Chip tears into Kill/Teague for UNC: "would be comical if it weren't so pathetic."

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howeda7 said:
He's right. There's no defending this. It's bad enough that Kill's scared to take on a mediocre ACC team. But I don't care how scared Kill is. An athletic department that makes it's MBB team travel to 2-3 games by bus to save a few thousand bucks can't fork over $800K for something this pathetic. There's no excuse for it. This lowers my opinion of Teague more than Kill, but they should both be ashamed.
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Is it possible that this was promised to Kill before Teague was hired? I don't see what Teague gains by agreeing to cancel this game.

I've already given my opinion on the issue prior to it becoming official, so I'll spare everyone a long response and just say that the word "pathetic" sums up this situation well.
 

If this is the final verdict. Strike one against both Teague and Coach Kill. The program has been entrenched in a 60 year old grave. This is just another shovel full of dirt on a program that is a bottom feeder in the B1G. Stay tuned, this may get ugly.
 

This timing is just horrendous. After losing the last two games and being on a short downspin, this feels like a third consecutive loss. I'm not about to jump ship or anything but whatever momentum we had opening the season 4-0 has quickly been crushed.
 

...and, of course, we are all ignoring the obvious: a LOSS to New Mexico State hurts the program WAY more than a loss to North Carolina.

I'm a big Kill supporter but this is bush league. Even if you want to schedule easier opponents, fine. But paying to NOT play people? At best this is incredibly tone deaf at a time of tight budgets. Not a good reflection of the PR brain trust at the U. You will hear about this at the legislature for months. Stupid, stupid move.
 

Chip is right on the money here.

I'm as big of a Kill supporter as there is, but this is crazy. At the end of the day, what is gained by this? I'm baffled as to the thinking. A win over New Mexico State isn't going to build a program, period. A win over North Carolina could possibly help. And, a loss to North Carolina would hardly cripple anyone.

I have to admit, this past week hasn't been Jerry Kill's finest. There were more than a handful of puzzling coaching decisions in the loss to Northwestern, some uncharacteristicly lame excuse-making/rationalizing after that loss was equally bizarre, and now spending nearly $1 million dollars to get out of a mostly harmless, but attractive series against North Carolina. For years, we've been trying to get a team from the "south" to come up to Big Ten country. Finally, we get it, and then we are the ones to pull the plug at a high cost. Amazing.
 


Chip needs to dig deeper into the numbers.

Are we losing 800k on this at the end of the day or not???????
 

Studwell55 said:
Chip needs to dig deeper into the numbers.

Are we losing 800k on this at the end of the day or not???????
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If we bring in another home game we won't lose much if anything at the end of the day money wise because whatever season ticket base we have will help recoup most of the cost by being forced to drop the $40 on whatever crap opponent they line up. Plus they can tie these tickets to Nebraska or Wisconsin and that way there will be even more "sold" tickets regardless of the fact that most of those seats will be empty on game day.

It won't be a profitable game by any stretch of the imagination but I am sure they will break even or turn a small profit depending on how much they have to promise the Little Sisters of the Poor to come get beat.

The problem is the timing, and the way it makes the program look to a frustrated fan base. While the rest of the conference (not just the elite but everyone) continues to play at least one BCS opponent a year our coach just doesn't think that is something we should do and is looking for ways to pad the record and inflate the numbers. Don't care where you think the program is or where it is headed it is not unreasonable to play one game against a team with a pulse.

And as someone else mentioned if they manage to lose to one of these cupcakes it does far more harm then losing to a quality opponent. This move just stinks all the way around even if we do end up making back most of the money. Way to tell your fan base the team is going to suck for a while still and we don't want to risk losing to a program that might have players that are the same size as our guys.
 


How can Northwestern possibly win by playing 3 non conference BCS Opponents this year and next. This Season, Syracuse, Vanderbilt and Boston College. Next year, replace B.C with California.
They must have a conditioning Program too.
 




Studwell55 said:
Chip needs to dig deeper into the numbers.

Are we losing 800k on this at the end of the day or not???????
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Knowing this information would diminish his column's argument, so he didn't see the need.
 

GopherGod said:
It is hard to want to donate and be sympathetic to Coach Kill's desire for facility upgrades when they are okay with wasting 800K plus on something like this.
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Bingo. Would love to hear their response to this.
 




A lot of great comments that I am in total agreement with. One poster said "lame" and I can't think of a better word. Add the $800,000 payout and it looks lame and stupid.
 

Gopher Athletic Department must have cheered when the Big Ten/Pac 12 series(proposed) was dropped.

BTW this is the most agreed upon thread I have ever seen on GH.
 

Some one from the AD needs to convince the Gopher fans that this is a good idea and their reason(s) for doing this.

We should never duck a NC type of opponent.
 

Bayfieldgopher said:
Some one from the AD needs to convince the Gopher fans that this is a good idea and their reason(s) for doing this.

We should never duck a NC type of opponent.
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We should never duck any other Division I football school in America. What Kill is doing is absolutely pathetic. Other than the Air Force game and the two Iowa victories my favorite game since the Gophers moved to the new stadium was USC even though we lost. Kill is now taking away any chance that I will ever be able to enjoy playing that kind of opponent while he is coach. I could not be more disenchanted with what is going on with the Gopher program right now.
 

There HAS to be more to this than just being afraid of losing, right? It doesn't make any sense. UNC isn't so feared that they require this much hand-wringing.

Is it possible that they're expecting to make the $800,000 buyout back by having an extra home game? That would at least appeal to logic. Again, this is just wrong for so many reasons that there must be an ulterior motive or other solution or SOMETHING.
 

I'm going to withhold judgement until I see who the replacement opponents are. Teague has denied that it is a home-home with New Mexico State. Since we are already playing a FCS team in each of those years, it cannot be another FCS team (ie a Dakota team) unless we do more cancellations or resceduling.
In the absolute best-case-scenario we would get two higher level mid-major teams at home (I don't know who these would be though - Air Force? Central Florida?) that are nearly on-par with UNC and end up getting more money with the gate/concession revenues. I seriously doubt this could all happen, but if it did, it would be a financial win and not much of a step down in opponent quality.
 

What's even worse is that we are talking about this a lot more than talking about the game Saturday against our biggest rival.
 

Embarrassing. Would have been so much better to play UNC home and home and then move on to scheduling cupcakes.

This is completely the wrong way to sell the program.
 

Good for Chip for pointing out this bizarre move. It does send the wrong message and is a huge waste of $$
 

Chip is spot on.

The (current) Gopher football scheduling philosophy:

"Bring us your weak, your weary, your downtrodden, your poor. ..."

Looks like the standard for Gopher football has been set. ... 4-0 outside the conference, 2-6 in the B1G, go to a bowl game (probably), celebrate being a bowl team. Such a high bar to aspire to. Disappointing, but at least we're familiar with it (pre-Brewster).
 

There has to be more to the story. Remember that Notre Dame will start playing 5 ACC teams in 2014. This could have something to do with softening the cost. I trust we will get the true story. Kill also likes to recruit that area and maybe he sees it as a disadvantage to play games against teams like UNC or NCST. Just a thougtht. There has to be more to the story that will come out.
 

I gotta agree with Chip on this as well...they really should have played the games. Personally I think the team would have a better idea of how good they are heading into the B1G season when they have at least one opponent who is respected.
 

zipsofakron said:
There HAS to be more to this than just being afraid of losing, right? It doesn't make any sense. UNC isn't so feared that they require this much hand-wringing.

Is it possible that they're expecting to make the $800,000 buyout back by having an extra home game? That would at least appeal to logic. Again, this is just wrong for so many reasons that there must be an ulterior motive or other solution or SOMETHING.
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Well, it isn't just about losing. Kill has said something to the effect of playing these games that beat you up or something, and how they have enough hard games in conference play. Something to that effect. It's not that he assumes they'll lose, it's that he's considering the residual effects of playing the game. Sounds silly, but I'm pretty sure that's some of the logic I'm pretty sure I've heard him say.

I don't necessarily agree, but you have to admit, for a program with as little depth as we have, that is something to consider. Imagine if all our non-conference games looked a little like the UNH game. I'm willing to guess we would not be nearly as banged up as we are right now, and that undoubtedly came into play against Northwestern, and probably Iowa as well.

And yes, the plan is to recoup the money through the 4th home game.
 

Monty519 said:
Well, it isn't just about losing. Kill has said something to the effect of playing these games that beat you up or something, and how they have enough hard games in conference play. Something to that effect. It's not that he assumes they'll lose, it's that he's considering the residual effects of playing the game. Sounds silly, but I'm pretty sure that's some of the logic I'm pretty sure I've heard him say.

I don't necessarily agree, but you have to admit, for a program with as little depth as we have, that is something to consider. Imagine if all our non-conference games looked a little like the UNH game. I'm willing to guess we would not be nearly as banged up as we are right now, and that undoubtedly came into play against Northwestern, and probably Iowa as well.

And yes, the plan is to recoup the money through the 4th home game.
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We could get the same injuries playing st Thomas as we could playing Alabama. I would like to see the evidence of the injury thing? Savanah st getting thumped by Oklahoma and fsu must of left them with 20 players injured.
 


Our strength of schedule is tougher than Northwestern this year.

North Carolina is an attractive name, but with sanctions it is another school "we should beat". A loss to them is just as ugly as a loss to a lower conference team.

I really don't care about non conference games, lets win Big Ten games. If Kill wants 4 cream puffs, then he better win at least 3 Conf games to keep the fans happy.
 

lakesgopher said:
We could get the same injuries playing st Thomas as we could playing Alabama. I would like to see the evidence of the injury thing? Savanah st getting thumped by Oklahoma and fsu must of left them with 20 players injured.
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No science to it, but I think (just my personal opinion) that if a guy is in the position of strength, there's LESS chance for an injury. Gray got hurt on that play against WMU when the play kinda fell apart and guys got pushed back a little. If you're playing a team you physically are stronger than, that never happens. I'm not declaring this as a fact, it's just my opinion, and I'm guessing, is partly where Kill is coming from. Again, I don't necessarily agree with that idea, I'm just saying, I'm guessing that's the logic involved in this line of thinking.
 

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