NTXCoog

Was that the era of one platoon football? They may have had a ton of players on scholarship, but I think you only letter if you play. Not much of a chance to letter with one platoon. Regarding the career stats, having 4 years instead of 3 is a big part. Longer regular seasons is a big part (9, 10, 11 games vs 12). Bowl stats now count which they didn't in the past (how dumb is it that we know what the stats are for old games, but they still don't count. For example, Barry Sanders' 222 yards in the Holiday bowl don't count, but Ricky Williams' stats count) Conference championship game stats count when there weren't championship games in the past. Now if a team makes a conference championship 2 years in a row, a player can participate in 28 games in 2 years. That's almost more games to achieve stats than a 3 year career in the past.

The UNT Fact Book also has a list. PDF is at http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/ntex/sports/m-footbl/auto_pdf/2014-15/misc_non_event/2014FBallFactBook.pdf The season by season results start on page 92.

Rice's best win? 3-5 USM? At least Houston has beat 2 teams with winning records. And I guess Rice is better because their offense is more entertaining... They score 3 more points per game than UH. But I guess defense doesn't matter to this writer. UH is #10 in scoring defense at 17.9 PPG vs Rice at #87 at 30.0 PPG.

Houston has historically bounced up and down. Just in the last 5 years: 2009 - 10-4. 2010 5-7. 2011 - 13-1 and ranked. 2012 - 5-7. And it's not just a recent phenomenon. 1990 - 10-1 and top 10 ranked. 1991 - 4-7. If you're not a traditional power, one player not playing or one coach (even an assistant) leaving, there's often not the depth to handle that. The good news is that unless you're like an SMU who is missing coaching, talent, and depth, finding that one coach or player that's missing can often bounce you back up.

Wasn't a home and home with UH. It was a 2 for 1 with 2006 at Robertson and 2008 and 2009 in Stillwater. OU is coming to Houston in 2016, but it is a Texas Kickoff game at NRG Stadium, similar to a neutral site games at Jerryworld.

While having a ton of seniors and lots of experience is a great thing, it can also mean that none of the undergraduates are able to beat them out for a spot. That means you're either not improving your recruiting or you're doing an amazing job of talent development. Maybe a combination, but you should recruit well enough that some underclassmen would have enough talent to crack the lineup.

This is the Texas Kickoff game. It's similar to the Cowboy's Classic at Jerry World. Last year was the first year featuring Okie State and Miss State. Future games: 2014 Wisconsin vs LSU 2015 aTm vs ASU 2016 OU vs UH Last year's attendance was only 36k. I'd look for sellouts or near sellouts the next 3 years.

Would love that. This week we finished our 2015 schedule announcing a home and home with Vanderbilt. We have 2 spots open starting in 2016. Let's get it done.

Don't go to USC or countless other urban universities then. To be honest, you might not want to go watch UNT play at UT.

Here's the field design. Link for a larger image if you want to see details. Houston endzone has the skyline. Cougars endzone has the alternate cat logo frequently referred to as our Thundercats logo.

No doubt they have made the most of what they have on the field and in the stands. Curious if Coker would consider leaving after this year if it's a good season. Some upper G5/lower P5 might take a flyer on him because he is a darn good coach. If Coker ever wants to leave UTSA, after this year might be the best time with them losing almost all of their starters for 2015.

I'm curious what is going to happen to UTSA's attendance this year. They have been winning, so that helps. Let's look at the stats: Avg Attendance 2011 - 35,521 2012 - 29,226 2013 - 29,214 So they held steady last year after a big drop from their first season. But let's look at median attendance 2011 - 32,628 2012 - 28,100 2013 - 25,970 That's a good size drop every year. So what does that mean? UTSA has had some big attendance games that skew up their averages. 2011 - 1st game for the program at 56k, but they did have 4 other 30k+ games 2012 - 39k vs neighbor TX State. 2 other games between 30k and 31k 2013 - 41k vs Okie St (1st game against BCS/P5 team. Top 15 team). 32k vs UH (in state team that travels a core of 2-5k to close games). No other game broke 27k. That brings us to 2014. They do play Arizona at home. But I'm guessing an above average Pac12 team won't draw like a top 15 Big 12 team in Texas. UTEP travels well, but not 40k well. UNT - don't know how well you guys will travel there. I know there's a rivalry building. I think it depends on how well both teams are playing since it is the end of the year. If both teams are over .500, there will be pretty good attendance. If both teams are below expectations, possibly not. It will probably exceed 30k if expectations are met. Beyond that you have UNM, FIU, and USM. Expect about 25k for those. So my guess is the average and median are closer together without an outlier 40k game and UTSA averages closer to 27k. Possibilty of more if they vastly exceed expectations, but I think that will be difficult losing Soza who really impressed me in spite of throwing 3 INTs against us last year.

Big difference is $1.5M cash each year for 10 years. Apogee deal was $11.8M total cash starting at only $312k in the first year and increasing up to $1M a year in years 18, 19, and 20. The remaining $8.2M were in services.

2013 Nebraska - at Nebraska 2012 and 2013. 2013 was scheduled possibly for USM but moved game for $$$$. 2015 in Nebrasaka Arkansas - at Arkansas. No return game. 2012 Nebraska - see above Louisville - Don't know the story on this one. Played at Louisville 2009. No future games scheduled. In AAC when played so not P5 yet. Did schedule change when Louisville changed conferences? 2011 Virginia - 2009 at USM. 2011 at Virginia. 2010 USCe - 1 and done at USCe Kansas - at USM. 2009 at Kansas 2009 Kansas - see 2010 Virginia - see 2009 2008 Auburn - One and done. Going back to 1946 has played Auburn 22 times, all in Alabama Excluding Louisville, over the last 6 years they have played 9 games against 6 P5 teams. Only 2 P5 teams played 1 and 1, Virginia and Kansas. Both of those teams averaged under 50k fans per game when they were playing, so those teams really don't schedule body bag money games against FBS teams. 4 games during 6 years with no scheduled return games. Not a ringing endorsement for your point. USM is known for "Anyone Anywhere." Historically they've won some of those games, but if you don't win, they're called body bag games.

While several schools have consistenly been in the conference, the MAC has had and is continuing to have plenty of changes. 1986 NIU leaves the conference 1992 Akron joins 1997 NIU and Marshall rejoin 1998 Buffalo joins 2002 UCF joins 2005 Marshall and UCF leave 2007 Temple joins 2012 Temple leaves and UMass football joins 2015 UMass is scheduled to leave

Link? Not that I don't believe it. I'd just like to understand it better.

And then they got sanctioned for illegal employment of players, academic fraud (providing exams to players), and of course lack of institutional control. They also had to stop recruiting non-qualifiers since they were illegally employing non-qualifiers. That and moving to a CUSA better than the MAC was the end of that era of glory for Marshall.

It's not everything we expected it to be (Louisville and others leaving. Tulsa/Tulane joining), but we are enjoying it. First year of football was great with Louisville being ranked and only losing one game PLUS UCF being ranked and winning a BCS bowl against the Big 12 champ. UH's role in the first season was about where we expected, not at the very top, but competitive against everyone. Don't like that some of the bottom feeders in the conference were as bad as they were and definitely need to improve if the perception of the conference is to stay the same or improve. Basketball was again a tiny bit of a disappointment with the loss of the C7/BE basketball schools, but can't complain too much with winning the national championship as well as Louisville, Memphis, and Cinci playing well and even SMU stepping up even though they were slighted by the selection committee. I think that the upgrade in basketball and the success of SMU was the reason we stepped up and got a bigger name coach in Kelvin Sampson. Yes, he has his historical flaws, but no one can deny the on court success of his teams. I'm sure it's a similar feeling (especially in football) to how you guys feel about moving to CUSA. Definite upgrade in conference for both of us, but not as much as we thought it would be (already listed AAC teams leaving and added. I'm sure UNT fans would prefer ECU, Tulsa, Tulane over ODU, Charlotte, old SBC adds). We'd both like another conference upgrade (UH to P5. UNT to AAC or P5). Better bowls for both of us. Don't know how much of a jump up you guys got in B-Ball. Definitely not as much as we had. But then again, you guys are probably going to build rivalries faster than us with all the Texas schools around. But even though we've played a lot of TX schools historically, we've never really developed a rivalry against any of them. So maybe we'll find some new rivals in the AAC, possibly building on some CUSA history. Oddly enough Tulsa is the team we've played in football 2nd most in our history (40 games vs Rice. 38 vs Tulsa). And Tulsa fans still hate UH for a game that happened before most Tulsa fans were born (100-6 in 1968). So there's always potential there. So short version, I don't think anyone could have predicted how good the conference would have been on the field/court (BCS win, BBall National Championship), but we still want more (AAC moving back up in the pecking order or UH moving up to an established P5 conference).

I generally respect Nate Silver's statistical work, but this was one of the worst analyses of all time. One of the primary bases for this analysis was a non-scientific internet poll. As he notes in his write up, Arkansas State was wildly over represented based on this piece. I'm sure the web site that sponsored this was spammed like crazy by ASU fans. But why would anyone base an analysis on a non-scientific poll? Garbage in/garbage out. Another part of the analysis was based on doing internet searches for the term "college football." There are quite a few pretty serious football fans on this board. How many of you have Googled the phrase "college football?" I can honestly say that I never have. But let's assume that I did. The analysis counts searches by area. As a Houston Cougar fan, how would my search be counted towards UH when I live in the Denton area? Just more bad statistics. Now let's look at some of the results: How many think Iowa, Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Miami have more fans than LSU? UConn has more football fans than Louisville? Duke has more football, not basketball, fans than Colorado and Kansas State? Houston had the least number of fans in the old CUSA including Tulane and Rice? UAB has 2.4 times more fans than Houston? All but one old SBC team has more fans than Houston, and not by a small margin? 9 MAC teams have more fans than Houston? Idaho has more than UH? Like I said, I respect much of Silver's work, but he really blew this one.

I don't think that's it at all. I think it's because since 2008, at least one team in the MAC has a better a better record than every team in the SBC. Also since 2008, there have been four 12 win teams in the MAC and three 11 win teams. No SBC team has won 11 games in that timeframe. Since 2008, only 3 non-AQ teams (including CUSA, WAC, and MWC) have finished ranked with 10 wins: BYU 2008, Utah 2009, and Tulsa 2010. The only MAC teams to finish ranked were CMU in 2009 and NIU in 2012. Both had 12 wins So again, it's not media. It's that no SBC team has even one 11 win season. Even two 12 win MAC teams didn't finish ranked. The voters just don't reward non-AQ teams unless they're undefeated or have 1 or 2 losses with a fairly big win.

So shouldn't the Big 12 be more ashamed of their champ then since they got beat by the AAC champ? UCF beat Baylor by more than they beat SMU. Didn't the Big 12 champ also lose a game by 32 points? UCF's only loss was by 3 points to the #4 team in the country. They also beat 2 top 20 teams including spoiling an undefeated season. Almost lost = win. Tell me, last season would you have rather had an almost loss against pitiful USM and a win against Georgia over what what actually happened? Would you have been embarassed by that or thrilled with those results? Very similar situation except SMU >> USM last season.

, Whether Baylor slept on the game or not, UCF was the better team and proved it. It's not like it was a fluke game for UCF. Their only loss was by 3 to South Carolina who ended up ranked #4 in the country. They gave Louisville, who ended up ranked #15 (and should have been higher), their only loss of the season. UCF didn't just win the 1st and 2nd quarter (a possible indication that Baylor was asleep), but they also won the 4th quarter which the better team should win unless there is a blowout. Baylor only won the 3rd quarter by a 2 point conversion in the lowest scoring quarter. Keep in mind that Baylor scored with about 1 minute to play to make the score look better. It's not like O'Leary hasn't beaten Briles before. He's now 2-1 against him.

Don't judge us by our most obnoxious fans. The guy has been banned from UH's primary message board so even UH fans don't want to read his posts

The cladding on the outside was one of the most debated stadium topics among Coog fans. A lot of people really didn't like it. But as they've seen it recently in person for Pick a Seat events, most have said that they were surprised that they liked it. It's also supposed to allow some air flow through the stadium which is needed during those early season games. Evidently that style has been popular in some recent international soccer stadiums. But it may be a love it or hate it feature. The view of downtown from inside the stadium will be very nice. Sure to be a featured shot on every TV broadcast.

We each have our own opinions and preferences.... but curious why Tulane's stadium is nice digs but UH's is meh (other than Cougar King causing negative bias against UH)