Whip Gone?

[minutefanjsf]

Where did you find that he is staying on for additional year as a consultant? Where did it say he was fired, or is that your view?

It was reported that he is staying on until April. I think It was Josh Walfish via twitter. Mutually agreed upon separation ostensibly means fired, but realistically he steps away with a separation agreement where he is neither fired nor quits. Unless there are health reasons that have not been reported. Whip was pushed out, but is agreeing to being pushed out and negotiating his terms of separation.

[dennisdent]

Where did you find that he is staying on for additional year as a consultant? Where did it say he was fired, or is that your view?

It was reported that he is staying on until April. I think It was Josh Walfish via twitter. Mutually agreed upon separation ostensibly means fired, but realistically he steps away with a separation agreement where he is neither fired nor quits. Unless there are health reasons that have not been reported. Whip was pushed out, but is agreeing to being pushed out and negotiating his terms of separation.

Thanks. I still have a lot of questions on who is paying his salary until April (private/public funds), and his duties in his new position. He is a state employee and is still on the payroll, the AD needs to be transparent like the Charlotte AD was with the local paper. I'll just email Bamford directly.

[NilesGold]

Where did you find that he is staying on for additional year as a consultant? Where did it say he was fired, or is that your view?

It was reported that he is staying on until April. I think It was Josh Walfish via twitter. Mutually agreed upon separation ostensibly means fired, but realistically he steps away with a separation agreement where he is neither fired nor quits. Unless there are health reasons that have not been reported. Whip was pushed out, but is agreeing to being pushed out and negotiating his terms of separation.

Thanks. I still have a lot of questions on who is paying his salary until April (private/public funds), and his duties in his new position. He is a state employee and is still on the payroll, the AD needs to be transparent like the Charlotte AD was with the local paper. I'll just email Bamford directly.

Do you need Bamford to tell you when he's going to take a shit too?

In all seriousness, what is your concern, and why are you insistent that you and the general public needs to be informed of every detail relating to Whipple & the search for a new football coach?

[McKinney]

If Whip is being paid off with private funds, guess they can be vague on his departure.

We don't know how much (if any) of his compensation, let alone his buyout, comes from public money. I would venture to guess most of it comes from tuition and not tax revenue.

[TheInsider]

Bamford may have told Whip. I can fire you now and you get a buyout but no retirement or step down get your retirement but theres no buyout.

[Sam Minuteman]

I was saying on twitter that keeping Whip on in some capacity was a great option. Whip did a lot of good for things for the University and many people like him. Plus there is no denying he knows football and could be helpful whether in fundraising or other capacities.

Also it’s not like this sort of arrangement hasn’t been done before.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Ho ... _football)

After resigning as head coach, Hodges served as the Director of Football Operations for UMass until his retirement in 2011. Although Hodges did not produce an overwhelming amount of success as head coach of the Minutemen may fans of the school appreciated his contributions to the program. Hodges kept the Minutemen competitive at a time when huge budget cuts ravaged the Athletic Department. Also, many of his recruits were prominent members of the 1998 UMass team that won the Division 1AA National Championship.[1]

[69MG]

From Mike Traini:

#FightMassachusetts
‏@FightMA247
47s47 seconds ago
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#Minutemen have a pair of official visitors set for the weekend of 12/7. Ideally the coaching situation would be settled prior

State champion teammates taking UMass official visit together
VIP ByJOHN GARCIA JR. 9 hours ago
With the 2018 season over for Hoover (Ala.) High School as of Friday night, after a loss in the state semifinals, some of the top Bucs are...

[Bay Area UMie]

^^^
I do love how you continue to fabricate that the increase in applications to attend UMass is related to moving up to FBS. I’m not going to waste my time discussing why out of state applications are up, but can assure you it has little or nothing to do with FBS football. I want UMass to succeed in FBS and hope they hire the right coach and invest the proper resources to make it happen.

Out is state applications have doubled in the last few years or so, (to coincide with going FBS) yet you maintain one has nothing to do with other. Totally a coincidence!!! So what are your reasons for the increase?

Out of state applications have increased because the university is aggressively marketing itself outside of Massachusetts to attract students who pay a much higher tuition. This is part of the school’s strategy. Please show me your evidence that FBS football has made a difference.

78,

You make an excellent point. This alleged casual spike in admissions applications is what is commonly known in the field of Statistics and Data Science as a “spurious association”-the simple regression generated data might imply that two variables are casually linked but due to other unaccounted for variables known as “confronting variables” or ”lurking variables” the data generated association is completely bogus and misleading.

You astutely point out one of the potential “confronting” variables- there was a marketing campaign undertaken to attract out-of-state students to UMass and as the poster ECON has also wisely pointed out (see his post below in this thread) and this is probably more of a factor in the increase in applications, our US News rating has improved significantly over the last few years. There probably are many more potential “lurkers” that should be identified.

If in fact a UMass rep has published a claim that the football upgrade has resulted in measurable increases in applications I think that person better take a trip over to the stats department and ask one of the profs to run a complicated multivariate analysis with many possible variable inputs. Even if the multivariate output comes back with a decent correlation coefficient to football I wouldn’t take that to the bank. As anyone who works with data for a living will tell you, at the end of the day causation claims are based on not just association outputs but on supporting common sense, logic and evidence. I certainly would not risk my reputation by claiming that UMass’ upgrade to BCS and a resulting 25% win/loss rate during that time lead to increases in application rates. That to me is just an absurd leap to make

[NilesGold]

^ With all of the moving parts and variables at play, it's very difficult to determine what specifically caused the increase in applications. So just as it wouldn't be accurate to attribute all of it to FBS, you can't discount FBS as having no positive impact. Furthermore, the ultimate goal here isn't to have a bad FBS program, the goal is to have a respectable, maybe even good, FBS program that attracts even more students than it has been.

[McKinney]

If in fact a UMass rep has published a claim that the football upgrade has resulted in measurable increases in applications I think that person better take a trip over to the stats department and ask one of the profs to run a complicated multivariate analysis with many possible variable inputs. Even if the multivariate output comes back with a decent correlation coefficient to football I wouldn’t take that to the bank. As anyone who works with data for a living will tell you, at the end of the day causation claims are based on not just association outputs but on supporting common sense, logic and evidence. I certainly would not risk my reputation by claiming that UMass’ upgrade to BCS and a resulting 25% win/loss rate during that time lead to increases in application rates. That to me is just an absurd leap to make

I have to concur. Great post, UMie.

I personally sought out FBS schools with R1 research and a respectable engineering program. UMass happened to deliver all that at an affordable price point. Not to say I'm a special snowflake, but I don't think many people come to UMass for the athletics... let alone football.

[Bay Area UMie]

This article mentions how applications go up following "success" on the field; key word being "success"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworking ... f795e16e96

Not sure this applies to UMass, but I'm sure the concept covered in this article is part of that "light at the end of the tunnel" that UMass is chasing wrt FBS football.

Also, f**k BC.

Go U

I actually found the complete 43 page research report online and read through the thing very quickly (I know, get a life BAU). I think the whole report raises more questions than it answers. Note, a couple of important things: 1) the guy refers to the research as a “work in process” and 2) he obviously has not forwarded the work to an academic journal for peer review.

That said, the report claims the “goodwill effect” on applications is achieved when college football teams go from “”good-to-great” (he doesn’t define which tiers of teams within BCS this applies to). Specifically, he states “I find that when a school goes from being “good” to being “great” on the football field, applications increase by 17.7 percent”. Nowhere does he define the terms “good” or “great” or how they got there-was there an incremental financial cost in achieving greatness/are these findings applicable to MAC level teams? The only thing he mentions remotely close to a definition of greatness is “a season is generally deemed successful if a team goes to a BCS bowl game”. He specifically mentions BC winning the Sugar Bowl with the Heisman winner Flutie (ie the Flutie effect), Boise State beating Oklahoma in the Peach Bowl to go 13-0 and TCU moving into the top 20. His comment “Would this phenomenon hold for smaller schools with less history of football success prior to the recent decade? The University of Oregon and University of West Virginia showed increases….”. OK, enough said if he thinks Oregon and West Virginia are “smaller schools” I agree with "FightMass" that this research probably does not apply to UMass Football at this stage.

One other important thing worth mentioning-he states, “students with lower than average
SAT scores tend to have a stronger preference for athletic success, while students with higher
SAT scores have a greater preference for academic quality. Furthermore, the decay rate of
athletics goodwill is significant only for students with lower SAT scores, suggesting that the
goodwill created by intercollegiate athletics resides more extensively with low-ability students
than with their high-ability counterparts”.

No offense to low-achieving high-school students (I certainly was one) but, will they get admitted to UMass today with our rising admission requirements, can they handle the rigorous academic demands if admitted and is this really the student profile that the University coverts as we move up the national ranks (I doubt that I would get accepted today with the grades I had back in the day)?

I agree with you FightMass- screw BC and their shithead alums!

[FightMass19]

OK, enough said if he thinks Oregon and West Virginia are “smaller schools” I agree with "FightMass" that this research probably does not apply to UMass Football at this stage.

I agree with you FightMass- screw BC and their shithead alums!

I was also curious exactly what "curve", for lack of a better word, does this correlation between success in football v. applications follow? For instance, if UMass goes from 4-8 this year, then goes 7-5 next year with a bowl appearance, are there going to be ANY new applicants simply because UMass football went to the "Gillete Miami Ponzi Scheme Bowl"? I highly doubt it. I imagine the curve, if there is any, is following an exponential curve where the increase is really only noticeable for the top 20/25 teams.

[Bay Area UMie]

OK, enough said if he thinks Oregon and West Virginia are “smaller schools” I agree with "FightMass" that this research probably does not apply to UMass Football at this stage.

I agree with you FightMass- screw BC and their shithead alums!

I was also curious exactly what "curve", for lack of a better word, does this correlation between success in football v. applications follow? For instance, if UMass goes from 4-8 this year, then goes 7-5 next year with a bowl appearance, are there going to be ANY new applicants simply because UMass football went to the "Gillete Miami Ponzi Scheme Bowl"? I highly doubt it. I imagine the curve, if there is any, is following an exponential curve where the increase is really only noticeable for the top 20/25 teams.

Excellent point FightMass...the author doesn't quantify the uplift for numerical win totals or address the lift associated with numerical increments starting from 1+ he just deals in the abstract world of "good to great"...as previously stated this data analysis raises more questions than it answers-no knock on the very talented researcher he is tackling an extremely different subject.

[69MG]

KDKA
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@KDKA
24m24 minutes ago
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JUST IN: Former #Steelers quarterbacks coach and UMass head coach Mark Whipple is reportedly the new Pitt Panthers offensive coordinator.

A few sources are stating that this could save us a decent amount of $$ toward the buyout, but that has not been confirmed. Anyhow, I wish him well.

[Berkman]

Link to the article on Pitt site:

https://pittsburghpanthers.com/news/201 ... -pitt.aspx