2020-21 CFB Coaching Carousel

[Twirling Time]

It's probably not a bowl of greenies like baseball in the 70s, but I'm sure they probably offer a multitude of dietary supplements as well as AYCE in the athletic cafeteria. heck, my campus cafeteria was AYCE (and cheap, after I moved off-campus).

 

[LanceyHoward]

One of the new(er) wrinkles in the college athletics arms race (also known as "how to spend the millions and millions in booster contributions so you can gripe and moan about having no money during a pandemic").

We were subject to this once during my college days. We were back during a rehearsal before leaving for the bowl events and game and ended up at a cafeteria set up for athletes by athletics. It was a different world then. No doubt, it's even more of a different culinary world now.

Another reason for the absorb costs of college athletics is that the athletic departments get donors to build new buildings. But then the buildings need to be staffed and those costs have to be absorbed by the operating budget.

One reason I get emotional about this is my Dad lost his job twice, once before my sophomore year and once before my senior year. My mother worked as an elementary school secretary and I was the oldest of four children. I went in to financial aid both times and got full financial assistance without taking on much debt (I think I graduated with 4k in debt in 1979). It is how I got through the University of Colorado Boulder.

When one of my sons got admitted to Boulder I compared the cost in real terms for in state tuition and it had quadrupled in 32 years. And I don't think the same financial aid opportunities exist. This country is losing the Jeffersonian ideal of equal opportunity in education. But schools participate in this arms race.

 

[Sam Mills 51]

Another reason for the absorb costs of college athletics is that the athletic departments get donors to build new buildings. But then the buildings need to be staffed and those costs have to be absorbed by the operating budget.

One reason I get emotional about this is my Dad lost his job twice, once before my sophomore year and once before my senior year. My mother worked as an elementary school secretary and I was the oldest of four children. I went in to financial aid both times and got full financial assistance without taking on much debt (I think I graduated with 4k in debt in 1979). It is how I got through the University of Colorado Boulder.

When one of my sons got admitted to Boulder I compared the cost in real terms for in state tuition had quadrupled in 32 years. And I don't think the same financial aid opportunities exist. This country is losing the Jeffersonian ideal of equal opportunity in education. But schools participate in this arms race.

Yup. It's stupid.

I believe the cost to attend where I did is at least double what it was during my school days.

And the number of people trying to pay off absurd amounts of financial aid is crazy. Worked with three much younger colleagues, and what they owe is baffling ... and it's not because they're careless and entitled. IMO, this has really spun out of control.

 

[Alma]

When one of my sons got admitted to Boulder I compared the cost in real terms for in state tuition and it had quadrupled in 32 years. And I don't think the same financial aid opportunities exist. This country is losing the Jeffersonian ideal of equal opportunity in education. But schools participate in this arms race.

They do, and, on top of that, guaranteed loans make it easy for schools to do whatever they please with tuitions.

The real arms race isn't with buildings, though. It's with administrative bloat. Universities are stuffed to the brim with provosts and directors and whatnot. Typically this bloat is footed by taxpayers.

 

[Neutral Corner]

When I was in college the football players ate better food than the regular students but the cooks and servers, etc. were work-study students. Are these facilities staffed by professional chefs? I am just wondering about the cost.

And I bet the additional operating costs are not absorbed by the athletic departments but run through the dormitory accounts and the other kids in the dorm subsidize this.

NCAA made some changes re feeding athletes a few years back. UAB isn't Alabama, there won't be chefs but good cooks with nutritionists overseeing. They already have this to some degree, smoothies and snacks are already available in the football building. NCAA Approves Unlimited Meals and Snacks for Division I Student-Athletes

Clark has to recruit against some big programs. This is the sort of thing that you either do to keep up or look bad by comparison if you don't have it, and it is actually functional. He's also trying to get a program built that connects the athletic department with the medical school, for more and better physical therapy and the like.

A grass field and a cafeteria isn't an unreasonable ask. UAB had one of the worst programs in D1 in terms of facilities before Clark and the showdown with the Trustees. Clark got them built, both by what he did on the field and by staying after the team was shut down and his contract was paid off. Lancey, when he got here the coaches offices were housed in what was once a dentist's office in the 1970's, and the locker room was a dump. The practice field was formerly an intramural field with bad drainage and a surface that tore up knees and ankles. When we got heavy rain it was a mudhole, and trying to play on it tore it up. After heavy rains they had to pack up all the practice gear and truck it to Samford, John Carroll High School, or Legion field to hold practice. Remember also that because of still existing financial constraints imposed that those won't be built with university money but funded by the fans and boosters, as were almost all of the current football facilities. The point re paying salaries to staff them is valid, though.

 

[Neutral Corner]

They do, and, on top of that, guaranteed loans make it easy for schools to do whatever they please with tuitions.

The real arms race isn't with buildings, though. It's with administrative bloat. Universities are stuffed to the brim with provosts and directors and whatnot. Typically this bloat is footed by taxpayers.

This, bigtime. The size of the salaries and the number of assistant and associate deans have both gone waaaay up. My wife worked for the university for almost thirty years. That one is very real.

 

[Cosmo]

Different sport, but Mark Few has done pretty well for himself by taking that path.

Nice thought, but the difference being of course that you can win a national championship at Gonzaga.

You cannot even get to the playoff at a G5 school, let alone compete for the national title.

 

[Neutral Corner]

"Every team in Division One Football has a chance to win a National Title" is the biggest lie in sports.

 

[DanOregon]

I'd be totally in favor of the two top G5 schools playing in for a spot in a six-team field. Top two get byes, putting the regular season in play until the end. Third seed gets the play-in winner.
College football is going to have to do something to spice up its post-season - take away this year because it's a joke - but more Bama/Clemson games are going to kill the interest in the sport. NASCAR went to the "super team" concept and it's audience frittered away.

 

[Mngwa]

I'd be totally in favor of the two top G5 schools playing in for a spot in a six-team field. Top two get byes, putting the regular season in play until the end. Third seed gets the play-in winner.
College football is going to have to do something to spice up its post-season - take away this year because it's a joke - but more Bama/Clemson games are going to kill the interest in the sport. NASCAR went to the "super team" concept and it's audience frittered away.

This works. Or an eight-team field with the top four getting a bye. But G5 has to have teams in.

 

[Alma]

College football is going to have to do something to spice up its post-season - take away this year because it's a joke - but more Bama/Clemson games are going to kill the interest in the sport.

Agreed. Even if Alabama and Clemson make it to the title game, a different format is in order.

 

[Flip Wilson]

I've been teaching at a D-1 university for 15 years, and I usually eat lunch at the biggest cafeteria on campus. It's in the middle of campus, central to almost everything, and I don't see athletes dining there. They eat the athletics cafeteria that is part of the athletics complex, across the street from the main campus.