With the aggressive moves happening all over the conference and recruiting battles becoming increasingly competitive, the need for a completed Reser is as great as ever. One can easily imagine Sarkisian telling Cleveland Wallace how beautiful the new Husky Stadium would be that he will get to play in for the majority of his career. Similarly, no doubt Tedford pitched a beautiful finished $321 million Memorial Stadium that will be ready by fall. It is not just the pitch they can make about their own schools that is effective. What they also must be doing is saying things like “OSU has only an awkward half-finished stadium. One half looks like it belongs on Friday Night Lights.”
Thus, immediately after the basketball practice facility our priority must be on getting serious about fundrasing for Reser Phase 3. Pat Reser supposedly is ready to make a donation when BDC decides he wants to start moving the project forward. The logistics take atleast a few years so I would like to hear publicly OSU is starting the fundraising by the end of this year. There are great fans in Beaver Nation and we deserve a product greater than the one we are getting. Some simple improvements can easily be made like having an introduction for the team that is closer to what they do at South Carolina.
Our current recruiting class, despite some costly misses at CB, does have the potential to move us in the right direction but we have no idea yet if it will be a slow crawl or more tangible winning.
That is why we need a multi-faceted approach that we can break down into 2012 and 2013 action plans that will strengthen our major athletics and raise the profile of OSU.
2012: Begin Basketball Practice Facility, Improve Football Intro, Sell-out Reser at 97.5%+, announce Reser Phase 3 fundrasing week before bowl game, College World Series (CWS)
2013: Implement Tier-1 branding for all sports, Make better bowl than in 2012, make NCAA in basketball in Cunningham’s senior year, CWS, officially announce year Reser Phase 3 will be complete
These are the priorities and if done right OSU Athletics will see a distinct raising of its national profile. Then we should be looking forward to construction, beginning by 2015, of Reser Phase 3 if we stay focused. A 55K horseshoed Reser will be very loud and no longer the butt of Sarkisian and Tedford jokes. It will be a gem for OSU Athletics and the engine to drive our sports programs. Football accounts for 70+% of the overall budget and we need to be driving a fine-tuned German car and not the Kia Spectra we are right now.
There is no excuse for the Spring Game to be a scrimmage any longer. We are in the Pac-12 to compete and generate excitement for OSU Athletics. It doesn’t take much planning to get 10-13K at a Spring game if you promote it as the Orange vs. the Black. It might even be fun to split the fans into two factions and each side having its own cheering section.
Why these simple fixes are only looked at at a snail’s pace is beyond most of us. Somewhere you can imagine BDC asking Riley what’s on the agenda and him telling BDC, “We are going to hire a 60 year old who if the recruits love now should love even more come 2019.” Meanwhile Wilcox and Heyward get their pick of the West Coast litter.