Agreed. What is wrong with your “dream job” not being the highest paid or most high-profile? I’m 50 and a well established IT professional. I could easily get a job locally that pays more or likely could uproot my life and family and move across the country and make MUCH more. But why? I love my job, it pays well enough, and myself and my family are happy here. Everything is not about money and status. Expect Davidson is glad that Bon McKillop is there. If he was here NWA would be disappointed that he has not taken the many offers to step stone he could have had earlier in his career.
Yeah there are a handful of guys that have stuck around Bob being one, Mark Few is another. It happens. Most of your college coaches are not like you and I though. They live a life of uprooting family and moving onto the next challenge. The chances you land a Bob or Mark is low. If we do, and they keep winning here and we are able to hold onto them great. The chances of that is low though. If you are Mike Hill and in 10 years you have turned around Charlotte basketball and established football and built facilities and Clemson or Florida comes calling why in the world stay? All I am saying is I want guys that are driving to the next challenge. If they feel like they can do that here, great - if they achieve here and move on great. What I don’t want is what we have had too much of which is Charlotte is my dream job and has a culture where ok is good enough. So I stick around and they don’t ask me to leave.
Some of the points y’all are arguing can go on forever with no resolution.
I just have one question, how much time is enough?? Cause I’ve seen plenty, and I mean plenty of programs that only took a couple of years to get straight
To be fair nobody thought the aac would take six teams. Their selections were questionable. I don’t think anyone can make a compelling argument that we, or virtually any other team invited, got in on performance merit. The aac is gambling on market potential because that has been their formula for success.
That said, I know we’re we’re supposedly #2 and I believe that. We have a better portfolio of facilities (thanks Judy) and a solid budget (thanks students)
Since realignment there have been a slew of facility announcements from our peers. Crickets from us.
I firmly believe that Mike Hill got us into the AAC based on our potential. I do not believe it was an easy sale. They had to buy into his vision regarding the future success of our programs. Without question, I’d like a large part of this was the great city and market we are in.
Care to name some that plenty you have seen turn around in a couple years? Make sure they are a comparable program that was in the same shape as Charlotte.
Pretty soon as long as Will shows up for work sober he will satisfy some people on this board. They will essentially argue that he is undefeated just because his losses shouldn’t count. Just because he’s cool.
If you arent going to count a season it would d make more sense not to count the one where he benefitted from the talent of the previous staff.
I cant hold against him a season where he didnt have a spring practice, didnt have summer practice had half the games canceled, didnt know until thursday if a game was happening and went basically a month IN season without being able to practice. I think it is asking an awful lot of a coach to be able to win any games given those dynamics. Now if you want to blame some of that on Mike and applying COVID protocols that is one thing, but I have a really hard time blaming Will for the losses.
If he went 6-0 and won a bowl game you would be counting it. I am sure of that.
Just 2 different sets of expectations. One wants success the other is fine with mediocrity and not being accountable.
Well if he managed to win 6 games without being able to practice I would be pretty damn impressed.
I’m sure. Responsible for success but not responsible for failures. As I explained above. Just a different mind set.
I think its more about being in touch with reality. How do you expect him to help the players get better if he doesn’t have practice time? How do you correct the issues if you aren’t able to meet with them? I am comfortable with holding him accountable when he is given a chance to succeed. I just dont see how you can hold him accountable with how that season played out. As a manager I never held my employees accountable if I created a situation that created too many roadblocks for them to succeed and then I couldnt meet with them to help correct behavior and support them. That was on me not on them. I think you are being a bit unrealistic of what Will could do in that scenario. Like I said though if you think Mike was overly precautious with COVID that is a different discussion. This past season on the other hand…
Rutgers, Hawai’i, Mia Oh, TCU, Navy, even Austin Peay come to mind. But I’m sure you’ll find a reason to say they aren’t comparable. I didn’t even use some other schools that are in big boy conferences

FWIW We were #2 into the AAC. UAB was the first in. If they had stopped at 2 it was us two. I know this for a fact. We didn’t beg our way in like we did with CUSA 1.0 and we didn’t get a lifeline thrown to us like CUSA 3.0. We were wanted and proactive. What got programs in was faith in a vision to compete and committing to significantly increasing budget.
You got any of them Athletics Master Plans too?

Care to name some that plenty you have seen turn around in a couple years? Make sure they are a comparable program that was in the same shape as Charlotte.

Rutgers, Hawai’i, Mia Oh, TCU, Navy, even Austin Peay come to mind. But I’m sure you’ll find a reason to say they aren’t comparable. I didn’t even use some other schools that are in big boy conferences
Hell, look no further than the Carolinas. Last year’s App State team went to the NCAA tournament after being a perpetual cellar dweller. Their first appearance since 2000. They also hit the ground running in their FBS transition and have absolutely smoked G5 football.
Coastal Carolina, while on a dry spell, has danced twice since we have, including getting to the second round in 2014. They also managed to, after going FBS in 2017, two years AFTER us, to go 11-1 and 10-2 over the past two seasons. That was after being 3-9 and 5-7. They also won a baseball national championship in 2016 with 2 NCAA appearances since then.
We’ve been so bad for so long we can’t be objective about ourselves anymore. Other school can and have been getting it done, including some within just a couple hours drive. We haven’t where it matters. Period.
Why you start using facts? You know they have no place here, lol…

I think its more about being in touch with reality. How do you expect him to help the players get better if he doesn’t have practice time? How do you correct the issues if you aren’t able to meet with them?
Plenty of other coaches did it last year. Again, not trying to argue, It is just a different set of expectations.

What got programs in was faith in a vision to compete and committing to significantly increasing budget.
It is funny how only the schools in big cities had faith and vision. Schools from Miami, Dallas, Charlotte, San Antonio, and Birmingham seem to have cornered the market on faith and vision.
The thing is no other coaches did it last year. We missed more games and more practice time than any other team in the nation. We went 5 weeks between the Duke game and the WKU. The commentators even mentioned that as a challenge that no other program had to deal with. All programs had to deal with COVID not all programs were impacted that way we were. Now if we had played most of our schedule or had limited practice time impacted like most programs did then I would approach it more like Ron’s basketball last year. Yes COVID was there and yes it impacted the team but in a manageable way.
Yup those markets likely make getting to the budget figures needed easier. App cant make a 50 mil budget work. Period. 80 is impossible. Have to have an avenue to the funding and then convince the people in play you can get that funding. With Judy we had the market and we werent on the radar.