07-2019 09:34 PM)JimJoyce Wrote: I get it. The popular thing nowadays is to hate on the AD for everything. And I get that many people (sadly including a lot of former student-athletes) think football is a lost cause. I guess I’m just naive enough to think it’s worth having.
I think football is not only worth having. In fact, I think it deserves much more than it has received under Joel Nielsen's watch.
Blame the athletic director if he deserves blame.
The football team's record after nine years and now two games of the 2019 season is a combined 38-73. That's a winning percentage of .342.
In the previous nine years under Laing Kennedy, it was 38-67. A .362 winning percentage.
I expect a little more from an AD who is being paid such an exorbitant salary. He made $436,560 in 2018. The next highest-paid AD in the Mid-American Conference made $299,000.
It's not like the guy has been successful in raising money to make football better. Or men's basketball (which is also down under Nielsen).
Nielsen's quote in USA Today a few weeks ago regarding the 3 guarantee games said quite a bit.
"The guaranteed money is a lot of money, obviously, for one game," Nielsen said. "I would hope we could find other opportunities to make that money up, whether it’s ticket sales or donations or external support. I think long term you’d hope that’d be the case, but it’s something right now that we’re just taking day-by-day and see how it plays out.”
Yeah. "I would hope." What's the old saying? Wish in one hand...
He hopes long term that would be the case? He's had a decade. He's taking it day by day and seeing how it plays out? Seriously? We are accepting this? It's utterly ridiculous.