Linked in the OP.  The second graph lays out the fact that between 2005 and 2011 we've fallen behind the median academic spending per full time student against both the MAC and all of FBS.  And if you want to go dig through that site and compare Ohio to the other Ohio schools, it gets even worse against all but a couple, particularly relative to those (Miami and OSU) whom McDavis is constantly bragging that he's closing the gap.  There's a reason that the faculty want to run him off, and his athletic spending is only a very small part of that equation.

 

What Ohio is spending should be benchmarked against some kind of model. That model is perfectly debatable. It could be a small college spending model with peer set to be the Ohio Athletic Conference. There could have a model that precludes varsity athletics at all. Personally I like funding as many varsity sports as possible. That is the model the top private schools in Division 1 follow. Ohio has trimmed to 16 varsity sports and its effective for participating in FBS over dealing with sports that aren't normally offered by conferences. I'm not sure its a model that does the student body and alumni justice. More varsity sports brings more money into town.

If you have no athletic model to aspire to match than the best way of reducing athletic spending is to drop varsity athletics all together. There is your answer. If you have certain competitiveness and initiatives to protect than you have to look at expenditures within that model. Very simple for anyone who does the heavy lifting at the strategic level.

 

Another McDavis myth.

For 2005 the 25th and 75th percentiles for incoming freshmen SAT was 980-1200.  For the 2012 freshman class it was 970-1200.  On the ACT composite, it was 21-25 in 2005 and 21-26 in 2012.

16% of the incoming freshmen had graduated in the top tenth of their high school classes in 2005.  In 2012,.......wait for it..............16% of the incoming freshmen graduated in the top tenth of their high school class.  At the other end of the spectrum, 20% graduated in the bottom half in 2005, and in 2012, 19% graduated in the bottom half.

And if you want to get really depressed, the most recent numbers for Miami and OSU:
OSU: 27-31 ACT midrange/1150-1380 SAT/58% in top tenth of HS class
Miami:25-30 ACT/1120-1330/39% in top tenth.

Numbers don't lie.  Roderick, however, does.  If I'm running the show in Oxford or Columbus, I would start up a fund to keep McDavis in Athens for a long, long time because as long as he's running Ohio, it will never be a competitor. 

2005-2006

2012-2013

 

3.40 vs. 3.30.  A marginal increase in any event and, absent any improvements in class rank and test scores, more likely a result of the rampant grade inflation in American high schools than any real improvement in the quality of our applicant pool and freshmen classes.  In fact at the higher end, we've actually gotten worse.  47% of the class having a 3.50 or better in 2005 versus only 42% in 2012.

The figures are all there in the two university documents I linked.  There has been virtually no change in the quality of our freshmen classes under McDavis' leadership.  2005 being the first freshman class that was admitted under his Presidency, and certainly none that can be attributed to the multi-million dollar athletic subsidy.

If people were really concerned with attracting better students to Ohio, they'd stop this nonsense that athletic spending is the way to get there and instead argue that the subsidy propping up the athletic department instead be spent on direct merit scholarships to high ability students.