KSU's athletic director said he is aggressively looking at future payday games.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Kent State has been caught in a whirlwind of lost-and-found football scheduling this fall, beginning when Iowa State canceled three future football dates with the Golden Flashes.
Kent has since bought its way out of a 2011 football contract with Purdue for $425,000, while accepting a deal to play at Alabama. Published reports have placed the payout for KSU at $1.2 million for that contest.
Kent Athletic Director Joel Nielsen, on the job since May, sat with The Plain Dealer recently and said he is aggressively looking at future payday games for the Golden Flashes.
Question: Is the deal with the defending national champion Crimson Tide, coached by KSU alum and former football team captain Nick Saban, indicative of what KSU hopes to do in the future?
Answer: The Alabama situation came up unexpectedly for 2011. We had reached out to Alabama for future years, not 2011. But the 2011 game, if I get this correctly, I think they had a schedule change with one of their opponents. So Alabama is left with an open date, late. They made contact with us, and we followed up on it.
KSU AD Joel Nielsen won't say exactly what the payout will be for playing at Alabama, but it's worth paying Purdue $425,000 to get out of its 2011 game.Just since I've been here, the Penn State atmosphere [this season] would be on the same level. I think from a football standpoint, too, Penn State would be on this level. And we all saw what happened there. Our kids competed extremely hard. We stayed with them for the better part of three quarters, and that atmosphere was outstanding. I think if you talk with our student-athletes, they get excited each year when we roll into a Penn State, or a Tennessee, or and Alabama.
Q: What will you get out of this, that you won't get out of playing Purdue?
A: As I mentioned, when we got on board here, we reached out to Alabama, because of the Nick Saban [KSU alum] connection, obviously. We felt as though that made a lot of sense, if we were to play guarantee games, to reach out to those [with Kent ties]. We already had an existing arrangement with Missouri [head coach Gary Pinkel, also a Kent alum]. We immediately reached out to Nick because we felt it was the right thing to do, similar to [Jim] Tressel and the Youngstown State situation.
Alabama was very accommodating about future years, and then 2011 rolled in there. It's twofold: No. 1, economically it's a better situation for us. And then No. 2, it's the relationship with coach Saban, and that affiliation we are looking forward to.
Q: What kind of payout are you looking at?
A: They don't want us to say right now. It will come out, eventually. But financially it made sense for us. For us to pay $425,000 to Purdue, which we will honor and pay the damage. But right now let's keep it at, this makes fiscal sense for us not to take this deal.
Q: Will this game be televised?
A: Alabama has had those conversations. Obviously, it is their game. But they have had conversations. To this point, we're hopeful. Any time that four-letter word [ESPN] can get Alabama, they'll jump out of their skin to get them."
Q: Any chance of getting Nick and Alabama back home [to Dix Stadium]?
A: Not at this point. Some of the things we're looking at aren't cutting edge. They have been done before -- Toledo obviously playing Ohio State in Browns Stadium. That's something we are investigating.
"I'm not sure that would interest Alabama, but that is an opportunity eventually we would look at, a neutral-site game at Browns Stadium, somebody we think would attract a large crowd.