This is interesting to me. I apologize if you have laid this out before... Could you say more about Wyoming's athletic department not being built for success?
From my perspective, there are two main issues:
1) This one is, by far, the most important issue.
We need to spend more money. Obviously, to spend more money, we need more money to spend. This has always been an issue, but it has been magnified now more than ever with NIL and revenue sharing. Before NIL, the main place it impacted things was our ability to attract and retain coaching talent...particularly in the assistant coaching category. The few times we did have a decent coordinator we couldn't keep them because we couldn't afford them. It seemed to always kill any momentum we were building. Good example...Scottie Hazelton at D-coordinator. Now we can't afford to attract good players because we can't afford them. When we do a find an undervalued player, they are gone after one year because we can't pay them enough to keep them. Obviously, if you can't attract top talent and can't retain the talent you do develop, then you aren't going to be winning any championships.
2)
Our leadership has too low of expectations. UW is located in a small town in a sparsely populated state that most people, especially young people, see as an undesirable location. Does this put UW at a disadvantage in recruiting athletes? Absolutely it does. But none of us can change the weather or make Laramie into a metropolis any time soon. While fans and the media are fair in pointing out these shortcomings, the leadership at UW shouldn't give one shit about those things. It is what it is and nobody is changing it in the near future. They are simply obstacles to be overcome. The UW President, BoT, AD, and all the coaches should be expecting the same thing...MWC championships. How do you show you're serious about those expectations? Getting rid of anyone who can't deliver on it. We hang on to coaches and AD's wayyyyy too long. If they can't get it done, then let's look for someone else who might be able to. Otherwise, we are just wasting our time.
I will say this...do fixing these things guarantee we will start winning championships? No, it doesn't. But it does finally give us a chance. Right now, I don't think we are even giving ourselves a fair chance because of the above issues.
Are fixing these issues easy? No. In fact, they are pretty complex and difficult issues to overcome. But we need people in charge who want to try. Right now, we have a leadership that sees these issues as insurmountable.