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Teufel, I don’t have the donor $$ but I have total athletic dept. revenues as of 2014 from a Washington Post analysis this past December (sorry, I don’t have a link just the hard copy):
1. Florida State – $96.8 million
2. N. Carolina – $76.5
3. Virginia – $70.5
4. Clemson – $70.4
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8. NCSU – $63.7
9. Pitt – $62.8*Public Univ. only, private don’t have to report
These #s don’t equate to total donor contributions – that’s a whole different bucket of discretionary money. Don’t have time to search for the athletic donor #s but I remember seeing figures put out by the WPC (more than once) that had Clemson far & away the leader by total dollar contribution w/ FSU a distant 2nd.
On an un-related but related topic.. “It’s good to be da Commish!”
“ACC Commissioner John Swofford’s [pay] went from $571,000 to more than $2 million (in a ten year span)..” All that extra money came in handy in sweeping all that DIRT under the CHeats’ rug
“offense ranked third in the ACC in scoring this season at 33.2 points per game … and its 5,311 total yards were the fourth most in school history”.
STILL surprised by this.. My feelings are if the defense had done their jobs, the offensive #s would have stood up. But what’s done is done.
Baby steps.. Hopefully.. for this staff.
A good stepping stone in-state. Hopefully good experiences lead to good word-of-mouth which starts to spread to local high schools.
As if to contradict me, CBS just published a study of the 4 college football playoff programs, & Clemson is a distant 4th to the other 3 in terms of money spent:
Interestingly, Clemson allocates it’s funds in such a way that it more proportionally pays the coach / staff than other line items, making it 2nd to only Alabama in salaries paid.
Trac, you’re right, it’s always been an arms race, but back when Holtz was our man there was no such thing as ESPN, conference networks (Sec TV, B1G Network..), multi-million dollar network television contracts – & there were not thirty-some-odd bowl games (or is it 40? I stopped counting & now it’s just ludicrous). & w/that much more exposure, it is that much more important to have the brightest, shiniest, most-est toys.
I’m not saying just throw money @ the program.. especially if it’s a dumpster fire. There needs to be accountability and administration & staff need to be held to a level of excellence & held accountable when they underachieve; as the CBS article demonstrates, there’s too much @ stake to allow for failure.
As for today’s game.. good luck boys! Round ’em up, & GO PACK
Great post, Bass. & pertinent. You even nailed the answer to this in your initial post: “Clemson is landing our top players with more success than any instate university.” Not only is Clemson cleaning our clock, but also FSU’s, & in the other division, Va Tech’s, Ga Tech, & Miami’s (the traditional divisional top dogs). About halfway through this season as Clemson began to gain separation from the rest of the conference, & definitely after they beat their only real challenge in FSU, I began to wonder more about this man they call “Dabo”. A quick internet search yielded the following from Clemson’s bio page:
“…Swinney’s recruiting reputation became evident when he produced five top-20 ESPN recruiting classes in a row, including top 10 classes in 2011 and 2012. As a result, Clemson is one of only 10 schools to be ranked in the top 20 of recruiting five years in a row (along with LSU, Alabama, Texas, USC, Florida, Georgia, Florida State, Ohio State and Oklahoma), and Swinney is one of only five active head coaches to ever accomplish the feat, putting him on par with prestigious names such as Nick Saban, Les Miles, Bob Stoops, and Mark Richt.”
And the results of consistent, top-tier recruiting?
“…Swinney led the 2011 Tigers to a 10–3 record that included an ACC Championship, the Tigers’ first since 1991; in 2012, Swinney led Clemson to its first 11-win season since the 1981 national championship year, capping the year off with an upset victory over #8 LSU Tigers in the Peach Bowl.”
You can add to that this year’s 1st ever 13-0 record for Clemson & this little tidbit I heard during the CU / NCSU game this year: Clemson & NC State are both in the top 5 of programs having to play FRESHMAN this year. So while they are in the Nat’l Championship playoff, we’re …
The Bottom line is it’s an ARMS RACE in today’s college athletics. The programs w/ the brightest, shiniest, most-est toys (incl. 4-5 star recruits) win. What can a Pack fan do? As much as I hate to say it: dig a little deeper in your pockets &/or seat cushions & give, give, give $$$. (Full disclosure: this coming from a 15+ year member of the Wolfpack Club).
In CBS’ preseason rankings, W&M was 118? Gee-willickers they didn’t look that bad.. They might win their conference. That’s why I try not to look @ pre-season polls. I try to watch conference standings, once conference play begins; then look @ RPI when there’s a large enough sample-size
The tweet reads more like a request than proof of evidence, however, I agree w/ Mista on this.. I too got a bit misty @ the sight of that.
If they ARE legit, I also will stock up.
Good googity moogity.. A W in W-S. The 1st in 15 years. Wow. A lot’s changed since then: Philip Rivers was QB, Chuck-the-chest was coach, John McEnroe was in the semi-finals of Wimbledon, losing to eventual champ Andre Agassi (sorry-a vivid memory for me), George W. was in his 1st full year as President – of course, 2001 will forever be remembered for another event that will live in infamy…
I have a lot less hair now than when I was in the stands then, & a lot more gray in my beard.. If it takes ‘nother 15 years I may be in the ground.
Next! Bring on Clem’s son. UGH
Don’t know if bowl games fit the criteria, but the 2003 Gator Bowl win was especially memorable to me; I still recall the great feeling of satisfaction at having thrashed Notre Dame (granted, a less-than stellar, lucky to be there ND) in a New Year’s Day bowl.
I would put that ahead of our home-end of the home-&-home w/ Ohio State: that was a pretty embarrassing display of lack of discipline in our 1st year “After Rivers”, e.g., the throat-slashing gesture, 100+ yards of penalties, plus the previously mentioned turnovers, may have been the beginning of the end for Chuck-the-Chest.
“With only 11 seniors, NC State’s roster will skew on the young side again. Coach Dave Doeren was quick to point out that 70 percent of the roster is made up of freshmen and sophomores”.
That jumped off the page to me (well, right after the pics of the cheerleaders). I’ve been watching CFB longer than I care to admit & those numbers tell me to temper my enthusiasms..
Would rather see him playing on the Yards in the Inner Harbor @ Baltimore, but I think the Birds are pretty solid @ SS – plus, he still gets to wear the Red & White.
For perspective: since late January & going into the ACC tourney, NCSU was 6-6 (though having won 5 of their last 6); since the conference tourney they are now 7-7 – but I get your drift, espn, I would rather have NCSU upside of 6-6 rather than LSU / Pitt chill of 6-6..
Go PACK!
Apart from the tactics – both offensively & defensively – what bugs me the most, as it does everyone who comes to this site; as it does w/ EVERY successive win by those powder blues – is the fact that after proven & documented evidence of rampant, systemic, orchestrated fraud & deception by that program – orchestration documented to have gone back over TWO decades.. they keep getting away w/ it. Nothing is being done.
While on the other hand we continue to pay – to this day – for what amounted to little more than a handful of free shoes & free tickets. Infuriating.
Say whatever you want about Ol’ Roy (& lord knows I have), he gets his teams UP! to play the Pack.. He’s what, 23-and-2 against State in 12 years? I think I read that somewhere. Wish we could say that about any ACC opponent @ this point.
“Oh, and the 1980s and 1990s were the heyday of the ACC. We started back sliding about the time of expansion and Swoff and ESPN putting UNC/Duke above the league. Lack of double round robin and the uneven playing field that is the ACC has left our league a shell of its former self.”
Ahh, rye .. you said it, brother. I loved me some 80’s! I’m also quite partial to the 70’s (even though I was in elementary then), but the 70’s were very good to NCSU – if not the Atlantic Coast Conference – “Skywalker” David T., the ’74 Nat’l Championship, back-to-back undefeated basketball records in conference.. Ted Brown, Lou Holtz, Norm Sloan, Clyde “the Glide” Austin, Bo Rein, the ’79 football championship (last 1 for the Pack), & some damn competitive baseball and soccer teams… Good times.
Well how about that – I was able to post! (??)
I keep coming back to SFN but honestly, in this new format I can rarely ever post, let alone log in. Half the time my computer locks up & I have to exit the interwebs entirely.
Does anyone else have this problem? Is it a browser issue? I use Internet Explorer..
Thanks for the roster updates, Jack, thay’s why I keep coming back to SFN for this kind of info. A bit off topic but football related: after getting a look @ ACC performance in bowl games thus far,
Date Game Result
Jan.03 Orange, Clemson 40, Ohio State 35
Dec.31 Chick-fil-A, Texas A&M 52, Duke 48
Dec.31 Sun, UCLA 42, Virginia Tech 12
Dec.31 AdvoCare V100, Arizona 42, Boston College 19
Dec.30 Music City, Ole Miss 25, Georgia Tech 17
Dec.28 Russell Athletic, Louisville 36, Miami 9
Dec.28 Belk, North Carolina 39, Cincinnati 17
Dec.27 Texas, Syracuse 21, Minnesota 17
Dec.27 Military, Marshall 31, Maryland 20
Dec.26 Little Caesars, Pittsburgh 30, Bowling Green 274-6 (a woeful 3-6 before Clemson’s impressive win last night), with 2 of the four wins coming from “new” (former Big Least conference) additions.
I couldn’t help but think back to ESPN’s Heather Dinich projections after week 1, which were posted on SFN:
With this arrangement:
Discover Orange Bowl, Jan. 3: Clemson
Allstate Sugar Bowl, Jan. 2: Florida State
Chick-fil-A Bowl, Dec. 31: Miami
Russell Athletic Bowl, Dec. 28: Georgia Tech
Hyundai Sun Bowl, Dec. 31: Virginia Tech
Belk Bowl, Dec. 28: North Carolina
Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl, Dec. 30: Wake Forest
Advocare V100 Bowl, Dec. 31: NC State
Military Bowl, Dec. 27: MarylandSome of these were surprisingly spot on (i.e., unc, umd, & clem), while others were, well, not. Strikes me that 2 of the 4 wins for the ACC weren’t even considered by Dinich. But these results give me 2 other BIG concerns: 1 being that my pick for the Nat’l Championship may not be that sound considering the weak conference it ravaged; the other closer to home: how in the world could NCSU possibly go through the season & NOT get a win, even 1, in this conference.. There was talent left over from a team that went to a bowl. I guess I’ll have an uneasy 8-9 months until we tee-it up again.
People “expecting” the Pack to start the conference 2-0? I guess they haven’t seen Pitt play yet.. similar to Missouri, only w/ DEPTH
On the bright side (hard to find the morning after) this team DID withstand furious comebacks from Detroit & @Tennessee – though not top 25 caliber teams. I think Wuf pretty much nailed it: a tough, close loss to a top 25 team; I think the future is bright if they continue to come together as a team & tamp down some of the sloppy errors.
