I compare this to trading a Camry with 20k miles in for a new Geo Metro and trying to convince people you traded up.

I suppose depends on your priorities. Atlanta probably has the most nonstop flights from the west coast. Northwest Florida Beaches, Destin/Ft Walton, and Pensacola airports are little bit longer drive from Montgomery but it’s all rural highways without much traffic. They are the sorts of airport with like 5 gates, no line for anything, and the rental car parked front row at the terminal. Might be a thing if you were looking to make it a long weekend at the beach or oyster bar.

Between Atlanta and Montgomery, there is a Buc-ee’s near Aurburn. Worth the stop if you’ve never experienced one. Keep in mind the split between Eastern and Central time is the GA/AL border. It kind of comes up by surprise driving so remember for getting back to the airport. Outside of the city, restaurants in Alabama can have smoking sections, like the old potted plant dividing smoking from not situation. It’s jarring stepping back 30+ years. Rural Alabama, Georgia, and Florida are mostly tiny counties where the main municipal funding is the lone sheriff running traffic on the highway, so mind the speed.

in Atlanta it is always rush hour and always under construction.

I only watched a few minutes but would like to point out the old dude next to coach kept yawning, the young white guy in front row of the film room having some chafing or something because he keeps adjusting his McNuggets. And the special projects coach driving around apparently without a seatbelt. Nice edit. Are all football meetings like this? The coach stating obvious facts with a room full of dudes agreeing with everything and chuckling on cue?

Southeast Aggie Fan here. Can assure you all Sac State is not a topic of discussion even among the sports crowd here except for the occasional honorable mention in the bloopers. In the absence of the Woods saying anything ridiculous this week, it seems like we had to write our own content. Here’s hoping our main man puts his collectible sneaker right back in his mouth soon. It was better reality TV that way.

that is for sure a newer nicer dorm building than I had, but I swear that is the same bed and desk set I had 20 years ago. And I see the dairy perfume is same as ever. Always fun to see a new group move in!

I haven’t seen any other sources report this and the picture is definitely not Luke Wood. That said, part of the chicken and egg Wood strategy is use football to market to out-of-state students and use those out-of-state fees to subsidize football program until it turns its imaginary multimillion dollar profits by itself. I don’t think football would be a big draw to Chinese students, but I’m sure he would like to attract full fare international students however possible. In fairness, this is not really a new strategy. UC and other research universities have been selling access to the CCP for a long time because they are willing to pay full price. I just think historically CSU has had less content of interest to the CCP.

For purposes of athletics, what is a “scholarship”? Tuition, while certainly not inexpensive, is the lesser compared to housing, fees, insurance, etc. and many California residents already qualify for discounted or free tuition based on income, with the non-tuition costs frequently being the larger challenge for an ordinary student. Do athletic scholarships include cash allowance for all the non-tuition costs like housing, fees, books, etc? And let’s say a particular recruit was already eligible for discounted tuition based on income, would the athletic scholarship count as whole or partial in that case? Said another way, could a partial athletic scholarship stack with other kinds of scholarships or financial aid to equal full cost of attendance?

my guess is that the NCAA is weary of litigation at this point. The only information I’ve seen is from twitter personalities and Sac State, so it’s possible the NCAA has more compelling evidence not released. But if that’s not the case, they may settle the case for nuisance value. But let’s say they win the battle, have they won the war? Will their sponsors stand by them? Will they have as much media value as they think or is KCRA3 the ceiling? Will they be welcomed by the FBS or face a soft boycott by the conferences as a cautionary tale? I can’t think nationally who’s in their corner other than the crowd with a general disdain for the NCAA. The meaningful forces in FBS don’t want to water down their own drink and they’ve insulted everyone in FCS.

to be clear, I do not wish for Poly to drop football. My preference would have actually been for Sac, Poly, and Davis to all be relevant at the same time and force the Big Sky center of gravity south with EWU and UM watching from the simp seats. But that wasn’t meant to be. I very much enjoy the tradition of D2 and then FCS football but I do think it will become increasingly hard to sustain in the west, so schools and conferences doing some future proofing seems prudent.

agreed. The point I was trying to make was that Wood and Marion are upwardly mobile self-preservationists. I don’t think either will hesitate to deflect responsibility on each other if desired results are not achieved and they run out of third parties to blame.

Utah makes geographic and cultural sense for Big Sky. Not sure which is more likely first, though. Davis taking football to MWC or Poly folding football.

I recall one of the skeptical Hornet posters on the Sac board mentioning months ago “I hope we don’t pull a Suck State on this”. That comment has aged like fine wine.

Marion is probably gone by January one way or the other. If he’s good, he gets scooped. If it’s bad, he’s the scapegoat for busted dreams.

If Sac doesn’t get a legit invite, at some point Wood will get told to sit down and shut up if the governor decides to run for higher office. The last thing a politician needs is to discuss why a university with negative cashflow is trying to rattle the cage on FBS where there are already too many mouths to feed if you ask the big boys.

I guess Sac State is still in the BSC this season but does Orr get to remain the BSC representative on the FCS playoff committee? I think this is year 2 of a 4 year term but I can’t imagine the powers that be Missoula and Bozeman have much interest left in him.

Base pay
CAL 300k
UCD 278k

“Other” pay
CAL 1.03m
UCD 30k

I’m not sure exactly what “other” pay is or how it is paid for, performance bonuses? Funded by state or boosters? Guaranteed or discretionary? Idk.

I believe you are correct that the Wood brothers grew up in the foster system. Credit where it is due, most people do not become a university president by age 40 regardless of background. So he must be smart, which is perhaps why the obsession with this fools errand is so curious.

I once saw a dumpster on fire next to Fluffy Donuts at the U-Mall. A police cruiser and fire truck casually watching it burn itself out from a distance, apparently deciding there was no benefit to intervention. So basically this.

I haven’t found much “real”coverage of this but based on what I’m reading from online taking heads- next week there will be meetings to establish a new governance model followed by D1 council meetings. They can choose to take or leave the advice of the football committee that just said no thanks. The outside hope on J St is that the committee didn’t want to make any commitments right before a big governance reboot and the council may still say yes, or that a new governance model will include some new flexibility that doesn’t exist this week. So an unqualified answer might be next week they could get a more definitive yes/no, unless a new framework for a “maybe” presents itself. I guess “soon” is relative. If they get a hard no this year do they push another attempt next year or in 5 years, idk.

Not the news I was expecting. I would have thought Wood and Co had made their calls and catered their steak dinners with the relevant decision makers before putting it all on the line. Though I suppose there are still plenty of politics to play out the rest of June. Assuming things stay as is, the Hornets have the potential to still be very good FCS contenders. But if a sense of bait and switch takes root in the locker room this could get messy. Who knows what’s actually been said to these guys. If conditions on the ground deteriorate, I could see Marion finding a way to deuce out. The way he’s scrapping on the career ladder, no way would he want to preside over a stuck-in-FCS team if the stock starts slipping.