So, we'll see what happens now with the changes in the pipeline.
An interesting piece, at the New York Times, "In Middle Tier, College Sports Tries to Adjust: Fresno State and Others Challenged in Changing N.C.A.A. Landscape":
FRESNO, Calif. — As hundreds of universities try to make sense of the seismic jolts remaking the landscape of college sports, the only certainties appear to be that the rich are getting richer and that the poor will fall further behind. Stuck in the middle are universities like Fresno State.
With athletic ambition bigger than its budget, Fresno State represents the vast middle class in college sports. It is not in the top tier of success and prestige, but close enough to be tantalized by it. Centered in the heart of California, surrounded by the likes of U.C.L.A., Stanford and Southern California, it is perfectly positioned as a bellwether for how next-tier programs view the changes that seem destined to mostly help the nation’s top programs.
“Clearly we are moving away from parity,” Thomas Boeh, the Fresno State athletic director for nine years, said as he watched football practice on Monday morning. “We are certainly moving to a Darwinian model.”
As it turned out, Boeh’s own role did not survive the rest of the day. It was announced on Tuesday that Joseph Castro, the president of Fresno State, had reassigned Boeh from athletic director to special assistant to the president.
“In his new role, Boeh will serve as primary adviser to President Castro on the unprecedented changes occurring within the N.C.A.A. and Mountain West Conference due to recent labor actions and legislation,” the university said in a news release.
A search is underway for a new athletic director — one whose mission will be largely to raise more money to keep up with the changes coming to college sports.
On Monday, workers at Fresno State installed carpet in the football team’s decade-old locker room, part of a $500,000 remodeling that includes new, wider lockers for the players, more big-screen televisions and a neon-accented Bulldogs logo on the ceiling.
Next door, in the airy, $6.7 million Meyers Family Sports Medicine Center, which opened last fall, athletes from several Fresno State teams received treatment from an army of trainers. Next door to that, in a vast weight room with half a million dollars’ worth of new equipment, the women’s soccer team was led through workouts below a large Fresno State mural.
“Basically, we’re trying to look like a Cadillac on a Chevrolet budget,” Boeh said.
The athletics budget is about $30 million, below that of the 65 universities playing in the five richest conferences, which received preliminary approval from the N.C.A.A. last week to rewrite rules in their favor to basically allow their universities to spend more money on the athletes who fuel their programs. More than a dozen universities have athletic budgets of $100 million or more.
A significant court ruling on Friday, one of many cases that may upend the tradition of amateurism in college sports, could lead to more compensation for players — something that Fresno State, with 225 athletic scholarships, probably cannot afford to match.
“Does this become business as usual, where you do what you can to keep up?” Boeh asked. “Or is there a critical point where some institutions say we don’t want to play in this game anymore? To date, I haven’t heard of any institution say, ‘We’re not going to do all we can to stay competitive.’ ”
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Boeh cited 54 construction or renovation projects in his tenure. Outside the low-slung, concrete-block athletic department offices, backhoes rumbled in a patch of dirt that will become home to another department building next to an aquatic center that opened three years ago.
“You have to continue to move forward,” Boeh said. “The moment you decide to stand still, the rest of the industry goes by you very quickly.”
Fresno State has an admirable history of on-field success. It plays in the Mountain West, against universities like Boise State and San Diego State. Its football team was 11-2 last season, its men’s basketball team is on the rise, and its baseball and softball teams have won national championships in the not-so-distant past. Thanks largely to its relative isolation in California’s vast Central Valley, Fresno State has the full attention of a rapturous fan base.
But what if universities in the Big 5 conferences begin to offer stipends, or upgrade health insurance or allow greater access to agents? Can universities like Fresno State, and conferences like the Mountain West, afford to follow? Can they afford not to?
Tim DeRuyter is in his third season as football coach. Last year, Fresno State started 10-0 behind quarterback Derek Carr (a second-round draft choice of the Oakland Raiders in May) and was on the verge of crashing the big-money Bowl Championship Series when it was upset by San Jose State.
It won the conference championship and lost a bowl game to Southern California. In the off-season, DeRuyter signed an extension through 2018 that will pay him $1.4 million this year, with a chance at $750,000 in bonuses. It is big money at Fresno State, but typical in college football, where Alabama Coach Nick Saban has a base salary of $6.9 million.
DeRuyter estimated that half of his players were also recruited by programs in the bigger conferences — mostly lower-level teams in leagues like the Pacific-12. And he said about half of his players and their families might be enticed by the promise of cash stipends and more scholarship money, as the top conferences appear ready to offer.
“The chips have always been stacked against us,” DeRuyter said. “What you have to do is accentuate what you have to offer. Is getting another $1,000 worth more to a recruit than more playing time or winning a conference championship?” ...
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