I have said several times here in the past that I thought he was ok or even doing good as an AD. But over more recent time I am starting to have my doubts. As an example, I saw on television the game day presentation and atmosphere Texas had against Wyoming this past Saturday night. We are way behind in game day presentation from Sears/JC Penny's looking unis to the attempt or lack of attempt to create atmosphere. Who knows maybe we will have new really cool lighting in our colors for the first night game of the season and periodic drone shows. But currently we appear way behind what is going on in this regard with our competitiors. We were more cutting edge prior to Rhoades' arrival.

Then there is non entertaining product we all go out to watch. Note it really isnt all that entertaining even when we pull off the win. I realize this is on Aranda and his strategy for the offense. However I do recall Rhoades telling the entire Baylor faithful back in 2016 we was going to hire a HC who runs an offense as we had all grown accustomed to over the past few years from that point. He has hired now 2 guys who have the exact opposite view of how an offense should go. Unless you have the top defense in the country, you will not be winning consistently with an offense that is designed to score 28 maybe 35 points tops per game at full capacity of elite talent for that offense, which we do not have.

Then there are the coaching hires. Jury is still out on all of them but appears to be some leaning at least toward not favorable toward Rhoades.

But are the internal improvements in place??

Rhoades wants to be a conference commissioner, we are a stepping stone. Why he governs so tightly, wants all coaches to follow his lead, and is so proud of internal and moral wins. He sucks and is the reason we are losing steam in all aspects of athletics. Why Kim left too. Ian let coaches be too autonomous; cant get the right formula.

ADs should be judged on the following criteria, primarily:

- Successfully identifying, hiring (and firing) coaches.
- Contracts, revenue and resource management.
- Building an enticing and exciting culture and environment that breeds cross-departmental success.

In other words... identify, entice and hire the right coaches, build recurring sources of funds through sponsorships, equipment deals, and donor relations, and create the kind of environment that student-athletes are excited to join that molds them into elite practitioners of their sport.

From what I can tell he's not done a very good job at any of those. Mulkey is Mulkey, but she's winning natty's for someone else and that was never inevitable. Matt Knoll "resigned" and who the hell knows what happened there, but odd to imagine the only guy winning titles when our athletic program was a shambles just up and walking away for no reason. Everyone seems to like Mitch but our baseball program putting in its worst season since the 1950's was not a good look no matter how you slice it. And then of course he signed a guy you knew was a rental in Rhule and then jumped at a coordinator for his replacement, the latter of which has taken steps backward each of the last two years. Probably also worth mentioning the soccer coach he hired (from... Dallas Baptist?) went 4-11-2 in her first season. From what I can tell he's made one universally lauded head coach hire in his time at Baylor in terms of actual results in Michael Ford. Every other hire has been either contentious (at best) or the jury is still way out.

As far as revenue goes, our NIL program is an unorganized confusing dumpster fire comparatively speaking, our Nike contract locked us into the most boring football unis we've ever had, we undertook an athletics-wide color rebrand nobody was asking for, and in a marketing sense it feels like we have no idea how to sell ourselves nationally. He has done some good things from an athletics facilities perspective, I will grant him that.

And then as far as the environment goes, Baylor is still a phenomenal place to get a degree and plant your life for four years. If that's what you want, we'll always pull those kids irrespective of our AD. But as far as the "cool" factor goes, we might as well be grandma offering football players Werther's Originals on a doily to play for us, and while Aranda is the guy who will ultimately take the blame, it was the AD who planted that seed in the soil he cultivated in the first place.

Parch elaborate on the Nike contract. I believe our boring and ugly unis were actually designed out of Pat Neff and ordered from Nike as part of that not asked for athletics color change and rebrand you mentioned. I dont believe what we are going with now is Nike's idea or creation. They may even be embarrassed their logo is on them.

No I didn't mean to insinuate that Nike just foisted these on us - it's actually a demerit against Rhoades that the calls for this scheme - particularly the color shift - were coming from inside the house. That's part of his legacy.

We are lucky to have Rhodes. Baylor has challenges with maintaining winning programs that other schools do not. He handles them well and with class.

I want winning programs as much as anyone, and I get frustrated when we do not have them. But Rhodes is not the problem.

Rhoades makes the hires…. He's definitely not the main problem but he's part of it

parch said:

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ADs should be judged on the following criteria, primarily:

- Successfully identifying, hiring (and firing) coaches.
- Contracts, revenue and resource management.
- Building an enticing and exciting culture and environment that breeds cross-departmental success.

In other words... identify, entice and hire the right coaches, build recurring sources of funds through sponsorships, equipment deals, and donor relations, and create the kind of environment that student-athletes are excited to join that molds them into elite practitioners of their sport.

From what I can tell he's not done a very good job at any of those. Mulkey is Mulkey, but she's winning natty's for someone else and that was never inevitable. Matt Knoll "resigned" and who the hell knows what happened there, but odd to imagine the only guy winning titles when our athletic program was a shambles just up and walking away for no reason. Everyone seems to like Mitch but our baseball program putting in its worst season since the 1950's was not a good look no matter how you slice it. And then of course he signed a guy you knew was a rental in Rhule and then jumped at a coordinator for his replacement, the latter of which has taken steps backward each of the last two years. Probably also worth mentioning the soccer coach he hired (from... Dallas Baptist?) went 4-11-2 in her first season. From what I can tell he's made one universally lauded head coach hire in his time at Baylor in terms of actual results in Michael Ford. Every other hire has been either contentious (at best) or the jury is still way out.

As far as revenue goes, our NIL program is an unorganized confusing dumpster fire comparatively speaking, our Nike contract locked us into the most boring football unis we've ever had, we undertook an athletics-wide color rebrand nobody was asking for, and in a marketing sense it feels like we have no idea how to sell ourselves nationally. He has done some good things from an athletics facilities perspective, I will grant him that.

And then as far as the environment goes, Baylor is still a phenomenal place to get a degree and plant your life for four years. If that's what you want, we'll always pull those kids irrespective of our AD. But as far as the "cool" factor goes, we might as well be grandma offering football players Werther's Originals on a doily to play for us, and while Aranda is the guy who will ultimately take the blame, it was the AD who planted that seed in the soil he cultivated in the first place.

---

He also made the decision on NIL. He brow-beats and shames students and alumni for attendance woes. His K-State comments last year was shameful. We are now losing to Texas St and are happy to beat LIU... BU will not be in the top tier long like this and there are other schools dying to take our place and will spent.


Oil Money: SMU Raises $100 Million In One Week For ACC Move (outkick.com)

PartyBear said:

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........ from Sears/JC Penny's looking unis...........

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Ok, this made me giggle.

Particularly since it's true.

What is better since he's arrived?

Uniforms?
Football?
Women's Basketball?
baseball?
Track?

What is better?

New arena? 7000 seats? Even that seems like a flop. Seems like that should have been 9.000. We have a national championship men's basketball team.

I don't give a rat's ass about uniforms or "game day presentation".

What matters to me is that we recently won the Big 12 Championship in football and beat a SEC team in the Sugar Bowl.

And just a few years back we won the national championship in men's basketball.

Yes, he let Kim get away but I put that on her being too big for her britches.

During the lightning delay on Saturday I heard him being interviewed on 1660 AM and it sounds like he has a good handle on the NIL situation.

I got no problem with the guy,

But hey, we have a really cool DJ at the football games now that funnels all the 5-star 'cruits right to Waco!

FLBear5630 said:

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parch said:

---

ADs should be judged on the following criteria, primarily:

- Successfully identifying, hiring (and firing) coaches.
- Contracts, revenue and resource management.
- Building an enticing and exciting culture and environment that breeds cross-departmental success.

In other words... identify, entice and hire the right coaches, build recurring sources of funds through sponsorships, equipment deals, and donor relations, and create the kind of environment that student-athletes are excited to join that molds them into elite practitioners of their sport.

From what I can tell he's not done a very good job at any of those. Mulkey is Mulkey, but she's winning natty's for someone else and that was never inevitable. Matt Knoll "resigned" and who the hell knows what happened there, but odd to imagine the only guy winning titles when our athletic program was a shambles just up and walking away for no reason. Everyone seems to like Mitch but our baseball program putting in its worst season since the 1950's was not a good look no matter how you slice it. And then of course he signed a guy you knew was a rental in Rhule and then jumped at a coordinator for his replacement, the latter of which has taken steps backward each of the last two years. Probably also worth mentioning the soccer coach he hired (from... Dallas Baptist?) went 4-11-2 in her first season. From what I can tell he's made one universally lauded head coach hire in his time at Baylor in terms of actual results in Michael Ford. Every other hire has been either contentious (at best) or the jury is still way out.

As far as revenue goes, our NIL program is an unorganized confusing dumpster fire comparatively speaking, our Nike contract locked us into the most boring football unis we've ever had, we undertook an athletics-wide color rebrand nobody was asking for, and in a marketing sense it feels like we have no idea how to sell ourselves nationally. He has done some good things from an athletics facilities perspective, I will grant him that.

And then as far as the environment goes, Baylor is still a phenomenal place to get a degree and plant your life for four years. If that's what you want, we'll always pull those kids irrespective of our AD. But as far as the "cool" factor goes, we might as well be grandma offering football players Werther's Originals on a doily to play for us, and while Aranda is the guy who will ultimately take the blame, it was the AD who planted that seed in the soil he cultivated in the first place.

---

He also made the decision on NIL. He brow-beats and shames students and alumni for attendance woes. His K-State comments last year was shameful. We are now losing to Texas St and are happy to beat LIU... BU will not be in the top tier long like this and there are other schools dying to take our place and will spent.


Oil Money: SMU Raises $100 Million In One Week For ACC Move (outkick.com)

---

Top-tier? We are already out of that. The sugar bowl was over two years ago, and that's a very long time in the world of college football. We are about to enter that dark realm where we are everyone's homecoming game. Baylor is not a school where leaders can clock in, cook the bacon and maintain the status quo and achieve long-term success. Mack and Dave both scoffed at NIL even when it was still in the theoretical stage. Mack did seemingly little to secure actual cash for students. In recent interviews, it's like he's finally starting to see that you have to maintain some baseline of NIL money for every player, but he is still against the idea of money whipping individual recruits.

I guess there are people that will give him credit for Scott Drew's accomplishments with the basketball team, and that's debatable. He's done a decent job of securing funds for facilities, but facilities don't move the needle for programs like they did 10 years ago.

I get that Kim Mulkey was a pain, and I know that there are two sides to every story, but the fact remains that we significantly downgraded women's basketball. Baseball sucks. Dave isn't working out. Not sure about tennis, volleyball or the other sports.

"We'll fling our Green and Green Bay Packer Mustard, afar ....."

Kick him to the curb, already.

I don't know why people diss Rhule. He came here when we were a complete clown show and got us to the Big 12 championship game. Then Aranda won the Big 12 with players almost entirely recruited by Rhule. Yeah, he left too soon, but he left this place better than he found it.

Midnight Rider said:

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And just a few years back we won the national championship in men's basketball.

Yes, he let Kim get away but I put that on her being too big for her britches.

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He didn't hire Drew, so no credit there.
He didn't hire Kim, so no credit there.
He hired Rodriguez (Baseball). Fail.

Choades let let Kim walk.

That alone deserves termination.

Macks report card comes up in March 2024.

By then we will have assessed both football and WBB.

jikespingleton said:

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Midnight Rider said:

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And just a few years back we won the national championship in men's basketball.

Yes, he let Kim get away but I put that on her being too big for her britches.

---

He didn't hire Drew, so no credit there.

Plus, Choades let one of the best coaches in the game walk.

That alone deserves termination.

---

He didn't hire Kim either

MBB and WBB both take a huge step backwards this season. But boy, we're gonna figure out NIL and portal pretty soon and it will be great 3 years after that.

Football represents 75% plus of all Athletic Department revenue (according to Mack). The rest is MBB. All the rest of the sports produce negative income. It may not be fair, but that's how it is. Mack is doing a piss poor job with our cash cow.

jikespingleton said:

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Midnight Rider said:

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And just a few years back we won the national championship in men's basketball.

Yes, he let Kim get away but I put that on her being too big for her britches.

---

He didn't hire Drew, so no credit there.

Plus, Choades let one of the best coaches in the game walk.

That alone deserves termination.

---

I was surprised someone was stupid enough to try and credit him with the Drew hire.

Maybe a better question is ... can anyone name things that have improved under Rhodes?

He's done a poor job retaining and hiring head coaches, and we are declining across the board (except baseball declined so far it can't decline anymore). He's damn lucky he inherited Drew.

Players and students like cool unis. Is it a main reason a recruit picks a school? No, but new unis do generate fan engagement and draw eye balls. Old adage of any publicity is good publicity, within reason obviously.

Winning is of course the main fan engagement driver but when the program starts flat lining give the fans and players something new. Mix it up. Unveil some new unis. Introduce a some lights like Texas or die the Brazos green like Chicago on St. Pats. Do something, anything. Beating Long Island is like MBB winning an exhibition against Austin College.

Replacing Mulkey is perhaps unfair but how are all the other sports? Aside from men's tennis what program is winning consistently?

Baylor ain't your average rodeo but plenty of folks have proven you can win here. Are we supposed to accept 6-6 as the best we can do for football? Are we not supposed to work a little harder to keep a hall of fame coach? Should we just accept our fan base is a bunch of fair weather golf clappers? At some point all this leads up to Rhoades. If Aranda and Collen don't work out, I really hope they do, then Rhoades' status has to be examined. Fair or not todays coaching and AD job cycle is sped up. You don't get 3 hires. You frequently get one or two.

Can anyone name things that have improved under Rhodes?

montypython said:

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Macks report card comes up in March 2024.

By then we will have assessed both football and WBB.

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Neither will grade well. The problem is getting the occupants in Pat Neff to change the course we're tracking. I don't believe there is enough intestinal fortitude upstairs to state that our athletic program is trending negative in too many facets and that a change in leadership is needed.

For those of us who have been along for the ride long term, we can spot the disturbing trends that lead to apathy and overall degradation of sports on campus. It took several people several years to build an athletic program where championships were the expectation every year. That type of success happens because it is determined to be an institutional priority by the leadership and alumni.

Now we seem to be slowly settling back into the mire from whence we came.

Harrison Bergeron said:

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Can anyone name things that have improved under Rhodes?

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If Aranda craters, Choades will have too many failures in my mind.
However, the administration doesn't ask for my opinion on these matters.

Harrison Bergeron said:

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Can anyone name things that have improved under Rhodes?

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Under Rhode's there are many more watchdogs out to attack those that don't like how BU has performed. Go to the for pay board and bring this up. See the reaction. Ask at a bar and grill in Waco and see the response if you question Rhodes. Under Rhode's I have found the control of information and the narrative to be much more closely controlled. Just one person's experience, I may be wrong. But even quoting articles from places like SI or ESPN and providing the link will get you lambasted. It was not like that under Teaff.

Harrison Bergeron said:

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Can anyone name things that have improved under Rhodes?

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He does have the internal improvements to point to.

boykin_spaniel said:

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Should we just accept our fan base is a bunch of fair weather golf clappers?

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I feel violated.

Harrison Bergeron said:

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Can anyone name things that have improved under Rhodes?

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Haven't you heard? We're the new DEI capital of Texas!

FLBear5630 said:

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Harrison Bergeron said:

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Can anyone name things that have improved under Rhodes?

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Under Rhode's there are many more watchdogs out to attack those that don't like how BU has performed. Go to the for pay board and bring this up. See the reaction. Ask at a bar and grill in Waco and see the response if you question Rhodes. Under Rhode's I have found the control of information and the narrative to be much more closely controlled. Just one person's experience, I may be wrong. But even quoting articles from places like SI or ESPN and providing the link will get you lambasted. It was not like that under Teaff.

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I feel certain if you ask at a bar and grill in Waco, Rhoades doesn't have much name recognition and almost everyone will say who? This is true everywhere. I doubt the AD at Texas would be someone folks could identify at a bar and grill in Austin that is not on West Campus. AD's have recognition with the avid college football fans such as who post in these types of websites but not in the general public. The general public is for sure not programmed to defend Rhoades' at all cost.

The parking shuttle service. It's great in my opinion. The drivers are courteous, boarding is orderly and it's free. Kudos.

PartyBear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Harrison Bergeron said:

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Can anyone name things that have improved under Rhodes?

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Under Rhode's there are many more watchdogs out to attack those that don't like how BU has performed. Go to the for pay board and bring this up. See the reaction. Ask at a bar and grill in Waco and see the response if you question Rhodes. Under Rhode's I have found the control of information and the narrative to be much more closely controlled. Just one person's experience, I may be wrong. But even quoting articles from places like SI or ESPN and providing the link will get you lambasted. It was not like that under Teaff.

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I feel certain if you ask at a bar and grill in Waco, Rhoades doesn't have much name recognition and almost everyone will say who? This is true everywhere. I doubt the AD at Texas would be someone folks could identify at a bar and grill in Austin that is not on West Campus. AD's have recognition with the avid college football fans such as who post in these types of websites but not in the general public. The general public is for sure not programmed to defend Rhoades' at all cost.

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Yeah, you bring up Mack Rhoads in George's, 9 out of 10 people say "who?"

But I do agree with the underlying point above. Opinions of Baylor brass/admin are much higher on this board (especially the premium side) than they are in general. Same thing in Briles fiasco - premium board very pro admin, free board more pro Briles, man on the street generally very pro Briles.