Itsux2beaewe
Well-known member
when will Burman!!!
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The ewes have some expectations for their football coach - Norvell fired
- Thread starter Itsux2beaewe
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Itsux2beaewe
Well-known member
Yep! Burman has just set a standard that mediocrity is acceptable for the program. Sawful has done the same with not letting Anderson know if he doesnt perform, he doesn’t play.
WyoVaquero
Well-known member
Sawvel will be fired, but not until next year. Burman does not have the pelotas to do it this year.
ragtimejoe1
Well-known member
Or when Bohl Senior says he can be fired.
I was visiting with a friend before the Joser game and he said that he had a direct conversation with a BOT member about TB and Sawful. He was suggesting that the U is not pursuing excellence with those two on the letterhead in the athletic department and that the BOT needed to make a change. He was promptly told that TB has hired coaches that graduate kids and aren't involved in controversy - so we need to just pipe down and accept the greatness that the BOT and Prez have bestowed on all of us.
Folks, if you are thinking ANY changes are on the horizon, you are only destined for disappointment. The BOT are content with 5-7 or 6-6 in football and whatever we have going in the other sports. Attendance is up, generally, and the fat cats have new, fancy boxes in which they can toast one another and their wonderful stewardship of THE University of Wyoming.
Methinks their world is about to be turned on its head. What was once one of the easiest jobs in the world - with limited fundraising required to pay the bills (sure, you have to fundraise for pools and fat cat boxes) and an open piggy bank in Cheyenne - is about to turn into a fairly treacherous position. While I am not generally supportive of the Freedumb Cock-us, I am looking forward to UW, TB and the BOT being subjected to some heat.
This honestly feels like the most plausible explanation for UW’s athletic decline.
There’s a total disconnect between the people making decisions at the BoT level and the fans having conversations like this. It’s like there are two different realities. The BOT mindset you mentioned sounds straight out of an Ivy League handbook — athletics as a fundraising prop and a way to “enhance the student experience.”
That probably made sense in the 1950s, even at big-time programs. But the landscape has changed completely. College athletics has evolved into its own semi-professional ecosystem — one that lives and dies on winning, exposure, and revenue. The old model of “academics first, athletics second” has been bulldozed by money and market forces.
And schools like Wyoming are getting crushed in the middle. I suspect the UW President and Board know they can’t really compete in the modern, professionalized version of college sports… so they’ve retreated to the old mindset (or never left it) where “graduation rates” and “no scandals” are treated like championships. The problem is, the modern fan doesn’t really care about that. If the football factories have taught us anything over the last 50 years, it’s that bending — or flat-out breaking — NCAA rules isn’t a big deal as long as people are watching and the money’s rolling in.
At some point, UW needs to stop pretending and just be honest about what it wants from athletics. Are we actually trying to compete — or just trying to look respectable while losing slowly?
My view is that if they don't really care about championships and only really want to graduate kids and have no scandals - let's save some money and drop into the Big Sky.
Seems like this is the path we are on...whether they know it or not.
Itsux2beaewe
Well-known member
Interesting. My question is, “Tom” is the only person in the whole world who can hire a coach who could graduate kids?
Granderson and Ghaifan promptly come to mind…….
OrediggerPoke
Well-known member
Luke Martinez also comes to mind for me.
OrediggerPoke
Well-known member
Oh and the player that assaulted and almost killed our former punter Tim Zaleski. That was hush hush and the player ‘transferred’ out of the program.
That was a DL was the guy who hit Zalenski
MBB had some guys accused of theft as well. One of them was PG I just can't remember their name
VBB had their program in trouble for improper benefits from a coach
Wyoming also lost a scholarship due to a poor APR in MBB
Football coaches got DUIs and other issues....
This is a unique problem to collegiate sports in America because we use our universities as a minor league system for the NFL and NBA.
It's not surprising to me that the UW BoT don't have athletic success at the forefront of their mind. Their focus is probably on the academic and administrative side of things...as it should be. It is a university after all.
It's almost like we need an entirely different set of leadership at UW to run the athletics side of things. Running a not-for-profit publicly funded university and a minor league professional sports department are two very different beasts.
OrediggerPoke
Well-known member
If this were true at all, Seidel would not be the President and Cam Wright would still be engineering Dean.
Feels like I (and others) have circled back to this point before. UW had a pathway as long as lip service was paid to amateurism. As that was chipped away and ultimately replaced by what we are seeing, Wyoming's athletic fortunes have become bleaker and bleaker. A semi-professional athletic department does seem like what it would take.
This particular thread is ostensibly about CSU firing Jay Norvell....they really are in the same boat as UW in a lot of respects. They are a publicly funded universty as well where the mission doesn't neatly align with a profit maximizing professional sports club.
A lot of schools are in the same boat as both us and Fort Fart. Look at Oklahoma State. They fired the winningest they EVER had about a month ago and are still losing Big 12 games.
UW loves excuses. CSU loves action.
UW: we want a high morals squad that graduates.
CSU: Norvell is an awesome guy, but he doesn't win enough. Winning, grades and morals are not mutually exclusive.
UW: we can't win without more money - call the Legislature, the Rochelles or the McMurrays
CSU: we can't win without more money - we need to win more to get more money, build interest, and build our donor pool
UW: we can't afford to fire Sawful - we really don't have to win, as the Legislature will bail us out
CSU: we can't afford not to fire Norvell - we need to win now or our donors will dry up and the due bill for our new stadium will be delinquent
UW: we need to put more lipstick on the pig that is War Memorial Stadium to make it a serviceable stadium - and just cut out seats because we won't ever fill them anyway
CSU: we need a whole new stadium to make the fan experience amazing, make money, and woo donors
UW: we will never be a big-time program and can't afford to try
CSU: we can't afford not to try to make it in the big time - we don't want to be left behind and are going to fight and do all we can to build our brand
CSU acts like the kid that has worked since he was 7 years old and is hard scrabble. UW acts like a trust fund baby with a trust that is about to run out.
I take your points here even if I think you are over-simplifying.
There is a school of thought in Fort Collins over the last 10 or so years that the moves by the athletic department have not been prudent. They have pushed all of thier chips in to the point that if they don't get the return they are hoping for, it will be a financial albatross for them. I respect the moxie (as you do evidently) but when you gamble...sometimes you lose. Schools like UW and CSU aren't in a position of strength on this stuff....it's a losing proposition for losing schools. As hard as it is, you have to win/invest. If you just invest...that is going to go sideways.
