Two years ago today, Bill Moos officially began his role as the WSU athletics director. In a relatively short period of time, a lot has changed at Washington State. The Pac-10 is now the Pac-12, Mike Leach is the head football coach, nearly every athletic facility has been rebranded and Martin Stadium is currently in the process of undergoing a major remodel.
Moos' work has been aided by the new revenue streams created from conference expansion, but it's impossible to deny his impact on WSU athletics. Still, even with all of the work Moos and his staff have put in, there are plenty of changes to be made and new ideas to implement.
With that thought in mind, I thought it would be interesting to see what changes or new ideas you would implement if you were suddenly given the keys to the car for a day. Just for the sake of this discussion, let's assume you are working under a semi-realistic budget. Paul Allen didn't just donate $10 billion so no, you can't suggest WSU installs a fully stocked mini bar under every Martin Stadium seat.
If I were athletic director for a day, here are three things I'd do.
1. Increase and improve video production
The WSU athletic department is great when it comes to producing videos of press conferences and interviews, but its YouTube channel is severely lacking in original content with high production value. Nearly all of the other Pac-12 schools produce great original content for their YouTube channels. Stanford is among the leaders, thanks in large part to things like this. These videos can help with marketing, they can help strengthen or grow fan support and they can even help with recruiting. Right now, WSU is looking at up the majority of the conference.
School | Channel Views | Subscribers | Videos | Avg Video Views |
Oregon | 274,101 | 230 | 16 | 17,131 |
USC | 4,101,498 | 2,997 | 959 | 4,277 |
Stanford | 4,232,912 | 2,416 | 1,493 | 2,835 |
OSU | 1,419,582 | 1,644 | 504 | 2,817 |
ASU | 544,439 | 814 | 231 | 2,357 |
UW | 1,494,289 | 1,522 | 733 | 2,039 |
CAL | 984,564 | 7,059 | 494 | 1,993 |
Arizona | 1,415,792 | 1,107 | 919 | 1,540 |
Utah | 571,274 | 931 | 539 | 1,060 |
WSU | 709,695 | 789 | 976 | 727 |
UCLA | 59,835 | 99 | 226 | 265 |
Colorado | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
2. Continue football entrances with players holding flags
I absolutely loved this idea when they unveiled it last season. If you missed it, during introductions when the team ran out on the field, every player held up a WSU flag. You can see it in action here and here. I don't know if they decided to make this a permanent thing, but I absolutely would. It's one of the coolest entrances I've ever seen and it's unique. Plenty of teams run out through a cloud of smoke, this is something that would be unique to WSU.
3. Discontinue the overuse of exclamation points
I'll admit, this one is more of a personal pet peeve than anything. I essentially hate the use of exclamation points, unless they are used sarcastically. I especially hate when they are overused, which is something the WSU athletic department tends to do. Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure Eric Oertel is a nice guy and this was a good interview, but does this video really deserve an exclamation point?
If i had a bigger budget, I would love to rid Beasley Colliseum of the orange 1970s seats.
Those are my ideas, what would you do as WSU AD for a day?