Pac-12 Departures

It's a shame the sports where the athletes are still actually students will now face new hurdles at those schools so football can belly up to a bigger trough.

up7587 wrote:On the GU board a few say there is now no excuse for them not to join the Big East. But I don't think the Big East will give them $100,000,000 like USC and UCLA are getting.

I do think this is truly a "now or never" moment for Gonzaga. It's a true test of whether they will put their academic or athletic mission in front*. Thus far, there is no reason to believe that the WCC was preventing them from winning a championship, but the monetary gulf might become too great to ignore. Overall, I think it's a pretty simple equation for them: if joining the Big East nets them enough money that they are profitable even after flying the soccer/tennis/cross country/baseball/golf/rowing/etc. teams out there, then they are as good as gone.

To answer DD's earlier question to me: across the pond. Can be more specific later.

*I am sure we would hear something about how this is best for their "student-athletes" or how the additional revenue (e.g., TV, sponsorship, tickets, donations) generated from the Big East actually supports the academic side. I'm sure the faculty will be pleased.

Coaches in the UCLA and USC Olympic sports are irate. They will receive no benefit from the move, their travel will be greatly increased ( I steerage, not on chartered Jets) and they will loose the recruiting advantage of playing in a sunny, warm climate year round. Playing soccer in Wisconsin or Minnesota in November doesn’t sound very California girl to me.

Come to California. We’ll include snow pants in your sideline kit.

One coach sent the AD a spreadsheet that showed travel time doubled or tripled in many sports.

All around it’s a big loss for the Olympic sports.

up7587 wrote:

Geezaldinho wrote:All around it’s a big loss for the Olympic sports.

Yup, but they don't draw any eyeballs to Fox Sports or butts in the seats at the Rose Bowl and L.A. Coliseum.

The Zag fans wanting them to jump to the Big East will result in similar difficulties for their Olympic sports.  Other Zag fans think they can get into a reconfigured Pac-12 instead.

When is the last time Gonzaga offered football?

Where would GU's other sports play if they tried to move basketball to the Pac-12? The WAC? The Mountain West? I can't imagine that the WCC would be willing to keep them around.

Geezaldinho wrote:Coaches in the UCLA and USC Olympic sports are irate. They will receive no benefit from the move, their travel will be greatly increased ( I steerage, not on chartered Jets) and they will loose the recruiting advantage of playing in a sunny, warm climate year round. Playing soccer in Wisconsin or Minnesota in November doesn’t sound very California girl to me.

After yesterday's vote by the regents allowing UCLA to move to the Big-10, the UCLA Athletic Director, Martin Jarmond, made me laugh so hard my coffee went up my nose when he said:

We’ve always been guided by what is best for our 25 teams and more than 700 student-athletes.

On a positive note, the regents imposed conditions to mitigate the impact of the move on athletes, including UCLA investing an additional $12 million in nutritional support, mental health services, academic support while traveling and charter flights to reduce travel time.

I am taking a wait and see attitude...

And here is a departure of a different sort.
OSU’s Soccer coach Terry Boss has resigned to take a job with an undisclosed Pro team.

Boss did a remarkable job in his five years in Corvallis.
He also did a stint with the USMNT as an assistant starting in 2019.

Maybe losing twice in one season to the Pilots was too much for him

https://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/2022/12/oregon-state-mens-soccer-coach-terry-boss-resigns-after-incredible-five-year-run.html

Geezaldinho wrote:And here is a departure of a different sort.
OSU’s Soccer coach Terry Boss has resigned to take a job with an undisclosed Pro team.

Good for Terry, he deserves a shot at the professional side of soccer, but one would imagine that UP's Nick is quite high on the OSU list of candidates to replace him...

DoubleDipper wrote:

Geezaldinho wrote:And here is a departure of a different sort.
OSU’s Soccer coach Terry Boss has resigned to take a job with an undisclosed Pro team.

Good for Terry, he deserves a shot at the professional side of soccer, but one would imagine that UP's Nick is quite high on the OSU list of candidates to replace him...

Boss’ 2021-2022 base salary was $180k plus bonuses, rising to $225k in six years.
His buyout is $50K. Coaching salaries have been frozen at OSU since the pandemic hit, which is true a lot of places.

https://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/2020/09/oregon-state-coaches-waive-their-contract-bonuses-for-2020-21-school-year-heres-what-theyre-giving-up.html

Looking at UP form 990 listings, we are in the ballpark for what OSU pays in the non revenue sports.

Besides, I thought Nick’s long term goals were going back East. I’d worry more about a Western Michigan coaching change.

Canzano also speculated that UCLA will be back by 2030 when they tire of the brutal travel their teams - especially the Olympic sports flying coach - will have to make.
He pointed out Nebraska has trouble with it.

Geezaldinho wrote:Canzano also speculated that UCLA will be back by 2030 when they tire of the brutal travel their teams - especially the Olympic sports flying coach - will have to make.
He pointed out Nebraska has trouble with it.

The travel associated with the UCLA football schedule has been called "insane" by some, but with four of the Big-10 teams coming to Pasadena and two other games in the Rose Bowl, it looks pretty easy to me...especially when it is compared to what the Olympic sports athletes are going to face when they fly commercially.



Someone calculated their travel, including Honolulu, to be 26,762 miles.  In era of piston driven propeller planes that would have been long distance, not with today's charter jets.

Things should be competitive in the PAC4 next year.

Geezaldinho wrote:Thinks should be competitive in the PAC4 next year.

Stanford to the WCC?

They would dominate the football season

Oh wait is Stanford to the WCC actually a possibility? I was just kidding but I woke up today to more than a few people saying it might be their best option (with football going independent).

Admittedly it might just be a temporary home, but I think the WCC/BYU partnership worked out fine and everyone knew BYU wasn’t in it for the long term.

up7587 wrote:Stanford has a little more than double the undergrad student population of UP, but they have about 25 times as many postgraduate students.  One other minor difference is that the Stanford endowment is approximately 120 times larger than UP's.

More importantly, Stanford can give every player in an Olympic sport a full ride.

Like the ivies, Stanford covers most of tuition costs for most students. The listed tuition there is $56K, but a middle class family only has to pay about $10K in room, board, and tuition, according to their admissions website. That means that the 14 athletic scholarships allowed for soccer stretches to cover the shortfall in tuition and cost of attendance of 78 players if they choose to. And I’ll bet there is NIL money even for women’s soccer.

There is enough left over to cover the cost of “athletes” who have never actually played soccer. Oh wait… that’s Sailing

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/yusi-molly-zhao-china-stanford.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Another issue for Stanford is they offer 36 sports. Where are they going to find opponents in the WCC for those?

They’ll end up like Denver in 6 different conferences.

Dean Murdoch wrote:Oh wait is Stanford to the WCC actually a possibility? I was just kidding but I woke up today to more than a few people saying it might be their best option (with football going independent).

Admittedly it might just be a temporary home, but I think the WCC/BYU partnership worked out fine and everyone knew BYU wasn’t in it for the long term.

More likely the ACC or Mountain West, which I have also seen. At least they have football.