The unofficial online home for fans of the Kent State University Golden Flashes. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

I know we’ve suffered many injuries in this bodybag/paycheck games. Injuries happen in a contact sport, more so when you’re physically outmatched by bugger, stronger and faster opponents wbich is exactly how these kids end up at P5 schools - they’re bigger, faster, stronger and better. I remember 2 different games at Penn State we were down to QB3. I understand scheduling 1 a year, maybe 2, but 3 of them is ridiculous. You likely start out the MAC season at 1-3 and bagged up, then need to roll through the MaC just to become bowl game eligible. Our football program has had a rough history and just whenever they seem to turn a corner are hit with adversity, scheduling them a brutal OOC schedule gives them no chance of getting any momentum going.

(02-15-2021 02:43 PM)Proud pilot Wrote:  

(02-15-2021 02:04 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(02-15-2021 01:47 PM)thanksjim Wrote:  

(02-15-2021 01:30 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  You just aren't going to get the payday from a Maryland or an Illinois that you will from an Alabama or Oklahoma.

Maryland is paying 1.5 million while I believe Alabama was 1.9 million.

I'll take the W and 1.5 million thank you very much

I guess you have never had $400k in the bank to know how far that can stretch? Next time you want to b*tch about Ty Linder or someone of the like being let go because of money, remember your comment.

For the "Bama player is just as likely to get hurt KSU" your opinion. My opinion the Bama player is on the field because he is an elite athlete even my Power 5 standards. He is bigger, stronger and quicker than the KSU player. So who do you think will wear down the other physically. In Oklahoma and Georgia you have this elite athlete. Injuries do happen to both teams it's one thing to have a sprain ankle another to have your QB absorb a pounding because your O line was over matched.
Again have to ask why does it fall on the football team to raise the financial support for other sports?

What other sport can generate these paydays for the university and the athletic dept? That's just life man.

(02-15-2021 10:22 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(02-15-2021 02:43 PM)Proud pilot Wrote:  

(02-15-2021 02:04 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(02-15-2021 01:47 PM)thanksjim Wrote:  [quote='dannyb73' pid='17274954' dateline='1613413809']
You just aren't going to get the payday from a Maryland or an Illinois that you will from an Alabama or Oklahoma.

Maryland is paying 1.5 million while I believe Alabama was 1.9 million.

I'll take the W and 1.5 million thank you very much

I guess you have never had $400k in the bank to know how far that can stretch? Next time you want to b*tch about Ty Linder or someone of the like being let go because of money, remember your comment.

For the "Bama player is just as likely to get hurt KSU" your opinion. My opinion the Bama player is on the field because he is an elite athlete even my Power 5 standards. He is bigger, stronger and quicker than the KSU player. So who do you think will wear down the other physically. In Oklahoma and Georgia you have this elite athlete. Injuries do happen to both teams it's one thing to have a sprain ankle another to have your QB absorb a pounding because your O line was over matched.
Again have to ask why does it fall on the football team to raise the financial support for other sports?

What other sport can generate these paydays for the university and the athletic dept? That's just life man.
May be just life still doesn't address the question that KSU plays more money games against the highest rated schools yet we have the worse football facilities. Why is that? Again the worse facilities statements pretty well documented in recent interviews with HC and articles in national publications.

We have bad facilities in all sports. We just don’t have enough money to stay competitive in Division 1. The football money is allowing us to hang on but it’s getting worse by the minute.
Ohio St has a smoothie machine in their wrestling facilities while we hold our meets in what amounts to a high school gym.
Golf channel starts putting the NCAA tournaments on TV. I bet you will hardly ever see Kent which will make our recruiting tougher (not to mention Page is gone). Per Dave C. we let our world class golf training center go to hell. You can blame Nielsen for that but that has to be a lack of money.
Gymnastics always seemed to have at least one top notch all-around gymnast. Not lately. No more dominating the MAC along with CMU. Now anybody can win it. Take a look at their facilities. After that watch the SEC or Big10 meets and try not to cry.
We are still DI and that is worth something but let’s face the fact that we are the second or even third tier. To survive we need to do some desperate things. Even that might not work much longer.

Burden, this is a process that has been going on a long time and keeps getting worse. It's a classic "vicious circle" I would say that Kent State and the MAC are unofficially "third tier". I would call "first tier" the small handful of the super-elite teams whose presence has dominated the college football playoffs. I would call the rest of the really good P5 programs "second tier". The rest, including perennial losing P5 teams, I would call "third tier".

(02-16-2021 05:21 PM)Muskrat Wrote:  Burden, this is a process that has been going on a long time and keeps getting worse. It's a classic "vicious circle" I would say that Kent State and the MAC are unofficially "third tier". I would call "first tier" the small handful of the super-elite teams whose presence has dominated the college football playoffs. I would call the rest of the really good P5 programs "second tier". The rest, including perennial losing P5 teams, I would call "third tier".

Over the years have not been diligent following the KSU athletic department finances. I grasp the tiers of have and have nots. What I wish please how did KSU get to the point where it has the worse athletic facilities in the MAC? Apples to apples comparison please.

(02-16-2021 01:38 PM)burden Wrote:  We have bad facilities in all sports. We just don’t have enough money to stay competitive in Division 1. The football money is allowing us to hang on but it’s getting worse by the minute.
Ohio St has a smoothie machine in their wrestling facilities while we hold our meets in what amounts to a high school gym.
Golf channel starts putting the NCAA tournaments on TV. I bet you will hardly ever see Kent which will make our recruiting tougher (not to mention Page is gone). Per Dave C. we let our world class golf training center go to hell. You can blame Nielsen for that but that has to be a lack of money.
Gymnastics always seemed to have at least one top notch all-around gymnast. Not lately. No more dominating the MAC along with CMU. Now anybody can win it. Take a look at their facilities. After that watch the SEC or Big10 meets and try not to cry.
We are still DI and that is worth something but let’s face the fact that we are the second or even third tier. To survive we need to do some desperate things. Even that might not work much longer.

Um, we just opened a brand new practice facility in basketball (volleyball may also use it - not sure) and the training facilities are top notch.

(02-17-2021 09:43 AM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(02-16-2021 01:38 PM)burden Wrote:  We have bad facilities in all sports. We just don’t have enough money to stay competitive in Division 1. The football money is allowing us to hang on but it’s getting worse by the minute.
Ohio St has a smoothie machine in their wrestling facilities while we hold our meets in what amounts to a high school gym.
Golf channel starts putting the NCAA tournaments on TV. I bet you will hardly ever see Kent which will make our recruiting tougher (not to mention Page is gone). Per Dave C. we let our world class golf training center go to hell. You can blame Nielsen for that but that has to be a lack of money.
Gymnastics always seemed to have at least one top notch all-around gymnast. Not lately. No more dominating the MAC along with CMU. Now anybody can win it. Take a look at their facilities. After that watch the SEC or Big10 meets and try not to cry.
We are still DI and that is worth something but let’s face the fact that we are the second or even third tier. To survive we need to do some desperate things. Even that might not work much longer.

Um, we just opened a brand new practice facility in basketball (volleyball may also use it - not sure) and the training facilities are top notch.

Good. I’ll stand corrected on that one.

foundational support is lacking. When Geiss and Hofbauer left we either promoted from within in or brought on some really poor candidates. Now, we have almost no donor support due to hatred of Joel and a fundraising team that leaves a lot to be desired. The new AD will make marketing and alumni gifts a priority.

Volleyball dos indeed use the new facility. In fact, they’re playing their games there this spring.

(02-18-2021 03:33 PM)KSUforever Wrote:  Now, we have almost no donor support due to hatred of Joel and a fundraising team that leaves a lot to be desired. The new AD will make marketing and alumni gifts a priority.

I can admit my dislike for Neilson and the way he operated led to me pulling way back on my donations. IMO, he chased the whales and forgot about all the smaller donors. Regardless of what you donate you should feel a piece of the puzzle and not taken for granted. If you normally kick in $500, get them to up it to $1000, if you normally give $1000 work on them to get to $2000 and onward. Again just my opinion.

As for the the fundraising team, I always felt bad for them. Good people, many KSU alumni proud of the program and being overworked, underpaid and totally under appreciated by their leadership. Most of the people that I dealt with in the past are long gone and so are my donation dollars.

Headline From College AD website (Don't have a subscription):

Heads Up If You're Throwing Your Name in the Hat at Kent State — According to Our Sources, You're Looking at an Uphill Fight In the MAC With a 'Sh*t' Salary"

(02-19-2021 09:04 AM)thanksjim Wrote:  Headline From College AD website (Don't have a subscription):

Heads Up If You're Throwing Your Name in the Hat at Kent State — According to Our Sources, You're Looking at an Uphill Fight In the MAC With a 'Sh*t' Salary"

So many of you were b*tching about how much we were paying Joel and now that they are going to fall in line with other MAC schools we are getting bad press. Kind of shows you guys, this job isn't easy. You may not have liked Joel and maybe he didn't make a lot of friends along the way, but he wasn't all that bad. The AD is supposed to make sure the department can operate on the budget and win games. We still do a pretty good job of winning games. And for what it's worth, if I was the AD, I would play 3 "buy" games as well.

Is Jim Christian now in the mix for AD? :)

Also, haven't heard Gary Waters name mentioned. I am a big Gary Waters fan. Great moral compass (opposite of Joel.)

(02-19-2021 01:31 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 09:04 AM)thanksjim Wrote:  Headline From College AD website (Don't have a subscription):

Heads Up If You're Throwing Your Name in the Hat at Kent State — According to Our Sources, You're Looking at an Uphill Fight In the MAC With a 'Sh*t' Salary"

So many of you were b*tching about how much we were paying Joel and now that they are going to fall in line with other MAC schools we are getting bad press. Kind of shows you guys, this job isn't easy. You may not have liked Joel and maybe he didn't make a lot of friends along the way, but he wasn't all that bad. The AD is supposed to make sure the department can operate on the budget and win games. We still do a pretty good job of winning games. And for what it's worth, if I was the AD, I would play 3 "buy" games as well.

So if you were the AD and had your "buy" games how much would you reinvest in the football program?
second Question -Think everyone could agree top tier programs are consistent year after year. ESPN pre season rankings 2021 Football
#3-Oklahoma, 2022
#4-Georgia,2022
#6-Texas A&M,2021
#12-Iowa,2021
#14-Washington,2021
5 out of6 money games the next 2 years are against top 15 programs. Do you think maybe money games could have been found against lesser opponents if you were AD?

None of our peers schedule 3 bodybag games with heir 4 OOC openings and they’re all in similar situations. Most get 1 with 1-2 lesser tier P5 games and the other 1-2 winnable games. These teams get to thump us regardless of how good we may be, the department gets a paycheck, the kids gets demoralized and/or banged up and limp into conference play with a losing record (probably 1-3) and hoping to win enough to be bowl eligible. Funny how basketball always scheduled to get to 20 wins every season and football schedules around the paychecks we get in return for being somebody else’s homecoming game. Good riddance Neilsen!

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on Nielsen because honestly I have no first hand knowledge of him. I think the thing I'm most curious about is, is this job actually unattractive to good candidates? Is it less attractive than most other MAC jobs? And if so why? It doesn't seem like it was viewed that way when Kennedy retired. So if the appeal of the job has deteriorated under Nielsen what are the reasons?

I'm sure the opinions on here will be either be it's 100% Nielsen's fault or it's 0%. And reality is probably somewhere in between.

To get the biggest bucks you have to play top teams at their place. My only question would be how are MAC schools that don't get as much money from their ooc football games manage financially?

(02-19-2021 08:58 PM)Muskrat Wrote:  To get the biggest bucks you have to play top teams at their place. My only question would be how are MAC schools that don't get as much money from their ooc football games manage financially?

This will be my last post on the subject because feeling like the dog chasing his tail. Points that seem common.
You need the money games
KSU plays more money games and against "elite" teams than anyone else. With out a doubt 2022 non conference schedule is tougher than even Power 5 teams.
With KSU having the worse football facilities in the MAC monies from the non conference games have gone some where and not invested in the football program.
Makes sense that in NE Ohio that even an average football program wouldn't generate interest from community, students and alumni .Its not like this area has a rich football tradition.

Proud Pilot, NE Ohio has a VERY rich football tradition. The Cleveland Browns are extremely popular, even though they have been pretty bad much more often than not for almost 50 years. High school football is and has always been very popular. The problem is that the vast majority of NE Ohio football fans have little interest in college football other than Ohio State in particular and Top 25/P5 football in general. But, I think that is true for all of Ohio and all Ohio MAC football programs, and probably all MAC schools. I can see both sides of the argument on play three top-tier "money games", yet I'm just curious how the MAC schools that don't do that get by financially. Do some have more donors? Do some draw much better for home games? I'm nor arguing or disagreeing with anyone, I'm just curious.