Keep shooting the messenger.

If at first you don’t succeed in getting the evaluation you need to eviscerate your football program, try, try again.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham has hired another sports consultant to produce a new study about the decision to cut football, bowling and rifle. If you’re keeping score at home, it’s the same firm that a UAB athletics task force initially decided not to pick.

UAB announced Monday that its task force has selected College Sports Solutions (CSS) to produce by May 15 what figures to be a highly-scrutinized report. Because the university dropped football, UAB’s future membership in Conference USA remains in doubt. Conference USA’s presidents meet shortly after the May 15 date the report is due.

Last month, CSS lost its bid to become UAB’s new consultant to review the work by previous consultant, CarrSports. UAB’s task force announced in early March the hiring of consultant OSKR after a unanimous vote.

But UAB’s administration cited perceived biases by OSKR because of articles written by its co-founder and eliminated the company from consideration. UAB owes OSKR $22,400 for work the firm did after initially getting approval, AL.com reported.

So the UAB administration overrode the task force’s decision, because Andy Schwarz had the temerity to note that the emperor had no clothes.

I guess the new guys know what they need to do.

12 Comments

Filed under It's Not Easy Being A Mid-Major, It's All Just Made Up And Flagellant, It's Just Bidness

12 responses to “Keep shooting the messenger.

  1. I find this sort of manipulation by UAB brass to be disgusting.
    That said, UAB had no business having a football team in the first place. The state of Georgia is going to have to face the same problem with Georgia State in the future.

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  2. In support of my assertion stated above, I just looked it up and out of 137 teams playing FBS football, guess who is ranked dead last in winning percentage. That’s right, Georgia State with a winning percentage of .196. The next worst winning percentage in the nation is .305. Nobody will be going to Georgia State games at all if they keep that up. Frankly, not many would be going if they had a winning team. I just hope their administration and the Georgia Board of Regents is more honest and transparent about things when they finally decide to pull the plug than the Alabama people were.

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    • Cojones

      How many did they win out of how many played ?

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    • BoroDawg

      If home game attendance does not change it will not last much longer.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Georgia_State_Panthers_football_team

      FYI, the home game attendance numbers against Georgia Southern was mainly Georgia Southern. I had several co-workers and friends go to the game, the attendance for Georgia State was low for that game as were the others.

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      • Mayor

        I think the real mistake was the “A Bridge Too Far”” move from FCS to FBS after only 3 seasons in FCS with the last 2 seasons being losing seasons. Georgia State was at least somewhat competitive in FCS. Since moving to FBS Georgia State has only won 1 game and that was by 1 point against Abilene Christian in the Dome. I really think there is a place for another lower division college football program in Georgia, particularly in the Atlanta area where there are many good HS players who don’t get offered by an FBS school. I predict that Kennesaw State, which I heard is becoming a noted party school, will do much better than Georgia State and will likely stay in a lower division (I believe the Owls are starting out in D-II). I think they are supposed to play each other in the coming years and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if KSU kicked the Panthers’ asses.

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  3. Cousin Eddie

    Why doesn’t the BOT and the UAB President and athletic board just come out and say we made a decision and are going to stick with it? At this point that is what everyone knows they did, why pay someone to agree with the decision? Just admit what you did, take the heat and state while unpopular and difficult it was for the best interest long term and move on. If nobody has been fired yet then nobody will be fired if you go ahead and confess and move on.

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    • Why indeed? Based on my experience in the corporate world, this type of consultant is very often brought in to either validate a controversial decision already made or to justify a strategy or decision that the person retaining the consultant (CEO, Board, other person) already “knows” is the right thing to do, but isn’t willing to do without some perceived external stamp of approval. These consultants know who butters their bread, which the person retaining them will reinforce out on the golf course. They produce impressive power point presentations with colorful graphs and flow charts, and use words and phrases like “granular,” “at the end of the day,” “monetization,” “actionable” and “disruptive innovation.” Similar skill sets, say, to those of the good folks who used to be with Arthur Andersen and Lehman Brothers. But, I gotta admit, these guys know the good places to eat and really know how to negotiate a golden parachute.

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      • paul

        So basically, other people screw up and we get paid to swoop in and say the poop is actually shineola. What’s not to love about that business model? Like W. C. Fields said If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull$*!t

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  4. Russ

    If UAB reinstates football, I expect UGA to immediately declare Ganus ineligible and self-administer some penalties.

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    • Mayor

      ^^ This may be the funniest thing ever written on this blog!! 🙂 Unfortunately it also has the ring of truth to it. 😦

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