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#10: Pepperdine has parted ways with Men’s Basketball HC Lorenzo Romar. (link) |
#9: ESPN’s Chris Low offers a highly detailed look behind the scenes of Alabama’s transition from Football HC Nick Saban to new HC Kalen DeBoer and notes Crimson Tide AD Greg Byrne promised the team he would have a new coach in place within 72 hours. Byrne: "It ended up being 49. I thought I would beat the 72-hour window but wanted to give myself some padding.” Byrne, however, did have more time to prepare, at least mentally, as Low reports Saban informed the AD following the 2022 season that he was nearing the end of his coaching career. Byrne had his staff research the college head-coaching hires over the past 25 years from the winningest 25 programs during that span. “Part of what I was trying to understand is what were the analytics, and our studies showed that 75% of the time you're basically hiring a Group of 5 head coach, Power 5 coordinator or NFL coordinator. That's not necessarily a negative, but when it comes to the theory that you're going to hire just whoever you want, the percentages don't support that." While Saban has made clear that NIL and the transfer portal weren’t the reasons he retired, he says: “I thought we could have a hell of a team next year, and then maybe 70 or 80% of the players you talk to, all they want to know is two things: What assurances do I have that I'm going to play because they're thinking about transferring, and how much are you going to pay me? … So I'm saying to myself, 'Maybe this doesn't work anymore, that the goals and aspirations are just different and that it's all about how much money can I make as a college player?' I'm not saying that's bad. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying that's never been what we were all about, and it's not why we had success through the years." Saban also says he was disappointed in his players’ reactions after losing to Michigan in the Rose Bowl: “You gotta win with class. You gotta lose with class. We had our opportunities to win the game and we didn't do it, and then showing your ass and being frustrated and throwing helmets and doing that stuff…that's not who we are and what we've promoted in our program." Lots more from Byrne, Saban, DeBoer and others. (link)
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#8: Northwestern is reportedly drawing inspiration from the 16th hole at the Waste Management Open as it considers temporary options during the Ryan Field rebuild. According to Darren Rovell, the Wildcats have a 15-20K capacity in mind for the interim setup on Lake Michigan. Doing so, Rovell adds, could allow the football team to continue playing at home rather than at neutral fields while construction is underway. (link, link)
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#7: UNLV Football HC Barry Odom can now add bull riding to his resume, lasting roughly 1.5 seconds longer than anyone in the D1.ticker office would have. See for yourself. All in the name of fundraising. (link)
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#6: Congratulations to Iowa women’s hoops star Caitlin Clark, who has passed LSU men’s basketball legend Pete Maravich for the most points scored in DI history. (link); A tribute video released by Nike details all of the records and awards now on Clark’s CV. (link); Nike also installed a seven-story banner in Iowa City to celebrate Clark. (link)
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#5: Missouri has appointed Bob Blitz, a member of the MU Board of Curators, as chair of the 11-member AD search committee. There are no members of the athletic department, except for FAR Pam Bruzina, on the committee. (link)
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#4: Oklahoma’s new Love’s Field opened to rave reviews, as D1Softball notes: “From the Oklahoma-shaped scoreboard and video board above the batter’s eye park in center, reminiscent of the Camden Yards warehouse as an immediately identifiable landmark, to the grandstand jutting out toward the foul lines and the double decks, the $48M ballpark came across on television like, well, a home run. It perhaps isn’t entirely coincidental that future SEC rival Georgia’s associate athletic director tweeted updated images of its ongoing stadium renovations. The arms race in college sports, especially the SEC, only goes one way.” Meanwhile, Sooners AD Joe Castiglione says work was still being done to finish the stadium the morning of its unveiling, including the installation of the final seats. Castiglione also suggested they are still considering ways to expand seated capacity in the future beyond the current 4,200. (link)
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#3: Texas Tech has installed its new Double T scoreboard at Jones AT&T Stadium. Have at look, which includes additional construction progress pictures for football facility upgrades. (link)
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#2: Iowa State has selected Goldenrod to spearhead the next phase of the CyTown project. Cyclones AD Jamie Pollard: “We thought if anybody took it on, it might be a local developer. And we had two locals that wanted to do it. But in the end, Goldenrod just had too much experience. Their capitalization was really important, and their experience working in higher education. Their proximity in Omaha, they've done [work at] the University of Nebraska, they've done University Nebraska-Omaha. It kind of made it feel like they were local, even though they're a regional/national developer.” (link)
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#1: Dartmouth men’s basketball team voted in favor of unionization by a vote of 13-2. Sportico’s Michael McCann and Daniel Libit report that “immediately following the vote, Dartmouth filed a 51-page appeal of the NLRB regional director’s Feb. 5 decision and director of the election. In the filing, the university argued that regional director Laura Sacks, by determining the school’s basketball players were employees, made an ‘unprecedented, unwarranted, and unsupported departure’ from legal and board precedent. The basketball players will now have an opportunity to file a response to the appeal, and both parties also have until March 12 to file objections to the election. Barring those, it would then be up to Sacks whether to certify the election or to hold an additional hearing. … The appeal will be heard by the agency’s five-member board, which currently has one vacancy. There is no timetable on how long the board will take to decide, but no decision is expected for months.” Big Green student-athletes Cade Haskins and Romeo Myrthil: “Today is a big day for our team. We stuck together all season and won this election. It is self-evident that we, as students, can also be both campus workers and union members. … It’s time for the age of amateurism to end." (link, link, link)
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