https://lamarcardinals.com/news/2024/9/20/football-culture-shift-taking-place-on-the-gridiron.aspx

The biggest issue is that O'Malley is the first AD who has the alumni feeling like he has vision for 10+ years down the road, even if he's plucked up by another school before then (related to that- I'm really glad UH didn't steal him). Every other AD of the last 30 years always felt like they weren't a "the buck stops here" person- every success was for their resume and every misstep was someone else's fault. The move FROM the Sun Belt a quarter-century ago was the right move as they were struggling in a lot of ways. The influx of money from their online M.Ed. program (if you saw those 2009-2012 School of Education graduations, you know just how lucrative those were, and well-timed for the return of football) brought the campus back to life. The WAC Conference move would have worked if O'Malley had been shepherding the department when it happened. Instead, it was a lot of hollow promises of making the WAC an FBS conference, which never happened and resulted in NMSU and SHSU moving into C-USA and a world of uncertainty for those schools. Related to coach's post- 25K by bowling and adding seats on the East side of the stadium would make the stadium a destination for a lot of events. Having someone connect like JOM could actually benefit LU by potentially making it the location for the D2 or D3 Championship Game for a decade. Neither has a long-term home right now (and D2 is literally playing in a HS stadium- a nice HS stadium in McKinney ISD Stadium, but a HS stadium none the less). Having some events that get eyeballs on the stadium would help with sponsorships that would defray the cost of a renovation.