A few quotes from a recent Scalzo piece:
Regarding renewing rivalries with Akron and Kent State:
"Tressel would like to see Youngstown State schedule more games against Akron and Kent, but he doesn’t think the Penguins need to be in the Mid-American Conference to do so. "
" “We have new presidents at Akron and Kent and we’ve gotten to be pretty close from the standpoint of being the new ones in the room at the state meetings and having some of the same learning curve,” Tressel said. “We’ve had just preliminary off-the-cuff discussions that that would really be a good thing for all of us if we played one another more often and created those natural rivalries."
" “In terms of the Mid-American thing, we did apply for the Mid-American back in the 1990s and they wanted to geographically branch out. What will happen in the next five-10 years in terms of conference affiliation, I think will be very interesting.” "
Regarding the Athletic Budget:
“We have a chance to raise our [athletic] revenue by selling more tickets, raising more money, more sponsorships corporate-wise and so forth, but as far as directly from the institution to the athletic department, you will not see an increase because there’s not increases available for anyone at this time.
“The only way we’re going move up more is to generate more and that’s just the reality of it. The same thing is being said to schools way larger than us.”
http://www.vindy.com/news/2015/jan/20/tressel-pleased-by-downtowns-resurgence/I am stoked that there is a realization of the value of playing a robust OOC schedule with opponents that will energize the Penguin fanbase. As I noted in another post, if we win, we can establish ourselves as the dominant NE Ohio program and lure all local non-P5 recruits here. If we lose, we collect our check and are in the exact same recruiting situation we were in before. These are winnable games (especially Kent) as the MAC is inferior to our MVFC opponents.
Also, Tressel alludes to the fate of the G5, which will likely suffer from enhanced scholarships that the P5 will likely begin to offer. This will play into YSU's favor.
Regarding the budget, the renewing of Heacock's contract was devastating to Athletic Department revenue. A strong argument could be made that he never should have completed his first contract. The meltdown in MBB adds further to this loss of revenue. These words from President Tressel gives me hope that he "gets it" on a number of important areas regarding YSU athletics. Hopefully he and the BOT will get a competent AD that does not sabotage the revenue generation of YSU athletics, and create an OOC schedule that increases interest in our program.
