Gillispie article

[billings]

I would say Burman has made good hires in Wrestling, Tennis (great seasons) , and Volleyball is trending up.

Soccer and football are mixed at this point.

Only BB was a total disaster. Although I remember quite a few WYo fans were excited about the Schroyer hire when it was announced. A former Wyo assistant coming home, a great defense minded coach like Brandenburg, was the thought. Someone who wanted to be here.

Well it all blew up and in hindsight was a screwup. I remember some on the same posters on another board calling for Tillers head just like the are calling for Burmans now.

Sorry I am not ready to throw stones yet and I don't pretend to understand what is going on inside the AD office. Pressure is on though as another bad hire will kill this program for a long time

[LawPoke]

I tend to agree, billings...at least to a point. The jury is out on football - with the verdict coming this year. With ACS leaving, there may be some issues, but that is the game...players leave. If DC does not get it done - at least making a significant improvement in our conference record, the heat will and should be on.

As for basketball, the program has been an unmitigated disaster since Schroyer was hired, but for the improvement in the academic side of the house. CBI or no CBI, we have flat out sucked eggs. AS a result, attendance has slipped dramatically. Burman has one chance to get it right. Men's basketball will make or break him. We simply cannot afford another misstep with the bball hire. Fans are irritated as hell and using their feet and "cheeks" to demonstrate their displeasure. It can and will get worse if the wrong guy is hired.

With our football schedule, we should get to a bowl. If we don't, the heat should be on DC and Burman. With the resources that have been suggested for the next bball coach, anything short of a Dunlap or Shyatt-type hire will not excite the fan base and, at least in the short-term, will be seen as a failure. In the long-term, without a Dunlap or Shyatt (and with the thought we could have had BCG), absent a signal that we are on a better track (either through wins or a dramatic shift in how the team plays and is perceived) the heat will most certainly be on Burman. Simply by hiring Shyatt or Dunlap, the pressure will be reduced and Burman will (and should) get a little leash back from the fans, at least for bball (but even then, only a year or so).

[NowherePoke]

I would say Burman has made good hires in Wrestling, Tennis (great seasons) , and Volleyball is trending up.

Soccer and football are mixed at this point.

Only BB was a total disaster. Although I remember quite a few WYo fans were excited about the Schroyer hire when it was announced. A former Wyo assistant coming home, a great defense minded coach like Brandenburg, was the thought. Someone who wanted to be here.

Well it all blew up and in hindsight was a screwup. I remember some on the same posters on another board calling for Tillers head just like the are calling for Burmans now.

Sorry I am not ready to throw stones yet and I don't pretend to understand what is going on inside the AD office. Pressure is on though as another bad hire will kill this program for a long time

A few thoughts on this Billings:

1. Volleyball is only trending up, because the first part of Yerty's tenure was so bad. This past year was no better in conference than Stangle's last year.

2. Agreed with Tennis. I should have included Gyulai who has done a great job IMO (noting that I am nearly clueless when it comes to college tennis).

3. I don't think the Schroyer hire generated the excitement you claim. Sure, there were a few vocal supporters (Cup, POKE FAN, etc.) on the message boards, but the fanbase as a whole was not excited by the hire and the decrease in attendance tells the tale.

4. Hard to equate Burman with Tiller with the positions (AD and HC) being so different.

5. The revenue sports will always carry a disproportionate value and we have been near the bottom in both sports for the entirety of Burman's tenure. The only time we have finished in the top half of league play in either sport during Burman's tenure was 2006 under a coach that he has since fired. Pretty tough to give him much credit for that one (and that team was still just 6-6 and didn't play in the postseason...although they were robbed, but I digress).

6. Having said that, we could possibly overlook the struggles in the revenue sports if we had other success to point to, but the fact is we really don't. We continually finish in the bottom half of D-1 teams in the director's cup standings (and usually at the bottom of MWC schools) and we have only 2 MWC titles in any sport through the first 11 years of the conference (both coached by Steve McClain).

7. The Schroyer hire was more than just a bad hire. There will always be hires that don't work out. For example, DC may not work out (although it's obviously too early to tell for sure), but it's hard to criticize Burman for that hire. Very well regarded assistant prepared to take over his own program. It's a hire that made sense. The Schroyer hire had several problems that are unforgivable IMO. First is the appearance of Cronyism. You are telling me that the best coaching prospect in the country for a lower to mid tier MWC job was as assistant on a NIT bound WAC team? Really? No matter that this same assistant happened to have been hired by Burman at PSU. Secondly, is the strategic choice to underfund Men's Basketball coaching salaries. Schroyer was by far the lowest paid coach in the league. There is no reason that TCU, CSU, and AFA should have been paying higher salaries in Men's BB. Even at the end of McClain's tenure we had roughly double the attendance of those schools (that's not true now however). We got what we paid for. Now we are going to more than double the compensation to get a quality coaching prospect. That should have been done 4 years ago. Finally, the decision to extend Schroyer after two disappointing seasons in which he squandered the talent McClain left behind in his first year and then finished with a losing conference record (7-9, same record as the year McClain was fired) in his second with a senior dominated team (Johnson, Ogirri, Ewing). That extension was undeserved and ended up leaving us stuck with Heath for a 4th year when we should have made the change last year.

[WYCowboy]

That extension was undeserved and ended up leaving us stuck with Heath for a 4th year when we should have made the change last year.

This was the unforgivable mistake IMO.

[billings]

I think we all agree that the extension for schroyer was perhaps a fatal error. I have no clue as to the internal politics of the AD office. I respect Wyopoke as a poster but sources are sometimes wrong or can be riding a grudge. I guess I am a skeptic when it comes to that type of claim.

the two revenue sports need to be, at a minimum, middle of the MWC and competitive or Burman's days are numbered. It is going to be an interesting hire to be sure. the MWC just got a bit weaker with Utah, TCU, and BYU leaving. We had better move up the ladder over the next two years in FB and BB or there is a real problem in Laramie. Boise will be tough most years but the rest should be very beatable for well coached WYoming teams.

btw: Yerty inherited a team almost void of MWC talent and the team is improving. She is now recruiting some Wyoming HS talent as well. Next two years will tell if she has what it takes. Like FB it is a bit early to call that one a failure was my point.

[TheCup]

I have made two great mistakes in my life - believing in the Schroyer hire on the basis of our defensive effort in 2002 and marrying a gal who divorced me eight months later.

If I could go back and only change one of them, it would be not recognizing Schroyer for what he was immediately. I carry that much shame over it.

[MrTitleist]

I have made two great mistakes in my life - believing in the Schroyer hire on the basis of our defensive effort in 2002 and marrying a gal who divorced me eight months later.

If I could go back and only change one of them, it would be not recognizing Schroyer for what he was immediately. I carry that much shame over it.

LOL. Classic post.

[Poke Around]

I would say Burman has made good hires in Wrestling, Tennis (great seasons) , and Volleyball is trending up.

Soccer and football are mixed at this point.

Only BB was a total disaster. Although I remember quite a few WYo fans were excited about the Schroyer hire when it was announced. A former Wyo assistant coming home, a great defense minded coach like Brandenburg, was the thought. Someone who wanted to be here.

Well it all blew up and in hindsight was a screwup. I remember some on the same posters on another board calling for Tillers head just like the are calling for Burmans now.

Sorry I am not ready to throw stones yet and I don't pretend to understand what is going on inside the AD office. Pressure is on though as another bad hire will kill this program for a long time

Hiring Schroyer did not create excitement unless you equate excitement to the fact that every year he was here set another record for worst attendnace in AA history. If he created excitement you think he'd have had more fans show up than showed up before he got there. And he wasn't a defense minded coach. He was a self-serving coach. John Adams created the defensive plans that Schroyer took credit for.

[Wyolie Coyote]

[quote="Poke Around


Hiring Schroyer did not create excitement unless you equate excitement to the fact that every year he was here set another record for worst attendnace in AA history. If he created excitement you think he'd have had more fans show up than showed up before he got there. And he wasn't a defense minded coach. He was a self-serving coach. John Adams created the defensive plans that Schroyer took credit for.[/quote]

This