u/Wyo11

COME ON CATS

We got a football team to support end enjoy, save basketball talk for after January if these Cats get in the CFP.

PS CONGRATS DRF on a WELL DAWNED DESERVED 5 YEAR EXTENSION.

The power of the Bear Down blueprint.

All the talk in here in 2026 has shown me the U of A has two types of fans.

Those that bail at a moments notice. The types that don't believe in the work being done to get this place going and will side with someone who had a plane ready for the next job.

Then there are those who commit, those who remind me of Noah Fifita who stayed through crazy degrees of adversity and just broke the all time passing record last night.

Some U of A fans flipped the game off when they trailed a decent NIU squad for a moment. Others stayed to watch history.

Some believe we should just grow money on trees and fire anyone that puts out a budget. Others respect and support initiatives like naming rights that keep things chugging.

At the end of the day it is time to continue to grow the sport of football and celebrate its story and hats off to Noah for sticking things out.

Our boys played their tails off and BYU is a playoff team. Brennan has these dudes coached up and believing and I could not be PROUDER how they hung on in a very tough, high elevation place to play. I know the outcome is not what we wanted and size and depth took over. But they hung in until the end unlike the community college of loop 202 that folded and got demolished by a not great looking A&M squad. I'm tired of seeing folks who are ready for basketball season when we got a great team at Casino del Sol Stadium. Bear Down

DRF'S INCREDIBLE INVESTMENTS ARE PAYING OFF AND ALL THE STOPS TO SUPPORT BRENNAN AND RETAIN FIFITA ARE PAYING OFF AND AT THIS MOMENT WE LEAD BYU BEAR DOWN ARIZONA

How badly would his teams need to perform before fans stop forgiving all of his actions?

I just saw where Tommy Lloyd demanded "The Kansas Clause" when he was hanging UNC over the admins head smack dab in the middle of the Final 4 (causing the president to FLY to Indianapolis to stop him becsuse there was a chartered flight to Chapel Hill for Tommy already waiting) because he's already been in talks with KU to be "waiting in the wings" when Self decides to retire (on his terms) and are already prepared to offer more than UNC was. DRF called BS and that's why the president folded and allowed Tommy to report to him but Tommy is on borrowed time until Self retires. It's just unfortunate the scheme materialized during the first Final 4 in 25 years.

Brennan is leveraging a huge opportunity to seize momentum from the previous 9 win season. One that felt unattainable after the mess F*sch left. Noah Fifita returning was an absolute boon to a program in need and the fact he returns again to compete for a Big XII championship has this program in positional authority it has not been in for 12 excruciating years.

But we have to show up. We have to fill Arizona Stadium. We have to disprove decades of football complacency. We cannot show up to a few games "waiting on basketball."

We cannot have national broadcasts showing more gray seats than red shirts. We have to invest into football just as we do with basketball and then some.

Will you answer the call? Strategy has placed us in this unique, fleeting position. Let it not be lightning in a bottle but sustainable success that transforms the U of A into a perennial football power to compete with the likes of BYU, Utah and TTU, and dominates the state and takes position from ASU.

.

Answer the call.

Effective ADs are leveraging sponsorship deals to secure effective NIL funds, particularly for football, which is the financial pathway forward. I have seen many bemoan this deals, but I tip my hat to those athletics departments that are paving the way to the future through this type of stewardship. Coaches of other sports may object but we have to put football first for all sports to have the financial league to stand on in our modern era.

Conference brands historically revolved around geographic and cultural sensibilities that are a little more vague in the era of realignment.

For example, we always associated the SEC with massive stadiums with raucous and forever tied it to Southern culture, hot swampy lowlands, etc. The Pac 12 was laid back, west coast, super fun after dark, where it never rained in Autzen Stadium. The Big 12 i always saw as kind of a blue collar, sort of cowboy conference with farms and oil wells.

But now with the new Big 12 it's a little more vague. What I see perhaps is a group of misfits that were all apart of something else and have come together to try to survive a new era.

What metrics, baselines and goals do you use to determine the efficacy of operations of your respective athletics departments?

This may be an uncomfortable truth but TCU is the only current member to have ever won a CFP playoff game.

They're also the only Big XII team to ever win a playoff game including when Oklahoma and Texas were in the conference.

How does this league improve from here?

So, we're going to hope for lawsuits to pan out to fill out the roster? We don't have a full roster 3 months before the season tips off?

This is why most coaches report to an AD. To cultivate strategy and structure and living within financial means. "Oppurtunism" is code word for "I don't have a plan to surpass the standard that's been set and I'll take advantage of an unguatenteed outcome to meet it."

But I digress. All the luck to best to our student athletes.

An interesting and well written write up on the current landscape. It's already a very unconventional contract redo as far as the reporting structure... no NBA buyout clause demand suggests he has his eyes on the NBA. Probably the Warriors when Kerr's contract is up.. after all. Lloyd himself said Kerr was his Michael Jordan. Code for up and leaving to them. Maybe he would do well. I have confidence our AD will find the right fit if that happens.

It could happen. What would need to go right? Keeping expectations to 8 wins but you never know, we're better positioned than ever.

1. Nebraska

2. Texas A&M

3. Texas

4. Oklahoma

5. Missouri

Arizona fan here, Desiree Francois-Reed has our athletics department deep in the black after the worst budget crisis in school history, major sports humming and ranked, and perfectly navigated a very difficult situation with Tommy Lloyd threatening to leave during the final 4. Our sports are lucky for her Bear Down initiative and I just want to thank Mizzou for laying the foundation for her success.

As I expressed. All rumors about our hardworking AD leaving to Wisconsin were false. Thank you DRF for Bearing Down and leveraging resources for so many great things! Let's get the Cats into the CFP this fall!

Football is the way of the future. How can we collectively generate revenue and get some teams to win some playoff games to leverage more invites to the playoff?

BYU almost lost their cosch snd Utah lost theirs? Blessed for the strength and stability brought by our AD