Collegiate Stadiums

Collegiate Stadiums

NCAA FBS College Football Stadiums, Attendance, Stats, History & Travel Blog

Tag Archives: Skip Holtz

USF AD Releases Statement On Skip Holtz’s Employement Status

It is never good when your boss has to release a public statement on why you are still employed.

Here is the full statement from USF athletic director Doug Woolard:

I know Skip, his staff and the players are working diligently to get that next win, and to find sustained success. Certainy, the results, in terms of wins and losses to date, are disappointing to everyone involved with our program — the coaches, the players, athletic administration and our passionate fans. Our expecations for this program are very high. I also know this team has a lot of football left to play and great opportunities in front of it. We’re only six games into a 12-game regular season.

We are going to provide all the support possible for our football program, including employment contracts that reflect our commitment to success. Many factors come into play when considering contract terms, including conditions in the national coaching marketplace. In Skip’s case, multiple BCS schools sought his coaching services at the end of both the 2010 and 2011 seasons. As a result, we felt it was important to maintain the stability and continuity of leadership in our football program and extended Skip’s contract.

As has been our practice in the past, we will evaluate the status of each of our 19 programs at the conclusion of their respective seasons. We’ll identify where we are as a football program at that time and continue to build from there.

Even if Holtz keeps his job this year, these statements and public worries never seem to go away.

My personal feeling is that Holtz will be finished at USF part way through the 2013 season.

[via USF]

Skip Holtz Talks About Adding an On-Campus Stadium

Here is the full audio from me asking Skip Holtz about the possibility USF adding an on-campus stadium.

PlayPlay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:10 — 2.0MB) | Embed

Of course, if you don’t have time to listen to the full thing, here are a few highlights including a Ralph D Russo (@RalphDRussoAP) cameo.

  • USF is currently conducting a feasibility study.
  • Would like to see an on-campus stadium, but doesn’t just want an “erector set” stadium.
  • Doesn’t like that people can fly into Tampa, attend game, and fly home without ever setting foot on USF campus.
  • Mentions that Raymond James Stadium is a top-5 stadium and a great experience for the players.
  • Lockers at Raymond James are shared with Bucs.

Multiple Stadiums Updates

Since I am trying to get caught up on everything I need to, I am going to make a large post here with little nuggets of stadium information. Normally this will go in either the daily links section or a separate post.

At Conference USA Media Day, Larry Porter said “Facilities don’t win championships, players do. But facilities do win players.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

First up is an older story on Colorado and how they are looking for a corporate sponsor for their stadium due to financial issues in the athletic department.

Stanford is adding AT&T WiFi to their stadium this year. It says you can connect to the WiFi with any device but I have a feeling it will be faster for AT&T devices.

Cal is renovating their stadium and are going as far as having seismic experts check over the plans.

This story is about Penn State adding WiFi and new scoreboards, among other things, to Beaver Stadium over the next three to four year, but it is a few wrong statements in it. For one, Beaver stadium will not be the only or even the first college stadium with AT&T WiFi, just check the Stanford story above. Two, they took seats away to make room for the 101 ADA seats, lowering seating capacity in Beaver stadium to 106,572.

Staying with Penn State, here is a study from their FieldTurf research building that shows the new FieldTurf Revolution is by far the best turf in terms of wear. The report is huge and will teach you more than you could ever imagine about synthetic turf. Ironically, Beaver Stadium is grass and Penn State has the best turf grass management program in the country.

The final item from Penn State is this picture of upgrades to Lasch Building, their football only complex.

Upgrades to Lasch Building

A photo of a trial version of the Kansas Touchdown Club

And here is a link for the full story on Kansas trying to build a club for big boosters. Note that season tickets in the club are coming down as the team continues to be bad after their magical BCS run. 

Here’s a good story behind how Boone Pickens decided to donate $165 million to Oklahoma State athletics.

Oklahoma State is adding a huge flag poll to Boone Pickens Stadium

I’ve linked this story before, but to me it just outlines how desperate some schools are to try and keep up in the money race of BCS and FBS football. Washington is begging you for money and will let you sponsor or name just about any park of their stadium.

A nice video of the scoreboard update at Arizona.

Vanderbilt replaced their grass field this summer for the first time since 1999!Photo of the grass being laid at Dudley Field

Story to go with the Vanderbilt picture, or if you want a video, try this link.

The new "vintage" scoreboard that has been added to the Rose Bowl

Picture of workers installing seats in the UNC Blue Zone

UNC added the Blue Zone, which cost ticket holders a large donation per seat, then they fired Butch Davis, which might lead to a lawsuit as I linked earlier today. At least it looks good in this picture. The picture below is of the scoreboard going on top of the blue zone seats. Here is another take on the scandal and renovation.

Scoreboard on top of the Blue Zone seats

Part of a two year process at Nebraska to expand Memorial Stadium

Nebraska also has a time lapse video of the construction. And a link for the construction details, explaining the completion date of fall of 2013 and capacity of approximately 92,000 fans.

The newest official photo from Kansas State of Bill Snyder Family Stadium

I’m assuming the picture is to show off the new AstroTurf GameDay 3D360 grass for which they sent out this video. 

 Skip Holtz wants USF to build an on-campus stadium. This story outlines why on-campus stadiums help, which is probably what sparked the Holtz quotes.

I’m not sure what was so great about this except Washington State was excited to see the sun out at Martin Stadium, so they sent this picture.

OMG, sun in Washington!

 OK, in all seriousness, Washington State does have a cool program, just like a few other schools such as Army and North Texas where they have movie nights in their stadiums during the summer. I think it is a great way to bring out fans and to use the stadium in a non-traditional way, especially with drive-in theaters dying off so quickly.

Georgia added an HD scoreboard to Sanford Stadium

Michigan will now allow you to say “I do” at Michigan Stadium for the right price. Thankfully they added lights and a scoreboard this summer to enhance the experience.

A photo of the new scoreboard at Michigan Stadium

A photo of the TCU Stadium construction

This is just a general story about planned facility upgrades at South Carolina. 

A photo of the field at Bobby Dodd Stadium

 LSU provided this picture of the window upgrade project. And a full gallery of photos here.

Photo of the LSU window project

Also, LSU has raised the capacity of their stadium to 92,542 seats this year according to a trivia contest they ran on twitter. 

The Chick-fil-A kickoff game wants you to have this info if you are attending the game.

Baseball playoffs might make the Cal-USC game move according to ESPN. Remember that Cal is renovating their stadium so they are playing in AT& T Park this year.

Davis Wade Stadium is getting ribbon boards. Hard to see in this picture but you get the idea.

Here is a rendering of planned upgrades and a full story.

A nice rendering of planned upgrades to Davis Wade StadiumUSC Coliseum is getting a new scoreboard

Lost Letterman ranked his 10 worst stadiums. Sorry, I can only rank places I have been which I will do at a later date

Here is a look at the value of home field advantage and features a heavy dose of Penn State.

Corn Nation is afraid that booing will return to Memorial Stadium at Nebraska this fall.

Rutgers wants everyone to know that they are enhancing game day festivities. Pretty much a fluff piece but worth the read if you are a VIP ticket holder.

Wisconsin has been informed that Soldier Field will have new turf installed in time for the Northern Illinois game according to Brett Bielema.

Boise State may not be able to remove the track in Bronco Stadium due to state board inaction.

Cincinnati has changed up the tailgating areas. Here is the full story.

 

Big East Media Day

 

It was a real eye opening experience getting to spend time at the Big East media days. While most reporters went around the room talking to the various coaches, asking the same questions over and over, I tried to take a different approach. I mainly talked to sports information directors about the stadium issues such as security, beer sales, expansions, renovations and neutral site games.

The main program I was interested in talking to was West Virginia since they are adding beer sales at a stadium that is already known for having extremely energetic, and at least in my experience often inebriated, fans. Of course, my personal experiences with the WVU fans the two times I have been to Puskar Stadium are probably a bit slanted since both games were “Backyard Brawls” and I wore Penn State clothing to both.

While a full press release with all of the security measures, particularly total police presence and jurisdiction numbers, that will be added to Puskar Stadium will not be available until later in August, I was able to get a few highlights of the program.

  • Every single person buying a beer must me carded.
  • The beer license is actually controlled by the vending partner, Sodexo and not the University.
  • Beer sales will end mid-third quarter.
  • There will be a limit of two beers purchased at a time by one individual.
  • All beer sales employees will be trained on how to spot intoxicated patrons and be authorized to refuse sales.
  • A designated driver program will be implemented in some capacity.
  • All beer companies will have advertising throughout the stadium promoting responsible alcohol consumption.

I’ve been to Puskar stadium a few times, most recently for the backyard brawl in 2009, where I saw plenty of drinking in the stands among fans who sneaked in alcohol, including a guy dressed as Santa with a full bottle of jagermeister and cans of red bull to mix with it.

I will be very curious to see exactly how much security that the school plans to add when the release does come out and I will be even more curious to experience a game at Puskar stadium when I visit on October 1st.

Looking at other schools, I know that alcohol sales were not an issue at either Cincinnati or Syracuse when I have attended games at those schools, but both of those schools have fan bases that are very different from the fan base in West Virginia.

In talking with Doug Mosley from Cincinnati, it is clear that Cincinnati has a solid plan for handling beer sales at Nippert stadium. Their game day beer sales and alcohol sales license are handled by Aramark, and all of the Aramark vendors are trained extensively on handling unruly guests and are authorized to deny sales to any guest who appears to be intoxicated. Mr. Mosley also told me that while beer sales do help increase overall concession revenues, it is not a cash cow like some people believe it is. On a final note, Cincinnati also has a fan text messaging system that helps them identify guests who are interrupting the pleasure of those around them, a program that seems to be becoming more mainstream around the country.

I also talked to Sue Edson from Syracuse to see what kind of upgrade plans the University might have for the Carrier Dome since it is one of the older facilities in the conference. Edson said that last year Syracuse added Club 44, a Manhattan style bar for certain ticket holders and that there are plans to upgrade all of the concession areas inside the dome, but those upgrades are a slow work in progress. Something else that Edson made sure to mention was that Syracuse recently signed a deal to play 10 games over 20 years in the new Meadowlands Stadium.

Something that also intrigued me was how the Rutgers fans have reacted to the re-naming of the stadium to High Point Solutions Stadium. According to the school spokesperson, they have received very few complaints as most fans have accepted the stadium renaming as just a fact of the current economic direction of big-time athletics. Personally, as I have mentioned before, I am not a fan of this current direction and I think there are plenty of other ways to raise capital for athletics.

Finally, Big East director of communications, Chuck Sullivan, was kind enough to take a few moments and talk to me. I was interested in asking about was whether conferences play any role in trying to arrange out-of-conference opponents like they do in basketball. Sullivan informed me that since the schedule is only 12 games, and the schedule can play such a role in determining a teams shot at making the BCS title game, that the conference does not have any role in scheduling outside of conference games.

Of course, if you want something that isn’t stadium related, I did note that USF coach Skip Holtz called the new live-ball celebration rule “harsh,” saying that at some point it is going to affect a team and when it does, “it will be on ESPN 25 times in 25 minutes” which will be the point where everyone will be able to say, “this is what we have to do to avoid costing us a score.” I hate over-the-top celebration, and have always felt like a player should act like they have been in the end zone before, but I do agree that this rule is too much and unnecessary. I just hope it doesn’t cost a team a game, or a shot at a game like the silly ruling in the Pinstripe Bowl last year.