2024 Non Big XII thread

[Merkin]

[CatsbyAZ]

Utah State head coach Blake Anderson fired over what sounds like failing to properly handle reporting and investigating of "sexual misconduct, including domestic violence" as mandated by his position as a state employee.

From Anderson's attorney: “We were disappointed to learn this evening that Utah State University has terminated the employment of head football coach Blake Anderson. Coach Anderson’s legal team believes this decision — as well as USU’s deliberately inflammatory July 2nd press release — violate the terms of Coach Anderson’s Employment Agreement and the implied covenant of good faith.”

On the surface this could otherwise be posted in the coaching searches thread, but Utah State has already found a placeholder for this upcoming season:

"Defensive coordinator Nate Dreiling will serve as the interim head coach of the Aggies for the upcoming 2024-25 college football season..."

[Merkin]

He's fucked.

https://www.sltrib.com/sports/2024/07/1 ... all-coach/

Utah State football coach Blake Anderson put off suspending a player arrested for domestic violence — and instead reached out personally to the alleged victim in his own vigilante investigation to get a statement from her saying the athlete hadn’t done anything wrong, according to a new report from an independent review team.

As a former state university employee myself, although for a blue state, I would have been fired too.

[CatsbyAZ]

Last week ESPN published a long-form feature on the story behind Northwestern’s temporary stadium.

"In September 2022, Northwestern announced its long-awaited plan to rebuild Ryan Field, a charming but rapidly aging structure that lacked modern amenities. Although the school didn't get final approval to begin construction for 14 more months, the football team knew it would be displaced. The problem was finding other places to play. Northwestern has partnered with Wrigley Field for events since 2013, but couldn't schedule games there until November..."

"The school would build a temporary structure around its on-campus soccer/lacrosse stadium, using an outdoor football practice field and a parking lot as the site for the primary grandstands. Capacity would be only about 15,000, minuscule for a league where several teams regularly play in front of six-figure crowds."

Rendering of what will be stadium completed by the start of this upcoming season, right on the shores of Lake Michigan:

[Chicat]

I’ll miss Ryan Field, if only because you could walk right out onto the turf at any time of day or night and pretend you were scoring the winning touchdown.

[TheCatInTheHat]

Northwestern's temp field is pretty cool, and it will also be cool when they play at Wrigley. I have fond memories of watching Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus (just on TV) playing games there.

This kind of situation brings up a concern I have for whenever they decide to re-do the west side of Arizona Stadium. They allowed the area to be overbuilt with Likins dorm right on top of the stadium, which complicates construction. The estimates were to completely shut down that side of the stadium for two years, so our capacity would drop to 40K. Different situation (and funding), but IIRC, Stanford demolished and rebuilt their stadium during one off-season. That's remarkable, and you can't expect that. But two years also seems unreasonable. I believe there are sufficient bones to re-model without a complete demolition. It might involve more complicated planning and more cost in certain areas, and it might preclude certain nice-to-have bells and whistles on somebody's dream list to keep up with the Joneses. But if you can do it in one year for less money and adequately solve the problem, that would have my vote.

[Merkin]

Not familiar with the Northwestern campus or stadium, but that temporary spot looks like a great spot for a permanent stadium. But that's coming from a California perspective where waterfront is ideal.

Different situation (and funding), but IIRC, Stanford demolished and rebuilt their stadium during one off-season. That's remarkable, and you can't expect that.

Stanford did it right, it knew that college football attendance in the bay area was rapidly decreasing due to change of demographics and focus of the university being on academics. Did a discount stadium that cut the capacity to just over half, and still can't fill it up.

Cal's stadium deal has to be the absolute worse in the history of mankind. They went the opposite direction, even with cutting capacity and are still only making interest only payments.

Stanford stadium: $90M
Cal stadium: $321M

[CatsbyAZ]

Last week EA Sports’ College Football 25 hit the shelves, after more than a decade of holding off their annual releases. Not sure if you guys might’ve noticed, but in the months and weeks leading to the first day of sales, I haven’t seen the release of a sports game more anticipated and celebrated across social media and elsewhere across the internet.

NIL was the primary reasons for the long pause:

“EA Sports’ college football games used to be released annually, a cultural icon in American sports for much of the franchise’s existence. The company froze future editions in 2013 when athletes began questioning why they weren’t getting paid to be featured in the games.”

“With athlete compensation rights sorted out in court and now allowed by the NCAA, EA Sports announced in 2021 it would be reviving the franchise. The video-game developer offered Bowl Subdivision players a minimum of $600 and a copy of the game to have their likeness included in it. More than 11,000 players accepted offers.”

[CatsbyAZ]

More on Georgia:

[Chicat]

UGA is way worse than UF under Meyer. The number of arrests is like 3x.

Why isn’t anyone holding Kirby Smart responsible? At this point it’s a goddamn criminal enterprise.

[Merkin]

Blind USC long snapper.

[CatsbyAZ]

Alabama fends off USC from poaching their AD, Courtney Morgan.

[azgreg]

Alabama fends off USC from poaching their AD, Courtney Morgan.

Not their AD. Morgan is their football GM. Greg Byrne is still their AD.

[CatsbyAZ]

Alabama fends off USC from poaching their AD, Courtney Morgan.

Not their AD. Morgan is their football GM. Greg Byrne is still their AD.

Wow, I completely misread that...because since when does college football have General Managers?!

I’m familiar with the NFL’s GM model, who's tasked with hiring coaching staffs and strategizing the drafts, and assume that for a college football program, a GM is a glorified Director of Player Personnel, a position presumably enhanced to oversee the realities of the NIL and recruiting from the Transfer Portal.