Pac-12 set to add Boise, 3 other MW schools It's a really disappointing email. Across the Causeway, there is a committee of business and government leaders coordinating this effort to let the college football world know that this program is interested in going to the FBS/Pac-12. They have a website, have generated a lot of press coverage merely by forming this committee, and just announced a $35M fundraising achievement (which generates even more press coverage and support). Meanwhile at UCD, after waiting nearly 2 weeks following a cryptic tweet from the AD, we finally get this email that reveals UCD isn't serious about moving up and asking us to buy season tickets for basketball. What?
What catalyzes fan and donor support is having an athletics department actually take a leadership role in spelling out a vision that the fanbase and community can get excited about. Tweeting a picture and hoping the donations start pouring in, without any public expression that our program is interested in moving up, is an inferior approach.
In Plough's comments and now Rocko's, there seems to be this strange reluctance to commit to being interested in FBS without a commitment from the fanbase to support that move. But they'll never know if that support is there if they don't take ownership in ambitiously pursuing it, as Sac State has done. Sac and UCD each faced a decision about whether to keep its football program relevant or get left behind. Sac immediately told the world it wants to be in the Pac12 whereas UCD waited 2 weeks only to lecture its fan base on how we can't do this without money. That silence and inaction is itself a decision and the biggest question in the conversation now, unfortunately, seems to be whether the FBS would take Sac State without UC Davis.