NCAA Football san diego state Aztecs

Former San Diego State head coach Chuck Long really wants to collect his $715,900 salary from the school. The Aztecs and Long's attorney still have not worked out an arrangement for Long to get most of his money from the contract after being fired in November. Instead he is doing "special projects" for the school. In grade school, this would have been considered "busy work."

Long's first assignment was to write a report on ways to improve the football program. Specifically, "streamlining admissions for student-athletes, housing of football players and attracting youths and families to SDSU with sports camps." He turned it in at the end of July and his recommendations appear to have come from repeated viewings of the first half of "Revenge of the Nerds."

The capsulized version of the 23-page action plan: lower admission standards for football players -- especially for junior college transfers, give them the best dorm housing on the campus (it has a pool, grill and the best dining hall), and let them join fraternities if they desire.

Hard to believe it only took him about six months and 23 pages to come up with these recommendations.

There's always an endless fascination with finding programs that can be considered "sleeping giants." Those are the schools where it seems that with a little work and the right coach, the program could go from bottom feeder to ranked and respectability.

Rutgers is the most recent example of a football program that had the natural recruiting territory and finally made the move from historical laughing stock to good program. The mistake is assuming that it all related to simply hiring and retaining the right coach to recruit, coach and change the culture. There's no denying the importance of that. The other component, though, is just as important: a competent and committed athletic department. Without the latter, no real change will happen -- no matter who is hired.

On the West Coast, San Diego State holds the distinction as the program most commonly considered a "sleeping giant." Often just slightly below .500 and occasionally competent there was much working for them.

The once-competitive but now persistently woeful San Diego State football program fired coach Chuck Long this year, replacing him with Ball State's Brady Hoke. Long went just 9-27 at Montezuma Mesa, failing to light a fire under the Aztec offense despite his offensive background at Oklahoma.

Good luck getting an explanation as to why, but a clause in his contract with SDSU demanded he be "re-assigned" if the school terminated him as its head football coach. The San Diego Union-Tribune's Brent Schrotenboer reports Long is now doing "projects" and "analysis" for the cash-strapped state school at a hefty $700K price tag.

The MAC continues to bleed coaches -- Bowling Green, Eastern Michigan, Miami and Toledo have already hired, or will soon hire, new coaches for the 2009 season. Next up, it looks like Ball State will have to replace Brady Hoke. An ESPN report on Sunday claimed that Hoke will leave the Cardinals for the Pacific coast, where he will take over the San Diego State head coaching job.

Hoke was believed to be in the running for the top spot at Auburn -- which was filled by Iowa State's Gene Chizik last week -- and then a possible candidate to fill Chizik's shoes in the Big 12. He was also a rumored contender for the Michigan job last year, a fair assumption since he had served as associate head coach there.

Hoke was still a sleeper candidate at that point. Prior to the 2007 season, when Ball State went 7-6 and played in the International Bowl, the Cardinals had managed no more than five wins in any year under Hoke. The 2007 bump set the stage for 2008, though, as Ball State stormed the national scene.

The Cardinals nearly played BCS buster, running off a 12-0 start to the year before a stunning loss to Buffalo in the MAC Championship Game. Ball State plays in the GMAC Bowl on Jan. 6, 2009 versus Tulsa.

This annual event is getting sadder every year. The coaching carousel starts up around this time of year and Terry Bowden starts doing whatever he can to make it known he wants to be a head coach. It doesn't matter if he knows nothing about the program and the job. He just wants it.

"I don't know much about San Diego State, but I am receptive to the right opportunity," said Bowden, who has been working in broadcasting since last coaching in 1998. "I'd be glad to talk to people at San Diego State if they would like to. I really would."

You know, not that he's desperate or anything.

I understand Eastern Michigan and Wyoming also have openings. Someone, anyone, just give the guy another chance. Spare us and plenty of other fanbases the dread that this time Terry Bowden could be theirs.

Chuck Long has been on the coaching hot seat all season. He just completed his 3d season with a 2-10 record and 9-27 in his tenure. At nearly any 1-A school that would be enough to get a coach fired.

At San Diego State, there was no doubt that they wanted to fire him. The issue was money. Or specifically, the lack of it in the Aztec Athletic Department. Long has two years left on his contract and a buyout would run about $1.4 million. The athletic department has been running a deficit for the past couple of years. The general fund of the school has been forced to give the department money to cover the shortfalls.

The lease with Qualcomm Stadium expired, and the City of San Diego wants a deal where it won't lose money. So that means more money the athletic department will have to find to cover that for next year when they finally hammer out a new lease.

The Aztec Athletic Department, however, has had some good economic news in the last couple of days.

Well, he could be both. It''s just hard to say. Fresh off a humiliating 70-7 loss to New Mexico, Chuck Long finds the silver lining.

"I know they're angry and I deserve it. We've hit bottom, so at least we know what that looks like. But inch-by-inch, we're going to fight and scratch and claw to get out of this (hole) we're in right now."

See. They finally found the bottom. It took more than two years, but now the coaching staff knows they have reached the nirvana of suckitude. Really, this is the absolute lowest point. It's all going to be looking up from here on out.

After all, what are the odds they will have a worse loss? Just because they have BYU and Utah remaining on the schedule. There is no reason to expect worse. A 1-6 start to the season, 8-23 to record with the Aztecs to date. Really, how could it get worse?

After last season's mildly noticeable upset of Michigan by Appalachian State, media and football enthusiasts alike were eager to figure out where this year's Week 1 Bombshell would come from. Would it be Appalachian State again? (Hint: NO)

As it turns out, those of you who bubbled in D) None of the above were correct, as Division I-A simply demolished their lower-level counterparts. In 32 inter-division games, I-A went 31-1, the lone loss coming in a 2-point Cal Poly win over basement dweller San Diego State. That was an "upset" the way Crocs are "shoes" or Rhetoric teachers are "professors": only in terms of classification, not reality.

The rest of the games were slightly more skewed toward the superior conference, as I-A won the other 30 games by an average of over 31 points. Sure, there was Maryland squeaking by Delaware 14-7, but only two other games were even within two scores, and most were laughers by halftime.

Even after Appalachian State's victory in the Big House last year, of course, nobody was going to suggest that Division I-AA could reliably compete with their big brothers. Except, uh, that's what everybody wanted to think (I plead guilty). If anything, this institutional pistol-whipping reinforces what was immediately apparent only 52 weeks ago: Last year's upset was ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS.

The Aztecs may not have done much on the football field (32-62 in the last eight years). Despite actual (not announced) attendance sliding from over 28,000 in 2004 to under 18,000 in 2007in the stretch, they haven't lost any money with their lease at Qualcomm Stadium. The city, however, has lost over $300,000 dollars over the last couple years on the deal. No wonder they don't want to extend the present lease.

SDSU's previous lease called for the city to receive 8 percent of total gross game revenue, including tickets, parking and concessions. The lease ensures the city gets at least $50,000 per game. If 8 percent of the total gross does not reach $50,000, the city would take the balance out of parking and concessions. Because of poor attendance, SDSU has paid the city no more than the minimum rent for all but a few of its past 23 home games. In 2004, the minimum was $40,000 a game.

The City of San Diego, in addition to the operating expenses of the stadium also had to cover the police and fire expenses in and around Qualcomm. Either the Aztecs have some great lawyers, or San Diego has real idiots who handled the last negotiations.

As it stands now the old lease has expired, but no new lease has been agreed. The city just wants to make sure they don't lose money on the next deal.IN the meantime, the old lease terms will continue until they reach an agreement. SDSU is getting right on that.