on the recruiting front with the best class in school history, despite having Raveling era facilities.
This is an object lesson on where an AD's priorities should lie. And it isn't creating a legacy through facility building. It is fund retention and liquidity to hire and retain top coaches. Moos got it partly right. He used the Pac 12 Network contract to hire Mike Leach, when every other conference AD thought exclusively about facility upgrades, and went coaching cheap, at least in football. The result has been the utter demise of Pac-12 football.
Where Moos got it wrong was also "double downing" on facilities. He took advantage of the one major advantage WSU has in this conference, Spokane's ridiculously low wage scale, to build facilities second only to Oregon, at a truly bargain price. The down side was the financial hole it left when the Pac-12 network fizzled.
This isn't about whether to upgrade. You need to upgrade. The question is whether you take advantage of the "Spokane bonus" to keep up with the Jones's, for far less, or try to put them to shame. Bill went with the "put them to shame" approach. The result was, while we could keep Leach, we couldn't pay to keep or upgrade his assistants. And when Leach bolted for perceived greener pastures (how much of that had to do his struggles retaining his coaches), we were once again left trying to find and hire a great coach from the bargain basement. Rolo may be fantastic, just like Smith, but there is inherently far greater risk trying to find an undervalued coaching gem, than paying a proven coach what he demands. Paul " the program destroyer" Wulff is an extreme example.
This is an object lesson on where an AD's priorities should lie. And it isn't creating a legacy through facility building. It is fund retention and liquidity to hire and retain top coaches. Moos got it partly right. He used the Pac 12 Network contract to hire Mike Leach, when every other conference AD thought exclusively about facility upgrades, and went coaching cheap, at least in football. The result has been the utter demise of Pac-12 football.
Where Moos got it wrong was also "double downing" on facilities. He took advantage of the one major advantage WSU has in this conference, Spokane's ridiculously low wage scale, to build facilities second only to Oregon, at a truly bargain price. The down side was the financial hole it left when the Pac-12 network fizzled.
This isn't about whether to upgrade. You need to upgrade. The question is whether you take advantage of the "Spokane bonus" to keep up with the Jones's, for far less, or try to put them to shame. Bill went with the "put them to shame" approach. The result was, while we could keep Leach, we couldn't pay to keep or upgrade his assistants. And when Leach bolted for perceived greener pastures (how much of that had to do his struggles retaining his coaches), we were once again left trying to find and hire a great coach from the bargain basement. Rolo may be fantastic, just like Smith, but there is inherently far greater risk trying to find an undervalued coaching gem, than paying a proven coach what he demands. Paul " the program destroyer" Wulff is an extreme example.