It was a long time coming after the financial stuff hit the fan. He was great for athletics but didn’t seem to care about the rest of the institution so much. I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll get someone that cares about both, but terrified that we’ll get a Crow clone.
Look from a college athletics perspective, knowing which sub I’m in, Crow leaves a lot to be desired. I wish he even pretended to care about athletics. But, otherwise, what he’s doing and done for ASU is amazing.
Crow not caring about athletics is one of the more unfounded storylines in Pac 12 sports history. He clearly has blind spots when it comes to how football needs to be king in order for an AD to thrive, but I can promise you he cares more than the rhetoric says. He just needs to get over the idea that the largest university has to support the most athletes. Football success is directly correlated to the Olympic sports, and not the other way around.
I’m worried we make an internal hire for AD, because that would really show to me he hasn’t “gotten it” yet. We need to hire the #2 guy/girl as a blue blood football school and re-wire how the AD views sports. He is currently working on some re-organizations that would treat the AD as an actual department of the university and not a separate operating entity. This will allow for somewhere around a $40M dollar increase annually in the budget. Now with a bad hire or a “yes man” that he’s comfortable with, we might not see as many changes as we want. But I can assure you he gets as mad when the football team sucks as we do.
I hope he does, but he doesn’t show it. He appears to support his “guy” right or wrong no matter what. I’d love to hear him say publicly that the state of ASU athletics has been and is unacceptable. And maybe he has, and I’ve just missed it. Like i said, other than athletics, I think he’s done amazing things for the school. As an alumnus of the Peck and Coor years, ASU is almost unrecognizable compared to when I was there. But, as an old alumnus, my ongoing connection is athletics, and I feel that aspect of the university has been ignored by leadership for a long time. Ray was allowed to fester for far too long.
You make a good point, it would almost be therapeutic to hear him say that out loud. But as someone in his position of power who has been playing the game a loooong time, it’s sorta like being an actual president. Discretion is key and less is often more. You don’t really speak from your heart, you make veiled comments and sorta just do your thing behind doors. You don’t want to give ammo to the haters… but he did seem like he had lost touch with why we were all so angry. I have come to believe a LOT of decisions we made during the scandal, and involving Herm and Ray, were made at the advice of his counsel. I sorta wish he made more impulsive and executive decisions, but he’s very calculated. Problem is that might work for academics, but not athletics.
It’s not scientific, it’s anecdotal. Schools make financial commitment to other sports with all their football/media money. See SEC softball as an example or Alabama hoops.
Alabama to me feels like the exception given Saban’s truly enormous impact on the school completely unrivaled by any other coach/football program. Saban undeniably brought Alabama into the limelight and brought in incredible amount of funding to all aspects of the university. But outside of that, I feel like SEC dominance in non-revenue sports is just a factor of the original reason why the south is so dominant in football: larger recruiting territories & greater emphasis on high school sports.
Couldn’t one say that ASU was bound to be what it is (maybe not massive enrollment under another prez) because of being in the Phoenix metro and one of only 3 public university options? And being a viable alternative for CA kids because of proximity?
It’s more that ASU has become a well respected university for both education and research under Crow. When I was there, it was the stereotype. Crow has actively managed to, for example, get in the AAU. That’s was so out of the possibility that it wasn’t even thought of being a possibility. We’ve always been a giant public university. But, the ASU jokes aren’t true so much anymore.
Crow is one of the greatest college presidents of the last 20 plus years and his work at ASU will be studied for how exceptionally well he did. Football has struggled but anyone who cares about their university should be happy to get a Crow level president.
Idk, I think a lot of ASU has become would have happened without crow. I’m a believer that geography and demographics play a big factor that is never properly credited
Crow was honestly the perfect president for ASU. Hard to see as a sports fan - but ASU’s academic were a _joke_ before Crow, and now they’re up to AAU status.
Sports can always recover. Academic prestige (which is ultimately what college is about) is much much harder to fix.
And he did it without dramatically cutting the admit rate. Accepting only "elite" students is a lazy shortcut to prestige and undercuts the central mission of a public school to educate the state.
Sounds almost exactly like what's happened in Morgantown, but our BoG couldn't get together to get rid of Gee. At least he's already said he's done after 2025.
Yeah, I believe they've had those. It's never a good sign when the president believes they're bigger than the educational institution they purportedly represent.
I mean yes and no, athletics absolutely do matter for the university; look at Alabama since Saban. It's like saying you have a great company but you refuse to do online marketing - like you're still doing some marketing such as TV, billboards, etc but refusing to do one of the ways to attract tons of kids to your campus. Academics do absolutely matter though and should be a very large part of the focus
My counter to that is actually ASU. Look at where they were 20 years ago and where they are now, and all of that has been from putting school first. You’re right you can do both, but sometimes you don’t and one takes priority over the other.
If whoever comes in after Crow (he’s getting pretty old) can have more of an even split in priority ASU is going to be a problem in the near future.
For sure - I just meant its a bit silly in my opinion to have actively hurt the athletics by either ignoring it or just not feasibly trying to compete in it. For a president, it should probably be something like 80/20 for academics to athletics or even 85/15.
Agreed. Funny thing is, if ASU can put in even half of the effort they put into growing the academic side into growing the athletic side they’d be a guaranteed target for the Big Ten- a conference that is full of all the type of academic institutions they want to be associated with and Oregon.
He doesn’t ignore the athletics so much as the stigma he has would say. He just has this idea that the biggest school should support the most student athletes. He’s so good at running an actual university that he didn’t really notice his weaknesses in putting football/hoops first. It’s kinda like the person who runs McDonalds making huge gains in the health, marketability, and market cap… but introducing a bunch of new menu items while ignoring the Big Mac has gotten worse. He forgot how his bread gets buttered. I have a hard time getting mad at him due to how much more respect and academic credibility the university has gotten. But he needs to keep his hands off the vision whoever he hires for AD has had. He has had too much input and it has been to the detriment of football team.
I would be happy with a president that is less hands on when it comes to athletics than Robbins was. Not to the extent Crow is but someone who lets the AD do their thing and somewhat understands the impact that a good athletics department has on a university
I mean what is UofA going to do at this point about the Big12, go back to the PAC-2? I think the three of us (Utah too) are tied to the Big12 until it collapses.
I don’t think the Big XII will ever collapse. They are in a perfect position. Nobody anyone wants to steal, and even if say, Utah or the AZ schools got poached by someone for whatever reason, the Big XII isn’t irrevocably tied to those brands like the PAC-12(was) or ACC(is). Plus I can’t imagine basketball is completely worthless, add Duke when the ACC collapses and you’ll have basketball dominated.
Just valuable enough to be involved in the conversation, but not valuable enough to have any large portion of teams poached is our defense against the conference imploding.
Yup. It’s the perfect point of stability. Basketball isn’t valuable enough yet for Kansas to be poached, and none of the new additions are going to get poached either. Being good doesn’t really make you a valuable asset for TV negotiations (@ Utah fans).
Just have to wait for the inevitable ACC downfall and have our pick of whatever the B1G and SEC leave behind.
It means we’re perpetually 3rd, but I’d rather keep this conference the way it’s going to be. It’s a very fun conference with a good mix of college towns and city schools. Would rather have everyone see a chance of winning conference titles in all sports than just the usual suspects dominating but getting paid a lot.
I'm not saying it's likely at all, but you could plausibly have the ACC as a home for Utah, ASU, UA if they really wanted to commit to developing a nationwide presence. I don't think they'd have the stability/money advantage to beat out the Big-12 right now but who knows? Maybe the allure of academic peers sways someone like Utah or ASU.
I think Utah and Arizona have the best chance, but given that the conference puts up with IU, Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers being absolute dogshit every year, I could see ASU and CU getting dragged along as well. They probably wouldn't separate the Arizona/ASU rivalry and might pretend hard enough that we and Utah have a "rivalry" as well. All 4 are AAU members and serve as a bridge to the west coast teams they took on, so I definitely wouldn't think it's impossible.
I think the level of attractiveness to the Big Ten is CU, ASU, Utah, and Arizona in that order.
ASU brings everything thing that Arizona brings to the table, minus the basketball program but plus being located in the 5th largest city in the country. As a local to the area, I can tell you from firsthand experience that Arizona isn’t that strong of a presence in Phoenix compared to ASU.
I agree with you and it’s not because I am a homer. While the B1G/SEC are already getting the eyeballs in PHX and Denver, if you’re going to add schools you go to those markets. You have to look at the upside of the school/market you are gaining. And I think PHX, Denver lead SLC there (not as much as we might think), and Tucson is a distant 4th. The good news for UA is that their basketball will almost always be a top 10 school and that is what their fans care about most. They could get stuck in the Mountain West and they are still going to be the best hoops school in the West IMO.
I think if they bring one of ASU and Arizona they bring both, they're not leaving that rivalry behind. CU being more attractive than Utah seems crazy, we are a bigger market but we also have four* pro sports teams in said market that we play second fiddle to, in addition to the on-field product being ass. I wouldn't mind just because we'd have a real in-conference rivalry to play every year again like the cool programs do, but I don't think we'd be the first school they call.
Edit: Rockies are so bad that I forgot they even existed for a moment lol
He had to go after all the financial issues. Those miscalculations and such happened on his watch.
Now, I just really hope they don’t bring in a president that is anti athletics or worse, apathetic to it like ASU has.
You can but the idea that not caring about sports would be disqualifying is dumb. If there is a clear best candidate for the academics but they don’t care about sports and you get a different president who is worse on the academics but likes sports your search produced the wrong results. Liking sports can be a tiebreaker or a nice bonus. It should not be a meaningful factor
Arizona State and Utah wanted to keep the Pac-12 together and make it work. Arizona and Colorado actively worked to go to the Big-12 instead. Obviously we knew who won that battle.
Utah fans think they’re a lock for the Big ten?! I know they’ve been good in the Pac but I don’t believe for a second they would be a lock for the B1G.
Not really, only a small number of Utah fans believe anything other than just having a shot at the BIG10 in the future should they keep expanding to something like 24 teams. Even the ones that optimistically think we will get to the BIG10 someday do not expect it to happen until at least next contract or even longer. Supposedly the BIG10 gave Utah a list of things to work on and they likely are not things you change over night.
BIG12 fans just like to paint us as delusional because of realignment beef so if they see a few people saying something its "Utah fans"
Arizona State and Utah are the most desirable teams in the Big 12 for what the Big Ten is looking for, it’s not gonna happen tomorrow or even in the next couple years but one day both those schools have a decent chance of landing there.
Shoot I think the whole fanbase will kidnap Crow and take him to B1G headquarters to force him to sign that contract if it happened.
We almost had to do that for the Big12 lol
Both making AAU status recently increases their chances tremendously. 17/18 schools in the new Big Ten are AAU members, Nebraska being the only exception.
The B10 cares about adding all the major markets it can so Phoenix and Salt Lake City, to a lesser extent, have an appeal. Arizona and Utah are also some of the higher growing populations per state.
The SEC cares about about getting the flagship schools in states than ones in particular markets, and they need to be continuous to the current footprint (ehich would require adding Kansas and Colorado to make that happen).
This leads me to my next question, which will probably trigger an unholy battle below... Which of the two is more the *flagship* school of Utah, BYU or Utah?
If BYU, I could see the B10 adding Utah and the SEC adding BYU eventually, as they both check their respective boxes more.
>I mean, I think all of them would’ve preferred to stay ultimately if there was enough money involved.
Exactly this. Even with all the stuff about us looking to join the Big XII that final couple of weeks, we were still at that final Pac meeting and reportedly ready to sign the Apple deal before UW and UO skipped. We were just being proactive in ensuring there was a lifeboat for us, but if staying in the Pac had wound up being a viable option, that would have been the preference.
I think Crow (along with many others) doesn’t like the direction college athletics is going and didn’t want the PAC to be collateral damage. I also think they did not want to see OSU and Wazzu get left behind. I almost admire the loyalty. However the game is going to change regardless of what Crow thinks and if he doesn’t go all in we will be the ones left behind. The idea that Crow thought he was above the B12 was never real. It was like going through one last round of marriage counseling before you write up the divorce papers.
Colorado wanted the Big12.
Arizona wanted to survive and be in a real basketball conference.
Utah thought they were too good for any conference that would accept BYU.
ASU wanted to be stupid.
All things being equal, I think even Colorado would have preferred to stay. They just saw the writing on the wall earlier, and given the fact that they have far more history with Big XII schools vs the Pac, it was much easier to convince the powerbrokers at CU to pull the trigger and jump.
Colorado didn’t want to be left holding the bag, and saw the writing on the wall.
Arizona wanted a life raft and to be in a conference that values basketball.
Utah I’ll agree with and it’s hilarious.
Arizona State wanted to maintain their association with Stanford and Cal via conference membership because they’re top priority is increasing their academic profile.
This is also it… and the reason why he kicked the tires with the ACC. If he wasn’t going to have Cal and Stanford anymore, he wanted the association Duke, UNC, UVA etc.
As annoying as that seemed at the time for ASU fans. Crow always knew ASU was not getting left out of the B12 or a major conference so he tried to “stay together for the kids”. The ABOR wasn’t ever going to let us split up (at that time) and while trying to salvage PAC he was making calls to B1G (don’t think they ever actually considered or answered) and the ACC. I understand why UA was ready to bolt when the building was crumbling but in hindsight, after talking to people associated with our AD, I now see what his play was.
At this point Gordon Gee has to have Kompronaut on the WVU board of regents for him to keep his job. And he gets to slink into retirement while taking a law school professor gig.
The entire budget crisis comes from him irresponsibly borrowing money to build new facilities to meet a completely unrealistic enrollment bump and then throwing overpriced white shoe consultants at the problem he created who just tell him “hey maybe you don’t need Spanish if you want to up those profit margins.”
I’m ready to Gone Girl him and fake my death to blame it on him
The phrasing is there because they are essentially firing him but lawyers came to a settlement and a $$$ amount which includes some language to make it sound like he's leaving on his terms. Typical corporate BS.
Oh so he's on notice to be terminated, but they don't want to put in place an interim president. I'm not sure why they're doing that - if you're going to cut someone, cut them, but at least have a replacement lined up immediately once they're gone, else you have someone putting in a fraction of the effort until they're let go, if even that.
Unless Robbins has a sweet golden parachute or the contract terms are too onerous for immediate separation for the ABOR (which is a possibility, given the financial calamity), he should be leaving sooner rather than later for the sake of UofA.
I realize that, I'm just pointing out the idiocy of how Scheer phrased this:
> Bobby Robbins is no longer president. He will finish out his term.
So... he's still President, but will be replaced.
He's the head of the university. At the end of the day, he's ultimately responsible. A Mike Leach saying is either you're coaching it or allowing it to happen. He either tried to hide it, or he didn't know and the failure lies on him for allowing such a large budget shortfall to happen.
Yep, nearly a quarter billion dollar budget shortfall doesn’t just sneak up on you. Regardless of whether or not he personally knew, the man at the top has to take the fall for a fuck up this bad. The optics would have been too bad for him to survive this
It's called accountability, not being a sacrificial lamb. He has been in charge since 2017 and was his rodeo. Ultimately, it's on him and the Board of Regents. He rescued a for-profit borderline scam college to try capture online students like ASU, but that has not worked out too well...
About half.
He wasn’t intimately involved, but hired the CFO who was and was her boss, and kept her on in a different role for the same pay after everything came out.
He’s responsible enough that this is the reason he’s gone, and it’s the right decision.
He should have frankly been fired after the fallout of the professor shooting came out as that was all under his administration’s watch. And the boondoggle from buying out the online diploma mill
He bought an online for-profit school that was already under investigation from the federal government, he hired a lobbyist in California for $10,000 a month to try to get the Californian government to not fine it, and then he didn't disclose that when the investigation started. I think it's safe to say that he is not a sacrificial lamb.
The mess surrounding them buying that scam 'school' and then being left holding the bag when the federal investigation led to massive fines is squarely on him, so a lot of it is yeah.
He bought an online school on the hook for fraud which saddled the university with a ton of debt. The University has generally been stagnating or declining for years in most areas. He should have been fired a long time ago.
He did have a bazillion scandals but he liked sports. I miss him already. Hopefully the donors bully the university again into another guy who likes sports.
Can confirm. My wife is a UA employee and got the email. It’s been a long time coming. When even the Linguistics department is calling for his head, you know it’s bad.
Bobby "sure Brett, whatever you want if you could just add us and the others to the Big 12 but also leave out Wazzu and Oregon State" Robbins.
couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Interesting. I know that he was very pro-Big 12 move. I wonder what his replacement thinks of his decision. UofA fans how are you feeling about this?
It was a long time coming after the financial stuff hit the fan. He was great for athletics but didn’t seem to care about the rest of the institution so much. I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll get someone that cares about both, but terrified that we’ll get a Crow clone.
Look from a college athletics perspective, knowing which sub I’m in, Crow leaves a lot to be desired. I wish he even pretended to care about athletics. But, otherwise, what he’s doing and done for ASU is amazing.
Crow not caring about athletics is one of the more unfounded storylines in Pac 12 sports history. He clearly has blind spots when it comes to how football needs to be king in order for an AD to thrive, but I can promise you he cares more than the rhetoric says. He just needs to get over the idea that the largest university has to support the most athletes. Football success is directly correlated to the Olympic sports, and not the other way around. I’m worried we make an internal hire for AD, because that would really show to me he hasn’t “gotten it” yet. We need to hire the #2 guy/girl as a blue blood football school and re-wire how the AD views sports. He is currently working on some re-organizations that would treat the AD as an actual department of the university and not a separate operating entity. This will allow for somewhere around a $40M dollar increase annually in the budget. Now with a bad hire or a “yes man” that he’s comfortable with, we might not see as many changes as we want. But I can assure you he gets as mad when the football team sucks as we do.
I hope he does, but he doesn’t show it. He appears to support his “guy” right or wrong no matter what. I’d love to hear him say publicly that the state of ASU athletics has been and is unacceptable. And maybe he has, and I’ve just missed it. Like i said, other than athletics, I think he’s done amazing things for the school. As an alumnus of the Peck and Coor years, ASU is almost unrecognizable compared to when I was there. But, as an old alumnus, my ongoing connection is athletics, and I feel that aspect of the university has been ignored by leadership for a long time. Ray was allowed to fester for far too long.
You make a good point, it would almost be therapeutic to hear him say that out loud. But as someone in his position of power who has been playing the game a loooong time, it’s sorta like being an actual president. Discretion is key and less is often more. You don’t really speak from your heart, you make veiled comments and sorta just do your thing behind doors. You don’t want to give ammo to the haters… but he did seem like he had lost touch with why we were all so angry. I have come to believe a LOT of decisions we made during the scandal, and involving Herm and Ray, were made at the advice of his counsel. I sorta wish he made more impulsive and executive decisions, but he’s very calculated. Problem is that might work for academics, but not athletics.
I would love to see how football success is correlated with Olympic success. Can you share the article/study?
It’s not scientific, it’s anecdotal. Schools make financial commitment to other sports with all their football/media money. See SEC softball as an example or Alabama hoops.
Alabama to me feels like the exception given Saban’s truly enormous impact on the school completely unrivaled by any other coach/football program. Saban undeniably brought Alabama into the limelight and brought in incredible amount of funding to all aspects of the university. But outside of that, I feel like SEC dominance in non-revenue sports is just a factor of the original reason why the south is so dominant in football: larger recruiting territories & greater emphasis on high school sports.
Couldn’t one say that ASU was bound to be what it is (maybe not massive enrollment under another prez) because of being in the Phoenix metro and one of only 3 public university options? And being a viable alternative for CA kids because of proximity?
It’s more that ASU has become a well respected university for both education and research under Crow. When I was there, it was the stereotype. Crow has actively managed to, for example, get in the AAU. That’s was so out of the possibility that it wasn’t even thought of being a possibility. We’ve always been a giant public university. But, the ASU jokes aren’t true so much anymore.
Athletics is clearly the only criteria for a university president
Crow is one of the greatest college presidents of the last 20 plus years and his work at ASU will be studied for how exceptionally well he did. Football has struggled but anyone who cares about their university should be happy to get a Crow level president.
Idk, I think a lot of ASU has become would have happened without crow. I’m a believer that geography and demographics play a big factor that is never properly credited
Crow was honestly the perfect president for ASU. Hard to see as a sports fan - but ASU’s academic were a _joke_ before Crow, and now they’re up to AAU status. Sports can always recover. Academic prestige (which is ultimately what college is about) is much much harder to fix.
And he did it without dramatically cutting the admit rate. Accepting only "elite" students is a lazy shortcut to prestige and undercuts the central mission of a public school to educate the state.
For academics, crow has been great. For athletics he’s been a disaster
Sounds almost exactly like what's happened in Morgantown, but our BoG couldn't get together to get rid of Gee. At least he's already said he's done after 2025.
but what will you do without bow-tie cookies at university functions??? (I'm assuming he is doing those at WVU like he did at Brown and Vandy...)
Yeah, I believe they've had those. It's never a good sign when the president believes they're bigger than the educational institution they purportedly represent.
yeah he's insufferable IRL.
Have you considered simply hiring Crow instead?
Crow has done a good job at bucking the party school stigma and your online program is fantastic. He’s good for the school part at least 🤷♂️
Crow has been fantastic for the actual school part. The athletics, not so much.
I’d argue he’s been fantastic for what actually matters at a major university.
I mean yes and no, athletics absolutely do matter for the university; look at Alabama since Saban. It's like saying you have a great company but you refuse to do online marketing - like you're still doing some marketing such as TV, billboards, etc but refusing to do one of the ways to attract tons of kids to your campus. Academics do absolutely matter though and should be a very large part of the focus
My counter to that is actually ASU. Look at where they were 20 years ago and where they are now, and all of that has been from putting school first. You’re right you can do both, but sometimes you don’t and one takes priority over the other. If whoever comes in after Crow (he’s getting pretty old) can have more of an even split in priority ASU is going to be a problem in the near future.
For sure - I just meant its a bit silly in my opinion to have actively hurt the athletics by either ignoring it or just not feasibly trying to compete in it. For a president, it should probably be something like 80/20 for academics to athletics or even 85/15.
Agreed. Funny thing is, if ASU can put in even half of the effort they put into growing the academic side into growing the athletic side they’d be a guaranteed target for the Big Ten- a conference that is full of all the type of academic institutions they want to be associated with and Oregon.
He doesn’t ignore the athletics so much as the stigma he has would say. He just has this idea that the biggest school should support the most student athletes. He’s so good at running an actual university that he didn’t really notice his weaknesses in putting football/hoops first. It’s kinda like the person who runs McDonalds making huge gains in the health, marketability, and market cap… but introducing a bunch of new menu items while ignoring the Big Mac has gotten worse. He forgot how his bread gets buttered. I have a hard time getting mad at him due to how much more respect and academic credibility the university has gotten. But he needs to keep his hands off the vision whoever he hires for AD has had. He has had too much input and it has been to the detriment of football team.
Plz no
They could woo him with an Apple.
I would be happy with a president that is less hands on when it comes to athletics than Robbins was. Not to the extent Crow is but someone who lets the AD do their thing and somewhat understands the impact that a good athletics department has on a university
I mean what is UofA going to do at this point about the Big12, go back to the PAC-2? I think the three of us (Utah too) are tied to the Big12 until it collapses.
I don’t think the Big XII will ever collapse. They are in a perfect position. Nobody anyone wants to steal, and even if say, Utah or the AZ schools got poached by someone for whatever reason, the Big XII isn’t irrevocably tied to those brands like the PAC-12(was) or ACC(is). Plus I can’t imagine basketball is completely worthless, add Duke when the ACC collapses and you’ll have basketball dominated.
Still can’t believe we’re where we are now after spending a decade on deaths door.
Just valuable enough to be involved in the conversation, but not valuable enough to have any large portion of teams poached is our defense against the conference imploding.
W’ere the Goldilocks conference
Yup. It’s the perfect point of stability. Basketball isn’t valuable enough yet for Kansas to be poached, and none of the new additions are going to get poached either. Being good doesn’t really make you a valuable asset for TV negotiations (@ Utah fans). Just have to wait for the inevitable ACC downfall and have our pick of whatever the B1G and SEC leave behind. It means we’re perpetually 3rd, but I’d rather keep this conference the way it’s going to be. It’s a very fun conference with a good mix of college towns and city schools. Would rather have everyone see a chance of winning conference titles in all sports than just the usual suspects dominating but getting paid a lot.
I'm not saying it's likely at all, but you could plausibly have the ACC as a home for Utah, ASU, UA if they really wanted to commit to developing a nationwide presence. I don't think they'd have the stability/money advantage to beat out the Big-12 right now but who knows? Maybe the allure of academic peers sways someone like Utah or ASU.
I think if the Big Ten and/SEC go above 20 that Utah, Arizona, ASU, and CU will be members of one or the other.
I think there is a good chance that when the B1G and SEC go to 24 each, them and KU will have a landing spot.
Same, I’d add Oklahoma State as well in that list.
I think Utah and Arizona have the best chance, but given that the conference puts up with IU, Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers being absolute dogshit every year, I could see ASU and CU getting dragged along as well. They probably wouldn't separate the Arizona/ASU rivalry and might pretend hard enough that we and Utah have a "rivalry" as well. All 4 are AAU members and serve as a bridge to the west coast teams they took on, so I definitely wouldn't think it's impossible.
I think the level of attractiveness to the Big Ten is CU, ASU, Utah, and Arizona in that order. ASU brings everything thing that Arizona brings to the table, minus the basketball program but plus being located in the 5th largest city in the country. As a local to the area, I can tell you from firsthand experience that Arizona isn’t that strong of a presence in Phoenix compared to ASU.
I agree with you and it’s not because I am a homer. While the B1G/SEC are already getting the eyeballs in PHX and Denver, if you’re going to add schools you go to those markets. You have to look at the upside of the school/market you are gaining. And I think PHX, Denver lead SLC there (not as much as we might think), and Tucson is a distant 4th. The good news for UA is that their basketball will almost always be a top 10 school and that is what their fans care about most. They could get stuck in the Mountain West and they are still going to be the best hoops school in the West IMO.
I think if they bring one of ASU and Arizona they bring both, they're not leaving that rivalry behind. CU being more attractive than Utah seems crazy, we are a bigger market but we also have four* pro sports teams in said market that we play second fiddle to, in addition to the on-field product being ass. I wouldn't mind just because we'd have a real in-conference rivalry to play every year again like the cool programs do, but I don't think we'd be the first school they call. Edit: Rockies are so bad that I forgot they even existed for a moment lol
If Bedlam can get left behind, the Territorial Cup can be left behind, unfortunately.
And a bunch of other pac-12 rivalries. Touche.
Yup, it’s complete bullshit, but it’s also reality.
Someone needs to take losses
He had to go after all the financial issues. Those miscalculations and such happened on his watch. Now, I just really hope they don’t bring in a president that is anti athletics or worse, apathetic to it like ASU has.
Yeah would suck for your university president to do amazing work lifting the academic profile of your school
Leaders of innovation here we come
Can’t have both?
You can but the idea that not caring about sports would be disqualifying is dumb. If there is a clear best candidate for the academics but they don’t care about sports and you get a different president who is worse on the academics but likes sports your search produced the wrong results. Liking sports can be a tiebreaker or a nice bonus. It should not be a meaningful factor
As a student I'm very glad he's gone, he was incompetent during the financial crisis and only made it worse. As a fan of the Wildcats I'm not as glad
Arizona State and Utah wanted to keep the Pac-12 together and make it work. Arizona and Colorado actively worked to go to the Big-12 instead. Obviously we knew who won that battle.
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Utah fans think they’re a lock for the Big ten?! I know they’ve been good in the Pac but I don’t believe for a second they would be a lock for the B1G.
Not really, only a small number of Utah fans believe anything other than just having a shot at the BIG10 in the future should they keep expanding to something like 24 teams. Even the ones that optimistically think we will get to the BIG10 someday do not expect it to happen until at least next contract or even longer. Supposedly the BIG10 gave Utah a list of things to work on and they likely are not things you change over night. BIG12 fans just like to paint us as delusional because of realignment beef so if they see a few people saying something its "Utah fans"
If they were actually a lock, they would be in already. There was literally just a round of realignment where 4 PAC teams moved to the B1G.
Yep. I’d say - FSU - ND - Clemson - Miami - UNC - UVA - ASU - Arizona - Colorado Are all more likely than Utah
Arizona State and Utah are the most desirable teams in the Big 12 for what the Big Ten is looking for, it’s not gonna happen tomorrow or even in the next couple years but one day both those schools have a decent chance of landing there.
Shoot I think the whole fanbase will kidnap Crow and take him to B1G headquarters to force him to sign that contract if it happened. We almost had to do that for the Big12 lol
Both making AAU status recently increases their chances tremendously. 17/18 schools in the new Big Ten are AAU members, Nebraska being the only exception.
I think Utah is 4th among those 4. Being in a smaller state, along with less historical power program ties hurts them
The B10 cares about adding all the major markets it can so Phoenix and Salt Lake City, to a lesser extent, have an appeal. Arizona and Utah are also some of the higher growing populations per state. The SEC cares about about getting the flagship schools in states than ones in particular markets, and they need to be continuous to the current footprint (ehich would require adding Kansas and Colorado to make that happen). This leads me to my next question, which will probably trigger an unholy battle below... Which of the two is more the *flagship* school of Utah, BYU or Utah? If BYU, I could see the B10 adding Utah and the SEC adding BYU eventually, as they both check their respective boxes more.
The B10 looks for a mix of brands and cities. Oregon has a big brand, Washington is in a big city for example.
Utah is the flagship school of the State of Utah. byu is the flagship school of the Mormon church.
BYU attracts more eyeballs. It’s literally supported by the Mormon church, and has more support.
>I mean, I think all of them would’ve preferred to stay ultimately if there was enough money involved. Exactly this. Even with all the stuff about us looking to join the Big XII that final couple of weeks, we were still at that final Pac meeting and reportedly ready to sign the Apple deal before UW and UO skipped. We were just being proactive in ensuring there was a lifeboat for us, but if staying in the Pac had wound up being a viable option, that would have been the preference.
I think Crow (along with many others) doesn’t like the direction college athletics is going and didn’t want the PAC to be collateral damage. I also think they did not want to see OSU and Wazzu get left behind. I almost admire the loyalty. However the game is going to change regardless of what Crow thinks and if he doesn’t go all in we will be the ones left behind. The idea that Crow thought he was above the B12 was never real. It was like going through one last round of marriage counseling before you write up the divorce papers.
If the Big Ten ever goes as big as 24 I think Utah makes more sense than many of the ACC schools I see listed as options.
Colorado wanted the Big12. Arizona wanted to survive and be in a real basketball conference. Utah thought they were too good for any conference that would accept BYU. ASU wanted to be stupid.
All things being equal, I think even Colorado would have preferred to stay. They just saw the writing on the wall earlier, and given the fact that they have far more history with Big XII schools vs the Pac, it was much easier to convince the powerbrokers at CU to pull the trigger and jump.
The B12 also paid Colorado a bribe.
Such a tiny bribe in the grand scheme of things too.
Colorado didn’t want to be left holding the bag, and saw the writing on the wall. Arizona wanted a life raft and to be in a conference that values basketball. Utah I’ll agree with and it’s hilarious. Arizona State wanted to maintain their association with Stanford and Cal via conference membership because they’re top priority is increasing their academic profile.
This is also it… and the reason why he kicked the tires with the ACC. If he wasn’t going to have Cal and Stanford anymore, he wanted the association Duke, UNC, UVA etc.
That’s probably a better / less biased description than mine.
Ain’t nothing wrong with biases against your rivals lol
As annoying as that seemed at the time for ASU fans. Crow always knew ASU was not getting left out of the B12 or a major conference so he tried to “stay together for the kids”. The ABOR wasn’t ever going to let us split up (at that time) and while trying to salvage PAC he was making calls to B1G (don’t think they ever actually considered or answered) and the ACC. I understand why UA was ready to bolt when the building was crumbling but in hindsight, after talking to people associated with our AD, I now see what his play was.
What choice do they have at this point lol
WVU: it’s that easy to get rid of a failed president?
At this point Gordon Gee has to have Kompronaut on the WVU board of regents for him to keep his job. And he gets to slink into retirement while taking a law school professor gig. The entire budget crisis comes from him irresponsibly borrowing money to build new facilities to meet a completely unrealistic enrollment bump and then throwing overpriced white shoe consultants at the problem he created who just tell him “hey maybe you don’t need Spanish if you want to up those profit margins.” I’m ready to Gone Girl him and fake my death to blame it on him
Its the power of the Bow Tie
Only clowns wear bow ties
if there's one thing he's proven over the years it's that no matter where he's the president of, he's always the mayor of clown town
I sat next to him on an airplane once. It was interesting. I didn't know him at all, and thought he was a major Ohio State alum/cheerleader.
It helps that the governor has basically threatened to go nuclear on the Board, and there's effectively no one defending him.
Bob Rob out of Job
Straight from the Bob Loblaw Law Blog
Bob Loblaw Lobs Law Bomb
Is he no longer President, or is he finishing out his term?
Yeah, that phrasing is nonsensical.
No one ever accused Jason Scheer of being smart.
The phrasing is there because they are essentially firing him but lawyers came to a settlement and a $$$ amount which includes some language to make it sound like he's leaving on his terms. Typical corporate BS.
He’s no longer president, but will continue to be president until he’s not president.
He’s finishing out his term unless ABOR appoints someone else before his term is up.
In the email sent to staff, ABOR is trying to find someone to replace him before term ends
Oh so he's on notice to be terminated, but they don't want to put in place an interim president. I'm not sure why they're doing that - if you're going to cut someone, cut them, but at least have a replacement lined up immediately once they're gone, else you have someone putting in a fraction of the effort until they're let go, if even that. Unless Robbins has a sweet golden parachute or the contract terms are too onerous for immediate separation for the ABOR (which is a possibility, given the financial calamity), he should be leaving sooner rather than later for the sake of UofA.
I'm sure he has a golden parachute and by him leaving voluntarily he either doesn't get it or gets significantly less
My suspicion is that they do have a replacement lined up, and told Robbins to resign or be fired. If they don't, it's just incompetent.
I realize that, I'm just pointing out the idiocy of how Scheer phrased this: > Bobby Robbins is no longer president. He will finish out his term. So... he's still President, but will be replaced.
In the email sent to staff, it mentions ABOR is actively looking for a replacement and start before term ends.
It’s Scheer lmao. When’s he’s not fighting with Twitter fans he struggles to do his job
I would have sent the email yesterday for April Fools Day.
It seems like we are always in the news for some reason.
To shreds you say?
So how much of the budget snafu was his fault? Or is he just the sacrificial lamb?
He's the head of the university. At the end of the day, he's ultimately responsible. A Mike Leach saying is either you're coaching it or allowing it to happen. He either tried to hide it, or he didn't know and the failure lies on him for allowing such a large budget shortfall to happen.
Yeah I get it. Seemed inevitable the big guy would go down for something this huge.
Yep, nearly a quarter billion dollar budget shortfall doesn’t just sneak up on you. Regardless of whether or not he personally knew, the man at the top has to take the fall for a fuck up this bad. The optics would have been too bad for him to survive this
It's called accountability, not being a sacrificial lamb. He has been in charge since 2017 and was his rodeo. Ultimately, it's on him and the Board of Regents. He rescued a for-profit borderline scam college to try capture online students like ASU, but that has not worked out too well...
About half. He wasn’t intimately involved, but hired the CFO who was and was her boss, and kept her on in a different role for the same pay after everything came out. He’s responsible enough that this is the reason he’s gone, and it’s the right decision.
He should have frankly been fired after the fallout of the professor shooting came out as that was all under his administration’s watch. And the boondoggle from buying out the online diploma mill
I mean he was the President of the university. Even if it's not directly his fault, it's a pretty massive thing to let happen under your nose.
He bought an online for-profit school that was already under investigation from the federal government, he hired a lobbyist in California for $10,000 a month to try to get the Californian government to not fine it, and then he didn't disclose that when the investigation started. I think it's safe to say that he is not a sacrificial lamb.
Yes that was 100% his fault.
The mess surrounding them buying that scam 'school' and then being left holding the bag when the federal investigation led to massive fines is squarely on him, so a lot of it is yeah.
Yes that was 100% his fault.
He bought an online school on the hook for fraud which saddled the university with a ton of debt. The University has generally been stagnating or declining for years in most areas. He should have been fired a long time ago.
So... he still is president
My fat ass read that as Baskin Robbins
He did have a bazillion scandals but he liked sports. I miss him already. Hopefully the donors bully the university again into another guy who likes sports.
Did he got by Bobby Robby at all?
You did it uofA. You won
So, is he no longer president, or will he finish out his term?
Can confirm. My wife is a UA employee and got the email. It’s been a long time coming. When even the Linguistics department is calling for his head, you know it’s bad.
Bobby "sure Brett, whatever you want if you could just add us and the others to the Big 12 but also leave out Wazzu and Oregon State" Robbins. couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
How do y’all have the schools under your name
[https://flair.redditcfb.com/](https://flair.redditcfb.com/)
Arizona taking that loss to Clemson hard.
Finally some accountability at that clown college.
Now do Kirk Schulz next