Reality

[OrediggerPoke]

. Then, the governor needs to back the department financially and with creative funding opportunities like partnering with the tourism board.

What? The budget is controlled by the legislature. The governor cannot dictate the power of the purse.

But get ready. The budget is about to undergo a major buzz saw (if a budget even happens…new sentiment is that the freedom caucus might not event be able to put together a budget at all).

 

[ragtimejoe1]

What? The budget is controlled by the legislature. The governor cannot dictate the power of the purse.

But get ready. The budget is about to undergo a major buzz saw (if a budget even happens…new sentiment is that the freedom caucus might not event be able to put together a budget at all).

Usually the governor puts forth general budget recommendations and legislature hammers out details.

Freedom caucus probably won't be receptive to increased athletic support. Without a top down support, I doubt even the change at ad will do much.

 

[OrediggerPoke]

Usually the governor puts forth general budget recommendations and legislature hammers out details.

Freedom caucus probably won't be receptive to increased athletic support. Without a top down support, I doubt even the change at ad will do much.

Freedom caucus has chosen not to consult with the governor on the budget and has already stated they reject his recommendations.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

Freedom caucus has chosen not to consult with the governor on the budget and has already stated they reject his recommendations.

Back to the second point. If athletics aren't supported by the state's taxpayers (who elected the freedom caucus) then maybe it's time to evaluate moving to a sports model that can be competitive with the level of funding provided?

Either that or the athletic department needs to find more money. Imo, the point remains. Chase it competitively or drop it. Unescessary price gouging of taxpayers, students, and fans lies in between. Funding the middle is nothing more than funding careers not meeting the objectives of a college athletics department.

 

[BigHorn]

First person I’ve seen say that.

Why were you expecting success with Johnson? Johnson was able to take NFL talent at Michigan State and turn it into one of the worst offenses in college football. It takes a special level of coaching to do that.

Johnson was a OC before he got here and was a long time QB coach, two things that I have not seen in a OC in a while at UW. I will question you on your conclusion as to what he did at Michigan St., if he was so poor they would have certainly fired him early on. He was let go because he was a holdover coach from a previous staff. Secondly, that Michigan St. RB was a stud and he performed like that. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[OrediggerPoke]

Johnson was a OC before he got here and was a long time QB coach, two things that I have not seen in a OC in a while at UW. I will question you on your conclusion as to what he did at Michigan St., if he was so poor they would have certainly fired him early on. He was let go because he was a holdover coach from a previous staff. Secondly, that Michigan St. RB was a stud and he performed like that. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

Johnson’s offense at Michigan State was 126 out of 134 FBS teams at 17.5 points per game and 115th in yards per game in 2023 prior to coming to Wyoming. Shockingly, he actually was worse ranked at Wyoming (however that was possible).

Yes - we will have to agree to disagree on expectations.

 

[PorkerPoke]

He was let go because he was a holdover coach from a previous staff.

Correct. He was the OC under Mel Tucker who was fired. Besides Tucker being fired a couple of assistants were implicated in cheating. Johnson was not named as any part of that illicit activity but potentially benefited from the recruiting activities.

A closer look at Jay’s stints as an experienced coach the past 10 years. Here are his stats for his last 8 seasons as the OC. It’s the national rankings for:

YEAR - TotOFF/TotPass - SCORING/Points

2025 - 118/113 - 129/16.8
2024 - 119/107 - 123/19.3
2023 - 128/98 - 131/15.9
2022 - 97/58 - 91/24.4
2021 - 43/49 - 39/31.8
2020 - 109/54 - 116/18.0
2019 - 82/61 - 100/23.5
2016 - 107/111 - 63/29.3

Average- 100/81.5 - 99/22.38

Team W-L at OC stints:
7-16 Wyo
22-22 MSU
5-7 CU
9-4 MN

43-49 .467

Scoring:
2 years 29.3 or higher
2 years 23.5-24.4
4 years 19.3 or less

Not the worst but definitely the bottom 1/3 of the FBS. As for his one exceptional year in 2021 even Bohl was an offensive guru in 2016 and not close there after. The biggest indicator is 6 of 8 seasons are under 25 points in average scoring. That means the team better be pretty stout with the defense.

Wyoming is at 19.6 ppg allowed but not good enough to win games this year which is the season Sawful demoted Jay Johnson from his position. I give Johnson credit for this year because it was his setup.

Here’s what Sawful said he wanted from the offense in December 2023:

"I have a simple philosophy … explosive players make explosive plays," Sawvel said at his introductory press conference in December after being promoted to replace Craig Bohl. "What we've got to do is make sure we get explosive players the ball, we've got to recruit and obtain and retain explosive players and then we've got to make it to where those guys can play really fast."

Johnson was a OC before he got here and was a long time QB coach, two things that I have not seen in a OC in a while at UW.

If Johnson is a nice get because he has coached QB’s along with having one really good OC year, he definitely didn’t convince Sawful the offense was not going to produce in 2024 or 2025. It kind of shows in his pattern of weaker offenses. Maybe he didn’t realize he really didn’t have the players needed to work with but told Sawful he was ready to let the offense explode!