And again - so we’re 7 other schools. It’s far more rational you direct your anger and hatred at the real culprits: UW, UO, and mostly USC for setting the house on fire in the first place. Larry Scott. ESPN. NIL. $$$ and greed greed GREED. It’s all about greed. And effing Japan. And let’s not forget that Bill Moos was in bed with Larry Scott before Moos turned on him.
At best, under your scenario only four schools were "clueless," because UA, ASU and Utah left the same day as the UW and UO, so 5 of 9 were prepared to take immediate action. The fact that others caused the Pac-12's demise, doesn't absolve Chun and Schulz of their responsibility to do their best to protect the interest of WSU. The fact that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor didn't absolve Husband Kimmel and Walter Short of the responsibility to protect US forces and US interests in Hawaii. Like Chun and Schulz their job was to be prepared, as in our case, there were warning signs aplenty, they weren't prepare, and got the axe.
You fail to recognize the elephant in the room, nobody wanted us, no amount of planning can overcome that
I’m going to neglect football and focus on the historical inaccuracy. Kimmel and Short - in large part - acted appropriately based on the information they were provided. The “war warning” they were sent in late November indicated an attack was anticipated in the western Pacific - the Philippines, Borneo, etc. The concern at Pearl was sabotage by Japanese agents. Nobody expected an attack at Pearl until it was far too late. The priority from the top was Europe, and resources they needed - patrol and attack aircraft specifically - were stripped to levels below what they needed, and redeployed to England. They were scapegoated by the Navy and War department, blamed for the whole mess so that the public wouldn’t know the levels of incompetence in the administration that allowed it to happen. Nearly every flag officer in the Navy later said it wasn’t their fault - Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, even King. One of them said something to the effect of ‘if Napoleon and Nelson had been in charge, the results would have been the same.’
Nobody wanted us at that point or wants us now. A leader who deserves the title and comp would have anticipated the situation and positioned WSU much better than now. A legendary one would have taken the steps I outlined earlier re being the first mover. When you don't have much to sell otherwise, willingness to help an aggressive commissioner make his mark, and rich assholes make even more money, can be something you can leverage.
It's not a time to be nice, it's a time to sling the cajones around the room and make moves. Don't just do nothing and say, "oh well!"
We will never know because instead of exploring options, all options, including a significantly reduced media payout, undercutting ASU, Arizona efforts, our Prez and AD were preparing for and making a La La Land presentation to our regents about the Pac-12's future leadership role in the Power 5. Stop defending the indefensible.
Don't disagree, except Kimmel and Short weren't really scapegoated. Its a recent myth, much like the effort rehab Arthur Percival's image. Military leadership is a tough business. They were generals, in charge in a "war warning" situation and got caught completely flat footed. Sure the racist view was that the Japanese weren't a real military threat to Pearl Harbor, or Singapore. But if that is the reason for the "scapegoating" claim, it is extraordinarily weak. The fact that "Dugout Doug" got the Medal of Honor for being caught even more flatfooted, doesn't change that.
They certainly should have been relieved, but the blame should have spread around and gone higher. And they didn’t deserve demotions and getting forced out of the military. Pinning it on them was almost as unfair as blaming McVay for the Indianapolis.
I hear what you're saying. But let's say we know the big one is coming to Seattle in the next 300 years, most likely, with the Seattle Fault and a big office building like Columbia Center isn't retrofitted for earthquake resilience. (It is, but originally was built before they knew about the Seattle Fault; work with me here.)
Someone has to be willing to sell you earthquake insurance though. You're still assuming that another conference was willing to take WSU and OSU. Seems like no one was wanting WSU and OSU since here we are. Maybe someone would if we pulled some SMU take no money for a decade deal but we can't afford that.
The very lack of marketability that you keep flatly repeating is the very basis for the necessity of strong, unconventional action. So yes, nobody wants the Cougs. We know that's true now that the Big 12 has a bunch of schools like Cincy, Houston, UCF, and BYU, along with the more recent entrants, certainly. We don't know if it would have been true earlier. We don't even know if there would have been other options. If you really want me to believe Yormark would have had absolutely no interest in poaching WSU and Oregon State, perhaps along with some other breakaway schools, when it was begging the Pac-12 for a merger after Texas and Oklahoma left, if not subsequently to that, then you'll have a very hard time doing so. Yet Schulz was stuffing his face with Noel and listening to Larry and then George spout obvious bullshit while just wanting to be in the "club" of Pac-12 presidents playing nice with each other to their faces ... even as some of the schools were working to sabotage it.
Yes, that's what I believe, as I wrote. I don't think Schulz explored alternative Power 5 relationships prior to recently, much less engaged on it (including indirectly). Need to repeat it again? Nice straw man re the SEC, by the way.
Got it your opinion with no proof of what has been attempted is 100% right and mine is wrong.
The ticket office is going to have a terrible time trying to sell tickets to a MWC type of schedule in the future. "Instead of hosting Oregon, UW, USC, and Stanford at home this season, we'll be hosting UNLV, SJSU, Nevada, and New Mexico! It's going to be a great home slate."
Schultz is losing sleep over your refusal to give him a pass on this
Schulz surely isn't. I doubt he loses sleep over much. The university, however, needs more, not fewer, people like me to want to donate. This shit doesn't help at all.
I think they're just resigned to it. I understand that, to an extent. It's reality at this point and little can be done now, most likely. I'm just surprised some of these guys are so quick to defend Schulz with sloppy or absent scrutiny, and almost seem excited for mediocrity and a slide into irrelevance. I guess we have known WSU has always had a lot of those types of fans, going back to the Wulff/Leach transition. Tons of people were pissed off that they would have to pay more for parking or couldn't roll into their lot with little traffic a couple hours before gametime anymore. They're going to love these MWC matchups.
The real sign of cluelessness will come when the season ticket package for that slate of teams is at the same price. Or higher.
"We have to make up the revenue somewhere...they'll never notice the price increase! AND we'll still continue to make it super difficult to donate, too."
I don’t see posters defending Schulz - just people with a likely more realistic perspective that aren’t getting hysterical. WSU had a shit hand to begin with and little to no leverage. And some of you expected Schultz to pull a Houdini. Lol. No; laugh out effing loud.
Good lord. If you actually believe that Schultz and WSU didn’t try to leverage something as basic as WSUs TV market and ratings then chances are you are a bumpkin stuck in Biggs Junction working as a shower attendant at the Pilot Travel Center.
Maybe if that loser Shultz hadn't skipped his Zig Ziglar seminars or failed to read “The Secret” we wouldn’t be in this mess.
