I am just a realist. It doesnt matter what I say or think or any of us say or thinkg. The facts are the facts.
Our endowment is 344M
Michigans is 17B, Duke is 12B, UVA 9.7 B
Our AD budget is #79 at 42M
NC State is #48 at 102M, Chapel Hill is 32 at 122M, Bama is 3 at 214M, Ohio State is 1 at 251M
Our biggest accomplishment is making a final 4 nearly 50 years.
Our donating fanbase is extremely small.
Our brand is significantly limited.
Our NIL is tiny.
Our AD is supported by student fees.
These are just the facts. We canāt compete at those top levels for players or coaches. Sure it would be awesome to find a Nick Saban who wants to take us to the top, and if that happens awesome - but the fact is it is extremely unlikely we find that.
There are only like 10 destination schools in each sport. Schools like Michigan and Texas are at the top with their brand and ratings and resources - if they want a player or a coach they are probably going to get them. Ignoring that is ignoring reality.
Me saying we are a stepping stone isnāt talking us down, its acknowledging the facts and to think we will be able to flip that in my life time is just foolish. Itās like saying yeah Harvard and MITs academics are good but Charlotteās are just as good. I love Charlotte - but Iām not blind.
For the record on the basketball side I was a fan of hiring an older proven coach to get things straight. That is what SDSU did with Steve Fisher. I like that model. But just because you have an coach closer to retirement that decide they donāt wanna chase the P4 gig, doesnāt mean it changes who we are or where we are in the pecking order. Just means for a hire they were ok coasting to retirement.
For the record, our nil isnt tiny but otgerwise, i agree. Almost every program is a stepping stone, outside 10 or 15. A stepping stone program can play in the CFP. They probably wont win it but they can ne there
The NIL is definitely tiny without Biff and his rich friends dropping their own money into it. Compared to the teams Charlotte has to face. Needed new coordinator(s) not a new head coach. Hill is clueless what it takes to win in todayās landscape.
Sad reality is that now instead of being happy with winning 3 in year 1, and 5 in year 2, and continuing to build, we will have to start over with lesser players and HOPEFULLY a better coach (plus no Purdie) and suffer through more 2-3 win seasons for another 2-3 years until we can REbuild the NIL collective. Hope the new guy is rich.
Lesser talent doesnāt mean less wins. Better to have a good coach because they can maximize talent, unlike a bad coach who cannot get players to play their potential.
If Biff was a better coach we would have won more than 5 this year. His lack of holding players accountable impacted last years team and this years team. It showed Saturday with zero flags. Iām ready to have a HC that looks and sounds like one in the sidelines.
If Biff and his rich friends have been doing that it would be an NCAA violation. Schools being involved in NIL doesnāt legally start until next season or whenever the House settlement is approved. Even then Iām not sure if a coach funding NIL will be allowed. Either way itās a terrible way to finance a football program because it creates a huge conflict of interest for the AD if the coach isnāt getting the job done on the field. And at one time Jacobsonās net worth was $750 million so I hope he put the other $730 million in our collective before we fired Biff.
I believe the long tall stories of all this money he had & was bringing in was similar to the stories we heard last year that we actually had an Elite Defense that was Top 10.
In my experience fables of money are usually some of the greatest fables of all!
Yes that was the entire point of my post that we are a stepping stone and there are schools such as OSU and Oregon that are in a different stratosphere than we are.
