Latest news with #Switzer
USA Today
a day ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Oklahoma Sooners among The Athletic's top 5 football programs since 2000
It was December of 1998 when new Oklahoma Sooners athletic director Joe Castiglione and the program introduced former Florida defensive coordinator Bob Stoops as the next head football coach at OU. Stoops replaced John Blake, who'd led the program through three rough years before being fired by Castiglione following the 1998 season. However, Stoops was really the hopeful replacement for the legendary Barry Switzer, who had resigned after the 1988 season. There were ten dark years in Norman, as the program shuffled through head coaches Gary Gibbs, Howard Schnellenberger, and Blake from 1989 to 1998, losing an unacceptable number of games in the process and fading from the national spotlight. None of those coaches was a suitable heir to Switzer, who had been OU's head coach from 1973 to 1988 and won three national championships. Switzer had been at OU since 1966, serving as the offensive coordinator before his promotion to head coach. Castiglione and the Sooners believed they had their next successful head coach in Stoops, and they were more than right. What has followed is 26 years where Oklahoma has been back in the spotlight, typically among the nation's elite teams from 1999 to 2021. Although Stoops retired after the 2016 season, the success he set in motion has positioned OU at the forefront of the sport. The Athletic took on the daunting task of ranking the best college football programs of the 21st century last week, and obviously, the Sooners were very high on the list. Oklahoma was ranked third, falling behind only Alabama and Ohio State. Though the list doesn't include Stoops' first year at the helm, it includes the rest of his head coaching career, and that of Lincoln Riley and Brent Venables. Stoops led the Sooners to the first national championship of the 21st century, with a perfect season in 2000. The year concluded with a win over Florida State in the title game, giving Oklahoma a total of seven national championships. Although Oklahoma hasn't won it all since then, it has been among the top-performing programs in America over the last quarter-century. The Sooners have played for three more national titles and made four trips to the four-team College Football Playoff. The program won four Heisman Trophies and had four other players finish as finalists for the award. OU won 14 conference championships, and a bevy of All-Americans put the Sooners as a no-doubt top-five program since 2000. The standard was set in Norman well before Stoops arrived. Coaches such as Bennie Owen, Bud Wilkinson, Chuck Fairbanks, and Switzer defined what it meant to win in college football and at OU. However, after one of the worst decades of Oklahoma Football in the 90s, it was Stoops who quickly showed that he and the program could meet that standard again. Oklahoma Football is still feeling the effects of his excellence over a quarter of a century later. Yes, the program has had some tough times lately. The handoff from Stoops to Riley looked so good for so many years, but the program was quietly slipping under Riley's watch. When he bolted to Southern California, Venables was hired to take the reins. It's been a rough go under Venables at times, with the only two losing seasons since the Blake era happening under his watch. But Venables had no easy task taking over for Riley, and he's doing his best to get the program back to its Stoops-era winning ways. He has the defense ready to contend, but the offense took a hit in 2024 with a bevy of injuries limiting the team's potential. But Venables and his staff have positioned themselves to be much better in 2025. It's a big year for Venables and a big year for this program in 2025. Though the straits aren't as dire as they were when Stoops took over in 1999, Oklahoma's backs are against the wall this season. However, the blueprint is there for the fourth-year head coach, who leads a program that has defied the odds plenty of times before, and is clearly one of the elite programs in all of college football. Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Aaron on X @Aaron_Gelvin.
Business Insider
12-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
KBW Remains a Hold on Cnb Financial (CCNE)
KBW analyst Tim Switzer maintained a Hold rating on Cnb Financial today and set a price target of $26.00. The company's shares opened today at $24.03. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Make smarter investment decisions with TipRanks' Smart Investor Picks, delivered to your inbox every week. Switzer covers the Financial sector, focusing on stocks such as Newtek Business, ConnectOne Bancorp, and Bancorp. According to TipRanks, Switzer has an average return of 8.4% and a 72.84% success rate on recommended stocks. Cnb Financial has an analyst consensus of Moderate Buy, with a price target consensus of $25.17. CCNE market cap is currently $507.5M and has a P/E ratio of 10.39.
Irish Independent
10-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
TV exec warns against RTÉ ‘back-sliding' on agreed €56m spend in independent sector
That is according to ex-RTÉ board member and TV industry veteran Stuart Switzer, who was commenting on RTÉ Independent Productions Annual Report 2024, which shows that the direct spend to independent production firms last year increased by €2.4m, or 5pc, from €44.95m to €47.37m. When the RTÉ overhead of €1.39m is factored in, the total spend in 2024 was €48.77m. Speaking in his role as chair of the Unscripted Working Group at Screen Producers Ireland (SPI), Mr Switzer said: 'Our industry and political leaders must insist that RTÉ reach their agreed spend – circa €56m in 2025 – with the independent sector which was agreed as part of the exchequer bailout.' He said: 'We must not allow any back-sliding or lack of transparency in this matter.' Mr Switzer served as an independent non-executive director on the RTÉ board from 2010 to 2015 and as an independent producer since 1986 and is now retired from his role at Coco Content, which produces the likes of Room To Improve and First Dates for RTÉ. Other popular RTÉ shows made by external partners include Dancing with the Stars, made by ShinAwiL Mr Switzer said that he expects the new Government Section 487 incentive for the unscripted industry here to come into force towards the end of 2025. He said: 'It is a wonderful opportunity for the unscripted industry in Ireland to develop and emulate the success of our colleagues in the scripted industry, but it must be used as a benefit to the producer to create and develop Intellectual Property (IP), and not end up as another subvention for our domestic broadcasters.' The new RTÉ report shows that television commissions with a value of €30m, representing 62pc of the value of new 2024 television commissions, were awarded to 10 independent production companies. The report states that a further sum of €7.4m, or 15pc, was awarded to a further 10 independent production companies. The report states that in addition to the €48.8m committed by RTÉ to new television commissions in 2024, producers of RTÉ-commissioned programmes attracted funding from other sources and the total value of this additional funding on 2024 contracts was €35m. The report states that the total value of RTÉ independent television programming activities in 2024, inclusive of all third-party funding, was €83.8m.
Winnipeg Free Press
03-07-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Bell, Telus spar over blame for 40-hour cellphone outage
Bell is pointing the finger back at Telus as the Canadian telecoms fight over which is to blame for a 40-hour outage during which a Manitoba man suffered a fatal heart attack and desperate family members couldn't get through to 911. In an eight-page letter sent to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on June 27, Bell said the technical failure happened on the Telus side of the 911 cellphone system. Telus has said publicly and to the CRTC that the problem was due to 'an equipment failure on the Bell facilities' and 'Telus does not know the reason for this failure.' Philippe Gauvin, Bell's assistant general counsel, disputed that in the letter. 'As Telus knows, that explanation is inaccurate and unsupported by the facts,' he wrote. 'Telus misleadingly portrays a recent 911 outage for its customers in Manitoba as being due to an equipment failure on Bell facilities.' SUPPLIED Dean Switzer of Fisher Branch died of a heart attack on March 23, two days before his 56th birthday. SUPPLIED Dean Switzer of Fisher Branch died of a heart attack on March 23, two days before his 56th birthday. Gauvin said Bell is committed to ensuring all parties maintain the highest level of reliability for 911 service and that Canadians have confidence in it. Dean Switzer, 55, died on March 23, two days before his 56th birthday, while family and friends near Fisher Branch placed 22 calls to 911 — only to receive a message that said 'hang up and call back later.' They frantically performed CPR on him for 90 minutes. An ambulance finally came after an off-duty RCMP officer went to their detachment to call emergency services. Last month, Telus reported to the CRTC that a review of the incident found 177 unsuccessful calls had been made to 911 by 59 Manitobans from the time the service went down on March 22 at 8:15 p.m. to when it was restored at about noon on March 24. Telus said after it became aware of the problem, it was fixed in a little more than an hour. It said it has disciplined an employee over the incident and has since added a double backup system if the 911 system goes down, as well as a third backup where calls would go to a live operator. Raymond Switzer, Dean's father, said Wednesday the family is considering legal action against Telus. '(Originally), I didn't want anything from Telus,' Switzer, 78, said. 'I just said I didn't want what happened to us to happen to another family. That's all I wanted. I've changed my mind since then. 'They don't give a rat's ass what happens to us.' Switzer said Telus sent a letter to the family, which angered him further. 'They asked for a photo of my son so they could always remember what happened — I said that's not happening.' Switzer, who said he backs calls by the Progressive Conservative party for an inquiry, said he still doesn't understand why an audio message told callers to call back rather than just saying the system was out of service. 'Because of that, they just kept calling,' he said. 'I'm not sure if my son would be around with us if he'd got help faster, but it didn't help.' 'They don't give a rat's ass what happens to us.'–Raymond Switzer Bell noted in its letter to the CRTC that Telus reached out with questions the day before Telus submitted its final report on the incident on May 16. Bell said it hadn't had a chance to respond before the report was submitted. Bell said those questions Telus had 'indicate that, far from being final and despite Telus' misleading claims regarding the cause of the failure, Telus was still uncertain, and may still be uncertain, with respect to the actual root cause of why Telus ceased sending 911 traffic to Bell during the outage.' Bell said only Telus, and no other cellphone carrier, was affected with an outage to its 911 calls, after one of its two gateways for emergency calls did a four-minute reset. The telecom also noted 'that media reports continue to indicate that Telus is, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, attempting to shift the blame publicly for the outage experienced by its customers to Bell. 'While we tried to give Telus the opportunity to correct the record itself, it has chosen not to do so.' A Bell spokeswoman said the company would not be commenting further on its CRTC submission. A spokesman for Telus said in a statement that Bell's submission 'largely aligns with Telus' previous reports, acknowledging the initial network disruption originated on Bell's network. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. 'There is no evidence to suggest our 911 services would have been disrupted had the initial Bell outage not taken place, and action was required by both Bell and Telus to bring Telus' 911 connectivity back online, as it was the sequencing of the reset that fully restored service. We have been transparent about the process failure on our side, acknowledging that our outage notification procedures with Bell were not properly followed.' A spokeswoman for the CRTC said the regulator is reviewing the information it has received from Bell and Telus. 'As this remains an ongoing matter, we cannot comment further at this time,' said Mirabella Salem. PC MLA Derek Johnson (Interlake-Gimli) said a public inquiry is necessary. '(The two companies) are playing the liability hot potato, not me, not me,' Johnson said. In a statement, Natural Resources Minister Ian Bushie said 'our No. 1 priority is the safety of all Manitobans and we will continue to work with the CRTC and the federal government to ensure that rural and remote Manitobans have access to 911 services when they need it most.' Kevin RollasonReporter Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press's city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin. Every piece of reporting Kevin produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Sky News AU
15-06-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
How Israeli strikes on Iranian oil facilities could affect the global economy explained
The Switzer Report Founder Peter Switzer discusses how Israeli strikes against oil and gas facilities open a new wave of risks for an already precarious global economy. Iran remains one of the world's largest oil producers. 'It will ultimately depend on what happens to oil price, whether we get A, inflation, which would worry the Reserve Bank,' Mr Switzer told Sky News Australia. 'Or B, a slowing global economy, which will affect our economy as well.'
