Those of you who know me know that this has been my favorite windmill to tilt at for years now, so I'm not posting this just because we were roundly embarrassed by a middle of the road FCS school on Saturday.
But it's not my fault, in the words of an old artillery man, that the ground has been "prepared."
Wyoming's total expenditures for football in 2014 totaled about $7.5 million. This included salaries, recruiting, game guarantees, etc. This ranks nowhere near the middle of the pack nationally and is $4 million to $5 million behind what is being spent every year by CSU and Boise State.
Wyoming's total men's basketball expenditures the same year totaled about $2.9 million.
So what would the budget and our standing nationally look like if we stopped throwing that $7.5 million down the football money pit and instead devoted $10.4 million per year to basketball?
Our basketball program would rank in the top ten nationally for men's basketball budgets. We would rank ahead of traditional powers like Kansas, Michigan State and UCLA.
You think Larry Shyatt couldn't build a Final Four contender within five years with those resources? Give him recruiting and home-game guarantee resources like the big boys have and you'd see a perennial Top-10 team playing in the A-A against non-conference opponents like Kansas or Michigan State.
Spend $10 million a year or more on basketball and you'll see a lot more images like this:
Continue to throw $7.5 million a year at football, and we'll get more of this:
Wyoming's willingness to spend (or not spend) on football, paired with our standing in the eyes of tv executives, and with the structure of FBS football that essentially bans Wyoming from playing for a national championship, even if we went undefeated, makes it unlikely that we will ever see a return to the glory days of the 1960's. The mediocrity of the 2000's, in my view, is the new normal when it comes to Wyoming football.
We should have the courage to recognize this and push our chips behind a winning hand.
But it's not my fault, in the words of an old artillery man, that the ground has been "prepared."
Wyoming's total expenditures for football in 2014 totaled about $7.5 million. This included salaries, recruiting, game guarantees, etc. This ranks nowhere near the middle of the pack nationally and is $4 million to $5 million behind what is being spent every year by CSU and Boise State.
Wyoming's total men's basketball expenditures the same year totaled about $2.9 million.
So what would the budget and our standing nationally look like if we stopped throwing that $7.5 million down the football money pit and instead devoted $10.4 million per year to basketball?
Our basketball program would rank in the top ten nationally for men's basketball budgets. We would rank ahead of traditional powers like Kansas, Michigan State and UCLA.
You think Larry Shyatt couldn't build a Final Four contender within five years with those resources? Give him recruiting and home-game guarantee resources like the big boys have and you'd see a perennial Top-10 team playing in the A-A against non-conference opponents like Kansas or Michigan State.
Spend $10 million a year or more on basketball and you'll see a lot more images like this:
Continue to throw $7.5 million a year at football, and we'll get more of this:
Wyoming's willingness to spend (or not spend) on football, paired with our standing in the eyes of tv executives, and with the structure of FBS football that essentially bans Wyoming from playing for a national championship, even if we went undefeated, makes it unlikely that we will ever see a return to the glory days of the 1960's. The mediocrity of the 2000's, in my view, is the new normal when it comes to Wyoming football.
We should have the courage to recognize this and push our chips behind a winning hand.
