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That Livengood presented Smatresk with a 5 step plan to save UNLV Football and get us a P5 invite and Smatresk said “thanks but no thanks“.
I don’t know what the steps were myself but I’ve heard this before from a few people.
Some people didn’t like Livengood for whatever reasons, some liked him.
Myself, I thought he was the one with experience, I think he was the only one with a hardline vision and expectation of P5. More than hires and fires, that was his primary goal. And apparently he had his plan.
I don’t think asking for the T/M money to go to the basketball department instead of the school is/was unreasonable. That’s the way it should be and now that Gary B is out of the way, I think that’s the way it is now.
I also thought Livengood was good with grassroots, it helps that Kruger is good at that too. Remember, there was a stretch where student participation was pretty good and the atmosphere was more lively in part because of the students. That was planned and supported. And, to be honest, I thought it helped. Then it exploded when all the gigantic mobile players and 3D fat heads and themed student sections took hold. And it was good for awhile, but then it was basically shit upon and it disbanded.
In talking with somebody last night that has a lot of knowledge.... I think he’s spot on. UNLV cannot try to replicate anything the Knights do or Raiders are going to do. First off, you’ll get your ass kicked. You can’t win that battle. When UNLV was the only game in town, we had more of a “pro” feel. No competition, that’s fine. That cannot be the niche. It’s time to try and turn the atmosphere more into a college atmosphere. You have to appeal to the younger, through pricing and promotion. It has to be fun and eventful but not costly. Let the pro teams gouge the living hell out of the more financially established people. There’s a market for the more financially strapped, but you have to appeal to them. Winning is the most critical element, of course, but you need more ways to appeal.
It’s not costly to go to a rebel game. Ten bucks upstairs... still vacant
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The only points I can clearly remember were...
selling the then upcoming Arizona game by moving it to Arizona as part of a larger body bag strategy to generate cash for the program.
Locking in the cost of shcollarships for several years to allow the athletic department to be able to project more accurate or at least less volatile budgets.
I think the T&M budget was one of them also.
The meeting ended with JL resigning.
I went to go look just now, but it appears the database of events at unlvtickets.com is down, so there is nothing populating on their event calendar... Cheapest seat you can get I thought was $17 for Purdue-Fort Wayne tomorrow night. I don't know if there are many folks who can reasonably argue that spending $68 just to get into the game for a family of four for that game is worth it. I will continue to argue that UNLV doesn't know what is brand is worth, just that they know what it used to be worth.
Livengood may have done some good things as AD but ultimately his hires were terrible. Dave Rice- well I guess that one doesn't look so bad only if you compare it to Menzies. Bobby Hauck- that was his answer to saving UNLV football? Hauck was terrible even by UNLV standards.
I remember when they announced his 2 finalist for the football job. Here I was thinking we had this new hot shot AD from Arizona that's really committed to fixing football and then I find out Hauck and Franchione are the best he could come up with. Who knows maybe Franchione would have worked out. He couldn't have been worse than Hauck.
I remember when they announced his 2 finalist for the football job. Here I was thinking we had this new hot shot AD from Arizona that's really committed to fixing football and then I find out Hauck and Franchione are the best he could come up with. Who knows maybe Franchione would have worked out. He couldn't have been worse than Hauck.
The brand was worth far more, attendance was higher. While Rice didn’t win enough for fans, it was still above any non-Kruger or non-Tark hire we’ve had. People may not have been happy but terrible (the crushing of a brand, zero attendance, zero hoopla/attention, zero competitiveness) is what just occurred. That was still in place while Rice was here.
So the hires may not have been a strength. But I still think he had some of the ability, drive and contacts to make certain things happen to make UNLV more attractive as a whole. Hamrick, Cavagnaro, they didn’t do anything in that regard and Tina, well....
Admittedly, it sucks that sometimes when we talk about UNLV “success” it’s pretty mediocre on a large scale and only successful when compared to some very low standards. JRob might be the best example of that.
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I did not agree with a lot of JL decisions. I was very upset when he cut the MBB scheduling budget. But he had an ambitious plan and UNLV let him walk because TKM was more their style.
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