Marshall is playing for an unbeaten season. UAB is playing for its life.

Looks like the end is near.

http://www.myfoxal.com/story/27511033/reports-uab-to-end-football-program-fire-athletic-director

 

http://footballscoop.com/news/uab-planning-officially-shut-football-program/

"In a time when programs are marching into FBS in record numbers, the Blazers will become the first major college program in nearly 20 years to drop football.

According to Wolken, the entire program could be forced to leave Conference USA without football.

“Barring a last-minute reversal in the decision-making process, it’s unclear what shutting down football would mean for UAB’s athletic future,” Wolken writes. “Another person with direct knowledge of Conference USA matters told USA TODAY Sports that the league’s commissioner, Britton Banowsky, did not have enough support among school presidents to keep UAB in the league without football.”

Sources tell FootballScoop that “there will be challenges and lawsuits.” Players will challenge this. Coaches contracts weren’t what they were told they would be from the administration. All sorts of issues here. Perhaps the granddaddy of them all though is the potential for an investigation into this process and what that will reveal and could lead to for the Board of Trustees for the University of Alabama system. We will update…"



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They figured that Bill Clark would take the Troy job yesterday, and that would pretty well kill the program de facto as no decent coach would come under these conditions. Clark's calling their bluff and fighting. He was lied to all through his hiring process, contractual promises were made, and he's wiling to drag out the dirty laundry. He *wants* to be at UAB, he sees the potential, and he's got the spine to fight for it. Good for him.

Subpeonas will pull a lot of things into public that the board of trustees thought was safe behind closed doors. This might get very juicy (and nasty) before it's over.

 

Troy hired the Kentucky OC.

 

That's what I said. Troy wanted Clark, gave him a deadline of Wednesday to take the job so they could announce it Saturday at the big do for Blakeney's retirement. . He needs two more years coaching in-state to fill out his Alabama retirement. He didn't take it.


Re the AD - Brian Mackin was toast either way. Part of the problem is that the UAB Athletic Dept. got bloated under his watch. He wasn't going to get paid 600k to run a program sliding into the Sun Belt or A-Sun, and if we saved the program he had provided exactly zero in a leadership capacity to fight for the program.

What Mackin knows could bring a lot of heat on the Board of Trustees. I suspect that he would not go along with President Watts' plans and decided to cash out. He'll get a lot of hush money, and with luck still have to spill his guts under subpoena.

 

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/11/bill_clarks_been_given_no_answ.html


http://donbarger.smugmug.com/UAB-Tweets/

 

Here's a pretty decent thumbnail description of what's going on in a larger sense, from a UAB perspective. I'm sure that the Alabama guys will not like the way it's phrased. It's about way more than football, it's university political infighting, it's about finances, and this captures some of that.

"Here's a short version:

The president, Ray Watts, was dean of the School of Medicine. The SOM is leading this attack not only on football and athletics, but the entire undergraduate side of UAB. Major donors to the school of business, Honors College etc. have been told point-blank that their donations must be used for "health-related programs."

Under the leadership of Paul W. Bryant Jr., the Board of Trustees has badly mis-managed growth at the Tuscaloosa campus. They can't sustain what they have built, and need to dramatically increase undergrad enrollment there. Heavy out-of-state recruitment (over 60 percent of their last freshman class) has not been enough. Rolling back UAB's undergraduate programs is a desperate bid to fend off financial collapse in Tuscaloosa, by re-directing undergrads there.

There are two roots to all of this: a) criminal mismanagement of the expansion at Tuscaloosa and b) a childish, zero-sum attitude by some in the SOM leadership, personified by Ray L. Watts MD. They have come together to threaten to destroy the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Not its football, not its athletics. The entire university."

 

Neutral Corner...I find this all to be quite fascinating...

We're obviously getting mostly the UAB "loyalist" perspective here, but how have Bryant, the Prez, et al handled this blowback publically? Have they been silent? Defensive? Defiant?

 

So, basically, Roll Tide and to Hell with UAB is the board's mindset?

 

Donnie, mostly there has been a complete radio silence. This was couched as UAB's new President asking for a study, looking at strengths and weaknesses, profit and loss. The scandal broke when concerned former players and boosters found out that the study was out there, that UAB had no OOC games scheduled beyond 2016, and that when the new football coach was hired he was given (no choice) a three year contract... ending in 2016.

Who hires a coach and signs them to a three year contract these days? All these guys are signed for a long time, otherwise it is used against them in recruiting.

This was President Watts' statement in its entirety:

"More than a year ago, UAB began the most comprehensive campus-wide strategic planning process in our history, calling for the 10 schools, College of Arts and Sciences, Honors College, Information Technology, Research Administration, and other units to develop individual strategic plans, set priorities and implement long-term goals.

"Within that framework, the Athletic Department is conducting a full strategic review of its programs. The Athletic Department has engaged outside experts and is exploring a full range of options - not all of which will be implemented - to reach its desired results of sustained excellence.

"Not surprisingly given the size of the program, one area of focus involves evaluating the investments in football and the resources necessary to achieve and sustain excellence now and into the future. We've been working for many months on this data driven process, and it would be counterproductive and inappropriate to speculate on outcomes based on an incomplete process -- not just related to athletics, but across the campus.

"We are working to accelerate the timeline for completion of the strategic plan and will communicate with the UAB community in the near future. Although we certainly welcome input from our fans and supporters and value their enthusiasm, the fact is that rumor and innuendo will be distracting to our coaches and players who have big games in the coming weeks."

"We are being careful and thoughtful in our disciplined process with lots of input - and we will reach the right outcomes for UAB."

Emphasis mine. He stands with the "inappropriate to speculate" still. He was in New York this past weekend.

Brian Mackin, the AD, now sacked, said something very similar, although he did add that "exciting times are ahead." Since the controversy could have been settled with one line to the effect of "We are behind UAB Football and will do what is needed to improve it", and no one ever said anything close, the doubters felt confirmed that something was going on.

Someone is going to have to speak up and own this thing Monday or Tuesday because it keeps blowing up bigger and bigger. Tim Brando was on the story last week, and then stories have appeared all over the sports media today. At some point someone is going to have to stand up and say "Yes, we're closing it down" and give a sensible reason why, and explain how they plan to mitigate the damage to undergrad, the rest of the athletic department, the marching band, etc. It is also possible yet that someone, likely Watts, will come forward and explain that this was all a great mistake, that the fans blew things out of shape, and that of course the program will continue and the study has revealed weak points that needed investment.

There has been no comment whatsoever from the Tuscaloosa end of things.

It is very much up in the air as of now what is going to happen. There was a rally on campus tonight with 1000 to 1500 students and boosters. It was announced at 5 and started at 7, so that's actually pretty good. Students are making noises about marching on the administration building in the morning. I know that there is one very big booster who wants to talk to Watts before he rescinds a very large donation. The Birmingham city council is wanting a voice in it as well, although they have no particular standing.

And Bill Clark is standing his ground. He's convinced of the potential here, he has gotten incredible support from the fans, boosters, and the local media. He's not going to quit, they'll have to fire him. If they do, they'll be buying a breach of contract suit, breach of promise of the various things he was promised to get him to sign (Turf on the practice field, etc). I almost hope they do fire him, even though that would functionally kill football, because if they do his lawyer is going to get to subpoena all sorts of things that they never expected to see the light of day.

 

"So, basically, Roll Tide and to Hell with UAB is the board's mindset?"

No, that would not be accurate. In most cases, as long as UAB does not conflict with an area of interest to UA or it is not athletic related, especially football, the board plays it pretty straight. UAB has grown tremendously since it was established in 1969. Locals jokingly refer to it as the "University that Ate Birmingham". Last I heard the count was that it covered 83 blocks of downtown B'ham.

Now, if UAB wants to open a Law school, that's not allowed, because UA offers law. UAB wants to offer an MBA in Business, nope, UA does that. UA wants to open a nursing school, which UAB has had for years, sure, no problem. It's like that.

Regarding athletics, I'll throw a few links up, it's a bit faster.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/9891201
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-08-05/sports/sp-20797_1_gene-bartow
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/jon-solomon/24806444/is-the-alabama-board-of-trustees-finally-ready-to-kill-uab-football
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1009353-alabama-booster-paul-bryant-jr-has-ties-to-insurance-fraud-scheme


In general though, the UA Board of Trustees knows how to build a successful football program, and has made no attempt whatsoever to do so at UAB. Instead they have foisted off horrible head coaches and then given them extensions. They made another attempt to kill the program similar to this one, which was beaten off, but just as this one it came at a critical time in recruiting and did damage that lasted for years. They killed the hire of Jimbo Fisher at a bargain price. They prevented UAB from building an on campus stadium at a time when construction costs and financing were at historic lows.

Basically, there are three influential men on the BoT that want UAB football dead. One of them, Paul Bryant, Jr., is one of the richest, most powerful and influential men in the state. Bryant is still carrying a grudge that goes back to Gene Bartow having a run in with UA over cheating in recruiting, with Bartow writing a letter to David Berst in NCAA enforcement which became public. Bear Bryant hated the program and his son is still carrying water for him.

The average Tide fan really does not care much one way or the other. We've heard from many of them recently saying how stupid and unfair this is. UAB is not going to take a player that Saban really wants, no way in hell. Clark, whose HS Saban recruited when he was still there, has talked to Saban about it and has reassured him that UAB is no threat, and Saban responded that he had never thought they were.

The other side of the coin is that we were stuck for years with the losingest coach in NCAA history. We finally got out from under Watson Brown, but were not allowed to hire Pat Sullivan, then not allowed to hire Jimbo Fisher because Saban's hire was ongoing and he might want Fisher to return as his OC. The hire of Neil Callaway was forced on us by the BoT. Callaway is an SEC quality OL coach, but he is not head coaching material. He was, however, Paul Bryant, Jr.'s college room mate and needed a job after being sacked as OC at UGA. After his third season, when he was 11-25, he was given a contract extension. Can you imagine a coach at Alabama surviving long enough to *go* 11-25? What would happen if that coach got an extension?

As I have said above, if the program is shut down tomorrow, the only remnant facilities of UAB football would be a cinder block building by the practice field that contains the locker room and the coach's offices and three goalposts. That's supporting and trying to grow a program?

 

UAB already has a well-regarded MBA program.

 

I certainly agree that with you that Auburn or Alabama or any D-1 university need football to educate their students. In fact I think most places the interests of a D-1 football program run counter to the educational goals because of the "compromises" that are frequently made on behalf of football programs.