Bill Moos Radio Interview Recap: Football Ops Building on Course, A Possible Game With Illinois and Much More

Washington State University Athletic Director Bill Moos always seems to give great interviews. Today, he sat in studio with Ian Furness and Jason Puckett on Sports Radio KJR in Seattle and went above and beyond. He talks about everything you would want him to, and more. Below is a quick run through of everything he talked about and, after the jump, I'll transcribe some quotes.

If you would rather listen to the man himself, KJR has archived the interview on their website, here.

• Moos talks about how the opening of the new Martin Stadium and seems to think everything went well. Puckett was quick to mention the reasonably priced beer, which Moos said was important.
• Moos says there are about 2,000 more tickets left for the Colorado game and expects them to go quickly.
• The new football operations building is on track to start construction after the football season. Moos says he has a design ready, one that includes offices, a weight room, meeting rooms and more.
• Moos says fundraising is at a good place right now and mentions that WSU, right now, has the largest donor base in school history.
• Other improvements Moos wants to make to athletics buildings include a new indoor practice facility, a baseball clubhouse, improvements to the Soccer Field, and additional improvements the Beasley Coliseum.
• There are no plans to change Seattle Week right now. For now, Moos says, it will include the Oregon schools. He says that “changing it up,” mentioning Stanford or Cal, is a possibility further into the future. He also says that a sold out game in Seattle nets them twice as much as a sold out game in Pullman.
• In lieu of a conference game in Pullman, Moos is stepping up efforts to bring in more BCS opponents, including a possible deal with Illinois.
• Moos is very happy with the launch of the Pac-12 Networks. He knows that the other carriers are important and insists that fans keep bugging providers who aren’t on board yet.
• Moos wanted the Pac-12/Big-10 partnership to work out and bring better opponents into Pullman. He says the deal failed by just one vote.
• Regarding the possible mandatory injury reports, Moos says he will let Leach do what ever he wants in that area, even if the Pac-12 decides to make them mandatory.
• The new TV contract says that every school has to play a certain number of Thursday and Friday night games and, while the Black Friday Apple Cup is hard, it’s something that has to be done.

On the new football operations building:

We’re in good shape. We have the design finished, we have the estimated costs. Everything ready to go to present to the Board of Regents in November. We’re hoping that, with their approval, we’ll be ready to start [construction] right after Apple Cup. The project is going to take 14-15 months…

It’s 79,000 square feet, five stories high… It has, for football exclusively, their own weight room, training room, equipment room, of course a locker room, all the meeting rooms, breakdown for positions, coaches offices, an auditorium, and also our training table will be set up there. That transforms into a place for our former athletes to come to on gameday… Just like the premium seating building which you’ve just seen, I’ll match that with any other building in the country, this ops building will be right there too.

On how other WSU coaches are taking to the football upgrades:

Our coaches understand the blueprint. Our greatest fans are non-football coaches and student athletes because they know that when we create that revenue stream and it grows, all boats will rise and everybody is going to benefit. Another unique thing about Cougar athletics is that we’re all a family and they know we’ve got to get football healthy.

On better games in Pullman:

We’re bringing BCS opponents into Martin Stadium… We’ve got Wisconsin, we’ve got BoiseState, BYU is coming back, we’re working on Illinois, we’ve got a lot of things going… I want the fans in Eastern Washington to understand that we’re going to bring [BCS opponents] in because we’re taking that conference game away, and we’re never going to mess with the Apple Cup.

On the failed Pac-12/Big-10 partnership:

I wish the Pac-12/Big-10 collaboration would have panned out…” (Furness: “You wanted that to happen…”) “Oh badly… And that went down by just one vote. Our Cougar fans would have seen the likes of Michigan, Ohio State,Penn. State, Nebraska, playing in Martin Stadium.

On mandatory injury reports:

I will reveal this: I have a pulled hamstring…

On Mike Leach having to do injury reports:

This is very important to him for two reasons. He likes to protect his players, that’s one. Number two, he likes to create drama… The other factor is, and you’ll see this with Chip Kelly down at Oregon and with other coaches, the surprise factor is important in today’s football… I’ll support my coach. Here’s a guy that’s had ten winning seasons, ten bowl games, knows how to build a program and this is a part of it.

On fans coming to the Black Friday Apple Cup:

What I have pushed for is if we play [a game of Black Friday], we should be exempt for a certain number of years. Make somebody else have to come in and play the day after Thanksgiving. Now, having said that, and we’re changing culture here, right guys? Our fans have got to be able to sacrifice holidays, most preferably, New Years Day…