There certainly haven't been any sell-outs lately, but one thing to keep in mind is that even in a sell-out scenario, the Aggie Pack doesn't "look" full. On paper each seat is allocated a certain amount of real estate on the bleacher, say 18". The students stand closer than that and crowd toward the center. There seems to be a reluctance to oversell facilities these days, so the edges of the section won't ever fill in.

I get the idea of giving the students great seats since they are helping to fund the stadium, but there was something lost with not having the AP in the North End Zone. That added a dimension to the coin toss that you did not want to be an opponent facing north in the 4th quarter. They used to pack that grandstand like sardines. As I remember, you just showed your ID and got waved in so they probably weren't counting too closely.

Not sure about the official crew tonight. Bad calls and excessive reviews both directions. Do they get a bonus for finding a targeting call? They seemed to really want one.

I flipped over to the KHTK audio feed during halftime where they were interviewing Blue. He basically said athletics is doubling down on academics and a greater part of the team experience will be professional internships, mentoring, resume writing, etc. That GPA and graduation rate mean nothing unless they lead to meaningful jobs or grad school opportunities. I get the sense he won't stand for a whole team getting A's in "undeclared".

Toward the end of the game when there was little football left to discuss, the announcers on the video feed were very complimentary to UCD academics and the brain trust of coaches to come out of the program.

Although this one doesn't count towards Big Sky championship, I bet it got the attention of the rest of the conference. In reality one of Portland's TDs should have been called back on a penalty and the other was against our second string. This reminds me of what watching Aggie football was like in the D-2 glory days. I hope it sticks all season!

I see frustration setting in for some Viks, although still 15 min of football left for anything to happen.

99 should have been sent to the showers if the PSU coach had cahones.

I wasn't expecting to see Portland State shutout in the first half. Curious what adjustments wil be made at halftime. Go Ags.

Funny that the PSU announcers had just got finished calling him the finest punter in the country. Great effort by the Ags.

I've got my laptop hooked up to the TV. Using the Pluto TV stream via big sky site as primary, occasionally flipping to the audio stream from Tune In to hear Scott Marsh/DK commentary. Tune In is about a minute ahead of Pluto stream for me at least. Not using apps, just via browser.

I don't know when CR was founded but the Band-uh was moved under it 2007-ish when Student Programs & Activites department was axed without warning. I think Stanford more tolerates than embraces their band. There's a fine line between colorful and poor taste.

It's been a few years since I've been to Portland State, but I remember there being a few old guys seriously into it with Viking hats and a bunch of ambivalent locals who came just because it was someplace to be, but almost no students. I remember it being a pleasant crowd. Not like going to Montana.

I was on the tail end of when the Band-uh went to every single game. We used to drive ourselves everywhere in rented Ford Econoline vans or even personal cars and everyone pitched in to a gas fund. We would play impromptu rallies in exchange for sleeping on high school gym floors along the way. We'd periodically tick off fleet management by abandoning a broken down van in the middle of the Nevada desert, but made for great stories. All that changed around 2011 when the university decided all trips outside of Davis were to be by "professional transportation" only for liability reasons and that sleeping arrangements were to be in hotels with the proper number of people per room. Costs went through the roof. Many members were still willing to pay their own way but the lawyers were concerned this was discriminatory against students without personally deep pockets. Campus Rec was difficult to deal with and the relationship with Athletics was lukewarm during the late Greg W years - some of the big shots with delusions of grandeur didn't think the Band-uh was "TV suitable" and objected to the block CA logo. Maybe Blue will see it differently.

Yup

in all fairness the TuneIn stream so far is much better quality than trying to listen in the KHTK site in previous years. Except for the ref's mic...

I'm listening to the separate audio stream via TuneIn. It is about a minute ahead of the video. But I just got kicked out of the video stream. Now says it will start at 6:15 ?? But then again from where I'm listening I've got Hurricane Irma looking straight at me, so my internet may be iffy.

I was a teaching assistant at a major ACC university for a year and it was a markedly different experience than Davis. There were a number of male athletes in one of lectures and each was provided a (gorgeous) female "tutor" that accompanied them to each class. For the most part the homework was all done correctly (in seemingly feminine handwriting) and then they all laid an egg on the tests. But in the end it didn't matter because the lead professor was notified by the president of the university that said students would be assigned B's and to make it look justifiable by any means necessary. Maybe isolated to that school, but I highly doubt it.

Keep in mind that in a lot of markets, the big time NCAA teams are in essence the local professional team of choice as far as fans are concerned because there are either a lack of true professional teams in the market or they are irrelevant. Many SEC and ACC teams have huge fan bases of people with really no affiliation to the university and sometimes no college degree at all. But even among alumni, the "good ol' boy network" runs much deeper than we see at Davis, with Ole Miss guys only hiring other Ole Miss guys and the like. These groups don't care about the academic integrity of the athletes as much as they care about the win column because they either have no personal investment or they are so plugged into their respective bro network that they don't care what the outside world thinks of their school. These groups buy the season tickets and merchandise, so university presidents are willing to overlook things.

Here's a visualization of what $30M buys you in construction these days:

1. Let's say for example's sake we are talking an athletic training facility, for which the ARC might be a good point of reference. The ARC is 155,850 square feet and cost $46.5M in 2004 dollars. In 2016 dollars this works out to about $58.8M or $377 per SF.

2. Assuming $377 per SF, you could be talking maybe an 80,000 SF facility of comparable build. Obviously you can push the price per SF down if you just want a metal frame field house for indoor practice or you can push it up if you are redeveloping an existing area with god-knows-what surprises underground.

3. In my area (which is not Davis, but is a place with a very strict building department) here's kind of an idea of what price per square foot gets you.

• $275/sf - basic but functional. Think painted concrete block walls, open ceilings, polished concrete floors, moderate connectivity/technology/equipment
• $375/sf - moderately upgraded. Think finished drywall, suspended ceilings in offices but open ceilings in clearspan areas, stained concrete floors or basic carpet tile
• $475+/sf - nicely equipped. Think finished walls, probably with added architectural cookies. Upgraded ceilings with acoustical treatments, terrazzo floors

4. I've built projects with and without union labor and it usually washes in the end. The union guys tend have fewer accidents/mistakes resulting in fewer redos and injuries. The things that really drive costs are A. if you have an unrealisitic lowball estimate from the beginning, B. the local construction climate (you pay more for materials and labor in a building boom), C. change orders resulting from lack of planning or a change in leadership (executives all come in with their own "vision"), D. if you have somebody in the jobsite trailer with a "construction science" degree but no real experience.

Here are my thoughts

• Blue seems to have been planning to fire Gould for quite a while. I don't think it would have mattered even if we won the close games this season.
• I think Gould has known --or should have known-- for a while that he was going to be fired. He seems to have a new job lined up pretty quickly if he was truly blindsided. Blue and Gould may not have talked about it beforehand, but there's a fair chance it was "double secret".
• $117k is a lower number than I would have expected. I know buyout terms typically decrease in the later years of a contract, but it seems like a good deal if it is a clean break. At least compared to George O'Leary (University of Central Florida) who was fired mid-season last year and then rehired as a 12-hour per year "consultant" fetching $200k annually through 2020.
• In Bruce's article, it mentioned that the $117k buyout would be "mitigated" if Gould found new employment in the next 13 months. If his Fresno State job holds true (not sure what the official start date would be), it sounds like we could get a discount on the buyout. Curious what happens to the balance of the donor money in that case... return to donors or used for other football purposes?