[NU Sports] OSU game highlighted Randy Walker's shortcomings

[John A. DeGroat]

Hakirsch makes a flaed argument about winning, the cost of coaches and 
academics.  The year after NU went to the Roe Bowl under Gary Barnett, 
applications for admission went up and so did the SATs of the 
applicants.  Also the grade average of the football team(s) and the 
graduation rates were virtually the same as  for the overall NU student 
population..  Barnett saw NU competing for the same pool of prospects as 
Notre Dame, Stamford and a couple of others, none of which were academic 
slouches.  From a financial perspective, the ROI on a good football 
program like Gary had going is a lot higher than for what you get from a 
lousy or even mediocre program.

John DeGroat

Hakirsch at aol.com wrote:

> Well I am sure John's note will elicit a lot of responses including mine.
>
> A few thoughts--
>
> Walker is not a player's coach --and I am not sure how much any school 
> wants a player's coach--particularly with the NU football player, who 
> on average is more intelligent than the average NCAA football player. 
> They probably more than others understand that not everyone is goinhg 
> to love his coach. 
>
> I think John is right that Walker and NU had had a lot of luck the 
> past several years-(Mich 2000, Iowa 2005,OSU 2004 to name a few) and 
> with a few plays going the other way we could easily have been  at 4-7 
> some of the bowl years under Walker.  While some games have gone the 
> other way, (PSU 2005 quickly comes to mind), it seems with have had 
> more of the former than the latter.
>
> Yes our defense and special teams have been our weak spots under 
> Walker and of course it would be great to improve there.  But one has 
> to look at our overall record and graduation rates as being the key 
> measurement of his success or not--and as  has been hashed about 
> before, Walker passes here.
>
> It would be great to go to a good name bowl every year, but I am 
> skepitcal if that is an acheivable goal.  It is a worthy goal , but 
> extraordinary tough when if you don't finish in the top 3 or 4 in the 
> conference it won't happen. When you have OSU , Mich and PSU in the 
> conference it is tough to consistently surpass Minn, Wisc, and Iowa 
> And the recent also rans of MSU, Ill and Purdue do not sit quietly.  
> On top of that would we as alums feel good, that in order to acheive 
> the lofty goal, we probably would have to spend a ton of money on a 
> football coach and staff  salaries?  I for one think it would send the 
> wrong message about what NU is about --academics first.
>
>
> In short , yes on average we will be in the middle of the pack under 
> Walker- or probably any coach (remember if they get good they leave 
> for more money or more opportunity to win big --ala Ara, Agase 
> and,Barnett-) but this should allow us to go to a name bowl every few 
> years and a lesser name bowl in others-I can be happy with that- 
> (Maybe I am biased because i was at NU in the late 70's early 80's 
> when going -1-10 and 0-11 and getting blown out every game by half 
> time was the norm-)
>
> -Now if we could only make the NCAA's in hoops ...
>
> Harry
>
>