Fire Burman

[307bball]

He had it all moving the right direction. His staff was excellent (Barbara Burke should have been our AD when Gary moved to Iowa in 2006). He was sought out by ASU for their AD position, after spending time at Washington and Norther Iowa. From my memory and involvement somewhat...his 3 - 4 years at UW brought on planning, and scheduling for things like the Wildcatter, IPF, RAC first renovation, upgraded sound and video, and similar smaller victories. He also had the AA rocking with Bucky, and Joe Glenn hired for football, digging us out of the Koenning doldrums.

He actually was able to retire from the AD position at Iowa so he's obviously good enough at the job.

Had to go remind myself of the actual years that Barta was here. It was '03 to '06. McClain had already peaked and had a .363 winning percentage in conference during those years. He was getting the axe no matter who was replacing Barta. Football had it's (relative) high point in that era culminating in the '04 Vegas Bowl victory. I loved Joe Glenn at the time because of the depths the program had sunk to previous to him, but in retrospect, I don't view the football accomplishments during that time as any better than average.

Whatever planning was put into place that resulted in the upgrades is laudable and I have no trust that Burman could have pulled it off...but again...in retrospect, this investments were never going to be enough. The smartest thing he did was probably to take a job somewhere that had a better shot at collegiate athletic success.

All this to say...I still go back to the mid '90's through 2000 or so as the critical time period where the ball of terribleness began to roll. That era represents a fork in the road that, as time passed, became harder and harder to ignore the effects of. Effective and non-effective administrations have, since that time, used what tools they had at thier disposal to keep things moving forward while the conditions have steadily worsened. At a certain point, it feels like it passed a point of no return.....a point that, realistically speaking, it became unreasonable to expect to return to the historical high points of the UW athletic tradition. For me, at the latest, it was when BYU, Utah, and TCU left the conference....but you could convince me it came earlier than that.

 

[Brew_Poke]

He actually was able to retire from the AD position at Iowa so he's obviously good enough at the job.

Had to go remind myself of the actual years that Barta was here. It was '03 to '06. McClain had already peaked and had a .363 winning percentage in conference during those years. He was getting the axe no matter who was replacing Barta. Football had it's (relative) high point in that era culminating in the '04 Vegas Bowl victory. I loved Joe Glenn at the time because of the depths the program had sunk to previous to him, but in retrospect, I don't view the football accomplishments during that time as any better than average.

Whatever planning was put into place that resulted in the upgrades is laudable and I have no trust that Burman could have pulled it off...but again...in retrospect, this investments were never going to be enough. The smartest thing he did was probably to take a job somewhere that had a better shot at collegiate athletic success.

All this to say...I still go back to the mid '90's through 2000 or so as the critical time period where the ball of terribleness began to roll. That era represents a fork in the road that, as time passed, became harder and harder to ignore the effects of. Effective and non-effective administrations have, since that time, used what tools they had at thier disposal to keep things moving forward while the conditions have steadily worsened. At a certain point, it feels like it passed a point of no return.....a point that, realistically speaking, it became unreasonable to expect to return to the historical high points of the UW athletic tradition. For me, at the latest, it was when BYU, Utah, and TCU left the conference....but you could convince me it came earlier than that.

Sternberg report lays it all out and corroborates your analysis here. Since that time, we've had an "aw, shucks, we're just little old Wyoming. We do pretty good!" mentality. It's kind of sickening. I wish someone along the way had just shitcanned the entire AD and brought in some young hungry out of staters who actually know college athletics.

 

[307bball]

Sternberg report lays it all out and corroborates your analysis here. Since that time, we've had an "aw, shucks, we're just little old Wyoming. We do pretty good!" mentality. It's kind of sickening. I wish someone along the way had just shitcanned the entire AD and brought in some young hungry out of staters who actually know college athletics.

That probably is what it would have taken...unfortuantely the time period where that would have made a difference was before there was much appetite for something like that. Imagine if everybody at the higher up levels at UW had been turned over and replaced by "these young hungry out of staters" around 2001? That would have been early enough to realistically change some things but it would have been a political nuclear bomb!

I don't have as much inside info as some...but I have had some contact with folks in charge. I just have never detected the "little old Wyoming" mentality in any coach or person in charge. To the extent it exists, it seems to be in a portion of the casual fan base. My impression (limited so take it with a grain of salt) is that the people in charge hate the way things have gone and are anything but "happy" with where things stand. Obviously that doesn't mean they know what to do...they obviously don't. I know that the press releases are always pumping sunshine...I guess I don't think those are any indicator of the states of mind of any of those folks.

 

[Brew_Poke]

My impression (limited so take it with a grain of salt) is that the people in charge hate the way things have gone and are anything but "happy" with where things stand. Obviously that doesn't mean they know what to do...they obviously don't. I know that the press releases are always pumping sunshine...I guess I don't think those are any indicator of the states of mind of any of those folks.

We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!

 

[307bball]

We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!

haha...love that line.

In all seriousness...it is hard to look at the investments and think that "we've tried nothing" is accurate at all. More like, "We're trying everything and nothing is working". Again...the horse is 20+ years out of the barn at this point. The opportunity to make change probably existed by the time Burman was hired .... but to have really had the best shot at it....it should have been doen before 2000. It just feels like by the time Utah, TCU and BYU left the conference, the die had been cast.

 

[BigO4WYO]

It’s always about people. Wyoming doesn’t invest in people. That’s the philosophical difference.

 

[McPeachy]

TTT. Still needs fired. Worst AD in our history at UW maybe....

 

[307bball]

TTT. Still needs fired. Worst AD in our history at UW maybe....

Definitely oversaw the most dramatic decline of UW athletics.

I know everybody has opinions on TB...the longer this has gone on, he just seems like the captain of a sinking ship. Maybe if we had a better captain they could arrange the deck chairs more nicely as we sink beneath the waves.

Nobody knows what options have actually been available to UW leadership for the last 20 years so it's hard for me to make the claim that there was some obvious way forward that they all just whiffed on. That being said...the one thing I am sure about is that he doesn't know how to properly fill a coaching position (and, even worse, doesn't move on quickly from mistakes). The biggest (relative) successes of his process have been Larry Shyatt and Craig Bohl...and the rest have been some version of train wrecks or dumpster fires.

 

[Wyolie Coyote]

Nobody knows what options have actually been available to UW leadership for the last 20 years so it's hard for me to make the claim that there was some obvious way forward that they all just whiffed on. That being said...the one thing I am sure about is that he doesn't know how to properly fill a coaching position (and, even worse, doesn't move on quickly from mistakes). The biggest (relative) successes of his process have been Larry Shyatt and Craig Bohl...and the rest have been some version of train wrecks or dumpster fires.

And he is dating one

 

[PorkerPoke]

The biggest (relative) successes of his process have been Larry Shyatt and Craig Bohl...and the rest have been some version of train wrecks or dumpster fires.

It’s sad to say this is relative (left off “biggest” because it hurts too much to use in conjunction with) success when you consider Shyatt was 37-47 in conference during his 2nd stint after suing UW and while Bohl was the best since Tiller he managed a conference record of 37-41. Neither won a conference championship. Bohl made a conference championship game after winning home field in a 4 way tie for the regular season championship. Shyatt won a conference tournament championship and the automatic NCAA bid only to get absolutely throttled by Northern Iowa.

I admit I am tainted by the past. In my lifetime I have enjoyed 60’s powerhouse football and some bright spots in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Bohl has been the best since the 90’s but refused to play offense. I have enjoyed hoops and with DeVoe in the late 70’s made it exciting again. My favorite hoops weekend was in 1981 with back to back wins over top 20 BYU and Utah in the field house.

I am pretty sure I will leave this world happy to have lived when Wyoming played on the national stage in both of the major sports albeit short lived.

I will never be able to consider anything Shyatt or Bohl accomplished made me feel the same level of euphoria. I admit the situation has been so bleak for so long that little snippets of success like Shyatt and Bohl have made it feel like success. Basically I really don’t care about OOC success when the program is a perennial fixture in the middle and too often in the bottom of the conference standings year after year.

I acknowledge any more that success for Wyoming has to be measured at .500 or better in conference for either football or basketball. Shyatt .440, Linder .441 and Bohl .474 in the MWC are the recent success stories. Those are still bottom feeder results and the best since the 90’s. Hoops 2000’s started the MWC in a powerful way but then McClain made some mistakes and never recovered.

I think Wyokie said it best regarding recent Wyoming history: “my answer was better and more Wyoming like. We're horse shit.”

Wyoming will never reach .500 overall in MWC history in either sport in my lifetime unless I live more than 100 years. So any conference record over .500 will feel successful.