Do you really think this school cares about being an elite program anymore? What exactly have they done in the last 15 years to make you think that?
What was the name of the school president from 1981-2001 that loved the football program?
During that time the school paid for highly qualified football men to run their program, and didn't ask those coaches to babysit kids in class. Stop perpetuating the myth that bc Tad Foote didn't like the negative press that it meant the university wasn't interested in winning. They were. So interested that they went out and bought a Super Bowl champ OC who had been an NFL head coach to build the thing.
You Donna lovers and Foote haters kill me. I don't care what they say about the program; clearly foote allowed this school to pursue football excellence where Shalala has shown NO INTEREST.
This is an awful lot of ignorance for one post. UM does not have the money that some state schools do, this is true. Our admissions are slightly harder than Marshall, this is true (but we make exceptions -- if Gray doesn't make it in at UM, he will not make it in anywhere). Just because Shalala has improved academics reputation and our football team has sucked, does not mean she is not invested in the football program. And yes, as someone else mentioned, she went out of her way to make sure that the football program did not get railroaded by the NCAA-- not every university president would have done that and been as vocal about it as she was.
BTW, Calling jimmy Johnson highly qualified would have been a stretch at the time. He hardly set the world on fire at Arkansas State
