Stanford also is a private university that only needed to obtain permits from Santa Clara County, with whom they coordinated often given the amount of (re)development that constantly occurs on-campus (I was involved in some of it - not the stadium). So, less red tape.

Stanford stadium was a more complex project for sure but it also had a detailed plan and work sequence to get done. I can guarantee it wasn’t a just concept at two months out. Hornet Stadium should go quick, you could probably bump it with pickup truck and it will collapse. State projects have a lot of self-imposed red tape, and some amount of this is good to make sure someone is being fiduciary for the taxpayers. Sometimes it is necessary to slow walk projects as well because bond disbursements may be quarter by quarter.

Agreed. Along w recycling requirements, DEI targets, and 'partnership' to meet DEI targets. All dependent on what Orr has accomplished the past two years.

I'm wondering if any of the 5 MWC schools that bolted are having some regrets about leaving? One advantage of grabbing someone like Sac, the PacX wouldn't have to help with large fees for leaving a conference. Apparently, Memphis would have to play $25M to leave the AAC; the PacX was willing to help to the tune of $2M. There were also some issues with the fact that the current Pac2 wanted a much bigger slice of the college playoff money, making it harder for a school bailing out to cover those costs.

to quote myself...what a mess.

SAC12 would benefit from a spell check. :lol:

Imagine UC Davis sending something like this out, nah, I can't imagine it either...it encourages fun.

Looks like something that would have come out of The Grad, sigh.

Maybe Sac doesn’t offer bone head english, lol.

tailgate party.

Don’t they know that “the” has been copyrighted by The Ohio State University? Poor English is ubiquitous these days … and whoever does the UCD game notes is not a whole lot better.

That was prior to House settlement and is being revisited.

New this morning from Yahoo Sports:

While SEC and Big Ten leaders mull major changes, a new Super League concept looms that could radically alter college sports

https://sports.yahoo.com/while-sec-and-big-ten-leaders-mull-major-changes-a-new-super-league-concept-looms-that-could-radically-alter-college-sports-130031534.html

For reference, summing together the current B1G, SEC, ACC, XII and Notre Dame is a total of 69 schools (I assume some would not be included in this).

In my opinion, if this were to occur (where there’s smoke - and boatloads of money - there’s fire), this would significantly impact both the interest level and financial standing for a fair amount of FCS teams.

I always thought this was the correct approach for football. Let the other sports stay in their traditional, somewhat-geographic, conferences. Just admit the big time college football is only supportable by a select few.

The ruling yesterday about allowing schools to pay players (up to $23M) and for past athletes to seek payment really pushes this concept.

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/41665307/settlement-designed-pay-college-athletes-gets-preliminary-approval

The novelty will wear off.

It’s okay, everyone - while Slack’s leadership plots their next move, the Chancellor will be on horseback before the game.

unfortunately, the NCAA has made changes since 2023 to make it much more difficult to move to FBS ($5M transition fee, 103 scholarship limit). But maybe between community funding of facilities and NIL, and a large increase in student fees, they can pull it off.

in 2022, Sac's athletic budget was $35M; the median in the MWC was $50. so, if they want to get to the median, they'd need to raise $15M (remember, this is before the increased scholarship limits). increases in tickets will help, let's say $6M from TV (wild guess), and $9M from increased student fees. that would only require an increase of $300 per student. I'm not sure that kind of increase would be embraced on the Davis campus.

Good point. I've cooled on my heated opinions from a few weeks ago. There was even talk of the DI fee repeal a year or two ago, so it would not be well received in Davis.

Idk, I would be down for a little extra tuition fee for athletics.

a $200 would be a tiny increase in overall fees (2%?) but it would lead to a very heated discussion.

It could really backfire.

How does this benefit our students really? It's all glory for the alums. I've watched the past few games and I see a lot of empty seats in that "sold out" stadium. I go to basketball games that are student ghost-towns.

Do we want to get into the NIL rat-hole? All the utter garbage that so many of us saw as the demon when we moved up to Div I. But it'll get the alums all happy.

UC Davis is an educational institution not a sports business. The whole business of sports and betting is forcing us into a non-sensical world. Move up so we get more money so we spend more money and look at what it does for sport on campus. That no one goes to except the athletes. What percent of the student body attend any games at all or even know the team records?

Who are you doing this for? The players. The fans. We've forgotten who we are and what we are supposed to be about. Not professional sports.

We had The Davis Way or such, the 8 principles when we moved to DI.

I've heard that Hawkins broke a few of those, one supposedly being not teaching classes. Teaching PE1 shouldn't be that difficult.

I agree some things seem topsy turvy. The Pavilion seems to be rarely used by students, and more by Campus Rec or such to generate business? Rec Hall is supposed to be for students!

We also seem to have a pretty flush ICA administration. I'm all for doing things well, but all of these assistant director of facilities (tickets), associate director of facilities (tickets), etc.

Move out of state y’all and see how nobody has heard of Davis, and then look at all the crap academic schools everyone is knowledgeable of because of athletics. Your diploma would instantly become more valuable.

I would say only if in the case of lame hiring people. Certainly in engineering, agricultural sciences, and faculty hiring at universities, there is no problem in name recognition.

I’m in the engineering field. Have to explain time and time again that Davis is in the same university system as Cal. Barf.

I guess the one good thing is that if Sac leaves, we will still have our second rival, Cal Poly unless they drop football. Could you imagine having our fixed rival being Portland State?

I have to agree with abridge and NCagalum on this. Students/donors are supposed to pony up tens of millions of dollars so UCD can have a mediocre FBS football team that a prospective employer may or may not recognize ?

I don't think the name recognition argument is as strong as it used to be when you could get a degree and find eager employers waiting for you.. Maybe if you're trying out for a professional sports team. A top business has an idea of what schools are producing the most successful graduates in that field. Sounds more like those prospective employers you mentioned didn't really keep up on what the top colleges for engineering were at the time. Seems more like a they problem.

In my experience an employer places much more weight on your experience in terms of what you can bring to them.

UCD needs to concentrate on its academic mission. If all the sports teams were to be cut your degree wouldn't be worth any less. It's ok to dream but this isn't that great of a path.

ive interviewed many Davis grads over my career; still waiting on a Kennesaw State grad to walk through the door!

Yes, but you’ve heard of Kennesaw State because of….?