ODUalum78
Overseer of the Unwashed Masses
Posts: 9,363
Joined: May 2012
Reputation: 158
I Root For: ODU
Location: Chesterfield, Va
|
RE: Is BW A Scapegoat?
(12-17-2019 06:59 AM)EverRespect Wrote: (12-17-2019 01:40 AM)ODUalum78 Wrote: (12-16-2019 10:33 PM)EverRespect Wrote: (12-16-2019 10:26 AM)ODUalum78 Wrote: (12-16-2019 09:15 AM)Retroview1955 Wrote: According to this guy, Rahne can't help us either and thinks our football program will go nowhere, while completely nullifying the success other programs have since they move up and upgraded it's coaches.
You can read it here, but I'll still quote:
https://www.pilotonline.com/opinion/lett...story.html
Is he a pessimist or does he have a point?
Costly move for ODU
"I graduated from Old Dominion in 1973. I don’t know ODU football coach Bobby Wilder personally, but was amazed at how quickly he was able to start with nothing and build a team capable of winning the Colonial Athletic Association championship in only three years.
What I don’t understand is after waiting 69 years to bring back football, why wasn’t a winning program, and a packed stadium, enough? Why the rush to play teams so far out of ODU’s league? Why schedule games against three Atlantic Coast Conference teams in 2020? And who was responsible for the decision to move up to the Football Bowl Subdivision so quickly? Was it due to the overzealous and spoiled fan base who thought Wilder could bring in a Taylor Heinicke whenever needed? That might be possible at Alabama and Clemson, but not ODU.
Moving to Conference USA has left ODU with no natural rivalries and instead of busing teams to Williamsburg, Richmond and Harrisonburg, must instead pay a considerable expense to fly its football, basketball and baseball teams to Alabama, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
With a new stadium to pay for, and increased travel cost, ODU has been reduced to selling games to Liberty University — $1 million last year and $800,000 next year.
Wilder has been forced to be the scapegoat for the bad decisions of others."
Joe Simons, Chesapeake
Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk
The author is addressing two separate issues, success on the field and operational costs, and then erroneously trying to combine those two as a reason for BW's demise. Even individually his reasoning is flawed.
Let's address the conference move first.
VCU and GMU had already bolted the CAA, so our two natural MBB rivals were gone. "Claimed secret knowledge" aside, there is absolutely NO evidence we were ever considered for A10 MBB, none. GMU and VCU both had Final 4 credentials and those were the primary factors in their considerations. Saying we could have gone to the A10 is tantamount to those JMU posters saying they could have gone to the AAC whenever they wanted but their admin didn't want to.
So we are left in a very watered down CAA basketball league.
When we joined CUSA, we did indeed have a natural rival in ECU. No one could have foreseen the changes in CUSA that occurred AFTER we joined.
The television guarantees were attractive, and aside from 3 games, JMU, W&M, and UR, I for one certainly prefer to play UVA, VT, NC State to Stony Brook, Albany, Campell, and Elon.
It might surprise you to know that the two ODU playoff games with GaSo were in the top 5 of all time of FCS television ratings, and that all but the lowest of the bowl game[s] generate higher television ratings than even the FCS NATC. GaSo has moved up, and quite frankly the watered down FCS has recently become the exclusive JMU/NDSU club.
As for the financial burdens, no one could have predicted the impact of the after-the-fact Kirk Cox legislation. Guess what, the stadium was falling apart,and did not meet a number of codes, and as such would have had to be replaced anyway.
Even so we have been largely successful with fundraising, most recently raising over 2 million in a few days, of a 5 million goal set for the year.
The bottom line is that at the time, the move was the correct decision, and quite frankly, is still the right one IMHO.
None of the above helped make BW a scapegoat, and in fact as I understand it, he was one of those leading the charge when the opportunity came to move up.
BW did a great job starting the program and made us an almost instant success with brilliant scheduling and the happenstance of Hofstra eliminating football.
The rest is the tale of Taylor Henicke, who fell into our lap mostly because of his dad.
In 2011, without TH, we lose the the UMass game. We likely go on to lose 5 more that we otherwise won, going 5-7 regular season in 2011 (instead of 10-2) with no playoff, affecting future recruiting including the future receivers.
The recruiting domino effect would have been huge.
So, without one generational QB, we have a less than average DII defense, no recruiting bump from playoffs, and bizarre personnel moves like the ones surrounding Bill Dee, we likely stay mired in the middle of the pack of the CAA, if not the bottom.
BW was no scapegoat, and the decisions were the correct ones.
We were more than considered for the A10, we were in discussions.... then Judy called. It was a 100% football decision. And George Mason did not go with VCU. Recheck the timeline.
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
No.
VCU had already announced it was leaving (2012), and the rumor of GMU leaving (2013) was all but confirmed when Selig met with GMU officials prior to our commitment to CUSA.
As I said before, VCU and GMU were courted by the A 10 due to their Final Four credentials.
There has never been any evidence that we were ever considered by the A 10, none.
Quote:He had met with Mid-American Conference Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher while in New Orleans, then had a meeting on April 12 in Newport News with the A-10's Bernadette McGlade. Both expressed high regard for ODU, but had little interest in adding the school.
That afternoon, Selig met with Teague and George Mason Athletic Director Tom O'Connor at a Richmond hotel for five hours. He came away more convinced that those schools were leaving the CAA.
He called both the Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East but was politely rebuffed.
NCAA officials had confided to Broderick that if ODU had in mind a move to the FBS, it might need to do it now; the NCAA was considering a moratorium on schools moving up.
Adding to the time crunch: Conference USA, likely ODU's best option, was in the 11th hour of expansion discussions.
"At that point," Selig said. "we were under the gun."
https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/colle...c0480.html
Wood did a terrific job of manipulating the record so that it looked like he had only one choice, no doubt about that. Harry's article references an 11th hour desperation call with the A10. Our discussions/informal invitation with the A10 were over a year prior to the article, not at the 11th hour. While my neighbor/friend/source knows nothing of this 11th hour conversation Harry references (and he likely would know if it is true) it would not surprise me at all if after ODU snubbing the A10 previously, the A10 getting Butler to join in our place, and ODU going 5-25, that they would have told us to F ourselves. Harry's implication that we were dealing in a position of relative weakness (at least from a basketball standpoint) as of April 2013 is likely true, but that wasn't always the case.
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
That claim will require evidence.
We know the VCU timeline independent of WS
We know the GMU timeline independent of WS
We know the CUSA timeline independent of WS
We know that the Fredricksburg meeting took place and the general subject matter has been independently confirmed.
We know that there was indeed a proposed moratorium.
We even know that Judy never called as you have alleged because in fact Britt Banowsky was CUSA Commissioner at the time.
There was ample "smoke" leading up to the VCU and GMU moves for at least a year prior to each. There was never even a whisp of a rumor concerning ODU to the A 10.
Butler didn't join until 2012 so it was contemporary (to VCU) to the general timeline, and like GMU and VCU had Final Four credentials.
Are you saying that a multi bid basketball-centric conference wanted us, but "oh darn, we will have to settle for Butler instead"?
That really strains credibility.
(This post was last modified: 12-17-2019 09:50 AM by ODUalum78.)
|
|