Complaints about Joe fall on deaf ears to those that actually matter. His job is to make money. Winning is just one of the elements related to that principal job. He is unbelievable at making money and is loved by decision makers for it. Some of them may get frustrated with issues related to the university teams, but he is widely considered, within decision making circles here and all around college sports, as the best at his job, i.e. making money and keeping his athletic department in the green. Hell, last year the football program make about $25million less due to the early exit and the athletic department still made almost $3million profit. Ohio State's athletic department lost $37million during the same period.
The last three years have been game changing and tumultuous to say the least. No playbook existed for what has happened and every athletic department was facing a myriad of unknown factors related to the very survivability of college sports. Joe has kept us in the green and while he and the university (and all colleges) try and figure out where college sports is going. Personally, I like the BV hire and think it is going to work out in the long run. I want Joe to have patience with the process we are going through. I think reasonable people can disagree with this opinion. We will see how that works out.
As for Porter Moser, I had never heard of him when he was hired. It seemed like a good hire on its face. Again, just my opinion, he has done well enough under the circumstances to warrant patience. I believe 5 years is fair. Again, I think reasonable folks could disagree with this opinion and it would seem reading this board, most folks do. I don't know if he will but hope Joe gives him another year. It is my guess that he will. This being said, if Joe moves to replace Porter, that is fine with me as he isn't my kind of coach in a lot of ways. But, most coaches aren't my kind of coach. I found out a long time ago, I was going to have to follow OU playing and being coached in a way that isn't the way I would hope they would be. I just want the coaches to treat the players right, manage the players correctly, and be generally successful (relatively due to inherent problems with the program). Like most I look at the bottom line related to that last issue, but out of the thousands of possessions that occurred over the last 3 and 1/2 years, if you change the result on 10-15 possessions, OU has been to the NCAA twice in 3 years and would be in the tournament this year. I just don't agree that over a short span, those 10-15 possessions, not going our way, take Porter from being highly successful to a failure.
I agree with Dayton's dad that if a school wants to change their program, the easiest method it to up its commitment on NIL and get better players before deciding whether their coach is a failure. Toby Rowland said the other day on his radio show that OU has spent about $3million on basketball this year and when we played Missouri, we were playing a team with a payroll of $6million. When we played Arkansas, we were playing a team with a $12million payroll. It will be interesting to say the least on how Joe handles the Moser situation. The negativity around the program is strong, but Joe has a history of following his own judgment and not swaying with the winds of public opinion. You have to wonder what he really thinks about the prospects of Porter succeeding. My guess is this will drive the decision -- that, and money.
