Oh come on. Don't you think a search firm or committee would/could easily find that out? Like I said, the stupid games we play. No wonder there is such little trust in what used to be our most cherished institutions.

There's an article in today's (2/13) The Post about the "difficult" transition when a University President resigns.

Thing is,the article only talks about former President Sowle.

I was at O.U when Mr. Sowle was president.
I think the circumstances at the time were the problem,not the resignation.

Looking back at past presidents it seems several have resigned or left at the end of their term without much negative impact.

There also doesn't seem to be a lot of turmoil with President Mc Davis' leaving,unless there something going on that hasn't been made pubvlic.

Pang to Glidden and Glidden to McDivot were smooth too.

So, I wonder where this new president will live. And if the faculty will still be all up in arms about it.

I'll bet $1 it won't take them long to get worked up about something. Whether or not it's housing or some other mildly irrelevant item, I bet they'll be vocally aggravated before we know it.

Nellis was on the BCS Oversight Committee while at Idaho was the guy in charge for them when they negotiated the FBS only spot in the SBC. Definitely no Charles Ping for athletics. Six year contract so might log in a decade at Ohio. I hope he moves away from the sappy marketing as a freshman home away from home. There is nothing more unappealing then listen to unintellectual students discuss why its great to be a bobcat. Students you can tell that are down for partying.

What do you mean by 'come down'? I think we compare favorably to both of those universities.

A few thoughts on the new president and the search overall.

His last two stints as president were quite short. One about 2.5 years and another under 4. To me that is odd. There could be a perfect explanation for it but at face value it doesn't seem great.

In 2016 Idaho decided to move from FBS to FCS. Nellis left there sometime in 2013. Likely no connection, but interesting nonetheless.

From an athletics perspective, I watched/listened to the forums, and all candidates said pretty much the same thing(they were asked identical questions by the Ohio athletics' #1 detractor Mr. Hays). And the answers were basically: like it or not, athletics is the front door to the university and the university needs to support it. And then followed up with how much support/subsidy is always the 64K dollar question.

On the non-athletics side from the forums, every candidate got nearly the same dozen-ish questions... About protesting, tenure, sexual assults, diversity, research, etc. Seemed like every person with a question showed up to nearly every forum had a particular angle, and asked the same thing. Many of the things (IE tenure) aren't things I am very knowledgeable about, nor feel strongly about. So I can't elaborate much on the rest.

For what it's worth, all candidates were pretty underwhelming in their forums. Hardly anything was memorable or out of the ordinary, and I didn't think anyone differentiated themselves much to stand out. And I suppose sometimes boring is good, not sure about this though.

Hopefully Dr. Nellis does great things for the University.

It was ever thus. Most students just don't get involved in the inner workings of the university. That's why it's really sad that the loud mouths are often taken to represent the whole student body when nothing could be further from the truth. I'm not saying that student apathy is a good or desirable thing. I'm just saying in that regard it doesn't differ much Alan from when you and I were in school. Probably not the crowds we ran around in, but in terms of the general student body.

Well I know it's not a perfect (or even good?) metric but here are our US News rankings:

OHIO--------146
Idaho-------171
Texas Tech--176

You are right, size does not matter. Something many here have told me many, many times since I first came over the hill and saw Peden. I am pretty sure that there are more examples of "the" State school not being the largest institution. UCF, NC State, Mich St, Az ST, Iowa St and Oregon St come to mind at first blush.

As a long time Athenian and supporter of Ohio it's surprisingly ironic you did not automatically acknowledge Idaho as the "first and finest" (even though they are the land grant institution). They are the primary research institution in the state.

The junior institutions coming along later, Boise Jr College (Boise St) and the Academy of Idaho (Idaho ST) attained 4 year Uni status 70 and 40 years later respectivelty. Boise has done a good job growing their school. Those folks who do not think Athletics gives name recognition should look at them and their blue turf.

I have a feeling as the University of Phoenix or Grand Canyon State eclipse everyone else in numbers Arizona is still going to be recognized as the State School.

But, in the finest tradition of BA, for the sake of response, we digress....

Benoit now in the running for Ark State job.
http://www.astateherald.com/news/a-state-chancellor-searc...