Ask the AD | October 15, 2020 - Kansas State University Athletics

Brian Smoller (BS): Welcome to another edition of Ask the AD brought to you by Mammoth Sports. Brian Smoller with the Director of Athletics, Gene Taylor, we are glad you could join us for what will be a totally-filled with fan question edition of Ask the AD. Let's jump right into it Gene. Our first question comes from Twitter: with the blanket extension of eligibility for all student athletes, how do you budget for reduced revenue this year in addition to the possibility of increased scholarship numbers next year and how that might affect recruiting classes? That is a high-level question to start us off.

Gene Taylor (GT): First of all thanks for the questions. It's been awhile, so I appreciate all the questions and thanks for the sponsorship too, that's awesome. It is a great question, and I don't know if I have a direct answer, but I will tell you that it is something that we started to work on. Not only do we now have the fall sport athletes that have been given an additional year of eligibility, but it looks like the NCAA and the various committees will extend that to our winter sport athletes as well. Right now what we are doing with our coaches is finding out what seniors want to come back or have the ability to come back and then just trying to get a number of what that is going to look like and from a budget perspective, how many additional scholarships we will have to carry for next fall. We will figure that out and it'll be interesting especially if our revenues will be reduced. The challenge is going to be for the coaches in terms of squad management and trying to understand balancing the group of freshmen coming in with the additional seniors, so it is going to be a long process, but it is something we need to start working on and planning now so we can figure it out.

BS: Fiscally, I'm not sure people totally get how it works. While the athletic department is a standalone entity from the university as a whole, it's not like you can carry over revenue from year to year in athletics.

GT: I wish we could. We do have a reserve fund, but obviously that amount is probably going to be eaten up this year with whatever expenses we have. Our budget has been reduced in several areas both operationally and in salaries and furloughs this year and we aren't traveling as much, so there will be some reduction in expenses. As we go forward for next year, let's say for instance football carries 85 scholarships. We plan for that budget every year based on in-state and out-of-state. Let's say all of a sudden you have half of them come back, maybe ten or twelve of those seniors decide to come back, that's an additional 12 scholarships on top of the 85 that we will have to carry for one more year, so that adds up pretty quickly. When you add a senior or two from volleyball and get into the winter sports, we have to figure this out over the next several months.

BS: You mentioned that you are planning for stuff like that now. Dan did have a follow-up question which we aren't going to include in here, but just in general he asked about what happens if we have the pandemic extended into next season? Of course that's not something we want to think about, but do you start planning for stuff like that now?

GT: Yeah we do. We are probably going to anticipate even next year that our football stadium, Bill Snyder Family Stadium, is probably not going to be at 50,000 people. Whether the pandemic is under control, I think there are still going to be some fans who are nervous about coming back into big crowds, so after the first of the year, we will start looking at those issues from a budgetary perspective.

BS: We'll go to our next question that stays on the financial theme. As it pertains to construction and the facility, notably the football practice facility that we haven't talked about in a while in terms of finances in terms of facilities.

GT: As you know, the end zone project is still moving forward. Those donations were already "in the door", so that project will continue to move forward. We have started to sit down with our architects and begin to look at the other two projects, both the indoor football facility and the Volleyball Olympic Sport Training Center. We haven't moved on that. Our donations, we haven't really gone back to see our donors, but I will tell you that our donors are asking for our Ahearn Fund Staff to come talk to them about their annual giving. We'll put those back on the middle burner, not necessarily the back burner, and really start to look at what those costs might be and try to get out to see donors, but there are some great interest rates out there. If we needed to finance, we could possibly look at that. It's probably not going to be four or five years down the road. It may be a year or 18 months before we get started on those.

BS: That's great news for a lot of people, including volleyball fans that get to experience a little bit of the benefits of being in Bramlage Coliseum. Specifically the volleyball facility, one of the benefits of being in Bramlage Coliseum for the volleyball team is of course seeing lights out in the introductions and video boards and all sorts of other amenities that aren't quite there, air conditioning during the hot months. Has it spurred on in terms of the volleyball conversations with the volleyball team themselves. Are they starting to get more excited about that prospect?

GT: I believe so and obviously Coach Fritz and her staff, from a recruiting perspective as well, would like those facilities on the drawing board so they can show the recruits. There certainly are some benefits of being in Bramlage, as you mentioned, everything from the air conditioning to the amenities. There are some challenges still. Locker rooms are limited and meeting spaces are limited, so that's why we really need to get moving on the Volleyball Olympic Training Center as soon as we possibly can. That makes sense from a financial perspective. We will start to go out and see our donors about that and tell that exact story that you are talking about.

BS: Let's jump back to football here. What's the status of next year's football game with Stanford. Of course the Pandemic wiped out most scheduling, and not just football but a lot of sports, but what is the status of that series?

GT: Assuming everybody is back to at least playing non-conference opponents, and we're assuming that's going to be the case, we're still going to play that game. We don't anticipate that not to be the case next year for all of our non-conference opponents. Some of our non-conference opponents from this year, North Dakota and Buffalo, we started talking about future years to replace those games. We'll anticipate that's going to be the case. I heard someone the other day, it's hard to make predictions right now in this pandemic. You're probably going to be potentially wrong if you make a strong prediction, so I think we just have to be patient, but as of now Stanford has not indicated anything other than the willingness to play us next fall.

BS: Not asking to make a prediction, but we had plenty of other comments from fans asking about scheduling a certain team to the north of us, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and other former-Big 12 teams like Missouri and Colorado. I know football schedules for the most part are filled up for the next X amount of years, but have there been any talks about adding teams like those, former Big 8 or Big 12 members?

GT: Well obviously we've got the Nebraska thing in basketball that coach put together, and I think that's going to be a great series. You know, we do have a future game with Missouri a few years down the road, a home and home with Missouri. We haven't really talked with Nebraska. If you look at their out years and our out years, it would be several years before that is a possibility. There are the Iowas of the world that make sense from a regional perspective, but those conversations haven't really started happening. As you begin to look at future years, you are talking in the '30's which seems like a long time away, but I just don't think we have room right now anytime soon.

BS: Football team played well, volleyball off to a fantastic start, and excited for basketball to get going here in a few.

GT: I've been very proud of our teams. Volleyball and football have been competing very well and soccer is struggling a little bit, but I think basketball starts their traditional 20 hours a week this week, and I'm sure they're excited about that. Again, I think our teams are doing everything they can to stay healthy. We have to keep pushing forward, wearing masks, and social distancing. Our students on campus are doing a great job of that and our community, so we have to keep people safe and keep moving forward.

BS: Hopefully we can get to the end and the light at the end of the tunnel here before too long at the turn of the new year. Gene, appreciate the time and thanks as always!

GT: Thanks Brian, I appreciate it. Thanks for the sponsorship and for the great questions!

BS: Ask the AD brought to you by Mammoth Sports. Again, thank you for watching, thank you for turning in all those questions. Keep them coming. If we didn't get to them, Gene will do his best to answer what he can on social media. For Gene Taylor and our entire crew, I'm Brian Smoller. Thank you for watching Ask the AD brought to you by Mammoth Sports.

Kansas State University Athletics

Ask the AD | October 15, 2020

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