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Posted

Now imagine you are aggy and that money pays for Jimbo's retirement.

But seriously that's 80% of schools, college down to Pre K.  Very few athletic programs make money.

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Posted

Joke of a conference

 

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For the upcoming season, which the ACC is calling a "transition year," 12 of its 17 schools will play nine conference games, with Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State, North Carolina and Boston College playing just eight. Those five teams each have multiple Power Four opponents already scheduled outside the conference.

 

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/47324406/acc-shares-9-game-conference-schedule-transition-year

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Posted

Ross Dellenger: 'It's been a nightmare' — College Football Playoff coaches juggling multiple jobs amid wonky calendar

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On the campus of James Madison, two head football coaches are hard at work. Within the JMU football operations center, outgoing coach and new UCLA coach Bob Chesney and his coaching staff are grinding on preparations for the biggest game in the school’s history — the College Football Playoff bout on Saturday night at Oregon.

Less than a mile away, inside Hotel Madison, new JMU coach Billy Napier and his staff are knee-deep in preparations for the next version of the JMU football team — scouting players, assembling a staff and examining the transfer portal.

Every now and again, these two intersect. For instance, Napier attends most practices, watching Chesney coach Napier's future players from afar. The two, Chesney and Napier, have even met to share information — Napier helping with Chesney’s transition to the power conference level and west coast (Napier has experience in both), and Chesney helping Napier’s transition to JMU.

In the middle of it all is a chance at one of the biggest upsets in college football history. “The three of us — me, Bob and Billy — have an agreement that the most important thing is the 2025 team,” JMU athletic director Matt Roan said. “We are proving you can work together for the betterment of a team and program. Now, is it awkward? Yeah, there is an awkwardness to it, but we’ve handled it as good as we could have.”

After all, Roan added, “What’s the alternative?” As this year’s College Football Playoff revs up with four first-round games this week, one thing has impacted a majority of the 12-team field: the coaching carousel. Eight playoff-bound teams have experienced coaching staff turnover to some degree. Three programs have lost or will soon lose their head coach (JMU, Ole Miss and Tulane). Two teams, Texas A&M and Oregon, have each lost both their offensive and defensive coordinators — three of them (Collin Klein, Will Stein and Tosh Lupoi) to head coaching gigs.

Ohio State’s offensive coordinator, Brian Hartline, and Alabama’s receivers coach, JaMarcus Shephard, have accepted head coaching jobs at USF and Oregon State, respectively. And how could anyone forget about what happened in Oxford, Mississippi, where five offensive assistant coaches, including coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., followed Lane Kiffin to LSU, only to awkwardly return for the postseason run.

While all but Kiffin are remaining at their gigs through the end of their teams' playoff stretch, the juggling act is intense enough to beg a couple of questions: Will their team’s play be impacted by the situation? And is there a way to avoid the carousel’s infringement on the postseason?

“We’ve got to fix the calendar,” said Will Hall, the former Tulane assistant who will replace Jon Sumrall as head coach after the Green Wave’s playoff run ends. “We are the only sport in the world where free agency for players and coaches begins in the middle of the season.” An expanded playoff has further complicated an already-frenetic time — mid-November through mid-January — in the sport of college football.

In that span, teams are completing their regular seasons; preparing or playing in bowls and, now, playoff games; attempting to retain their current roster while signing a new class during the December early signing period; scouring the transfer portal (i.e. tampering) to prepare for its opening in January; hiring, firing and attempting to retain coaches; and, oh by the way, players are completing their final exams.

Whew. Shifting and shrinking the portal window from December to January hasn’t necessarily produced the desired effect. In fact, the coaching hiring cycle has accelerated faster than ever and players are already announcing their portal entrance weeks before January arrives.

How does all of this get fixed? Some believe it isn’t possible as long as college football is tethered to higher education. The university’s academic calendar makes it virtually impossible to structure college football in the same way as the NFL, where free agency and coaching transitions mostly unfold after the playoffs. Most spring semesters begin in the middle of the playoffs in early to mid-January. “I don’t think there is a way to avoid it,” Chesney said. “The NFL doesn’t have to worry about players enrolling in classes. If everybody started in February [class], you could do it then.”

However, a group of college athletic administrators is reigniting the topic. Members of the NCAA Football Oversight Committee are in the midst of exploring a holistic examination of the 365-day football calendar. Should Week Zero be opened to all teams (right now, teams need a waiver)? Can the entire regular season eventually be moved up? Is the portal in the right place? What becomes of spring practice or the proposed summer OTAs? And should the early signing period move back to February or forward to the summer?

Another unanswered question: Will the playoff expand beyond 12 teams? That answer — officials are mostly studying a 16-team format — may dictate the answer to a lot of those questions. So, what is the solution to all of this? How do you stop the madness of teams preparing for some of the biggest games in school history while juggling coaching staff hirings and firings and player re-signings?

“I don’t feel comfortable saying, ‘Here’s the answer!’” said Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts. Alberts says the “chief challenge” in college football is that it is devoid of “centralized decision-making” — a point made by many through the years who argue that a new entity, board and/or commissioner is needed for a sport whose governance is fractured among conferences with differing missions, ideals and geographic and cultural footprints.

“Everybody is doing what they should be,” Alberts said. “Every commissioner is fighting for the membership they lead. Many times, those are cross purposes. There isn’t centralized decision-making. Could you get to a point where that is the case? I think so. But I’m not naive to know that a lot of the pain we’re going through right now is ultimately necessary to get where you want to go.”

How long are we from such a setup? His coach, Mike Elko, has the answer: not close. “What’s going to have to happen is some group or board together needs to make decisions for the best interest of college football,” Elko said. “It just seems like we’re a long ways from that.”

In the meantime, Elko has an offensive coordinator, Klein, juggling head coaching duties and preparing for the Aggies’ playoff game against Miami. In Oregon, head coach Dan Lanning has two coordinators, Stein and Lupoi, operating as head coaches for Kentucky and Cal, respectively, while gearing up for the JMU Dukes.

In Oxford, Pete Golding is making his head coaching debut leading Ole Miss to its first-ever playoff game with a staff of five assistant coaches who have signed contracts with a rival school in the same conference. Golding has intentionally not changed Ole Miss’ practice schedule, meeting times, etc. in order to retain a level of consistency for the players.

However, he has brought in new offensive coaching hires who, like Napier at JMU, are mostly observing. “Anybody for the 2026 piece of this is [for] retention of your current roster, being here available for your current roster, to meet them,” Golding said. “A lot of players want to have an idea of who they are going to play for.” Meanwhile, down in New Orleans, Hall, the new Tulane head coach, is at least for one more week still occupying his offensive assistant role under Sumrall, the new Florida coach finishing out Tulane’s season.

“Coach Sumrall said it: ‘I got two phones, two jobs and two hours of sleep,’” Hall said with a laugh during an interview this week. “I’m kind of in the same role. But both of my jobs are in the same town!” At JMU, Chensey’s gig is a world away. As it turns out, that’s a positive. The three-hour time difference from Los Angeles to Virginia helps. By day, he works on JMU. By night, he works on UCLA.

It makes for some long days. He’s on the phone until midnight East Coast time dealing with the Bruins and he’s out of the house by 6 a.m. for team meetings at JMU. “I’m fortunate to have that three hours,” he said. “It allows you to balance even though it makes my day longer.”

In the meantime, about a mile away, Napier and his new support staff are reviewing film of current players, conducting coaching staff interviews and attempting, as best they can, to be respectful of the current team’s playoff run. Napier is unlikely to attend the Dukes’ game at Oregon, he said, as there’s just too much to do back in Harrisonburg. After all, the expectation is that most of Chesney’s coaching staff is heading to Los Angeles as well as a handful of players.

Thirty more players will exhaust their eligibility and a few others he’d expect to transfer. Napier is planning to have 60 new players next year. “It’s been a positive, but, look, it’s been a nightmare to do all these things at one time,” Napier said. “It’s beneficial for us to have a good showing in the playoff. If we win, then heck, let’s go to the next week!”

 

Posted

Ok you are getting paid $5M, you can hire help to assist you with all sorts of things and just be in command mode making decisions. You’ve got coaches on both the teams you are managing that you are watching over. How is that a nightmare?

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Posted
32 minutes ago, Zeus said:

Ok you are getting paid $5M, you can hire help to assist you with all sorts of things and just be in command mode making decisions. You’ve got coaches on both the teams you are managing that you are watching over. How is that a nightmare?

Honestly it would be better if Sark told a few assistants to do all the prep work for bowl game while he does portal, NIL and roster stuff

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Posted (edited)

 

1 hour ago, satyanash said:

Ross Dellenger: 'It's been a nightmare' — College Football Playoff coaches juggling multiple jobs amid wonky calendar

 

This is why more and more colleges are going to the General Manager model.

At Tech, Joey and his coaches can concentrate on game prep while James Blanchard and his team handle all the recruiting, transfer portal, NIL, etc. business.  In addition, Joey has Antonio Huffman and his team to handle all the administrative chores that aren't part of recruiting, transfer portal, NIL, etc.

Take a look at just the support staff, and look at their job titles:

https://texastech.com/sports/football/coaches

Edited by Uncle Nate
Posted
6 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

You have a general manager

We had a great GM in Billy Glasscock. Then Sark let him walk to Ole Miss, and replaced him with a less effective yes-man in Brandon Harris.

Posted
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 For instance, Napier attends most practices, watching Chesney coach Napier's future players from afar. The two, Chesney and Napier, have even met to share information — Napier helping with Chesney’s transition to the power conference level and west coast (Napier has experience in both), and Chesney helping Napier’s transition to JMU.

Chesney: So, Coach, here are some notes on the guys coming back. Personality information for how they respond to different motivational purposes. Information and strengths and weaknesses for play calling and game planning.

Napier: Great, thanks a lot. Let me tell you how to handle Power 4 football.

Chesney: You know, I think I'd like to just go in cold. Thanks though. 

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Posted
29 minutes ago, NashLonghorn said:

Okay for conference tie-breakers......what if one school is 7-1 and other is 8-1?  The 8-1 has a better percentage so they go even though the team that plays only 8 games has the same number of losses?

This was my first thought as well.

Posted (edited)

The new tiebreaker will probably be CFP ranking so that Miami would have played Virginia in the CCG this year instead of Duke. If all the conferences did that the SEC CG would have been UGA v. Ole Miss and Alabama might have been left out of the field (though I doubt it). The other two would have been the same. 

Edited by 'stache
Posted

On the ACC front, Wake told Army they would not be playing in 2026. The Black Knights will be paid not to face the Demon Deacons in Winston-Salem.  
 

That seems like an odd game to drop and WF already made the trip to the Hudson Valley. 

Posted
35 minutes ago, 'stache said:

The new tiebreaker will probably be CFP ranking so that Miami would have played Virginia in the CCG this year instead of Duke. If all the conferences did that the SEC CG would have been UGA v. Ole Miss and Alabama might have been left out of the field (though I doubt it). The other two would have been the same. 

Back in the original Big XII days, the BCS ranking was one of the tiebreakers if there was a 3-way tie in a division.  I believe that's how OU got to go to the CCG in 2008 when you had the 3-way tie between OU, UT, and Tech.  Someone feel free to check my work on that, but I'm pretty certain that was the tiebreaker.

Posted

Well they’re on the same side of the bracket this year and Georgia couldn’t get there last year. Otherwise good tweet!

4 hours ago, satyanash said:

 

Any change that guarantees ND anything is a failure.

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Posted

Media: "We should have more teams in the playoff that actually have a decent chance to win it."

Morons:
 

9 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

598709835_845235974957105_5571476610533126788_n.jpg

 

Posted
12 hours ago, satyanash said:

 

The chat a couple of weeks ago when the playoff seeds were revealed and ND was told you suck is they had a Memorandum of Understanding for their exclusive slot in the future playoffs starting in next season.   I am not a legal beagle, but my Dad was a legal beagle on the criminal law side and from my scant knowledge of MOU's in the business world is they are not legally binding. Is this correct @TwiceHorn?

 Considering the attitude of the Domers not wanting to join a conference  and their taking my toys and going home attitude they showed, why are the Conference Commissioners and the TV Nets not tearing up the MOU?

Posted

Justin Williams: Where do Cinderellas fit in College Football Playoff? James Madison aims to prove it belongs

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About the same time Nick Saban and other talking heads started grumbling about two teams from outside the power conferences reaching the College Football Playoff, Bob Chesney was in a room full of underdogs, blinking away tears of joy. James Madison University, 12-1 Sun Belt Conference champion just four years into playing at the Football Bowl Subdivision level, earned the 12th and final spot in this year’s 12-team Playoff. The Dukes, coached by Chesney, claimed one of the five slots reserved for the highest-ranked conference title winners, joining Tulane from the second-tier Group of 5 conferences — beating out a five-loss Duke team that won the ACC.

JMU’s Playoff berth is a Cinderella story in a sport ruled by evil stepmothers. It’s why, despite a root cause of improbability and ACC chaos, the decision set off another round of debating CFP access for the little guys. Why should the No. 24-ranked Dukes — with a 121st-ranked strength of schedule, zero wins over power conference teams and a 14-point loss to Louisville — make it in over an at-large candidate such as No. 11 Notre Dame? This year’s Fighting Irish are talented enough to vie for the national championship. JMU is a three-touchdown underdog in its first-round matchup Saturday at No. 5 Oregon. What’s with the act of charity?

“This has got to be devastating for Notre Dame’s team,” Saban said on ESPN’s CFP selection show. Seemingly forgotten in all of the power conference pearl clutching was that the SEC’s Tennessee and ACC’s SMU each got blown out in the first round of last year’s Playoff as at-large bids. For a sport that often clamors for parity, there tends to be a lot of resistance when Notre Dame or the SEC are forced to suffer. It’s quite the contrast to March Madness, where Cinderellas are immortalized. (At least by many.) All said, none of it dampened the mood at James Madison.

“I can understand Notre Dame or others being pretty disappointed,” Chesney said. “But the way the (Playoff) rules were put into place, and where we sit here today, it is what it is. I didn’t make them up.”

JMU understands its place in the pecking order. Chesney has already been announced as the next head coach at UCLA once the Dukes are done. (JMU has hired former Florida coach Billy Napier.) The program spent less than $2 million in name, image and likeness (NIL) and revenue share dollars on this year’s football roster; the Ducks spent somewhere north of $20 million, as did most of this year’s Playoff teams.

Shrinking that gap is a tough task, even for the top G5 programs, and that small sliver of baked-in Playoff access is one of the few remaining paths. For however long it lasts. Reserving an automatic qualifying spot for the highest-ranked G5 champion served as a lawsuit-dodging table scrap when originally devising the 12-team Playoff.

But a world where more than one G5 could sneak into the field? Considering the Big Ten and SEC control the future format, the next iteration might shrink those loopholes. In the meantime, there’s a good chance JMU’s trip to Autzen Stadium ends in a humbling defeat. Some consider that to be a waste of a Playoff bid. JMU sees it as a course-altering opportunity.

“I get that not a lot of people count us in here or give us any credit, and that’s fine. But we understand what we’re capable of,” Chesney said. “There are a lot of big things happening here.” Harrisonburg, Va., is home to JMU, for those who haven’t already Googled it. Plenty did on Selection Sunday. Athletic director Matt Roan said the university’s website servers were at capacity, on top of the millions of impressions across TV and social media.

Tucked in the Shenandoah Valley about two hours southwest of Washington, D.C., JMU won a pair of Football Championship Subdivision national titles in 2004 and 2016 before making the leap to the Sun Belt in 2022. The Dukes were coached by Curt Cignetti, who went 19-4 across two seasons at the FBS level before promptly turning Indiana into a championship contender, with a slew of JMU transfers in tow.

Chesney, 48, was hired away from Holy Cross ahead of the 2024 season, a winsome Pennsylvania native who made his own Cignetti-esque climb from the Division III coaching ranks. After going 9-4 last year and winning the Boca Raton Bowl, JMU dominated the Sun Belt this season, winning 11 straight behind a top-10 scoring offense and top-five total defense nationally. It made Chesney one of the most coveted up-and-comers on this year’s coaching carousel.

“Our guys did a phenomenal job of handling it,” Chesney said of the UCLA news, which broke days before the Sun Belt title game. “We stayed focused on exactly what was in front of us.” Resources played a big part in JMU going 40-10 at the FBS level, with an athletics operating budget of roughly $76 million in fiscal year 2024. That pales in comparison to the likes of Oregon ($167 million) or Ohio State ($292 million), but it is tops in the Sun Belt by a considerable margin.

And the majority of it — more than $55 million — comes via student fees, which makes JMU the most subsidized athletic department of any public university in the country. It’s become a nuanced point of pride for the Dukes, one they say reflects the school’s commitment. “We want to position JMU at the top of the league in terms of resources and investments,” Roan told The Athletic earlier this season.

College football has a history of “sleeping giants” that emerge with the right mix of timing, leadership, and resources: Clemson, Oregon and now Texas Tech. But starting from the FCS or G5 level — similar to Gonzaga’s rise from mid-major to perennial power in men’s college basketball — is a nearly impossible task in the current landscape. What Indiana has done on the field under Cignetti is remarkable, but the Hoosiers were still cashing Big Ten checks before he arrived.

Boise State is the best example, a former junior college that joined the FBS in 1996. The Broncos have won 17 conference titles and played in four major postseason bowls since then, including as the lone G5 team in last year’s inaugural 12-team Playoff. The program has established itself without a power conference parachute — even casual fans know about the blue turf — but the tipping point was the 2007 Fiesta Bowl upset over Oklahoma, one of the most memorable college football games of the 21st century.

“It led to who we are today,” said Jeramiah Dickey, who took over as Boise State’s athletic director in 2021. “We’ve built off that foundation, and our job is to continue taking it to the next level.” An economic study conducted last season reported a $350 million impact on the Boise community, much of it tied to the Playoff run, led by star running back and Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty. “Being included in that national conversation, it very much elevated us,” said Dickey.

None of it happened quickly, or easily, or upended the paradigm. Boise State lost to Penn State by 17 in last year’s Playoff, and the Broncos, set to join a revived Pac-12 Conference next season, are still stuck outside of those power conference velvet ropes. But the gap is considerably smaller thanks to opportunities earned and capitalized on.

JMU, already ahead of schedule, is trying to do the same. “Schools like JMU and Tulane deserve a seat at that table,” said Dickey. “Because upsets can happen. And the idea of eliminating those opportunities doesn’t align with the sports industry that I love.” Success isn’t cheap in college football. That’s always been the case, but now more than ever. “As you continue to grow this program, there are certain things that you need,” said Chesney. “A lot of it comes down to the financial elements.”

JMU’s Bridgeforth Stadium is a stark example. The Dukes have sold out season tickets for the partially renovated, 25,000-seat stadium for three years running, with goals of completing the expansion and adding a proper indoor facility. That’s a nine-figure, multi-year ambition. The football program wants to push its annual revenue sharing to roughly $5 million and be one of the top spenders in the Sun Belt.

Napier, who won a pair of Sun Belt titles at Louisiana before coaching the Gators, signed a five-year contract that will pay him roughly $1 million a year, a slight increase over Chesney, whom JMU offered a sizable raise to try to retain. He’s set to make $6.75 million a year in Westwood. All of it means JMU’s league-leading athletics budget will keep going up.

Making the Playoff helps. The Sun Belt collects $4 million for JMU’s appearance, though it’s split evenly among the league’s 14 members. JMU receives another $2 million that will go toward travel and logistical costs, but can keep what’s left over, along with ticket revenue on its 3,500 visiting allotment, which it expects to sell out. Ideally, that’s merely the thin tip of the wedge.

“The intangible piece is the exposure, the visibility,” said Roan, who took over as AD in April 2024. “I don’t know that we’ll understand and appreciate the significance for years to come.” The onus is on JMU to take advantage of this opportunity, one its fan base is properly reveling in.

It will be a challenge with a coaching change and revenue sharing and whatever form the Playoff takes next, though another expansion could benefit the Dukes by “adding” another G5 scrap they wouldn’t have to “steal” from the big dogs. Either way, the job Chesney inherited was better than the one Cignetti took on, and it’s better again for Napier, with the resources to continue that trajectory, for himself or the next guy.

Plus, Chesney can still deliver one last parting gift on Saturday against Oregon. “We know we have a responsibility to make sure we get this done right,” he said. “We’re not going out there to just be part of this game and take a place in the 12-team Playoff. We’re going out there to win this game.” Maybe. Probably not. But there’s only one way to find out.

Ralph D. Russo: Everyone caught up to Oregon’s business model. Can Ducks win it all in a world they pioneered?

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After decades of milestone wins on its climb to college football powerhouse status, Oregon found itself on the other side of a signature victory this season. As Indiana celebrated on the Ducks’ home field on Oct. 11, an Oregon staffer shook the hand of a Hoosiers assistant coach and congratulated him on a 30-20 win that helped validate IU as a national championship contender. “We’re hard to beat,” the Oregon staffer said.

No doubt. Since joining the Big Ten last year, the Ducks are 17-1 in conference play and 24-2 overall, with a league title in their debut season. Since 2010, Oregon is tied for fifth in the nation in victories with Oklahoma at 161. Only Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson and Georgia have more. “We’ve been building to a standard of what winning football looks like, regardless of conference,” head coach Dan Lanning said this week.

After the Ducks spent years breaking through barriers that previously required something akin to birthright status for entry, college football has met them where they are. Adaptability and innovation are cornerstones of the Oregon brand, so of course, no school was better prepared to succeed when NCAA amateurism crumbled and the ability to effectively pay players became a necessity for programs that aspire to win national championships.

Oregon football has never been better, but the Ducks are no longer college football’s gate-crashers. “There’s been some great stories in college football, but it’s even harder to stay there, and (the Ducks) have found a way to stay there,” said Craig Pintens, who was a high-ranking administrator at Oregon from 2011 through ’18 before becoming athletic director at Loyola Marymount.

In this year’s College Football Playoff, Indiana, Texas Tech and Ole Miss are the new-money climbers, no longer constrained by their histories. The Ducks? Heading into a first-round home game against 12th-seeded James Madison on Saturday, they are just another team trying to win a championship. Well, maybe not just another team.

You see, Oregon is not quite a member of the establishment class, either. It has a lot more in common with Ohio State, Georgia, Oklahoma, Alabama and Miami these days than with the Hoosiers, Red Raiders and Rebels — with one notable exception. That first group has combined for 13 national titles since 2000 and 34 in college football’s poll era, dating to 1936.

The Ducks are still seeking their first. “They’ve built the entire sundae at this point,” Pintens said. “It’s just a matter of putting that cherry on the top. And it is inevitable. It’s going to happen.” College football has never cultivated upward mobility. Past success is the best predictor of future success. Lineage and tradition are prized commodities.

The schools at the top of the food chain tend to stay there — or have an easier time getting back when they slip. Those toward the bottom generally get stuck. There are outliers. Nebraska looks as if it may never recreate the glory days of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. Clemson went from good to elite under Dabo Swinney, but that era of dominance is increasingly looking like a moment in time rather than a permanent change.

And then there’s Oregon, the most obvious exception that proves the rule. The Ducks didn’t have USC’s Heritage Hall, a shrine to a program that claims 11 national titles and eight Heisman winners. They didn’t have Touchdown Jesus, Notre Dame’s iconic monument to the program’s essential place in the history of college football. “We didn’t have the kinds of things that Ohio State and Texas and all these legacy programs had, but we did feel like we had a chance,” former Oregon athletic director Pat Kilkenny said.

The first baby step toward Oregon shedding its history came in Shreveport, La., of all places, with quarterback Bill Musgrave leading coach Rich Brooks’ Ducks to a victory in the program’s first postseason game in 26 years, the 1989 Independence Bowl against Tulsa. The mid-1990s featured trips to the Rose and Cotton bowls that signaled progress but also showed the Ducks still had a long way to go: Oregon lost those games to Penn State and Colorado by a combined score of 76-26.

Nike co-founder and Oregon alum Phil Knight’s involvement and investment in the program brought a grander vision in the early 2000s. Why not put up a billboard in Times Square to promote quarterback Joey Harrington as a Heisman Trophy contender in 2001? “I think our optimism was more about Holiday Bowl and Top 25,” said Kilkenny, an Oregon native. “But somebody like Phil Knight gets involved, that doesn’t work for him. He doesn’t want to do anything unless he can be the best.”

Oregon football had no distinguishing characteristics, so Knight helped create them. With Nike’s help, Oregon made uniforms a differentiator in recruiting, unveiling a fresh look almost weekly. “Being fashion-progressive isn’t exactly indicative of a strong football program, but (Knight) saw it as brand-building,” Kilkenny said. The Ducks were on the front end of the spread offense revolution under coach Mike Bellotti, then promoted Chip Kelly to head coach and changed the way the game was played by optimizing fast-paced football.

When the facilities arms race was escalating, Oregon built its so-called Death Star, a tinted-glass fortress with a barber shop, sleep pods and tech-integrated lockers. The $68 million Hatfield-Dowlin Complex, funded largely by Knight, opened in 2013. The Ducks reached the national championship game in 2010 and 2014, losing each time.

They haven’t been back since, which suggests the ascent has stalled. That’s not the case. Through a whirlwind of coaching changes from Kelly’s successor, Mark Helfrich, to Willie Taggart to Mario Cristobal to Lanning in the span of only seven years, Oregon was still progressing. “I think they’ve built a tremendous culture, and that culture has turned over through multiple coaches,” said Pintens, who credits his former boss, athletic director Rob Mullens, with overseeing the continued growth at Oregon.

Even with Knight’s backing, Oregon is not among the top revenue-generating programs in college football. “Oregon is not as resourced as some of the other top powers in college football,” Pintens said. “They lack a population base. They don’t play in a huge stadium.” Autzen Stadium’s gameday experience is one of the best in the country, but the place seats about 56,000, about half the capacity of the largest stadiums in the Big Ten and SEC.

When Oregon spends, it spends on what matters most. “If you want to be a top-10 team in college football, you better be invested in winning,” Oregon’s Dan Lanning said earlier this season in response to then-Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy’s comments about how much the Ducks’ roster costs. “We spend to win.”

In 2020, the NCAA lifted its ban on paying college athletes for their name, image and likeness. Quickly, those deals became a proxy for paying players, and Oregon was again an early adopter. Founded by Knight and other prominent donors, Division Street quickly became one of college football’s most well-run NIL collectives, groups that pool funds from boosters to license players’ rights.

Taggart and then Cristobal had already changed the nature of Oregon recruiting, turning the school into a destination for blue-chippers, despite the school’s limited number of those prospects within its geographic footprint. Lanning was hired away from Georgia to keep that going in 2021. His ability to embrace a more transactional form of recruiting while still establishing a winning culture has allowed Oregon to narrow the gap between itself and the likes of Ohio State and Georgia.

NIL has been “an equalizing force,” Pintens said. “You could have better facilities, you could have better coaching, better everything, but at the end of the day, if you don’t have any dollars to support that, it’s going to be really difficult to put together a team,” he said. The transformation that took Oregon decades is happening much faster elsewhere, as paying players spreads talent around and gives the traditional have-nots a chance to become haves.

“The historical programs that weren’t able to compete, it did give them a chance to put a little jet propulsion into their football program, if that’s where they chose to invest,” Kilkenny said. Fourth-seeded Big 12 champion Texas Tech, with a roster backed by billionaire booster Cody Campbell that reportedly cost more than $28 million, this season won its first outright conference title since 1955.

In the SEC, sixth-ranked Ole Miss has effectively mobilized its resources with the Grove Collective and ripped off three straight double-digit victory campaigns while LSU and Florida (with a combined six national titles) fired their head coaches this season.

In the Big Ten, Indiana, which started the year having lost more games than any other major college football program, has turned unprecedented investment into an unfathomable turnaround under coach Curt Cignetti. The Hoosiers kept rolling after the win in Eugene, knocked off Ohio State in the conference title game, and enter the Playoff as the No. 1 team in the country, boasting the program’s first Heisman Trophy winner in quarterback Fernando Mendoza. The Ducks are no longer the disruptors.

“The willingness and the belief in taking what had been done and saying, OK, we can be No. 1,” Kilkenny said. “We can win it all, and we can be a national brand, that has all happened.” Oregon’s challenge now is not just to check the last box on the resume and join the blue bloods once and for all but to keep the new wave of gate-crashers from jumping ahead of them in line on the way to the top of the mountain.

 

Posted
34 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

The chat a couple of weeks ago when the playoff seeds were revealed and ND was told you suck is they had a Memorandum of Understanding for their exclusive slot in the future playoffs starting in next season.   I am not a legal beagle, but my Dad was a legal beagle on the criminal law side and from my scant knowledge of MOU's in the business world is they are not legally binding. Is this correct @TwiceHorn?

 Considering the attitude of the Domers not wanting to join a conference  and their taking my toys and going home attitude they showed, why are the Conference Commissioners and the TV Nets not tearing up the MOU?

Tricky question.

If they have the essential terms of an agreement and indicate an intention to be bound now, then it's a contract, with the details to be filled in later with a comprehensive written agreement.

If essential terms are missing and/or it indicates an intention not to be bound pending a subsequent comprehensive agreement, then it's not a contract.

81PnDaoqlRL._SL1500_.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=

Posted
23 minutes ago, satyanash said:

Justin Williams: Where do Cinderellas fit in College Football Playoff? James Madison aims to prove it belongs

Ralph D. Russo: Everyone caught up to Oregon’s business model. Can Ducks win it all in a world they pioneered?

 

Fuck these wannabes.  This isn't fucking basketball. 

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