UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Let me help you then! We need to do a mass update to this thread to replace any reference to UNH football with UNH D2 football, if we want to be having this discussion in a fair and accurate context. (Yeah, I saw the "they're FCS not D2" comment. Please. When there's a division above you, you're the second division, customarily abbreviated as D2. English football calls their second division the Championship, wonderful, it's still second division football, witness the exodus of good players whenever an EPL team is relegated. Weasel words, got to love them.)

UNH hockey plays in the SEC against Alabama, LSU, and Florida. UNH football plays in the ECAC North. How excited would we be on this thread if we were gearing up for a battle with Plattsburgh St. and Castleton for the league crown? Or that big home and home with our neighbors to the south, Salem St.? Because that's UNH football.

Interesting comparison. Although I'm a little worried BS35+4 and his outgoing HC might get some ideas for the 2017/2018 schedule if the "Crawl to 600" falls even further behind this season. This year's hockey schedule pretty much makes UNH an auxiliary member of Atlantic Hockey, and while we're calling a spade a spade ... Atlantic Hockey is really every bit the same D2 level league in reality as the one UNH Football plays in, no?

I think we've seen examples of some very nice facilities at the FCS/D2 level, and it's not like UNH just built a 50,000 seat stadium across the street. Let me ask you this, EJ - do you honestly believe the old stadium wasn't a disgrace and an eyesore, and didn't need to be upgraded?

Your complaints make it sound like UNH fields a club-level football program. And file this under "for what it's worth" ... but we've seen former Yankee Conference (D2) rivals UConn and UMass take a swing at D-1 football in recent years. UConn has actually done OK (I guess if a .500 program with a low ceiling floats your boat) while UMass has crashed and burnt, but is still trying. Maybe UNH has plans to follow them, or at least wants to support the program to keep that option alive for the (distant) future? I dunno ... but whereas the BU's and Northeasterns of the world opted to drop football when faced with the decision to either grow or dump football, I'm glad UNH has decided to preserve football, and maybe try to grow it.

As for the gift. Yes, UNH abided by the letter of the law. But they trampled all over the spirit of the gift. An institution with some class would have found a thoughtful and appropriate use for that money. I highly doubt Dartmouth would have used a gift from a librarian on a new running track, or garbage truck for the campus sanitation department. I get it, they have the money to not do things like that, but again, class is doing what's right, not what's expedient. And as for the garbage about the donor becoming a big fan of football in the last 15 months of his life - even learning the rules! - come on. So if he had become a big stamp collector in the last year of his life UNH would have spent a million of his gift on improving their rare stamp collection? Again, come on, methinks thou doth protest too much, a sure sign of weasliness.

Yeah, this is the part where UNH should just have made their decision, and not tried to be cute/weasely about it. My guess - and it's admittedly only a guess - is there was probably some discussion with the family about the allocation of the non-designated portion of the gift, and the folks who make those decisions probably had to "sell" the family a bit on the video board allocation. But that's where they should have left it, unless the family felt it was important for them (UNH) to add in the bit about the deceased's recent "conversion". That latter scenario is a possibility, I suppose? But if not, yeah, I agree, providing the "cover story" was uber-defensive by UNH, and they should have just had the institutional courage to say, "hey, this is what we're doing, and we've done what we felt was in the best interests of the school in the moment".

Eagerly awaiting the arrival of Bentley in 5 weeks' time. Help me with this one ... are they Alabama, LSU or Florida??

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Chuck.... Serious and non-snarky question....

Assuming that he has NO control over DU's departure date (I think it's a fair assumption at this point, and even if it's not, I was an Economics major, so I can assume anything)......

What would be the 3-5 things that you would like to see Marty Scarano do to show his interest in the hockey program?

You've tried to take the big one off the table 'dc, but I'm going to put it right back onto the table.

(1) If you can spend $1MM to put a video board in your brand new FCS/D2 football stadium, then why would you not be able to buy out the current head coach for just over half that amount? You already hired his replacement, and your outgoing guy just posted the worst season of his career by quite a distance. The recruiting is still living off the final years of Borek's reign, and you just had to schedule an embarrassingly weak schedule for the upcoming season to prop him up (as an aside, I just looked at the 2016/2017 schedule, and in the 18 games in the 2016 part of the schedule, there is one (1) game against BC, and the rest are against a collection of teams that *should* make a 12 win target for end of December quite attainable);

(2) If the last 12 months are any indication, then something is amiss on the recruiting side. We can debate 'til the cows come home whether Coach Stewart was/is more experienced than Coach Souza, but the successor decision has already been made. And if Souza isn't going to be his own go-to guy on the recruiting trails, then he needs to get THAT guy into the program ASAP. I'm not sure exactly what Stewart is bringing to the table now?

(3) Get the program's games back on regular TV. Channel 9, NH One (or whatever it's called this week) and NHPTV, just bite the bullet and get the games out there and seen - even if it costs you money in the short run. I live 15 minutes from campus, and work regularly with young athletes, 90% of whom haven't got the slightest idea that UNH Hockey even exists as a D-1 program. There's two reasons why the arena attendance has fallen off a cliff - one, the old regulars have been alienated by poor treatment and poor on-ice product quality (see 1 & 2 above), and two, UNH hasn't done squat to position the program and sell it to the next generation of hockey fans. And no thanks to them, they've again been given an opportunity to compete with the Johnstown Chiefs - er, Manchester Monarchs, self-designated "Kings of NH Hockey" - a goon league hockey product. This has always been my biggest gripe with BS35+whatever. He's the self-proclaimed expert on these things - well, show us your 35+ yrs. of experience, then;

(4) This is something I think Greg has mentioned a few times ... give The Whitt a good clean scrubbing. Brighten the place up a bit. The whole gray concrete thing is not aging well. Paint the interior walls or put up some sort of facades? Winter in NH is draining enough, and coming into the arena shouldn't immediately remind the fans of the dingy gray snowbanks piling up by the sides of the roads or in the parking lots just outside;

(5) Finally ... come out to your former season ticket holder base (and BTW I'm not including myself, as the last time I had ST's was at Snively almost 30 years ago now), apologize for their crappy treatment that's alienated them over the years, and beg them to return. Don't worry though, most of them won't return until the current head coach is gone (see Suggestion 1). Sad but true.

[NCAA watcher]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

The beauty of hockey is they have an actual professional alternative (major junior) that prevents it from thinking too much that it is really just a venue for money making professionals passing time until the pros. It is that disconnect in football and basketball (far more pronounced at the Div. I level) that leads colleges to abandon their actual academic purpose. For as much as we hate the London Knights, they make sure that college hockey remains at least in touch with its true purpose. If a crazy millionaire wants to sponsor a team (Ralph Engelstad) he can do so, but the University President should not be siphoning off funds for such frivolity.

[E.J. Smith]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Interesting comparison...This year's hockey schedule pretty much makes UNH an auxiliary member of Atlantic Hockey, and while we're calling a spade a spade ... Atlantic Hockey is really every bit the same D2 level league in reality as the one UNH Football plays in, no?

I hope you warmed up before that post Chuck, it's a little early in the morning to be stretching like that otherwise. I'm pretty sure UNH is still in HE, and that even Alabama has their Alcorn States and Bethune Cookmans on the schedule every now and then. Not saying AH is anything great but the MAC is a more apt comparison than D2.

Let me ask you this, EJ - do you honestly believe the old stadium wasn't a disgrace and an eyesore, and didn't need to be upgraded?

The Field House is an eyesore, Stoke is an eyesore, most of the dorms are bare bones or worn out inside, large parts of the Whitt remain unfinished (don't even get started on the HVAC), parking is in short supply, Dimon was upgraded to adequate but some of the specialty libraries, e.g., Engineering aren't up to standard, some of the dining halls are meh at best, yeah, I guess that football stadium is in there, too. My two cents, football is a bloated suckhole of money that they should have deemphasized or gotten rid of altogether.

Your complaints make it sound like UNH fields a club-level football program.

Ah, no, my complaints don't make it sound that way, your deliberate mischaracterization of my complaints make it sound that way.

[New Hampshire 'Cats Fan]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

UNH is an FCS school, not D2, and these amenities are pretty much on par with what many of the top-tier schools have (e.g., Delaware, NoDak State, App State, etc.). Far from out of the ordinary.

(By the way, App State was a half-decent kicker away from upsetting FBS #9 Tennessee tonight - poor kid had a horrid night)

Just an FYI...Appalachian State moved to the FBS level in 2014 and are a member of the Sun Belt conference where they are the favorite to win the conference this year.

[wildcatdc]

Just an FYI...Appalachian State moved to the FBS level in 2014 and are a member of the Sun Belt conference where they are the favorite to win the conference this year.

Whoa! That'll teach me to leave the country for 3 years! Thanks!

Now if we can just get NDSU to upgrade

[Snively65]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Eagerly awaiting the arrival of Bentley in 5 weeks' time. Help me with this one ... are they Alabama, LSU or Florida??

Be careful what you wish for.

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

I hope you warmed up before that post Chuck, it's a little early in the morning to be stretching like that otherwise. I'm pretty sure UNH is still in HE, and that even Alabama has their Alcorn States and Bethune Cookmans on the schedule every now and then. Not saying AH is anything great but the MAC is a more apt comparison than D2.

Talk about stretching ... did you just compare UNH to Alabama? I think we're more like Vandy or Mizzou nowadays.

The Field House is an eyesore, Stoke is an eyesore, most of the dorms are bare bones or worn out inside, large parts of the Whitt remain unfinished (don't even get started on the HVAC), parking is in short supply, Dimon was upgraded to adequate but some of the specialty libraries, e.g., Engineering aren't up to standard, some of the dining halls are meh at best, yeah, I guess that football stadium is in there, too. My two cents, football is a bloated suckhole of money that they should have deemphasized or gotten rid of altogether.

OK see - that's my point. Now we're letting personal preferences (and *maybe* jealousies?) get in the way here. Listen, I'm not a huge football fan these days ... stopped playing midway in HS, and with two daughters, that interest never really got rekindled, beyond following my favorite teams. I'm not parked in front of the tube any more on Saturdays/Sundays, and I'm increasingly disenchanted with the pass-happy direction of the game, not to mention the incessant replays and silly stats-driven *fantasy* bullcrap that permeates the sport in the mainstream these days (git offa my lawn ). So on a personal level, trust me, I have no love lost for football. And given the concussion thing that looms over the sport, the ridiculous volume of rules changes is likely to continue unabated, until we're playing two-hand touch football within the next generation.

But it's always been a prominent sport in the UNH scheme of things (albeit as second fiddle until recently), they have had modest past success, and the run the football program is on over the last decade has set the new high water mark (at UNH). And if UNH wants to feed on that by giving their alums/donors the full football experience (including tailgating before/after games), good for them. Right now, there is more interest in UNH Football than UNH Hockey. That's a bitter pill for some of us (myself included) to swallow. But that's not Football's fault. I don't remember the outrage over UNH and the Borisenok family splurging for the Jumbotron last year, when their money could have been spent anywhere on the long list you outline.

(Totally off topic, but Stoke is the biggest eyesore left on campus, a "one of these things is not like the others" building that really needs to go in the worst way ... I'd love to see them implode that mess, charge admission, and start from scratch with anything other than a high rise residency tower.)

Ah, no, my complaints don't make it sound that way, your deliberate mischaracterization of my complaints make it sound that way.

If you say so. Anyway, good to have you back. I'm sure it's gonna be an interesting next few years with Hockey.

[HockeyRef]

be careful what you wish for. :d

nicceee

[wildcatdc]

Let me help you then! We need to do a mass update to this thread to replace any reference to UNH football with UNH D2 football, if we want to be having this discussion in a fair and accurate context. (Yeah, I saw the "they're FCS not D2" comment. Please. When there's a division above you, you're the second division, customarily abbreviated as D2. English football calls their second division the Championship, wonderful, it's still second division football, witness the exodus of good players whenever an EPL team is relegated. Weasel words, got to love them.)

UNH hockey plays in the SEC against Alabama, LSU, and Florida. UNH football plays in the ECAC North. How excited would we be on this thread if we were gearing up for a battle with Plattsburgh St. and Castleton for the league crown? Or that big home and home with our neighbors to the south, Salem St.? Because that's UNH football.

As for the gift. Yes, UNH abided by the letter of the law. But they trampled all over the spirit of the gift. An institution with some class would have found a thoughtful and appropriate use for that money. I highly doubt Dartmouth would have used a gift from a librarian on a new running track, or garbage truck for the campus sanitation department. I get it, they have the money to not do things like that, but again, class is doing what's right, not what's expedient. And as for the garbage about the donor becoming a big fan of football in the last 15 months of his life - even learning the rules! - come on. So if he had become a big stamp collector in the last year of his life UNH would have spent a million of his gift on improving their rare stamp collection? Again, come on, methinks thou doth protest too much, a sure sign of weasliness.

Beyond silly representation of the divisional structure of NCAA football, and an even sillier representation of the competitiveness of FCS schools. Okay, we get it, you hate the football program. You can wallow in that mire. Or perhaps you need to take it up with the NCAA, who created the distinction in 1978 to address the inherent differences in their Division 1 school's abilities to support a football program. Maybe you can singlehandedly revise the system so that Plymouth State ends up in Division 4.

There isn't anyone out there that wouldn't acknowledge the difference in talent levels between the two (though UNH has managed to take out 5 FBS opponents over the past 15 years). But I'd love to see you walk into the locker room and call these guys a bunch of D2 players. Perhaps funnier would be watching you address a few pub-goers in England and refer to their CL side as a bunch of second-division riff-raff.

Your representation of the state of campus is pretty hilarious as well. While Stoke wins no friends (especially sitting across from the new PTP school), the level of capital improvements, especially over the last 5-10 years, has been impressive, especially when faced with the level of state budget cuts they've endured. Did you go to UNH? Do you remember what the place looked like in 85? 95? 05? Yikes.

In the end, I fully acknowledge that the million bucks was a decision about priorities, which is open to criticism. However, I found this nugget, written today by a financial adviser, which sheds some light on the donor's intent. According to HIS financial planner, the intent appears to have been to allow UNH to do whatever the heck they wanted to do with it.....


"He lived alone, rarely bought clothes, had Fritos and soda for breakfast, drove a 1992 Plymouth, and spent spare time reading almost every book — in chronological order — that had been published in the United States from 1930 to 1938.

Now, more than a year after his death at age 77, a lifetime of frugality has become UNH’s unexpected gift: Morin left his alma mater his entire estate of $4 million — a gold-plated nest egg that few people knew he had.

“His whole life was the library,’’ said Edward Mullen, Morin’s longtime financial adviser.

Elated UNH officials announced the bequest this week after it had cleared Probate Court, praising the single-minded generosity of a man who took pleasure in his work and in his decades of conversations with students.

“It’s very inspiring and exciting,’’ said Erika Mantz, a UNH spokeswoman. “In our history, I’m not aware of anything like this.’’

The university will use $2.5 million from the estate on an expanded career center and $1 million for a new video scoreboard at the football stadium. An additional $100,000 will go to the university’s Dimond Library, the only gift specified by the will.

Mullen said he spoke with Morin about using some of the money to fund a scholarship related to library science but said his client wanted UNH to spend almost all of the gift in any way it chose.

“He said, ‘They’ll figure out what to do with it,’ ’’ Mullen recalled Thursday."

[wildcatdc]

You've tried to take the big one off the table 'dc, but I'm going to put it right back onto the table.

(1) If you can spend $1MM to put a video board in your brand new FCS/D2 football stadium, then why would you not be able to buy out the current head coach for just over half that amount? You already hired his replacement, and your outgoing guy just posted the worst season of his career by quite a distance. The recruiting is still living off the final years of Borek's reign, and you just had to schedule an embarrassingly weak schedule for the upcoming season to prop him up (as an aside, I just looked at the 2016/2017 schedule, and in the 18 games in the 2016 part of the schedule, there is one (1) game against BC, and the rest are against a collection of teams that *should* make a 12 win target for end of December quite attainable);

(2) If the last 12 months are any indication, then something is amiss on the recruiting side. We can debate 'til the cows come home whether Coach Stewart was/is more experienced than Coach Souza, but the successor decision has already been made. And if Souza isn't going to be his own go-to guy on the recruiting trails, then he needs to get THAT guy into the program ASAP. I'm not sure exactly what Stewart is bringing to the table now?

(3) Get the program's games back on regular TV. Channel 9, NH One (or whatever it's called this week) and NHPTV, just bite the bullet and get the games out there and seen - even if it costs you money in the short run. I live 15 minutes from campus, and work regularly with young athletes, 90% of whom haven't got the slightest idea that UNH Hockey even exists as a D-1 program. There's two reasons why the arena attendance has fallen off a cliff - one, the old regulars have been alienated by poor treatment and poor on-ice product quality (see 1 & 2 above), and two, UNH hasn't done squat to position the program and sell it to the next generation of hockey fans. And no thanks to them, they've again been given an opportunity to compete with the Johnstown Chiefs - er, Manchester Monarchs, self-designated "Kings of NH Hockey" - a goon league hockey product. This has always been my biggest gripe with BS35+whatever. He's the self-proclaimed expert on these things - well, show us your 35+ yrs. of experience, then;

(4) This is something I think Greg has mentioned a few times ... give The Whitt a good clean scrubbing. Brighten the place up a bit. The whole gray concrete thing is not aging well. Paint the interior walls or put up some sort of facades? Winter in NH is draining enough, and coming into the arena shouldn't immediately remind the fans of the dingy gray snowbanks piling up by the sides of the roads or in the parking lots just outside;

(5) Finally ... come out to your former season ticket holder base (and BTW I'm not including myself, as the last time I had ST's was at Snively almost 30 years ago now), apologize for their crappy treatment that's alienated them over the years, and beg them to return. Don't worry though, most of them won't return until the current head coach is gone (see Suggestion 1). Sad but true.

I'm with you, 5 for 5. I really don't think #1 is doable, or I really believe it would have been done. But I too would love to see money make the problem go away.

One I would add is improved communication... The volume (too much) and quality (too little) of email traffic related to UNH sports is abysmal, and IMHO, shows VERY poorly for a university of our size.

[E.J. Smith]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Beyond silly representation of the divisional structure of NCAA football, and an even sillier representation of the competitiveness of FCS schools.

So we're just going to leave that at because you say so? You're not actually going to make a point to show how I was beyond silly?

Or perhaps you need to take it up with the NCAA, who created the distinction in 1978 to address the inherent differences in their Division 1 school's abilities to support a football program.

So you're saying there's no difference in the level of play between FBS and FCS? Give me a yes or a no to work with, either one will do.

Perhaps funnier would be watching you address a few pub-goers in England and refer to their CL side as a bunch of second-division riff-raff.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about on this subject --- shocking, I know Let me help, in England, the first division is called the Premier League, teams from that league go to the CL, or Champions League. The second division is called the Championship, and teams from that league don't go to the CL. Got it now?

But I'd love to see you walk into the locker room and call these guys a bunch of D2 players.

How old are you?

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Perhaps funnier would be watching you address a few pub-goers in England and refer to their CL side as a bunch of second-division riff-raff.

Sadly, I have some experience in this area, being a Wolverhampton supporter. And actually you wouldn't get any pushback on that in 95% of the scenarios, so long as you didn't malign the supporters or their communities. Those sides are where they are on merit alone, and there are a lot of traditional clubs with histories of first tier success (including Wolves, Villa, Forest, Derby County and many others) who are languishing now in the Championship (with a few like Bolton, Coventry and Sheffield United even residing in the 3rd tier), and the supporters know it. They themselves would probably refer to their club's underachieving players and/or manager with a word that rhymes with anchor.

God bless the relegation system, it keeps everyone competitively honest. How much fun would it be - and how accountable would the respective head coaches and AD's be - if the last placed team(s) in Hockey East switched places every year with the top finisher(s) in Atlantic Hockey? At the very least, it would liven up a lot of otherwise meaningless games at the end of the HE regular season!

In the end, I fully acknowledge that the million bucks was a decision about priorities, which is open to criticism. However, I found this nugget, written today by a financial adviser, which sheds some light on the donor's intent. According to HIS financial planner, the intent appears to have been to allow UNH to do whatever the heck they wanted to do with it.....


"He lived alone, rarely bought clothes, had Fritos and soda for breakfast, drove a 1992 Plymouth, and spent spare time reading almost every book — in chronological order — that had been published in the United States from 1930 to 1938.

Now, more than a year after his death at age 77, a lifetime of frugality has become UNH’s unexpected gift: Morin left his alma mater his entire estate of $4 million — a gold-plated nest egg that few people knew he had.

“His whole life was the library,’’ said Edward Mullen, Morin’s longtime financial adviser.

Elated UNH officials announced the bequest this week after it had cleared Probate Court, praising the single-minded generosity of a man who took pleasure in his work and in his decades of conversations with students.

“It’s very inspiring and exciting,’’ said Erika Mantz, a UNH spokeswoman. “In our history, I’m not aware of anything like this.’’

The university will use $2.5 million from the estate on an expanded career center and $1 million for a new video scoreboard at the football stadium. An additional $100,000 will go to the university’s Dimond Library, the only gift specified by the will.

Mullen said he spoke with Morin about using some of the money to fund a scholarship related to library science but said his client wanted UNH to spend almost all of the gift in any way it chose.

“He said, ‘They’ll figure out what to do with it,’ ’’ Mullen recalled Thursday."

Precisely.

[Snively65]

God bless the relegation system, it keeps everyone competitively honest. How much fun would it be - and how accountable would the respective head coaches and AD's be - if the last placed team(s) in Hockey East switched places every year with the top finisher(s) in Atlantic Hockey? At the very least, it would liven up a lot of otherwise meaningless games at the end of the HE regular season!
.

Really cool idea, Chuck! So, if the two conferences concurred, UNH, Maine (don't call them UMO), and UMass could have traded places with Robert Morris, Air Force, and Holy Cross for this year, and UNH could have faced Bentley for four games instead of just one. :-)

[wildcatdc]

So we're just going to leave that at because you say so? You're not actually going to make a point to show how I was beyond silly?

So you're saying there's no difference in the level of play between FBS and FCS? Give me a yes or a no to work with, either one will do.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about on this subject --- shocking, I know Let me help, in England, the first division is called the Premier League, teams from that league go to the CL, or Champions League. The second division is called the Championship, and teams from that league don't go to the CL. Got it now?

How old are you?

Do you not read well? I pretty clearly stated the known difference between the leagues, but your analogs are beyond hilarious. There are myriad examples of the relative competiveness of the two levels, so your hyperbole is simply silly. And your lack of understanding as to the origins of FBS and FCS were glaring.

Regarding the EPL, CL, etc. Being a Man U supporter since the early 90's, I'm quite clear on the concept. I was referring to League 2. Get over yourself, and enjoy the domination at Old Trafford this year. And yes Chuck, being a Flamengo supporter in the Campeonato since 2012, I can say that a I reveled in glee at Botafogo's flirtation with relegation over the past couple campaigns. So I get relegation as well.

How old am I? I'm old enough to recognize a keyboard tough-talker when I see one, especially those blissfully unencumbered by facts. Had you addressed the most critical point in my post (thanks, Chuck, for noticing), I'd have been more impressed.