North Dakota State

[PorkerPoke]

Leadership does matter. Look at Utard State and even with all the turmoil they have had they are still putting out successful teams.

The single biggest thing they did was take Stew Morril when CS-ewe didn’t appreciate what they had. All he did was put usu hoops on a Brandenburg type run and the admin there haven’t run the program into the ground.

They also have gone out and got football coaches who were able to get to .500 and peak at the top a couple of times. We took the QB they benched and got to 9 wins for the first time since 1996 because we were finally able to play some offense.

Under Burman we are like a house continually in need of a paint job but the approach is to try and touch up the really bad spots and call it good.

 

[307bball]

Leadership does matter. Look at Utard State and even with all the turmoil they have had they are still putting out successful teams.

The single biggest thing they did was take Stew Morril when CS-ewe didn’t appreciate what they had. All he did was put usu hoops on a Brandenburg type run and the admin there haven’t run the program into the ground.

They also have gone out and got football coaches who were able to get to .500 and peak at the top a couple of times. We took the QB they benched and got to 9 wins for the first time since 1996 because we were finally able to play some offense.

Under Burman we are like a house continually in need of a paint job but the approach is to try and touch up the really bad spots and call it good.

Leadership matters — of course it does. The question is how much leverage leadership actually has given the structural forces at play.

Utah State is a tough comparison because most of the macro factors that constrain Wyoming are either neutral or outright favorable for them. They sit in a faster-growing population base, have easier access to recruits and transfers, and benefit from being within the gravitational pull of the Wasatch Front rather than hundreds of miles from anything. That matters more now than it did 25–30 years ago.

Morrill was a great hire, no question — but that also happened at a time when basketball success was more portable and less resource-intensive than it is now. Today, sustaining that kind of run is dramatically harder, especially from a place with Wyoming’s geography and NIL realities.

Same thing in football: getting to .500 and spiking a good season here and there is still possible (we’ve seen that), but doing it consistently is where the headwinds show up. Utah State’s environment makes those peaks easier to reach and easier to maintain.

The frustration for me is that people talk past each other. Leadership can absolutely make things marginally better or worse — but pretending UW and USU are operating under the same constraints misses why “just hire better” hasn’t produced durable success here in decades.

I know I'm running afoul of the "you are just making excuses for Burman" crowd with this line of thinking...but I am certainly no fan of his.

 

[rich22]

Leadership matters — of course it does. The question is how much leverage leadership actually has given the structural forces at play.

Utah State is a tough comparison because most of the macro factors that constrain Wyoming are either neutral or outright favorable for them. They sit in a faster-growing population base, have easier access to recruits and transfers, and benefit from being within the gravitational pull of the Wasatch Front rather than hundreds of miles from anything. That matters more now than it did 25–30 years ago.

Morrill was a great hire, no question — but that also happened at a time when basketball success was more portable and less resource-intensive than it is now. Today, sustaining that kind of run is dramatically harder, especially from a place with Wyoming’s geography and NIL realities.

Same thing in football: getting to .500 and spiking a good season here and there is still possible (we’ve seen that), but doing it consistently is where the headwinds show up. Utah State’s environment makes those peaks easier to reach and easier to maintain.

The frustration for me is that people talk past each other. Leadership can absolutely make things marginally better or worse — but pretending UW and USU are operating under the same constraints misses why “just hire better” hasn’t produced durable success here in decades.

I know I'm running afoul of the "you are just making excuses for Burman" crowd with this line of thinking...but I am certainly no fan of his.

307, I appreciate your stuff on here but I disagree with this point... I think the Utah State comparison is completely justified. It is 83 miles from Logan to Salt Lake City. It is 127 miles from Laramie to Denver. You have to pass over a mountain pass to travel either one of these drives. Their population is very similar to the Laramie/Cheyenne population. The city of Logan alone has 52 k. Laramie has 32 k. They have a population that follows them about the same as the state of Wyoming in population, maybe less.

I would argue that their structural forces are greater than ours. They are 3rd fiddle in their state all of the time. They might fall behind UVU just due to location/population base some day down the road. They were playing in the big west for Bball until about 20 years ago.

They are someone we should try to emulate at this point, I guess. They have all of the same structural problems we do but they answer with aggressiveness and vision and our leaders answer with excuses.
Their structural problems are so similar to us:
1. Small population and following
2. Remote location
3. 3rd in their area for recruits. They have 2 power schools in their recruit area. We have 1.
4. They are in a large agriculture area, not a metro area with large businesses.

These are just the 4 off the top of my head. We are more similar than we want to think. They have just out performed us on every front for the last 8 years due to a vision and aggressive leadership. That is just my opinion.

 

[Wyomingisgreat1]

307, I appreciate your stuff on here but I disagree with this point... I think the Utah State comparison is completely justified. It is 83 miles from Logan to Salt Lake City. It is 127 miles from Laramie to Denver. You have to pass over a mountain pass to travel either one of these drives. Their population is very similar to the Laramie/Cheyenne population. The city of Logan alone has 52 k. Laramie has 32 k. They have a population that follows them about the same as the state of Wyoming in population, maybe less.

I would argue that their structural forces are greater than ours. They are 3rd fiddle in their state all of the time. They might fall behind UVU just due to location/population base some day down the road. They were playing in the big west for Bball until about 20 years ago.

They are someone we should try to emulate at this point, I guess. They have all of the same structural problems we do but they answer with aggressiveness and vision and our leaders answer with excuses.
Their structural problems are so similar to us:
1. Small population and following
2. Remote location
3. 3rd in their area for recruits. They have 2 power schools in their recruit area. We have 1.
4. They are in a large agriculture area, not a metro area with large businesses.

These are just the 4 off the top of my head. We are more similar than we want to think. They have just out performed us on every front for the last 8 years due to a vision and aggressive leadership. That is just my opinion.

Logan has 56,000 in city limits but in the surrounding area has around 155,000. That is more than Cheyenne and Laramie combined.

 

[307bball]

307, I appreciate your stuff on here but I disagree with this point... I think the Utah State comparison is completely justified. It is 83 miles from Logan to Salt Lake City. It is 127 miles from Laramie to Denver. You have to pass over a mountain pass to travel either one of these drives. Their population is very similar to the Laramie/Cheyenne population. The city of Logan alone has 52 k. Laramie has 32 k. They have a population that follows them about the same as the state of Wyoming in population, maybe less.

I would argue that their structural forces are greater than ours. They are 3rd fiddle in their state all of the time. They might fall behind UVU just due to location/population base some day down the road. They were playing in the big west for Bball until about 20 years ago.

They are someone we should try to emulate at this point, I guess. They have all of the same structural problems we do but they answer with aggressiveness and vision and our leaders answer with excuses.
Their structural problems are so similar to us:
1. Small population and following
2. Remote location
3. 3rd in their area for recruits. They have 2 power schools in their recruit area. We have 1.
4. They are in a large agriculture area, not a metro area with large businesses.

These are just the 4 off the top of my head. We are more similar than we want to think. They have just out performed us on every front for the last 8 years due to a vision and aggressive leadership. That is just my opinion.

Yeah..I don't mean to say it's the worst comp...it's just not perfect.

All the stuff you point out are observationally correct but I think I don't go as far as you do in how you interpret it. For instance, your point about them being 3rd in thier area for recruits....that may be, but that is 3rd in an area that recruits seem to want to be (and is growing rapidly) while Laramie is first in an area that recruits seem to want to avoid and has had very stagnant growth (all things being equal).

Logan is remote when compared to Salt lake city but distance and amount of services and amenities at USU is less than UW...Logan is not some urban hot spot but Laramie is closer to the middle of nowhere than Logan (which I like btw).

They very likely have better leadership than UW...quality of leadership is heavily correlated to how desirable the place is to work. If there is such thing as a "desirablilty index" of where people want to work...UW seems to be on the low end.

 

[307bball]

307, I appreciate your stuff on here but I disagree with this point... I think the Utah State comparison is completely justified. It is 83 miles from Logan to Salt Lake City. It is 127 miles from Laramie to Denver. You have to pass over a mountain pass to travel either one of these drives. Their population is very similar to the Laramie/Cheyenne population. The city of Logan alone has 52 k. Laramie has 32 k. They have a population that follows them about the same as the state of Wyoming in population, maybe less.

I would argue that their structural forces are greater than ours. They are 3rd fiddle in their state all of the time. They might fall behind UVU just due to location/population base some day down the road. They were playing in the big west for Bball until about 20 years ago.

They are someone we should try to emulate at this point, I guess. They have all of the same structural problems we do but they answer with aggressiveness and vision and our leaders answer with excuses.
Their structural problems are so similar to us:
1. Small population and following
2. Remote location
3. 3rd in their area for recruits. They have 2 power schools in their recruit area. We have 1.
4. They are in a large agriculture area, not a metro area with large businesses.

These are just the 4 off the top of my head. We are more similar than we want to think. They have just out performed us on every front for the last 8 years due to a vision and aggressive leadership. That is just my opinion.

I just wanted to add a bit on to this....My issue is that it is possible to seperate the causes of UW's athletic decline into the following two categories: Things within the control of UW administration and leadership and things outside of UW's control.

There is a laser focus on things that I would consider to be part of the first category in a lot of these discussions. The good-faith interpretation of that is something along the lines of the serenity prayer...

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."

Unfortunately, the outcomes we care about have become disproportionally affected by things outside of UW's administrative sphere of influence. Comments that put Burman or UW's current administration at the center of the cause of UW's decline are not pricing in some really important causal factors. I am an advocate of cleaning house at the higher levels of leadership at UW...it seems to be really needed at this point. And, I'm very concerned that when it eventually happens, the aversion to looking at these external issues will remain and people will continue to try versions of what has been successfull in places with much different constraints than are faced within the borders of our state....this will not produce success. We as a state, from the governor on down, must figure out how to walk and chew gum at the same time. There has to be a recognition the the uniqueness of our position is not entirely positive and must be made up for in ways that, for instance, CSU or USU do not have to price in. I don't know if any one person could make wrap thier head around this but a result-oriented culture would at least produce teams of people that could work in a positive direction.