D1.ticker - Eliminate the barrage of articles & time-consuming
searches. Efficient D1 athletics news in a daily email.
Top 10 Most Read is released every Friday afternoon, allowing you to compare the most read stories over the past seven days to your own interest list. Feedback, as always, is welcome to Matt@D1ticker.com.
#10:Clemson released an "intent to award" letter for its multimedia rights with JMI to the tune of seven years & $67M. SBJ/SBD's Smith says the deal also includes campus-wide rights. All the heavy hitters reportedly bid on the Tigers portfolio with JMI on the way to adding to its stable of Kentucky, Penn, the Ivy League & its joint venture with IMG College at Georgia. The incumbent at CU is a Learfield-IMG College mashup. (link)
#9:SBD/SBJ's Smith goes in on potential realignment scenarios for Conference USA & the Sun Belt with an eye toward reducing travel costs & increasing regional rivalries with stronger ticket sales as the kicker. Looks at the options of taking the two leagues & naturally dividing them along east & west lines, as well as four pods of six schools with James Madison joining the mix with a FB tourney of sorts (no discussion of other sports). Old Dominion AD Selig: "Finances are going to necessitate logical, reasonable thinking to do what’s best for the student athletes and the institutions. We can’t keep trying to keep up with the SEC or ACC." Arkansas State boss Mohajir: "College football is all about regional rivalries. What’s best for college football? It’s games that your fans can attend. Fans can’t travel to these games anymore. If you’re playing a bunch of opponents that make your fans say, ‘Who cares?,’ there’s not going to be any interest." MTSU's Massaro says change is only going to come when a "fiscally dramatic event" breaks. More. (link)
#8:The News Star's Hunsucker: "Brooks resignation caps a bizarre year at ULM." Hunsucker runs through the series of events & decisions that led former Warhawks Deputy AD Brooks back to the university & Prez Bruno, then back to the athletic department before exiting for Georgia last week. "The same university president spends the months leading up to the expiration of the athletic director’s contract showering him with endorsements like, ‘Brian is our athletic director until he isn’t,’ only to come through at the 11th hour with an extension. All’s well that ends well, I guess. Brooks and Wickstrom deserve credit for making the best of the situation. Wickstrom’s fundraising efforts over the last year saw the opening of ULM’s long-awaited end zone football facility and the installation of field turf at the Warhawk softball complex." Hunsucker ends by wondering what happens next in the department as many new hires had ties to Brooks. (link)
#7: Yahoo's Wetzel writes on the perceived corner the Big Ten finds itself in with Penn State& Wisconsin playing for the conference's FB title, but arguably the top two teams the league, Ohio State & Michigan, sitting on the sidelines as the College FB Playoff final rankings are less than a week away. Sharp-tongued: "That means two completely unbalanced seven-team divisions, disparate schedules, a lack of commonality and, as such, no idea who the heck are actually the league’s two best teams – yet with a title game construct featuring supposedly just that. All this while trying to operate under the national playoff system that everyone cares a heck of a lot more about than a league championship." More, "This is the mess that the disorganization of college football creates. Too many teams in each league. The arbitrary lines of an East-West division. The nebulous standards put in front of a national selection committee. Plus, college football’s leadership isn’t standing up to the bowl lobby and creating a more streamlined playoff system, namely with automatic bids for five major conference champions and quarterfinals and semifinals staged on campus." (link)
#6:Kansas State FB HC Snyder didn't mince words when asked about how HC hires & the football landscape has changed over the years. "It's my feeling that we have exploited college football - college athletes in general and college football. You know, we speak all the time about the welfare of the student-athlete and indeed that is not what has evolved as the most important thing. It's been strictly about winning and dollars. Maybe dollars first and then winning second, or vice versa. But you know, I think we've sold out to the dollars and cents. We've sold out to TV, and if I were in the TV market or in that field I'm sure we'd want to promote all we could for our TV business, but you think about game being played for money, that's the intent of it, you play for money so we're playing games on - you pick the night of the week." More. (link)
#5: Former UMass Interim AD & notable industry thought-leader Wong pens for SBJ on trends in AD hires over the last couple of years. It's a long & interesting read that follows up his last effort on the topic from back in June of 2014. Takeaways: Average age for the 106 AD hires in the last 30 months is 47, a third of whom were 50 or older. Forty-six percent were a sitting AD at another institution, a data point up from 38% from Wong's last study. Diversity continues to be a discussion point as 'Power 5' programs feature only three female ADs (Yow at NC State, Cohen at Washington & Barbour at Penn State). Yow: "I think you’re going to have to wait another century [to see gender parity amongst ADs]." Only eight of the last 106 hires (107 now with Liberty's hire of former Baylor AD McCaw) have been non-traditional candidates & "the 21 ADs who have been hired at schools in the power fivesince 2014 are, on the whole, older, less ethnically diverse, more likely to be male, have been a college athlete, have previous AD experience, and hold proportionally fewer advanced degrees than those hired in the remainder of Division I." Lots more. (link)
#4:Western Michigan FB HC Fleck penned for The Players' Tribune & naturally it's titled, "Keep Rowing." Reflects back on his halftime speech during last year's Ball State game when he delivered all of 10 words before walking out, "When are you going to be tired of being average?" Also, writes on the hardest thing he's ever been through, the loss of his second son, Colt, back in 2011, details what rowing the boat is all about (the oar, the boat & the compass), plus examples of why it's worked. More. (link)
#3: A brief update on the Oregon State AD search comes from OregonLive.com's Canzano as he took a momentary break from speculation on Oregon's next FB HC. "Oregon State aiming to wrap up its search for Athletic Director by the end of January, OSU President Dr. Ed Ray tells me." (link)
#2: Liberty hired former Baylor AD McCaw to the same role in Lynchburg. McCaw: "My vision for Liberty is to position it as a pre-eminent Christian athletic program in America and garner the same type of appeal among the Christian community as Notre Dame achieves among the Catholic community and BYU garners from the Mormons." Access to an FBS league will be at the top of McCaw's to-do list for the Flames & Prez Falwell notes the connections McCaw has to aid that process, "Ian’s success really speaks for itself. You look at what Baylor was able to do during his tenure, it fits perfectly with where we see our sports programs going. This is an exciting time for us." (link); The Inside Higher Ed's New asked LU about McCaw's connections to the ongoing issues at Baylor. "His decision to resign was his own choice. There will be a time, no doubt, for Ian and his attorneys to address the questions about what happened at Baylor, but we don't intend to litigate those facts with the press. [...] Regarding Title IX, we can't think of an athletic director in the country who more sensitized to the importance of complying with the intracacies of complying with Title IX than Ian McCaw." (link)
#1: You'll likely want to read this entire piece from Bleacher Report's Hayes as he digs in on the question, "Is it possible to win in college football without cheating?" Asked 30 current or former FBS coaches & "The overwhelming answer: Probably not. At least not right away." Recruiting money, academic challenges, gambling rings, theft between teammates & drugs all part of the story. Duke HC Cutcliffe & AD White talk about doing it the right way & mentoring student-athletes. One coach's comment: "You'd be shocked if you took a poll of guys in our profession and asked a simple question. You can make [$4 million to $5 million] a year for five or six years, but you may or may not have controversy that would shame you and end your tenure and maybe your career. You wouldn't believe how many would sign on for that. Because, really, that's what's going on right now all over the place." Lots here. (link)