I just don't think it matters much. Yeah he walked it back a bit but other than a dozen or so folks on Twitter no one cares
You didn't take exception to how much it matters, of course nothing really matters does it? You questioned my assessment that Gene making these statements were bad optics. At this point I'm certain Gene regrets how those interviews turned out, unless he's cool with looking like he's waffling on the status of his men's basketball coach.
What matters to Gene (and really should) is the financial health of the Athletic Department. If firing oscar is best for the bottom line long-term, he's gone. I can see how both firing and retaining could be the right financial moves TBH. His somewhat sloppy interviews don't impact anything financially or hurt us with recruits or future coaches. Big donors that are concerned get a phone call. Seriously, what's the REAL damage here?
Again, you've moved the goal posts. I never and would never claim any of that isn't true. This is how we got here.
Why is gene talking?
I don't know but for the first time since he's been here I think he's behaving as if he's over his head. I thought he also talked too much about the Stanford game.
I can't think of any good that could've come from him even being in a position to be asked things this weekend. And nobody was even clamoring to hear from him anyway. It's not like people are going to not buy tickets to the fOOD the rest of the season if they don't hear things they want to hear from him.
I was stunned that he gave one on the record interviews, but two! Holy crap! He'll probably be on with John Kurtz tomorrow as well, so it will likely be 3 interviews in just over 24 hours.
There are only two reasons I can think of and they're both really bad reasons to go out stammering without solid talking points.
1. His boss asked him to try to lower the temperature. Of course this does the exact opposite.
2. Despite him saying most donors are not getting involved, which btw is literally the case everywhere, some are absolutely losing their crap behind the scenes and he panicked.
Like I said either way, it's a bad look and while I'll always take athletic directors going on the record, for his sake he needs to limit his visibility to his ask the ad videos for a long while.
It's a bad look to whom? I only read the Mercury one and it seemed fine.
I agree that his shitty messaging ultimately doesn't hurt anything, I never claimed otherwise. All I said is that it is a bad look. I am certain that we can find common ground that if any supervisor makes the unusual choice to publicly comment on the future employment status of his/her subordinate they should be firm on the messaging. It's not a great for your customers or the employee that you're commenting on if literally every single media member covering your program are using words like backtracking and unsure to describe your public comments.
Since we certainly agree on that and on the fact that it ultimately won't mean anything other than it makes Gene look like a buffoon, we can simply move on.
If you really want a jump off point to keep this going, I will point out that the fact that this likely isn't harmful to recruits is another indictment on oscar and where he is. If he had any recruits that we cared even a little bit about, we would absolutely be worried that the athletic director is publically unsure about the future of his coach.