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Did shutdown shenanigans affect alumni $$?
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blazr Away
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Post: #1
Did shutdown shenanigans affect alumni $$?
Was thinking in March (or April?...I’ve lost a lot of memory function) while waiting for my priority turn to pick my seats: one of the recurring themes on this board was that we hadn’t had time for graduates who may have adopted UAB football to grow into significant donors.

I wonder if the time between the “The Night of the Pumpkinhead” and The Return has reset the clock, so to speak, on many of those 2014-2017 alums. They had no experience, no chance, to become UAB football fans. And whether the gap pushed away the ones who were growing to give. I’ll admit, and most of you know, I was pissed and saw no way we could determine our destiny, so not only did I store away my UAB stuff but stopped my (mediocre) giving. I obviously came back around, humbled and amazed, and resumed donations based on life circumstances. But I don’t think there is any way to know the true impact of the missing years.


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06-02-2021 04:38 AM
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UAB Schnauzer Offline
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Post: #2
RE: Did shutdown shenanigans affect alumni $$?
the sustained suck of the last years of Watson followed by the Callaway and McGee years did far more damage. The fight to bring back football was the most unifying event in UAB history.
06-02-2021 05:43 AM
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blazr Away
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RE: Did shutdown shenanigans affect alumni $$?
(06-02-2021 05:43 AM)UAB Schnauzer Wrote:  the sustained suck of the last years of Watson followed by the Callaway and McGee years did far more damage. The fight to bring back football was the most unifying event in UAB history.

I agree. And I have no doubt we’re sending some grads out that are going to be supporters in 5 yrs or so.
06-02-2021 06:58 AM
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BAMANBLAZERFAN Offline
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Post: #4
RE: Did shutdown shenanigans affect alumni $$?
(06-02-2021 06:58 AM)blazr Wrote:  
(06-02-2021 05:43 AM)UAB Schnauzer Wrote:  the sustained suck of the last years of Watson followed by the Callaway and McGee years did far more damage. The fight to bring back football was the most unifying event in UAB history.

I agree. And I have no doubt we’re sending some grads out that are going to be supporters in 5 yrs or so.

A veteran teacher can recognize the last couple of years of Watson Brown's tenure as classic "Burnout". More is demanded from a program with no football facilities than it can provide. Teachers in the poorest 100 Alabama school districts are constantly pushed to do what the suburban enclave dustricts do - and they can't. That is why the suburban districts usually have hundreds of applications for every opening while the poorer districts have to beg to get one. After Hackney and White left, Brown ( I believe) gave up for his last 2 years.

Callaway ran into that problem plus two mre. He had no experience with lack of facilities (what at Bama or UGA would have prepared him for that?), then he ran off a lot of players expecting to readily fill those spots, but the new APR rules bit him in his butt. There he was, opening his first season against Mich State with only 60 scholarship players (and that was after giving some walk-ons scholarships). It was years before he had a full 85 in school.

McGee, like Rob Ehsan, was in "over his head", but ha met with fan applause when he stated that "UAB could win with the facilities it had and the players it had". As it turned out, neither was correct. In the same situation, the best FBHC Clark could do was 6-6 in his first year. Only with two shut down seasons, new facilities and much new funding has Clark even able to improve the Blazer's records. They were just 30 years late in arriving.
06-02-2021 04:29 PM
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blazers9911 Offline
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RE: Did shutdown shenanigans affect alumni $$?
Clark had the program going in the right direction without facilities. The facilities don’t hurt, but the year after 6-6 was going to be great.
06-03-2021 10:31 AM
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DuelingDragon Online
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Post: #6
RE: Did shutdown shenanigans affect alumni $$?
Watson Brown was not "burned out." He was, however, stretched too thin being the AD and head coach managing through the trustees after Bryant came onto the board and Black Friday was launched. He isn't given nearly enough credit for keeping the program alive then as it was a real threat to be shut down at that time.

But there is a very clear impact on recruiting that began to manifiest itself after the departures of Hackney, White, Woodfin, Black, etc. Black Friday absolutely killed the recruiting momentum. What should have been a big step foward instead became harder to recruit than ever.

To compensate, more risks were taken with prospects that had an impact on team discipline and culture. Watson had always taken some of those risks, most working out fine, but when he lost Pat Donahoe he lost a big piece of the glue holding the players together. You can clearly see this lack of discipline showing up on the field itself in 2004, 2005 and 2006 with a string of close losses compounding each other and teams that were talented enough to make bowl games ending up with losing records. Those teams literally could fall apart on one bad play or one bad game when the fingerpointing started. I don't think some of that would have happened if Watson were not doing two jobs.

Politics aside, strictly on the field, Callaway inherited a mess of a locker room and made it worse by cleaning house even if it was necessary for the team culture. New APR rules resulted in what was essentially a severe probation. As a result, UAB couldn't recruit a lot of local kids who otherwise were eligible and ended up going to conference rivals and lighting up UAB on the regular.

All that's history and it's a new day. New winning culture, new winning tradition, new facilities, new fan base, new institutional dynamics and a new narrative.

The journey shouldn't be forgotten but none of it is relevant today.
06-03-2021 10:51 AM
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UAB Schnauzer Offline
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Post: #7
RE: Did shutdown shenanigans affect alumni $$?
(06-02-2021 04:29 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  
(06-02-2021 06:58 AM)blazr Wrote:  
(06-02-2021 05:43 AM)UAB Schnauzer Wrote:  the sustained suck of the last years of Watson followed by the Callaway and McGee years did far more damage. The fight to bring back football was the most unifying event in UAB history.

I agree. And I have no doubt we’re sending some grads out that are going to be supporters in 5 yrs or so.

A veteran teacher can recognize the last couple of years of Watson Brown's tenure as classic "Burnout". More is demanded from a program with no football facilities than it can provide. Teachers in the poorest 100 Alabama school districts are constantly pushed to do what the suburban enclave dustricts do - and they can't. That is why the suburban districts usually have hundreds of applications for every opening while the poorer districts have to beg to get one. After Hackney and White left, Brown ( I believe) gave up for his last 2 years.

Callaway ran into that problem plus two mre. He had no experience with lack of facilities (what at Bama or UGA would have prepared him for that?), then he ran off a lot of players expecting to readily fill those spots, but the new APR rules bit him in his butt. There he was, opening his first season against Mich State with only 60 scholarship players (and that was after giving some walk-ons scholarships). It was years before he had a full 85 in school.

McGee, like Rob Ehsan, was in "over his head", but ha met with fan applause when he stated that "UAB could win with the facilities it had and the players it had". As it turned out, neither was correct. In the same situation, the best FBHC Clark could do was 6-6 in his first year. Only with two shut down seasons, new facilities and much new funding has Clark even able to improve the Blazer's records. They were just 30 years late in arriving.

Clark took over a program in late January that over the previous five years won 5,4,3,3,& 2 games. He won 6 games with limited recruiting time. The last time UAB won more than five games before Clark was 2004. Winning 6 games in 2014 was an impressive accomplishment. He was hired on January 22nd. National signing day was on February 5. That’s two weeks to put together a recruiting class and then we have a freak snowstorm that shutdown the city for days. Six wins in 2014 was actually pretty amazing when you look at the surrounding circumstances.
(This post was last modified: 06-03-2021 10:57 AM by UAB Schnauzer.)
06-03-2021 10:56 AM
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bftb Offline
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Post: #8
RE: Did shutdown shenanigans affect alumni $$?
(06-03-2021 10:51 AM)DuelingDragon Wrote:  Watson Brown was not "burned out." He was, however, stretched too thin being the AD and head coach managing through the trustees after Bryant came onto the board and Black Friday was launched. He isn't given nearly enough credit for keeping the program alive then as it was a real threat to be shut down at that time.

But there is a very clear impact on recruiting that began to manifiest itself after the departures of Hackney, White, Woodfin, Black, etc. Black Friday absolutely killed the recruiting momentum. What should have been a big step foward instead became harder to recruit than ever.

To compensate, more risks were taken with prospects that had an impact on team discipline and culture. Watson had always taken some of those risks, most working out fine, but when he lost Pat Donahoe he lost a big piece of the glue holding the players together. You can clearly see this lack of discipline showing up on the field itself in 2004, 2005 and 2006 with a string of close losses compounding each other and teams that were talented enough to make bowl games ending up with losing records. Those teams literally could fall apart on one bad play or one bad game when the fingerpointing started. I don't think some of that would have happened if Watson were not doing two jobs.

Politics aside, strictly on the field, Callaway inherited a mess of a locker room and made it worse by cleaning house even if it was necessary for the team culture. New APR rules resulted in what was essentially a severe probation. As a result, UAB couldn't recruit a lot of local kids who otherwise were eligible and ended up going to conference rivals and lighting up UAB on the regular.

All that's history and it's a new day. New winning culture, new winning tradition, new facilities, new fan base, new institutional dynamics and a new narrative.

The journey shouldn't be forgotten but none of it is relevant today.

I would say this is on target on just about every side. Very good analysis of where we were, and the factors that led us to getting there.
06-03-2021 11:25 AM
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UAB Schnauzer Offline
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Post: #9
RE: Did shutdown shenanigans affect alumni $$?
(06-03-2021 10:51 AM)DuelingDragon Wrote:  Watson Brown was not "burned out." He was, however, stretched too thin being the AD and head coach managing through the trustees after Bryant came onto the board and Black Friday was launched. He isn't given nearly enough credit for keeping the program alive then as it was a real threat to be shut down at that time.

But there is a very clear impact on recruiting that began to manifiest itself after the departures of Hackney, White, Woodfin, Black, etc. Black Friday absolutely killed the recruiting momentum. What should have been a big step foward instead became harder to recruit than ever.

To compensate, more risks were taken with prospects that had an impact on team discipline and culture. Watson had always taken some of those risks, most working out fine, but when he lost Pat Donahoe he lost a big piece of the glue holding the players together. You can clearly see this lack of discipline showing up on the field itself in 2004, 2005 and 2006 with a string of close losses compounding each other and teams that were talented enough to make bowl games ending up with losing records. Those teams literally could fall apart on one bad play or one bad game when the fingerpointing started. I don't think some of that would have happened if Watson were not doing two jobs.

Politics aside, strictly on the field, Callaway inherited a mess of a locker room and made it worse by cleaning house even if it was necessary for the team culture. New APR rules resulted in what was essentially a severe probation. As a result, UAB couldn't recruit a lot of local kids who otherwise were eligible and ended up going to conference rivals and lighting up UAB on the regular.

All that's history and it's a new day. New winning culture, new winning tradition, new facilities, new fan base, new institutional dynamics and a new narrative.

The journey shouldn't be forgotten but none of it is relevant today.

Watson Brown has the most losses of any coach in college football. He has been a head coach at six colleges and has a winning record at one. He has a grand total of 7 winning seasons in 31 years as head coach and two of those were his first two seasons. His main skill as a coach was finding jobs where incompetence was rewarded or at least ignored. It half of what I heard about the Pat Sullivan situation is true... I have no respect for Watson Brown
06-03-2021 12:15 PM
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