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I hate that this has become a recurring theme in this space, I truly do. That being said when you have people like this running around inflaming opinion with such base stupidity it it will continue to be an issue.
if you don't view this as crippling to structure/foundation/positioning, you are wrong #Bearcats
— Lance McAlister (@LanceMcAlister) January 24, 2014
Losing Whit Babcock sucks, I won't deny that. I certainly won't pretend that things are absolutely rosey in Bearcat land. But to say that this is a fatal wound to the University of Cincinnati athletic department is the rankest kind of hyperbole.
There is a difference between an event being unfortunate and crippling. SMU's death penalty was crippling, legitimately beyond a shadow of a doubt crippling. The litany of shitty news the Bearcats have endured on the field/court and off since fateful March contest in Memphis against St. Louis doesn't come close to being crippling. The lot of it has sucked, and I do mean really sucked, but Cincinnati has responded to each set back in time. The basketball program might not be at peak Huggins level, but it is back among the 20 or 25 best in the nation. The football program has been one of the nations 20 or 30 best since 2007. Financial solvency is in site for the first time in decades with the coming of New Nippert.
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Which makes McAlister's premise hilariously short sighted. To paraphrase sir lancelot the structure/foundation/positioning of the Bearcats is already set. What's more, many of those parts are already in motion and can't really be stopped. Construction is underway on Nippert, Mick Cronin will be here as long as UC will have him. The non conference football schedule has been dramatically upgraded with the goal of annually competing for the one group of five slot in the access bowls under the new playoff system.Whit brought him here, but for his own reasons Tommy Tuberville seems to be the safest bet to stick around of any UC football coach since Rick Minter.
Cincinnati media personalities love to jump to conclusions like no one else. Everything that happens, every single fucking data point is inflated to be the one game, the one season, the one week that will turn the tides of fortune forever in the home team's favor. If the Cincinnati team fails, and lets be honest and say that they usually do, they will never get another chance to turn the tides of fortune. Until next week, when the same mindless inane pattern repeats for years on end.
That is the cycle that McAlister is trying to drive home once again. It is so stupid, and infuriating that people continue to buy into the rhetoric time and again. Contrary to what Lance wants you to think losing Whit Babcock is not a crippling blow to the future fortunes of the Bearcats. It is a setback to be sure, but not an insurmountable one.
The truth of the matter is that the Bearcats future won't be made at the athletic director level. Everyone in the country knows that the Bearcats want a seat at the table. All of the actions of the university and the athletic department signal that, in some cases emphatically. But ultimately the decisions made by conferences for or against expansion are made at the presidential level. The only athletic department in the country where that relationship might have been inversed was the University of Texas under Deloss Dodds. But Dodds is gone.
Whit helped to recover the Bearcats resume, and build on it after the terrible final years of Mike Thomas. So long as the next guy understands the vision and what the Bearcats are trying to do, and where they are trying to go things will be OK in time.
The simple fact of the matter is that the only way Whit Babcock leaving has a crippling effect on the athletic department is if the man hired to replace him is of the Mike "MAC Mentality" Thomas ilk. Anything other than that and UC will be fine because the university has committed billions of dollars over decades to elevate the profile of the University of Cincinnati to the highest level. Its only a matter of time before that commitment pays off.
