Dang Cap...you are not down to eating catfood are Ya!
Printable View
Yep, football is just in a tough spot. We are way more disadvantaged in the current environment in that sport now than we were pre-NIL era. Of course it would help if we didn't have a staff of coaches learning on the job and our team could actually play well enough to give boosters some hope of improvement. Just no return on investment at the moment.
It's just a crap spot to be in. All our NIL was used to get an SEC roster, not fill certain spots like most SEC teams were doing. And so looking at the prospect of having to go back to those people that cut those checks and say, "Hey I know y'all gave us 15 million last year and we only went 4-8 or 5-7 but we need another 15-18 million this year." That's a tough pill to swallow and a tough sell when your rival 90 miles up the road has been regularly competing for CFP appearances and NY6 Bowls since 2021.
I don't think it's sustainable. They kinda went all in last year and still couldn't make the playoffs. When do the donors get tired of handing out money hand over fist for the same or worse results? Sure, they have some money but not enough to last for an indefinite period of time. You can only go with your hand held out so many times.
They won't. Because they get it. They will give and continue to give as long as Keith Carter is the AD because he gets it. He has made them understand what it takes to win in this new environment. And they start young. They are contacting grads the minute they get their diploma and setting them up to give the minimum amount to their collective because they know that if they get in on the ground floor then it will help them when these grads earnings take off. So they are constantly cycling new blood into their donor ranks.
We on the other hand, took our NIL lead for 3 years from a guy who first tried to peddle baseballs and when that didn't work said we should just throw our hands up and wait for the NCAA, yes the 17 NCAA, to make it go away. So now we have people, who could be giving a good amount, that are still waiting on the NCAA to fix it and make it go away.
Yea, a lot to ask boosters to give 10s of millions of dollars just for the chance to maybe get to 6 or 7 wins. But now if we had coaches the quality of Kiffin and Golding running our football program there would be a lot more motivation to give just like O'Connor is going to greatly increase the motivation to donate to baseball. Instead we have a HC and DC needing OJT.
I don't think another coach wins more than 4 last year. We were so bad and so talent deficient. It was the direct result of bad recruiting over a 4 year period. Saying that, they gave Lebby a lot of money to work with this past offseason. He needs to win 5-6 for them to be so willing to pony that kind of cash up once again. And by the way, the defense is going to be MUCH better. Rhoads and MacIntyre being in the building has been a huge boost to us.
Paul Rhoads and Mike MacIntyre. They were hired as defensive analysts in the off season.
Paul Rhoads is the former HC at Iowa St and has architected some really great defenses over the years.
Mike MacIntyre has been HC at a lot of different stops but was the OM DC in 19 and the Memphis DC in 20-21.
Both have been at a lot of different places and are very well respected in the coaching ranks. They were both brought on in defensive analyst roles and will probably both be one of our 15 headsets on gameday.
Not saying a different staff wins a bunch more games for us right now because we are talent deficient, but a more proven staff helps (a) get you more money coming in when the fans and boosters have confidence in the coaches' ability to build a program and (b) allow the same money to get better players out of the portal and through HS recruiting because the recruits are excited to play for someone that has a track record of success. Right now we are having to overpay because the recruits are taking a risk to come play for guys that have no proven record of success at MSU or anywhere else. HC had never been a HC before at any level and DC had never been a defensive coordinator at any level.
Yeah. You look at baseball and you can see the difference. We brought in a legit coach and it's obvious that the excitement and donations are up.
It can happen in football too- see Jackie. If Lebby doesn't work out we are going to have to hire someone that has at least a good track record to fix things.
Exactly, starts with the coach!