[Vision2020] College football foibles, Idaho-style

[Tom Hansen]

I fully agree with Chris Carlson.  The UI football program needs some revamping and a return to the Big Sky Conference.

Courtesy of today's (November 9, 2012) Lewiston Tribune.

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College football foibles, Idaho-style
Chris Carlson
Allow me some comments on the future of football at the University of Idaho and Idaho State University.
No. 1: Both athletic directors, Idaho’s Rob Spear and ISU’s Jeff Tingey, need to take media training refresher courses. When confronted by a crisis, the first rule is to gather the facts quickly, then go public with the bad news because that allows you to frame the matter.
So, Tingey sits on the Coach Mike Kramer shoving incident for a good two weeks, creating the impression he was hoping it would go away and the university could deal with it as a private personnel matter. When taxpayer dollars are involved there is no such thing.
But at least Tingey was finally forthcoming about what he knew when and how he checked it out. The subsequent suspension of the player involved should not surprise anyone.
Rob Spear, his hands tied by President Duane Nellis and advisers, all of whom defer too often to the lawyers, has been bobbing and weaving, not being allowed to tell the full story yet about why Coach Robb Akey was let go in the middle of the football season. It’s become apparent that when Spear got the news Idaho’s talented quarterback had failed a drug test for the third time this season (according to the Spokesman-Review) he had to deliver on a probable ultimatum he’d made earlier to Coach Akey.
An educated guess is the quarterback flunked his first drug test, for which he was punished by being held out of Idaho’s first game against Big Sky power Eastern Washington. Presumably there was a second test he failed and at that point Spear must have said something like “one more time Akey and you’re both gone!” Then one more time happened.
Spear should have and could have addressed all of this at the time he announced Akey’s firing. My educated guess is he was not permitted to lay it all out by the coterie of sycophants that surround the president. The result is, of course, his credibility is badly compromised with the media, not Nellis’, nor executive Vice President Chris Murray’s.
This is unfortunate because Spear is a good man doing as well as anyone could under next to impossible circumstances. He deserves better.
No. 2: Tingey and ISU President Arthur Vailis ought to stick with Kramer. Anyone who looks at the YouTube footage is amazed the wide receiver so easily fell backward. One wag said after watching it, “No wonder ISU is losing games so badly. They all must be easy push-over pussy cats!”
Give Kramer the five years a salvage operation like ISU’s program is and that it will take to turn it around.
Spear has a tougher decision in that he has to recommend a successor. Rumors abound that former coach Chris Tormey wants his job back, but that would be a mistake. Why? Because it signals to fans and media that Idaho is trying to remain a Football Bowl Subdivision independent without belonging to a conference.
There’s no way Idaho can succeed at this. Football is all about generating cash that underwrites other collegiate sports. Idaho lacks the critical element — a sufficiently large media market that it dominates and advertisers who will pay to have ads viewed by a tuned-in television audience.
When it comes to football, Idaho will forever be No. 3 in the Spokane media market, behind Washington State University and Eastern Washington University — Gonzaga and WSU in basketball. In Boise, it will always be No. 2 to Boise State. The only way it starts back is dropping down to the Football Championship Subdivision and resuming its rivalry with ISU and the University of Montana.
If Spear realizes it’s not too late to bring football back to the Big Sky (where next year Idaho joins in all other sports) then there’s only one coach he should be pursuing: Carroll College’s Mike van Diest, one of the NAIA’s most successful coaches ever. He’s only won six of the last 12 national championships.
Van Diest recruits for character and is a magician at getting the most out of his limited in God-given talent athletes. He knows the recruiting area well and he knows how to win. Earlier this season he took Carroll to Portland to play the Big Sky’s Portland State. They lost but outgained and outplayed the Big Sky team. That’s just the product of great coaching.
I’ll wager anyone that Carroll will have done better than ISU has when they meet later this year. So, go Vandals — to the Big Sky and go get Mike van Diest.
And go Bengals. But if you want to win, let Kramer build the base necessary and give him the time he needs and deserves.
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Carlson is a former journalist who served as press secretary to former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus. He lives at Medimont in Kootenai County.
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Seeya round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares"
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
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