Vote for Burman's worst decision (or lack of)!!

[Douglaspoke]

Bohl was 9-4 last season: several 7-8 win seasons before that

IF SAWFUL had gone 10-2 with a Win over A State /BYU and MWC CHampionship in his first year..
Wyoming fan base would be rocking. CJC membership going crazy--Season tixs sale changed upwards.

PAC10 Invite likely? or at least in the discussions.

By 2021, UW wasn’t standing at a fork in the road. It was already playing catch-up in a system that was about to punish small, remote programs even more severely

 

[McPeachy]

The decline was already baked in well before NIL, the portal, and the Pac/MWC chaos became the dominant issues.

The decline was "already baked in" when he got the position following Barta in the summer of 2006. However, the last 5+ years has been monumental in the decline of UW athletics (all athletics, sans maybe Rodeo). Sure, he was shitty to begin with, but he is much shittier currently.

Let's use the Burger King analogy. Yes, it sucked 20 years ago, but recently with smaller portions, higher prices, awful service, and dirty facilities, it is 10x worse.

 

[OrediggerPoke]

Bohl was 9-4 last season: several 7-8 win seasons before that

IF SAWFUL had gone 10-2 with a Win over A State /BYU and MWC CHampionship in his first year..
Wyoming fan base would be rocking. CJC membership going crazy--Season tixs sale changed upwards.

PAC10 Invite likely? or at least in the discussions.

Yep.

And Sawvel was hired because of continuity. We brought back the vast majority of starters from the 9-4 team and turned it into a 3-9 team that couldn’t even beat Idaho at home or even be competitive with any decent team on the schedule.

To say this downturn is because of NIL, the Black-14 or any other excuse folks are coming up with is pure bullshit. Burman and Sawvel are directly responsible for dismantling the program at the absolute worst time possible.

 

[307bball]

Bohl was 9-4 last season: several 7-8 win seasons before that

IF SAWFUL had gone 10-2 with a Win over A State /BYU and MWC CHampionship in his first year..
Wyoming fan base would be rocking. CJC membership going crazy--Season tixs sale changed upwards.

PAC10 Invite likely? or at least in the discussions.

My guess...and it could be completely wrong, is that if things had gone as you say, the chances of getting a P invite would go from zero to zero plus something small.

As it stands right now...nobody outside of Wyoming thinks of UW as a conference expansion candidate. UW is not even mentioned when discussing marginal candidadates. Thrown in a 10-2 Sawfull season as you describe and the only thing that changes is it would force us into the "marginal candidate" discussion but that is it.

 

[McPeachy]

My guess...and it could be completely wrong, is that if things had gone as you say, the chances of getting a P invite would go from zero to zero plus something small.

As it stands right now...nobody outside of Wyoming thinks of UW as a conference expansion candidate. UW is not even mentioned when discussing marginal candidadates. Thrown in a 10-2 Sawfull season as you describe and the only thing that changes is it would force us into the "marginal candidate" discussion but that is it.

Hmmm.

Burman stated emphatically, on numerous occasions, that he was going to model UW Football after Boise State. If that was actually accomplished, things would be completely different, and yes, an "invitation" would have been forthcoming. Not that it means much, as I would rather have a string of conference championships - six in fact - than anything, including joining another G6 conference.

 

[307bball]

Yep.

And Sawvel was hired because of continuity. We brought back the vast majority of starters from the 9-4 team and turned it into a 3-9 team that couldn’t even beat Idaho at home or even be competitive with any decent team on the schedule.

To say this downturn is because of NIL, the Black-14 or any other excuse folks are coming up with is pure bullshit. Burman and Sawvel are directly responsible for dismantling the program at the absolute worst time possible.

I think people are mixing together two related but separate things.

Thing 1: Sawvel’s quality as a coach.
Thing 2: The long-term systemic problems facing UW athletics, both internal and external.

Those two things obviously affect each other, but they are not the same issue. You could replace Sawvel with a legitimately great coach and things in Laramie would be better. They might even be a lot better. But that still would not come close to reversing the larger structural problems UW is dealing with.

My guess is that even in some alternate reality where Wyoming was a perennial top-tier Mountain West program, Sawvel still wouldn’t be the guy. Burman made the wrong hire. He clearly prioritized continuity, and the jury is no longer out on whether that worked. It didn’t.

But that does not mean Sawvel is the whole explanation for where UW is. Wyoming has been trying to swim upstream in a college athletics environment that has become brutally difficult for a school like this. The case study for extreme success at Wyoming’s level is Boise State, and that was not just “hire a good coach and win games.” Boise won a ton, but the school and community also grew in ways that were never realistically going to happen in Laramie.

Moderate success was more realistic. That probably looks something like being consistently competitive in the Mountain West, occasionally winning the league, and at least being talked about as a program with enough value to be attractive in realignment conversations. I don’t fault Burman for failing to turn Wyoming into Boise State. That seems like an unreasonable expectation. But there was a path to being much better than this, and the fork in that road came well before NIL, the portal, and the latest round of realignment chaos.

So yes, Sawvel looks like a bad coach. And yes, Burman deserves blame for hiring him. But the bigger indictment of Burman is not that he missed on one coach. It’s that after two decades, Wyoming was still so fragile that one bad continuity hire could expose just how little had actually been built. I have pointed out in the past some of these problems were percolating even before Burman but I truly don't believe that it was too late back in '06 when he was hired.

 

[307bball]

Hmmm.

Burman stated emphatically, on numerous occasions, that he was going to model UW Football after Boise State. If that was actually accomplished, things would be completely different, and yes, an "invitation" would have been forthcoming. Not that it means much, as I would rather have a string of conference championships - six in fact - than anything, including joining another G6 conference.

Agreed, If Wyoming and BSU had swapped fortunes, since 2006, it would be Wyoming that would be the darling.

As far as Burman modelling UW football after BSU.....he should be reminded that the one thing he could do like BSU does, is fire underperforming coaches. The rest of what has gone on in Boise is not happinign in Laramie nor is it within the control of an AD. So...I don't care what he says, a coach that performs like Sawvell does wouldn't get out of his first season in Boise. Whatever Burman is doing, it doesn't even rhyme with what BSU is doing.

 

[OrediggerPoke]

I think people are mixing together two related but separate things.

Thing 1: Sawvel’s quality as a coach.
Thing 2: The long-term systemic problems facing UW athletics, both internal and external.

Those two things obviously affect each other, but they are not the same issue. You could replace Sawvel with a legitimately great coach and things in Laramie would be better. They might even be a lot better. But that still would not come close to reversing the larger structural problems UW is dealing with.

My guess is that even in some alternate reality where Wyoming was a perennial top-tier Mountain West program, Sawvel still wouldn’t be the guy. Burman made the wrong hire. He clearly prioritized continuity, and the jury is no longer out on whether that worked. It didn’t.

But that does not mean Sawvel is the whole explanation for where UW is. Wyoming has been trying to swim upstream in a college athletics environment that has become brutally difficult for a school like this. The case study for extreme success at Wyoming’s level is Boise State, and that was not just “hire a good coach and win games.” Boise won a ton, but the school and community also grew in ways that were never realistically going to happen in Laramie.

Moderate success was more realistic. That probably looks something like being consistently competitive in the Mountain West, occasionally winning the league, and at least being talked about as a program with enough value to be attractive in realignment conversations. I don’t fault Burman for failing to turn Wyoming into Boise State. That seems like an unreasonable expectation. But there was a path to being much better than this, and the fork in that road came well before NIL, the portal, and the latest round of realignment chaos.

So yes, Sawvel looks like a bad coach. And yes, Burman deserves blame for hiring him. But the bigger indictment of Burman is not that he missed on one coach. It’s that after two decades, Wyoming was still so fragile that one bad continuity hire could expose just how little had actually been built. I have pointed out in the past some of these problems were percolating even before Burman but I truly don't believe that it was too late back in '06 when he was hired.

I'm not conflating anything.

It is pretty simple. Wyoming was 9-4. Wyoming was able to retain almost the entire roster of that 9-4 team. Wyoming proceeded to go 3-9 at the exact moment when Wyoming's conference future was up in the air. Had Wyoming been successful that season, it is pretty clear to me that Wyoming likely would have had other options than agreeing to pay UNLV and Air Force a bunch of money to hang on to this concept of the MWC. Wyoming looked awful and its options were thus limited. We are now stuck in crappy conference, with a crappy media deal, with a crappy outlook and no real hope. What else is there to say?

 

[307bball]

I'm not conflating anything.

It is pretty simple. Wyoming was 9-4. Wyoming was able to retain almost the entire roster of that 9-4 team. Wyoming proceeded to go 3-9 at the exact moment when Wyoming's conference future was up in the air. Had Wyoming been successful that season, it is pretty clear to me that Wyoming likely would have had other options than agreeing to pay UNLV and Air Force a bunch of money to hang on to this concept of the MWC. Wyoming looked awful and its options were thus limited. We are now stuck in crappy conference, with a crappy media deal, with a crappy outlook and no real hope. What else is there to say?

I’m just trying to keep the two things separate conceptually because I think they actually are separate.

Where I think we disagree is on how much a 10-2 type season would have changed Wyoming’s realignment fortunes. I’ll fully admit I don’t know exactly what gets said behind closed doors in conference realignment discussions. None of us really do. And yes, from the outside, going 3-9 that year looked bad.

With that said, I don’t think Boise State, Oregon State, Washington State, or anyone else was sitting around waiting for Wyoming’s 2024 record to be finalized before deciding what UW was worth. These things cook for years. They are built around more than one season's high or low.

So yeah, going 3-9 didn’t help. At most, I’ll concede that going 10-2 would not have hurt. It would have been more fun and less embarrassing for sure, but I don’t buy that one strong season would have created some meaningfully different set of conference options.

The problem is much bigger than one season, even one that happened at the worst possible time.

 

[OrediggerPoke]

I’m just trying to keep the two things separate conceptually because I think they actually are separate.

Where I think we disagree is on how much a 10-2 type season would have changed Wyoming’s realignment fortunes. I’ll fully admit I don’t know exactly what gets said behind closed doors in conference realignment discussions. None of us really do. And yes, from the outside, going 3-9 that year looked bad.

With that said, I don’t think Boise State, Oregon State, Washington State, or anyone else was sitting around waiting for Wyoming’s 2024 record to be finalized before deciding what UW was worth. These things cook for years. They are built around more than one season's high or low.

So yeah, going 3-9 didn’t help. At most, I’ll concede that going 10-2 would not have hurt. It would have been more fun and less embarrassing for sure, but I don’t buy that one strong season would have created some meaningfully different set of conference options.

The problem is much bigger than one season, even one that happened at the worst possible time.

We had to get on our knees and beg UNLV and Air Force with $25-$30 million extra each to stay. I highly doubt that would have been the case had Wyoming had a great season. We would have had other options than paying a bunch of a money to a historically awful program just so we had a place to play.