The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

Quasi Friday Feedback

May 11, 2012 by Mike Casazza

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which waves an argyle handkerchief goodbye this morning. Jack Bogaczyk no longer works for the Charleston Daily Mail and our loss is Marshall University’s gain. I’m sad he’s out, but I’m happy to see where he’s going. I knew it was coming, too. Not specifically this, but something with a keyboard. Writers write and I could tell at the Orange Bowl, and then from the stories he told me about the NCAA Tournament, that he wanted to do what he’d done so well for so long.

I won’t get too lengthy or too mushy here and I’ve already shared with him what I needed to share with him, but I feel like there’s one unresolved piece of business, if for no one else, than for me.

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Wake me up when September comes

May 10, 2012 by Mike Casazza

According to the outfit consulting West Virginia with its outsourcing process, the university could pick its partner by September and then have an entire year to implement plan to properly present the  new product. It also sounds like people are hedging on hedging now and more and more it appears this is a matter of when business around these parts will change as opposed to if it will change.

“We initially provided the university, and specifically Oliver, a third-party evaluation of all of their rights — the marketing rights and the media rights — to give him a sense of how they’re operating today,” Johnston said.

“Oliver wanted an external evaluation not only to see how business is conducted today, but to determine if there could be another way of working with other firms or not. Now the university has decided to explore outside firms and outsourcing parts or all of their rights.”

Hey! Who had May 10?

by Mike Casazza

I wrote this not quite two weeks ago and, boy, were people mad at me. Not that I’d said anything bad or wrong, but because I, a guy who wrote a somewhat gloomy and pessimistic book, had written a column that was going to be a Pied Piper of bad news. Something, I was assured by many, was now bound to to happen.

Well, look what we have today: “I have been made aware of the situation and am gathering facts at this time. I will take appropriate action when all the facts are in.”

Noooo!

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More on the third-tier

May 9, 2012 by Mike Casazza

Here’s today’s story on yesterday’s news and, in truth, it doesn’t really tell much more than what we already knew or have since learned here. Basically, WVU is going to send out a specific, and yet undetermined, RFP for its multimedia rights that don’t belong to the Big 12 come July 1.

What’s noteworthy, perhaps, is that WVU, Michigan State and Illinois are the only BCS conference schools that handle its multimedia business in house. Illinois is on the way out, either to IMG College or Learfield, and the industry buzz is Michigan State, which already received a little outside help, may soon follow.

So the question then becomes one in which you ask if that very small group is doing it wrong or are all the others doing it wrong?

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May dose of Mountaineers methadone

by Mike Casazza

Seeing as if I watched this and then juked the dog to the ground in the kitchen, I think Dougity Dog has to do a video of the book tour. Just stills of me signing books, posing for pictures and chatting. Imagine the clicks, D!

Circle this date …

May 8, 2012 by Mike Casazza

Remember last year when we first heard about the proposed idea to sell beer at WVU sporting events? This is like that, and potentially bigger: Oliver Luck told me earlier this afternoon that WVU will send out a RFP for its Tier 3 rights before the end of the month.

The immediate and obvious implication is the whole MSNSportsNet model and the affiliation with Metro News/West Virginia Radio could change. This does not mean it will change. In fact, both can exist in a new model — and that assumes there is one, though I assume there will be one.

Let me scramble for a bit to get a story together, but your Tier 3 rights include all of the athletic deparment’s broadcasting and marketing inventory that don’t go to the conference as part of Tier 1 and Tier 2 rights.

Tier 3 would include television rights select football (ie, Norfolk State) and men’s basketball games (ie, Tennessee Tech) and just about all of the other sports, as well as the radio rights for football and men’s basketball games and all sorts of signage sold at event sites.

Consider the RFP mining for a huge source of revenue.

Many of you here are well-versed on the topic and can pinch hit for the time being. Dare I say this is a day many have been waiting for in recent years?

Solid time with The Solid Verbal podcast

by Mike Casazza

I’m of the opinion you should listen regularly to The Solid Verbal podcast, if not for the content and the entertainment, than because of the background story.

The hosts are self-made, guys who were knocking out unique niches online and macheteing their own path. One of them even won a contest. Still, they decided they wanted to do something special, hence the podcast.

They’ve met but twice and they operate separately from Allentown, Pa., and New York City. It hasn’t stopped them from producing a nationally significant product.

I was pretty excited to be invited on for last night’s episode. They’ve read Waiting for the Fall and, as college football connoisseurs, wanted to go over the past and look toward the future. So we did, for half an hour or so.

Obviously, you should listen to the whole thing. At the 10:20 mark, they pretty much encapsulate why I wrote the book — “Fascinating tale of the last decade of West Virginia football!” — by framing the past decade and hanging it next to any other program out there.

I hop on at the 20 minute mark. After I sign off, there is a wonderful juxtaposition of Mike Garrison and the pictured Trooper Taylor.

Enjoy. And heckle these gentlemen so they come to their first WVU game in the fall.

WVU ready to roll out multi-year offers

May 7, 2012 by Mike Casazza

The NCAA is pushing hard to reform some legislation and redefine the concept of the athletic scholarship — which really hasn’t been redefined in decades — and WVU is ready to march in step.

First was, and still is, a rule granting student-athletes on scholarship an additional $2,000 stipend. Passed in October, that idea was suspended in December when the NCAA realized a vote to override it would pass. Nevertheless, the Mountaineers are preparing to grant the stipend, not necessarily because they see it as as inevitability, but because they see it as a necessity.

“It clearly will have a financial impact, but to be honest, it’s in the best interest of the student-athlete, in particular as we find a lot of kids are coming here from farther and farther away now,” he said.

“Look at our football roster and our basketball roster. A lot has changed in 30 years since I was a student-athlete here.

“Maybe one or two people had to fly to Pittsburgh to join the football team for practice. Everyone had a pretty easy drive. That’s changed.

“We’ve got a lot of kids from Florida and we’re getting more and more from Texas. Flying around like they have to is not inexpensive and I think we can help with that.”

But that’s just one part of the package. In October the NCAA also passed a rule to allow schools to grant multi-year scholarships. There were prompt criticisms and objections, but the vote to override fell just two votes short in February. It’s here now and schools are using it, including virtually all of the Big Ten for the most recent football recruiting class.

The WVU coaches have been told they can offer a four-year scholarship in any sport, this despite being one of the schools to vote to support overriding the four-year rule.

Luck said the Mountaineers will go with the plan now and that schools risk a competitive disadvantage if they do not.

“The TCU AD (Chris Del Conte) was telling a story about two Olympic sport athletes from separate sports and both had four-year scholarship offers from SEC schools,” Luck said. “The fact of the matter is other schools out there are doing it now.

“We’ve said it’s permissible and we can do it if we want. We’ll see what the NCAA continues to do legislation-wise because we want to make sure we have the weapon in our arsenal.”

It’s a pretty compelling topic involving big schools and small schools, little engines that could and monstrous machines that do, expansive budgets and tight ones, so on and so forth. And yet there’s a somewhat uncovered aspect at the prospect’s level, where they have to field and filter all the variables.

For insight, we yield the floor to Chris Anderson, who tirelessly covers WVU recruiting for Eersports.com and the 247sports.com Network. Seriously, the man’s on vacation this week and he submitted this dispatch …

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I just … I give up

by Mike Casazza

Got back from the gym this morning and saw a text: “Stew for Big East commish.”

My first reaction was something along the lines of, “My word, they brought Bill on board? That’s his soft landing?” You know, because that seemed less preposterous than what actually happened.

Per Mr. McMurphy, the Big East presidents asked John Marinatto to resign. And Marinatto did, meaning the first time he did something right and on time was indeed his last official action.

In his words:

Our recent expansion efforts have stabilized the Conference for the long term, and we are likewise well positioned for our very important upcoming television negotiations. As a result, I felt this was the right time to step aside and to let someone else lead us through the next chapter of our evolution. I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish and would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank both our membership and my staff for their unwavering encouragement, support and loyalty — especially during this past year. I am extremely confident about the future of this league that I love very much.

In Colin Dunlap’s words:

Marinatto should be charged w/ leaving scene of an accident. Akin to what he did. Involved in catasrophe, just drove home and went to bed.

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Friday Feedback

May 4, 2012 by Mike Casazza

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which wonders how we got here. People are holding a clock, or a calendar, against the … athletic director? I get the need to wring hands about how long a football or basketball coach will stay. I even get the need to act similarly about the A.D., but I thought I was weird and once again interested in things that may only interest me.

Not so. And so I ask, “When, or how, did this happen? Here?”

How is it that as soon as Stanford athletic director Bob Bowlsby agrees to become the new commissioner of the Big 12 Conference that his WVU counterpart Oliver Luck, whose name was connected to the Big 12’s top spot, is thought to be a candidate to replace Bowlsby? No, seriously, not just in crazy corners for conversations like ours, but even on the left side of the country where one finds and covers the Cardinal.

Really, would you have considered this 15 or 10 or even five years ago? It’s one thing for Don Nehlen to be coveted by South Carolina and Rich Rodriguez by Alabama, for John Beilein to eyeball Indiana and North Carolina State and for Michigan to want Beilein. It’s wholly understandable to wonder and worry about those men, even annually.

But is it not odd that you fret, or you expect others to fret, about an athletic director staying on the job?

I say yes, and not just because who sat in the chair previously. But this is the nature of the job now and I suppose everyone better get used to A.D. hirings as a niche. The job has become a news-maker and a headline-writer. They hire and fire coaches, they leave and join conferences, they speak on issues and on national platforms, so on and so forth. They need to have juice and move the needle and basically be to the athletic department what the president or chancellor is to the university. They’re separate entities and college sports are now enterprises,  money-making ventures that fund other parts of the athletic department and do wonders to benefit the school.

It’s a CEO, CFO and/or COO position now and you need someone who is as much an executive as an ex-jock or ex-coach.

Luck’s been here for not quite two years, but, man, he’s handled a bunch already and in a public, transparent and mostly impressive manner. For that alone — for the conference maneuvering and the personnel decisions and the ways to find revenue for a self-sustaining athletic department — you’re bound to hear his name. A.D. has become a publicized position now and the way the media works almost insists we speculate about who goes where next. Who knows, this could become a regular thing.

And let’s be honest with one another: Luck’s name is going to get some traction with Stanford. His son was a decent football player there. One daughter plays volleyball in Palo Alto and another will be a freshman there in the fall. That place, obviously, means something to the Lucks. And he’s at least recognizable over there while possessing a pedigree that fits with the Stanford pedigree — education and legal background, corporate experience, etc. Luck also knows the Pac-12 commissioner, Larry Scott, and they can match notes on running professional sports leagues/teams.

This is not to say it’s going to happen. Stanford is Stanford. It’s (arguably?) the best athletic department in the land. You put together the top five A.D. jobs in America and Stanford ought to be on that list. Certainly Luck would be anywhere from flattered to excited — you say “He’s an alum!” and I say “It’s Stanford.” — but just as certain, Stanford could quite simply have a pick of candidates. And, again, Luck has been doing this for 23 months.

No one knows where this is headed. Not yet, at least. I cringe when I see Luck’s “non-denial denial” critiqued because it’s just so soon. I talked to Luck yesterday and he wasn’t even sure Bowlsby was the guy for the Big 12 — and do with that what you will: Luck is so plugged in at Stanford, so friendly with the Cardinal higher-ups, that he didn’t know the A.D. there was set to run his school’s new conference.

Still, I wonder if he even had time, somewhere between Phoenix and Wheeling and Parkersburg, to put 2 and 2 together and then craft the appropriate response to premature inquiries. Sometimes “No comment” is boring, but it’s meant to say just that.

And the follow up? When I told him that some people might interpret his remark to mean that he’s interested or at least not dismissing the idea out of hand, he said, “Yes, I know, but that’s all I want to say.” Provocative, perhaps, but pretty simple, I say. I really don’t think you’re going to pull Luck off his track. Some people say what they think. Luck thinks what he says. Let’s give it time before we fire up the polygraph.

My hunch is he’s just rolled up his sleeves here. Say what you will about what he’s already accomplished, but getting WVU into the Big 12, getting the football program back on the right track, doing the things he’s done thus far put together just a part of the puzzle. His athletic department is in a tricky financial situation right now with all the money due to different parties, and there’s so much more work to be done to ensure success in the Big 12 and in football and to see through things he’s started or is set to start. I have questions about whether he wants to leave that all unsettled. It’d would put the Mountaineers in a really difficult spot and craft a very different legacy.

I leave you with this: As far back as February, Luck was pressed on his interest in the Big 12 job and he replied, almost uniformly, “I’m very happy with what I’m doing. We have lots to do here yet.”

Now I just wonder when WVU, or any school, starts to put buyouts in the A.D. contract.

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, fool me once, shame you. Fool me twice …

NostroMackus:

I envision a difficult 2012 for the football Mountaineers. They will lose to Marshall and never get another chance for redemption. The bus will break down on the way back from Washington, D.C. The offensive staff will be blinded by Maryland’s uniforms and unable to effectively function. They will be the first team to lose 11 games in a single Big 12 season. And they will once again fail to beat Syracuse.

Continuity!

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