Reality check on the administration's supposed commitment

[Wyovanian]

Yes. If there are issues other than HC, then I assumed a logical decision would be to try to fix those.

Honest question, do you think our only problem is the HC?

I guess the honest answer is that I'm not on the "fire Burman" bandwagon.

He's got a tough job. He has to, just to name a few things, run a clean athletic department, deal with one zillion NCAA rules, supervise the academic/athletic interaction, so that our student-athletes graduate with meaningful degrees, constantly negotiate contracts, fund raise, satisfy boosters and, yes, keep the teams on the field on the right track...all within budget constraints that have been very difficult.

Sometimes I think being an AD at a D1 school is the most difficult job in all of entertainment...as, make no mistake, for the fans this is -- or should be -- just entertainment.

Now, as for success on the field, I'd say he's got all sports in a decent spot (with the exception of golf, which I both think will never change and we shouldn't have in the first place).

Which leaves football. For that, I'm sure Burman would love to wave a magic want and have unlimited funds. But he can't...and I know the Foundation and he fund raise like crazed weasels. Short of that, then, he's got to try to make a good coach hire, give that coach what he can give, support him as he can...then hope the coach and a bunch of 20 year olds manage to score more points than some other coach with his 20 year olds.

So, he hires DC. There's not a fan in this state who thought that was a bad hire. And DC can't pull it off...and I saw no evidence that it was the recruiting budget, or that DC couldn't get assistants he didn't have confidence in. What I saw was DC failing.

And now he's hired another guy. This new guy is well within the parameters of a coach who could be successful here. We'll see...but Burman doesn't have the advantage of seeing in advance. He has to pull the trigger when in his judgment he has the best shot he's going to have.

So, fire Burman now? Not in my book. But is the reality that Burman will be fired if this football coach doesn't pan out? Yep. That's just the way it works, and maybe the way it should work.

And what, do you suppose, were the roots of that failure?

I remain convinced that the University of Wyoming is similar to a Little League baseball player trying to pitch in the Major Leagues. We want to keep up with the big boys in this game but we are trying to do so from a position of extreme weakness. I think it is a numbers game and every year that Wyoming sends forth another graduating class that is less than half the size sent forth by the high major BCS schools, the gap between the alumni base for those schools and our UW expands.

Our stadium capacity and the population of Laramie also make a difference. According to http://www.gowyo.com/facilities/jonah-field-war-memorial-stadium.html War Memorial's capacity is down to 29,181 people. Compare that capacity to the population of Laramie as of the 2010 census (30,816). When I was in school, I seem to remember that those numbers were reversed with the stadium actually holding 32,000+ people and I think they sold over 33,000 tickets for a CSU game during that time.

Compare that to another college town, Ann Arbor. Michigan is indisputably one of the big boys historically, despite the economic and demographic mess the state is in. According to the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor's website http://www.mgoblue.com/facilities/michigan-stadium.html Michigan stadium was expanded in 2010 to a capacity of 109,901. (Note: the stadium was expanded--not downsized). The City of Ann Arbor had a population of 113,934 at the 2010 census.

In many ways, each of the two schools and programs are very similar. Both are located in the far southeastern corner of their respective states and also slightly west of the largest city in the state. Both Ann Arbor and Laramie are predominately known as college towns and both have stadiums that are only slightly smaller that the population of the whole host town. The difference, however, is in the sheer scale of the local population, local alumni base, job opportunities for graduates, and the size of the local recruiting base. In addition, Wyoming can only reliably sell 15,000+/- tickets to any one game compared to the reliable 100,000+ that Michigan can sell. MIchigan does this while also boasting an academic reputation that Wyoming can only dream of. I would even say that the gap between Michigan and Wyoming is wider on the academic reputation front than on the athletic field.

I think that the reason that Wyoming historically struggles to attain the dominance enjoyed by the major programs boils down to demographics and the money that comes from a larger population base, whether that population is measured in fans, students, alumni, local recruits, or local townfolk. Note, I have not even talked about TV contracts, but they reflect this trend too.

What we are asking for is a coach who consistently outperforms statistical probability. In all probability, we should have the record outcomes we have experienced. I would even go so far as to suggest that if one picks any school at random and must predict what the overall football record over the past 50 years has been for that school, the most intelligent guess would be .500. There are certainly outliers, but in general .500 would be a great guess.

We have advantages to work with at Wyoming in the context of the MWC. However, I will not hold an AD culpable for failing to attain the dominant performance over time that we see at other major programs. The real tests to me are whether the AD responds appropriately to changes in ticket sales and whether the athletic program harms the academic or public reputation of the University. I also expect to see teams compete, but that is ultimately reflected in ticket sales. To me, the travesty of the current AD is that his solution to our inability to sell out games is to downsize seating capacities. That, to me, shows a lack of ambition more than the eventual win-loss record of two football coaches that looked like impressive hires on paper when they were hired. In the end, both coaches performed about as well overall as the data suggests they should have except that each of the last two coaches won bowl games. It had been decades since that happened at U.W. I will take those, enjoy them, and hope for more to come.

And yet there are schools with much smaller enrollment than UW competing in the "Big 5".

Your argument is solid insofar as an obstacle facing Wyoming, but there are plenty of instances of schools overcoming the same if not more adversity.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

Somehow it's a little hard to blame Burman for anything DD, VK and JG did, don't you think?
If you're saying that we have had 50 years of averaging .500 football, you're right, and we should do better.

Nope. As AD it is his job to recognize that we have underlying issues which appear to be no fault of the HC. After this many failed HCs and decades of the bottom of the barrel, logic dictates that simply doing the same thing over and over probably will not work.

It is his job to figure out what the problems are and fix them.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

I remain convinced that the University of Wyoming is similar to a Little League baseball player trying to pitch in the Major Leagues. We want to keep up with the big boys in this game but we are trying to do so from a position of extreme weakness. I think it is a numbers game and every year that Wyoming sends forth another graduating class that is less than half the size sent forth by the high major BCS schools, the gap between the alumni base for those schools and our UW expands.

Big boys? Hell, at this point I would like to just compete in Little League (i.e. the MWC). We get blown out in Little League. Institutions with fewer resources than us kick our tails. Nobody is suggesting that first step is to compete with MI or Alabama. Finishing in the bottom of the MWC should be an anomaly not the norm. Finishing .500 in the MWC should be a rebuilding year.

Throw in at least a .500 OOC record and there is no reason we should be below 7 wins on the average year. We should challenge for the Conference title at least 3 out of 5 years and win the title at minimum 1 out of 5 years. We should never be in the bottom 5.

 

[SnowyRange]

Throw in at least a .500 OOC record and there is no reason we should be below 7 wins on the average year. We should challenge for the Conference title at least 3 out of 5 years and win the title at minimum 1 out of 5 years. We should never be in the bottom 5.

That 7-5 average is a terrific goal, and I think it's achievable. At least I hope it is. The problem we all struggle with is how to overcome the structural problems that have cause us to have a .500 average for the last 50 years.

 

[HR_Poke]

Burman sucks at fundraising. In todays sports world thats his soul job aside from hiring. Therefore he sucks as an AD and should be fired. Get the McMurrays or some millionaire wyoming alumni to do it since they have the connections to bring in the $$$$$

 

[ragtimejoe1]

The problem we all struggle with is how to overcome the structural problems that have cause us to have a .500 average for the last 50 years.

I'm not as concerned with the past 50 years, as I am the current era of college football. Since we have started our descent in about 2000, we have only been at or above .500 4 years out of 13. We aren't even close to averaging .500.

The other side of that isn't so much records as it is how uncompetitive we are. We have been receiving beat downs of embarrassing proportions from institutions with fewer resources for over a decade.

Burman's job is to fix it. So far he hasn't.

 

[NowherePoke]

Yes. If there are issues other than HC, then I assumed a logical decision would be to try to fix those.

Honest question, do you think our only problem is the HC?

I guess the honest answer is that I'm not on the "fire Burman" bandwagon.

He's got a tough job. He has to, just to name a few things, run a clean athletic department, deal with one zillion NCAA rules, supervise the academic/athletic interaction, so that our student-athletes graduate with meaningful degrees, constantly negotiate contracts, fund raise, satisfy boosters and, yes, keep the teams on the field on the right track...all within budget constraints that have been very difficult.

Sometimes I think being an AD at a D1 school is the most difficult job in all of entertainment...as, make no mistake, for the fans this is -- or should be -- just entertainment.

Now, as for success on the field, I'd say he's got all sports in a decent spot (with the exception of golf, which I both think will never change and we shouldn't have in the first place).

Which leaves football. For that, I'm sure Burman would love to wave a magic want and have unlimited funds. But he can't...and I know the Foundation and he fund raise like crazed weasels. Short of that, then, he's got to try to make a good coach hire, give that coach what he can give, support him as he can...then hope the coach and a bunch of 20 year olds manage to score more points than some other coach with his 20 year olds.

So, he hires DC. There's not a fan in this state who thought that was a bad hire. And DC can't pull it off...and I saw no evidence that it was the recruiting budget, or that DC couldn't get assistants he didn't have confidence in. What I saw was DC failing.

And now he's hired another guy. This new guy is well within the parameters of a coach who could be successful here. We'll see...but Burman doesn't have the advantage of seeing in advance. He has to pull the trigger when in his judgment he has the best shot he's going to have.

So, fire Burman now? Not in my book. But is the reality that Burman will be fired if this football coach doesn't pan out? Yep. That's just the way it works, and maybe the way it should work.

And what, do you suppose, were the roots of that failure?

I remain convinced that the University of Wyoming is similar to a Little League baseball player trying to pitch in the Major Leagues. We want to keep up with the big boys in this game but we are trying to do so from a position of extreme weakness. I think it is a numbers game and every year that Wyoming sends forth another graduating class that is less than half the size sent forth by the high major BCS schools, the gap between the alumni base for those schools and our UW expands.

Our stadium capacity and the population of Laramie also make a difference. According to http://www.gowyo.com/facilities/jonah-field-war-memorial-stadium.html War Memorial's capacity is down to 29,181 people. Compare that capacity to the population of Laramie as of the 2010 census (30,816). When I was in school, I seem to remember that those numbers were reversed with the stadium actually holding 32,000+ people and I think they sold over 33,000 tickets for a CSU game during that time.

Compare that to another college town, Ann Arbor. Michigan is indisputably one of the big boys historically, despite the economic and demographic mess the state is in. According to the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor's website http://www.mgoblue.com/facilities/michigan-stadium.html Michigan stadium was expanded in 2010 to a capacity of 109,901. (Note: the stadium was expanded--not downsized). The City of Ann Arbor had a population of 113,934 at the 2010 census.

In many ways, each of the two schools and programs are very similar. Both are located in the far southeastern corner of their respective states and also slightly west of the largest city in the state. Both Ann Arbor and Laramie are predominately known as college towns and both have stadiums that are only slightly smaller that the population of the whole host town. The difference, however, is in the sheer scale of the local population, local alumni base, job opportunities for graduates, and the size of the local recruiting base. In addition, Wyoming can only reliably sell 15,000+/- tickets to any one game compared to the reliable 100,000+ that Michigan can sell. MIchigan does this while also boasting an academic reputation that Wyoming can only dream of. I would even say that the gap between Michigan and Wyoming is wider on the academic reputation front than on the athletic field.

I think that the reason that Wyoming historically struggles to attain the dominance enjoyed by the major programs boils down to demographics and the money that comes from a larger population base, whether that population is measured in fans, students, alumni, local recruits, or local townfolk. Note, I have not even talked about TV contracts, but they reflect this trend too.

What we are asking for is a coach who consistently outperforms statistical probability. In all probability, we should have the record outcomes we have experienced. I would even go so far as to suggest that if one picks any school at random and must predict what the overall football record over the past 50 years has been for that school, the most intelligent guess would be .500. There are certainly outliers, but in general .500 would be a great guess.

We have advantages to work with at Wyoming in the context of the MWC. However, I will not hold an AD culpable for failing to attain the dominant performance over time that we see at other major programs. The real tests to me are whether the AD responds appropriately to changes in ticket sales and whether the athletic program harms the academic or public reputation of the University. I also expect to see teams compete, but that is ultimately reflected in ticket sales. To me, the travesty of the current AD is that his solution to our inability to sell out games is to downsize seating capacities. That, to me, shows a lack of ambition more than the eventual win-loss record of two football coaches that looked like impressive hires on paper when they were hired. In the end, both coaches performed about as well overall as the data suggests they should have except that each of the last two coaches won bowl games. It had been decades since that happened at U.W. I will take those, enjoy them, and hope for more to come.

Not sure what the University of Michigan has to do with expectations of competitive performance at the University of Wyoming. U of M is not, and never has been, our competitive peer in collegiate athletics and there is no expectation that we will attain that level.

However, there is an expectation that we compete in the MWC among our athletic peers. We are not at a financial disadvantage in the MWC. Particularly since the departure of BYU, Utah, and TCU we are very much a median athletic program by budget in the MWC. However, we are WAY below median in terms of competitive performance in the league. That's the problem. We haven't won a MWC title in any sport since 2002. Only AFA is in an even remotely cosmparable position and they have a much smaller enrollment and strict admission criteria (not to mention the scope of the commitment, academic expectations, etc.).

The notion that it should be considered acceptable for us to perform at a level dramatically below that of peer institutions (Nevada, USU, CSU) in the same conference is very frustrating.


Having said all of that, back to the original context of the thread:

I am not a fan of Tom Burman and that is no secret on this board. However, this looks like quality management from my perspective. There is certainly a place to discuss Burman's lack of ability to communicate a clear vision and strategy for the department to funding entities (public and private) and the limitations that has placed on our revenue generating potential. In the context of this decision however, I think Burman did a great job.

Like any manager, he has budgetary limitations. Where did everyone think a magical pot of money was going to come from? In the absence of a dramatic increase in revenue, Burman was able to do the following:

1. Significantly increase the recruiting budget - This is a key investment in competitiveness.

2. Increase assistant coach salaries - Providing the opportunity to improve the candidate pool for the primary staff that works with the players on a daily basis.

3. Hire the HC he wanted and one that is considered by most neutral observers to be a tremendous hire for Wyoming.


So, with the same budget, he upgraded three key aspects (assuming Bohl>DC, which we won't know for a while)j. That's impressive.


P.S. We didn't downsize seating capacity as a result of poor attendance. We lost seating as a result of the completion of the Wildcatter Suites.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

Like any manager, he has budgetary limitations. Where did everyone think a magical pot of money was going to come from? In the absence of a dramatic increase in revenue, Burman was able to do the following:
1. Significantly increase the recruiting budget - This is a key investment in competitiveness.
2. Increase assistant coach salaries - Providing the opportunity to improve the candidate pool for the primary staff that works with the players on a daily basis.
3. Hire the HC he wanted and one that is considered by most neutral observers to be a tremendous hire for Wyoming.
So, with the same budget, he upgraded three key aspects (assuming Bohl>DC, which we won't know for a while)j. That's impressive.

That I agree with. Still, the other part of his job is right the ship; to generate that funding and put a winning product on the field. My point being that he appears to lack a vision or lack the ability to get people to follow that vision.

The State has actually kicked in quite a bit of money for building projects relative to Athletics. That was his decision to seek funding in that capacity. Was there a chance to use that money for other things? Would we be failing worse without those? Could that money have been strategically spent to better success?

I get the concept. Build facilities and hire the best coaches you can. It seems reasonable, but there is something missing. It isn't working. The ADs job is to figure out what isn't working, communicate what the problem(s) is/are, create a roadmap to fix problems, and sell that roadmap to generate support. That is my beef with WYO athletics; I have never felt like we have a clear vision of how to build winning programs.