This is only to do with the financials argument about Stoops "convincing" or "being the cause" for UK Football financial investment. And/or any concern that investment would fall if he is gone.

Facts:
In 2012 the SEC was ranked 4th in TV revenue among power conferences according to Forbes. And 5th in per-school TV revenue. Yes, the SEC was that bad in TV revenue then.
Per school, per year:
Pac-12: $20.8 million
Big Ten: $20.7 million
ACC: $17.1 million
Big 12: $15 million
SEC: $14.6 million

The SEC. was lagging that badly back then until the SEC boom. Then what happened? in 2013, Stoops first year, the SEC Network was created and the TV contracts were renegotiated. In 2013 it was announced the new contracts would result in a likely 50% revenue increase over the next few years alone.

And even before that, SEC revenue payout had almost DOUBLED Stoops first year from just 5 years prior.
Average SEC per-team payout:
2008: $11.1 Million
2013: $20.8 Million

By 2015, teams were receiving $31.5 Million. A 50% increase in revenue in Stoops first 2 seasons.

And the big jumps will continue:
Prior to 2020, CBS was paying $55,000,000 a year for SEC premium TV rights;
Now Disney/ESPN is paying $300,000,000 a year for the same rights after a deal made in 2020. An absolutely insane statistical increase. Over 500% more TV revenue each year.
When Texas and Oklahoma joined, the deal was altered to add another $42 million per year. Making it now around a 600% increase in revenue from just 2020.

In 2024 the SEC distributed $55 Million from 2023 to each school. A 250% increase from Stoops first year. Total SEC revenue jumped over $100,000,000 in 2023 from 22; with revenue likely to heavily spike for 2024 with the inclusion of Texas and Oklahoma.

This idea that Stoops is even close to the main reason the program started investing in football has always been hogwash. The plans for our stadium upgrades were announced after his 2-10 season and right after revenue started jumping heavily after the inclusion of A&M & Mizzou and a new TV contract deal. Everyone in the SEC has done $100+ million upgrades during Stoops tenure, and it was solely because of the new influx of money, as well as the expected continued growth of CFB itself. Just tired of seeing this fallacy spread. It was something we all convinced ourselves was true back then to help hype the program (and it worked), but it was never reality and it is just a bad argument to add in to keeping Stoops. Kentucky was going to start investing regardless; just like other SEC teams that have come out of the woodwork and started doing. It's because of the money that is now in college football. Did Stoops do some good things? Yeah, but he also had some absolutely beautiful timing for taking over a CFB program. Vanderbilt is finishing up a likely $100+ million upgrade that was started during their absolutely horrible seasons, Indiana (Big Ten also booming) recently finished a $100 million facility that was started when they absolutely stunk. These investments have been happening EVERYWHERE since Stoops took over, regardless of who the coach of the program is.

Tore his Achilles. Didn’t he miss all last season also?

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Hubbard makes a 3, and lands on a defenders foot rolling his ankle. So they called a foul, giving a chance for a 4-pt play.
But.,.in the replay he lands 18” to 2ft in front of where he went up from ( he jump from behind the NBA line and landed in front of the college line).
IMO, they gave him room to land. No he didn’t kick his feet out like some punks do, I don’t see how he landed so far in front of the line, it wasn’t a fast break 3, he was actually curling from the right, so if anything you would have expected a little drift to his left, not forward.

UNLV's QB is redshirting because of contract disputes. This is the first I've seen mid-season. I'm sure there are others that moved in the off season.

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This time last year, A&M paid a ridiculous $75M to get rid of their coach, Jimbo Fisher, who had just gone 7-6, dallied with Stoops and then hired Duke's Mike Elko.

So how did it turn out? A year later A&M ended up a whopping 8-4, a whole game better than last year, and Duke hired Manny Diaz, who had flopped at Miami, and Duke ended up 9-3 anyway under the new guy, better than last year under Elko.

Don't know why I wanted to look at this, but goes to show that blowing through a ton of money, to hire a new coach, or letting a good coach move on, is any sure fire way to improve, or a sure fire way to slide back to a bad program. If Diaz can get hired and be very successful, obviously, some other school would look at Stoops and think a change of scenery might do all parties a favor

2 months ago when Stoops made his snarky, childish comments at Madness and everyone laughed and thought it was great?

Allow the players to use DoorDash, Grubhub or Uber Eats from the sideline? It would be more fair to the opposing team because they get hungry too. Hungry opposing players would not get in confrontations with drunks in line. Walk-ons could share their fries with someone higher on the depth chart. Builds comradery.

It did look odd seeing a player in the concession line. But if they could just order quietly on the app then an Uber driver could drop off a bag of Chick fil a without a lot of fanfare.

With IU’s breakthrough season, only Vandy and Iowa State are traditional power conference teams without a ten win season in program history.

They lead Kansas State 24-14, late in the second Q, and it would be their tenth win on the season, if it holds.

Welcome to the CatsIllustrated Stupid Underdog Pick Contest. Each week the odds are gathered from the Oddstrader web page (usually on Sunday night) and posted in a thread on CatsIllustrated (which we will hopefully get pinned for convenience). This contest runs for the entire football season (the bowls are treated as one really long week).

There are several ways to win: there are weekly winners, the person with the highest cumulative point total after the season is over is the overall winner but we recognize the contestants that have the most correct picks also.

How do you get points? Select the underdog (second team listed in each game) and have that team pull the upset. The bigger the dog, the bigger the reward but the longer the odds.

Some rules that we need to keep things running smoothly:

1) You should make your pick before the first game of the week has kicked off. Your pick may be invalidated otherwise. I can't know with the new Rivals format that you didn't delete a pick that didn't win and then post a pick from a later game in hopes of getting a winner. You can change your pick before the first game of the week has started by editing your pick or deleting the old pick and making a new post. To change your pick after the first kick off of the week, leave the original post alone, make a new post and indicate that you want to change your pick in that new post. I'll verify that you can change it manually.

2) If you make your pick after the first game of the week kicks off, it may be invalidated. Make your pick before the first kickoff of the day or pick a game that is played on a later date. I might post that you can make picks a bit later in that day in the "Don't forget to..." thread, but don't count on it.

3) If you pick the favored team instead of the underdog, we all laugh at you. Ok, we don't but you can't expect to get points in SUP for that.

4) You can appeal an invalidation by posting in that week's thread, include what you think is wrong.

5) Don't edit your picks after the first game of the week has kicked off.

Understand that a perl script is scoring this, if you make the spelling of the teams intentionally obtuse or you are just really bad at spelling, your pick might be missed. If you want to tell us all about the underdogs you thought you might choose and then tell us about the one you finally did pick, you might be surprised which one the script finds.

So your post should look something like:
------------
Purdue

*** Everyone hates the Irish right?
------------
Don't put any other team name in your post with your SUP pick without putting an '***' in front of it. Everything after the '***' will be ignored. My program may find the wrong name if you don't. Once you post your pick, you can post in the thread any comment you like. Your first post is your pick (if I can find your pick).

Because the scoring is done by a script and not by hand, if you feel a mistake was made in scoring your SUP, post that on that Week's thread. We'll try to get it resolved quickly. The scripts are far from perfect and VegasOdds also changes the HTML for the odds page quite often so report any errors you see there as soon as you see them.

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Stupid Underdog Picks - Week 15:

Friday, Dec. 6

JACKSONVILLE STATE 3½ Western Kentucky
Tulane 4½ ARMY
BOISE STATE 4 UNLV

Saturday, Dec. 7

ARIZONA STATE 2½ Iowa State
MIAMI (OH) 3 Ohio
TEXAS 2½ Georgia
LOUISIANA 6 Marshall
OREGON 3½ Penn State
SMU 2½ Clemson
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Underdog Winners - Week #14:

Michigan : 20.5 points
Wyoming : 17.5 points
Memphis : 14.0 points
SYRACUSE : 10.5 points
Utah : 8.5 points
RICE : 4.5 points
North Carolina State : 4.0 points
Marshall : 3.5 points
Miami (OH) : 3.0 points
South Carolina : 3.0 points
SAM HOUSTON STATE : 2.5 points
UTEP : 2.5 points
Minnesota : 2.0 points
HAWAII : 1.5 points
Navy : 1.5 points
Rutgers : 1.5 points
Texas State : 1.5 points

Correct Underdog Picks - Week #14:

Michigan: catben

Memphis: stinger11723, YardCat

SYRACUSE: blubo, BurgLife, howercat, secrules3

South Carolina: gamecockcat, ArtLaibsGhost



Nobody picked: Wyoming, Utah, RICE, North Carolina State, Marshall, Miami (OH), SAM HOUSTON STATE, UTEP, Minnesota, HAWAII, Navy, Rutgers, Texas State



Stupid Underdog Picks Leader Board - Week #14:

67.5 : Roe07
67.0 : BC_Wader
65.0 : warrior-cat
62.5 : stinger11723
57.0 : howercat
56.5 : Chad Rock
56.0 : docholiday51
56.0 : secrules3
51.5 : bigbluemist
51.0 : blubo
48.0 : Blueisbest
45.5 : RedLotMudcat
45.0 : jrburt
44.0 : TheBlueCat
43.5 : CrimsonCats
40.0 : BurgLife
39.5 : catben
39.0 : Hang_Time_2
39.0 : WalterTheHippo
38.5 : BeardedKatFan
38.0 : maysvilleky
37.0 : gamecockcat
35.0 : cat tat2
35.0 : rockycard
33.5 : Larry00
32.0 : number8please
30.0 : YardCat
29.5 : *CatinIL*
28.5 : Caveman Catfan
28.0 : kywildcatsfannumber1
26.0 : jwcat30
25.5 : Bryguy
25.0 : CGblue
25.0 : tdjohnsky
24.5 : M4CAT
23.5 : Catapult
23.0 : ArtLaibsGhost
23.0 : pumpedupcats
22.0 : MAYHOO22
19.0 : Old_Red
17.5 : Burgcatfan
17.5 : GrandePdre
17.5 : jimmy cowboy
16.0 : TuckyFB
14.5 : TOMCATS1990
14.5 : ukalum1988
14.0 : kybloo92
13.5 : pappy52
13.5 : RocknRollCats
12.5 : blubud
12.5 : Uk##1
12.0 : Short-Dawg-69
10.0 : Corbin_Creeper
8.0 : ILiveBlue-GoCats
8.0 : Ken Cat
7.5 : JSgorocks
7.0 : billoliver40
6.5 : bluecoon1
5.5 : Creed Bratton
3.0 : Nuke99m



Stupid Underdog Picks Multiple Winners - Week #14:

8 : howercat
7 : BC_Wader
7 : Blueisbest
7 : gamecockcat
6 : ArtLaibsGhost
6 : bigbluemist
6 : docholiday51
6 : Roe07
6 : TheBlueCat
5 : BeardedKatFan
5 : BurgLife
5 : Caveman Catfan
5 : Chad Rock
5 : CrimsonCats
5 : jrburt
5 : maysvilleky
5 : number8please
5 : secrules3
5 : stinger11723
5 : warrior-cat
4 : *CatinIL*
4 : blubo
4 : Bryguy
4 : cat tat2
4 : Hang_Time_2
4 : kywildcatsfannumber1
4 : Larry00
4 : MAYHOO22
4 : Old_Red
3 : catben
3 : CGblue
3 : jwcat30
3 : RedLotMudcat
3 : rockycard
3 : Short-Dawg-69
3 : WalterTheHippo
3 : YardCat
2 : blubud
2 : Catapult
2 : GrandePdre
2 : ILiveBlue-GoCats
2 : JSgorocks
2 : Ken Cat
2 : kybloo92
2 : M4CAT
2 : pappy52
2 : pumpedupcats
2 : tdjohnsky
2 : TOMCATS1990
2 : ukalum1988


Underdog Winners:

Week 1: 11
Week 2: 17
Week 3: 7
Week 4: 15
Week 5: 14
Week 6: 12
Week 7: 15
Week 8: 15
Week 9: 10
Week 10: 16
Week 11: 11
Week 12: 14
Week 13: 18
Week 14: 17

Season Average for Underdog Winners: 13.7


Correct Underdog Picks:

Week 1: 22
Week 2: 17
Week 3: 5
Week 4: 21
Week 5: 22
Week 6: 17
Week 7: 10
Week 8: 18
Week 9: 9
Week 10: 23
Week 11: 9
Week 12: 9
Week 13: 19
Week 14: 9

Season Average for Correct Picks: 15.0

Total Picks Made:

Week 1: 61
Week 2: 59
Week 3: 56
Week 4: 55
Week 5: 54
Week 6: 50
Week 7: 51
Week 8: 54
Week 9: 51
Week 10: 46
Week 11: 42
Week 12: 45
Week 13: 44
Week 14: 43

Season Average for Total Picks: 50.8

https://www.si.com/media/espn-dick-vitale-announces-cancer-free-during-jimmy-v-week

Love him or not, he is a HUGE part of college basketball and I'm glad to hear this news.

Whoever gave Chip a NIL deal gotta absolutely fleeced.

The 2024-25 College Football Playoff will consist of the Fiesta, Peach, Rose and Sugar Bowls in the quarterfinals — with the No. 1 team owning the right to pick which of the four sites they want to play at. The CFP semifinals will be played at the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl.

Tix go in sale Friday for those interested.

Likely their last go at the states, have seen them multiple times, if you are a fan, circle.the dates!!