Mr. Wilner shed some light how exactly the BCS money gets broken down, and apparently San Jose State gets an extra $300-400k, which basically pays for the first year of Coach Tomey's new contract. Not a bad deal, but not exactly the huge windfall I thought this was. Don't get me wrong, I'll take that money, but it hardly is the kind of money that changes a school's fortune.


Found this a little more interesting because I recently discussed Tomey's extension with my step-mother -- the SJSU administrator -- who hadn't heard about said extension. When I told her that he'd be getting close to $500k a year, reportedly, she did the raised eyebrow thing and said something to effect "It will be interesting to see how that goes over with the faculty." Obviously, SJSU people don't really see themselves as the kind of university that pays its football coach considerably more than any other person on campus, including his bosses. This should definitely be interesting, especially considering this was the same school whose Academic Senate voted to downgrade the football program to Division IAA less than two years ago.


Anyway, I initially thought that extra BCS money would essentially cover the extension, but, in reality, it covers just one year of it, which makes it less relevant to the greater issue.


Which brings me to my next issue, which I'll try to address in the coming days, Has SJSU's move from the Big West to the WAC -- roughly 10 years ago -- been a good one for us, bad or somewhere in the middle? I'll try to answer this in terms of money, exposure and athletics success. My guess: It was a slight upgrade financially, but any real benefit was ruined when the Mountain West Conference formed (which I'll argue SJSU was at least party at fault for), it hurt us athletically, but was ultimately inevitable.