B+?? Not even close dude
If in the spring we donāt move on from Ron and still no master plan it goes to a C. If we move on from Ron with a good hire and drop the plan it goes to an A.
Getting us into the AAC though was absolutely huge. He deserves a B based on that alone. He is growing the donor pool and increasing gifts gets him the +.
I respect other opinions though. Certainly donāt have the Ws in basketball or football to get to the high A area.
Maybe Iām short sighted and I know itās important but I donāt give a damn about fund raising or branding. I care about winning period. If the other stuff helps us thatās awesome.
The simple truth is weāre no better than we were under the hated J word. Iāll give credit to him for Woodard, that looks to be a home run. If we talk about other sports that really donāt move the needle, maybe weāre better in a couple but not all. Under the hated J word we played for a Natty, and coulda easily won, in soccer and finished third in the nation in golf one year.
Is going to the AAC a good thing? Sure appears to be today but the conference is a helluva lot worse in 2 years than it is today. If everybodyās honest getting us into CUSA without playing a down was a helluva get too.
I think Hill is getting a huge ass pass. And I actually like the guyā¦
I think the key is that money leads to winning. The stuff that goes into that is huge, including conference, branding and other stuff. Most of the G5 programs that have made big jumps in the last 10-15 years managed to significantly improve finances in addition to the winning and some big boosters. You canāt move up if you do only one. Canāt hire better coaches without more money. Canāt get players to perform better without more money. Mike landed a 250K donation to create a nutrition center in the football center. This allowed kids to get food there that was a part of their exercise program vs going to the dining hall. You want to win - thats a big part of it. Getting into the AAC and their ESPN deal should also translate into much better recruiting which should mean more winning.
If you are judging by just Ws and Ls in basketball and football right now then I can see where the rating is way lower. I get that. For us to win at the level you want and I want though it takes a total program.
Good God man, would you please stop putting that on our messageboard. Itās defeatist attitude and fodder for other fanbases.
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How is that defeatist? It is reality. I shouldnt have said everyone I mean P5 programs. When schools like Notre Dame and Oklahoma canāt hold onto coaches why is it defeatist acknowledge the reality of the situation? We donāt have the resources to hold on to someone that is uber successful and I want people here that will be uber successful.
If Mike builds an amazing program over 10 years with winners in football and basketball and facilities schools will come calling and we wont be able to match it. That is ok. It means he did what he needed to here. id thank him for his time and success and wish him the best. If we manage to hold onto a guy for awhile because he loves Charlotte awesome, but we arenāt one of the big dogs. We just arenāt and I want guys that want to get to the top of their profession.
Part of our issue with Judy and her staff is they never left! Charlotte was their dream job, They just stayed and stayed. We had coaches that did the same. We had a culture of ok was good enough. That means you donāt get fired and you dont get hired away. No one had their eyes on bigger jobs. We need to be replacing coaches and staff on a regular basis because we are winning and we canāt match.
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He meant we are stepping stone to more money
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Yeah its definitely not defeatist, just reality. With the AD you have to look at the whole picture. I think heās made some big strides with branding, conference move to AAC, and interacting with fans and alum. I thought Ron Sanchez was going to be a great hire so I can hardly rip him for that not working out. Healy was a gamble and itās an incomplete grade right now with next year being a huge year.
We need to expand the stadium and get our two main sports (mens basketball and football) back on track. If he can get those 3 things going good chance heāll probably get offers from P5 schools but heā'll have us in much better shape before he got here.
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Literally none of that except the branding is evident from my eyes. Our social still sucks, in fact whoever runs our social accounts is infuriatingly awful.
Students dont seem to be any more engaged. Iāll give them that attendance for football was pretty good this year but it wasnāt before. Iād argue that it benefited this year because there were two classes getting to experience it for the first time.
Just also rebranded us and got us a new logo. New logo is better but old one was probably nice looking for the era it was designed
How are we better connected to the city? Still invisible. Never see anything around town and less news coverage of us than ever the last three years.
Mikes been fine I guess, but he hasnāt wowed me with anything. We are still beyond dumpster fire state and just in smoldering dumpster ashes phase. The move to the aac is nice, but it would feel like more of an accomplish if they didnāt also take several other cusa programs with huge warts. Seems aac just picked markets like cusa did.
I feel good about baseball but I feel just as pessimistic about football and basketball as ever.
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Iāll eat my words if we have a shit ton of new donors lined up for the master plan, if it ever gets released.
Social media is run by students supporting each of the teams. Mostly looking at TikTok and Instagram. The twitter for each individual sport is also owned by that sport and is leveraged far more than previous staff. Can it get better? Sure it can, but it is way ahead of where it was. Hell Mike himself engages on SM.
Mike meets with the students on a regular basis. He spends a bunch of time at each of their tailgates and regularly meets with students. The football and basketball attendance has been really solid this year. Yeah part of that is two classes starting basically at the same time.
Mike lives in the city and I know he meets with city leaders regularly. The branding uptown around the baseball game is great. The Niner nation week events around the city that athletics supported was great. He helped make the Will appearance on gameday happen. We went from an AD that ignored the city to one that has embraced it. He has developed close ties with the Panthers. Is it perfect? No. Still have things to do there - would be easier if we were winning. Will is all over the news radio, tv - if you donāt see that I donāt know what to tell you. Iād like to see a more concerted effort to get our branding all over UC.
Of course you are also one of the most negative depressing Niner fans out there so it doesnāt surprise me you see basically no good.
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I live in the middle of the city and spend more time in and around the city than probably almost anyone here. Iām in hundreds of homes and businesses a year around the city because of my company. Niner stuff around town is virtually non existent.
Not necessarily mikes fault directly because we still suck at the two sports that matter, but it is indirectly his fault because he hired the coaches. Mike could be the best ad in the country and it wouldnāt mean a hill of beans if we keep hiring losing coaches. Both our loser coaches recruit well and they still canāt win. Speaks volumes about their actual coaching ability IMO.
Iām negative because there is very little to be positive about. If there was, it wouldnāt be the same 25 people here arguing with each other.
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Old saying is āRome wasnāt built in a dayā applies here. Decades of failed branding throughout the city are not going get resolved in a few years.
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Gotta win in menās basketball & football. Thatās the bottom line. Weāve done a lot of losing and havenāt been to the NCAA Tournament in terrible conferences since 2005. Win in those sports and other things will take care of themselves. Itās on Mike to get the hires right. He already whiffed on Sanchez. Donāt screw the next one up.
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This is a great point, and the Rome thing may or may not apply. I go around U-City and it looks the same to me. I donāt see any brand penetration anywhere. There are a couple more ads around town than with Judy, but it doesnāt matter, because we are so terrible at revenue sports no one cares. I do not believe weāve made leaps and bounds in branding or marketing personally, and I believe 99% of the city doesnāt give a crap about us, most of our alumni included.
We got new logos. I still donāt have a new logo polo. My yard flag was custom made for me by @Nugget 's wife. I have a few small items, but I was at the mall a few weeks ago and our gear selection is worse than it was 10 years ago. I used to be able to grab a hoodie from Champs at least. There was virtually no gear in the mall. Trying to go to the bookstore is more of a joke than it was in the past too.
I see App shit everywhere, and frankly more ECU too than us. We have done nothing to improve our presence in the market. A big part of it is that we continue to be bad in sports that matter, but I have a sneaking suspicion that even if things were to improve we will still see deficiencies here.
I think Hill cares about winning, but I guess we will see. If he keeps Sanchez after this season, Iāll know he doesnāt. I can also then reasonably surmise that he is buckled in and ready to coast here. People acting like he MUST be looking for a P5 job are silly. A $450k a year job is better than 99.9% of people will ever get. We will know who Hill is at the end of this basketball season.
This is anecdotal but I see more niner gear on people in the last year than I ever have. It has been going up steadily since we started football from what I see.
We are a young school compared to App, ECU and the ACC schools.
It takes a long time and some success in the revenue sports to solidify a huge fan base and penetrate the overall market.
If we can get to winning ways I think people will be surprised with the crowds and fan engagement.
I do think we need to focus on alumni engagement. The forty niner club seems a little small for over 100K alumni but I would love to know what the membership percentage is for successful P5 schools, G5 schools and our peers (younger G5 schools that have not had tremendous success on the field or court).
To finalize I just donāt have a gloomy outlook on where we are. Can it be better? Of course! It could be way way better. But I donāt feel like we are falling apart.
My impression is that we have a quality program with strong institutional support and we keep working to improve things year by year.
In other words we have a strong foundation (at least in my eyes).
Consistency In revenue sport success is going to be the icing on that cake and get us where we need to be.
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I too have seen more Niner gear, car decals, etc, than ever before, so thatās great!
If students are in charge of social media - for me thatās primarily Twitter - then that could explain a lot. Not very impressed there.
This. This. THIS!!!
I swear some of the MBB tweets sound like they are trolling from time to time.
On market penetrationā¦ the mooresville Target had some UNCG shirts and nothing on the 49er side. I honestly didnāt expect to see Charlotte there, but UNCG made me do a double take.
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Indian Trail Walmart always has a ton of Niner gear.
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