It’s Never Been More Clear What Consumes OSU’s Priorities

As spring football starts on Monday, these quotes from OSU President Burns Hargis after the Sugar Bowl are worth re-visiting. I was thinking about this because of how the release of some glorified t-shirts and 3/4 pants in March qualifies as the biggest thing to happen to OSU athletics since that Sugar Bowl. That’s crazy, right? It’s also purposeful.

“There was never a commitment at OSU until recently to become a real football competitor,” Hargis told the Tulsa World in January. “I’ve actually seen the resolution that the (OU) regents made back in the ‘40s (a written commitment to bolster the Sooner football program). We were pretty good during the ‘40s, but we never made that commitment. To OU’s credit, they did.

“While we’re a little (late) on this, making the commitment — both financial and just the whole university effort — has paid off. That’s been the result, these last 10 years. For decades it was completely basketball and wrestling and baseball. That’s all that mattered. And now, football is right in there with all of them — if not more.”

If not more?! I would say the commitment to football dwarfs all the other sports combined. That’s probably an opinion that’s affected by recency bias and by the fact that OSU is, you know, good at football. But there’s never been a greater financial incentive disparity between being good at football and being good at those other sports.

In 2016, almost every single football game in a season probably matters more than the entire seasons of every other sport that’s not basketball, especially from a financial perspective. So the question is not whether OSU should be showing this much support for its football program at the risk of taking resources away from other sports. The question is how much further will it go.