NTXCoog

Maybe after losing Temple, they're happy with having 12 football members instead of the odd 13 they had previously.

Baylor fans know who UAB is since they're 0-2 against them, losing in 2003 and 2004 which shocked the heck out of Baylor's fan base. Most recently the only national news on UAB football is how the Alabama board of trustees screwed them over by not letting them hire the coach they wanted and then not letting them try to build an on campus stadium.

UT thought the game was going to be played at the Astrodome. They either weren't aware that UH was moving games back on campus or they thought they could force UH to move the game.

It's funny you say that. Cincinnati consistently has the lowest attendance in the Big East because their stadium holds 35k. Since realignment in 2005: 2005 2nd to last 2006 Tied for 4th with winning conference record 2007 Tied for 3rd one win behind the co-champs, 10 wins 2008 Champs 2009 Champs undefeated in regular season 2010 2nd to last 2011 4-1 w/no conference games so far. I'll take winning the conference 1/3 of the time, double digit wins 1/2 the time, and winning seasons 2/3 of the time. Would you? I assume you don't think attendance is important to win in a non-AQ conference. If you do and want UNT to join CUSA, then UNT is in trouble because you'd be behind everyone except maybe Tulsa who averaged 20k last year and 22k the year before. But then again, we know what Tulsa can do on the field. EDIT: I know Tulane, SMU, and Rice have inflated attendance numbers, but they do sell those tickets even if they don't have that many show up to the game.

No offense, but have you seen MAC attendance? In 2010, the MAC had the lowest attendance of any conference at 15,609. The Sunbelt was 17,969. A more local, regional conference may be a positive, but trying to emulate the MAC isn't a positive selling point for any solution.

I'm not sure how many of these combos are really considered "rivals." SMU/TCU is probably the only real rivalry out of the group. UH v Rice? Until recently UH has dominated that series so thoroughly in both football and basketball, that it was hard for UH fans to consider them a rival. Rice v TCU/SMU? I don't think either side of this combo considers that a rivalry. TT v aTm/UT? TT considers it a rivalry but aTm & UT don't. Regarding Texas school rivalries there are really few. UT v aTm is definitely one although UT doesn't consider them their primary rival. UT v OU is UT's primary rivalry. TCU v SMU are adequate rivals. Baylor v TCU is a semi-rivalry. UTEP v NMSU. Long running series. All the SWC schools generally get more excited to play each other than most other opponents, but I don't know how many would consider them rivalries. This has been a great debate on UH boards too. We don't think we have any rivals either. Rice is the closest we've got, but when you beat someone 70% of the time, like I said, it's hard to think of them as a rival.

Houston has been selling beer at games since at least the 1970s. It was sold at the Astrodome through non-UH concessions, but when we moved the games back on campus, we've been selling beer there too. We also sell it at basketball games. We even had a thread on Coogfans on whether we'd be able to continue serving beer if we got a Big East invite.

UNT deserves to feel good about beating a Big 10 team. UNT deserves to feel great about its new stadium. I think UNT is going in the right direction. Enjoy the positives you have. No reason to point out negative comparisons vs others, especially if they're not true. GMG and eat em up Coogs!

Tell me the last time UNT outdrew UH. 10 years ago? (in memory of UH's only 0-fer season in school history in 2001) I was going to guess one weekend in 2007 when UH made the mistake of putting an 0-11 FCS school as the last game of the season. Horrible attendance of 12k, way below our 21k that season. But UNT had 5k in attendance that week to lower their average to 17.7k for the season. Maybe you meant outdrew UH at your own stadium. This year we're averaging 31k+. Last year we averaged 31k+. The stadium only holds 32k. UH had 32k this weekend for 2nd year FCS school Georgia State. UNT is improving, but don't get crazy with your claims.

Trust me, plenty of people who enjoy putting down UH say it IS a high school stadium pointing out only that point in history.

Basically the same location as the current stadium. Story is we'll be playing at Reliant for a season during construction.

I had no problem with the walk, just saying SMU's walk was easier. Walking to the stadium from Fouts over the bridge and up the hill to the student side of the stadium wasn't much of an issue. I too checked out most of the tailgating areas all around the stadium. I walked around and entered the stadium on the Bonnie Brae side. The walk back was a little more interesting. Leaving the stadium on the Bonnie Brae side, I went through the open field to the highway service road. Not the best idea. In the dark, the unimproved hill and walking on the side of the service road wasn't the best idea. I was following other groups of people so it wasn't like I was exploring a path by myself. I can easily see someone blowing out an ankle or knee trying that. My advice, stick to the roads and sidewalks and avoid the service road, and all is well. I think the pedestrian bridge and associated paths will help. I also think that's one of the quirks of first time at the stadium. Learn the best ways to go and ways not to go and the experience just gets better.

I hate the whole "Robertson is a high school stadium" thing. It was also home for the Houston Oilers and hosted 2 AFL championships. Why don't you call it a pro football stadium? It's also home of the Houston Dynamo. Why not call it a pro soccer stadium? When it was built as a high school stadium, it only seated 14.5K. It was expanded to 35k when it hosted the Oilers. Hardly the same stadium. That's all part of it's history so to only look at the high school part of its history is really skewing the story.

In 2008, Ball State was ranked after 6-0. By the time they were 10-0, they were #14. I don't think voters would look at FIU more negatively than Ball State.

I've heard Robertson called plenty of things, often quite bad, but I've never heard of it called an erector set. What is your definition of an "erector set stadium"? When I think erector set stadiums I think UCF's Bright House Stadium. No concrete anywhere. It is often called the Bounce House because the stands bounce when the students jump up and down. They actually had to do an engineering study to make sure it was sound because there was so much concern about the stadium motion. Here's Robertson including a photo of the original construction. Plenty of concrete everywhere. Houston Dynamo game Original construction (we've made several upgrades since 1994)

The last time I went to a game at Ford (2 years ago), they had free "overflow" parking on the other side of the highway. Maybe a little longer walk than from Fouts to Apogee, but an easier walk in my opinion without the hills and better sidewalks. I made the walk after the game, but you don't have to because they have free shuttle service to and from the lot which I used before the game. Very convenient.

When? UCLA? The last time Fresno played UCLA was in 2008. Attendance at the game was 74k. UCLA's season average was 73k. Their lowest attendance of the year was 65k. So unless EVERY opponent brought at least 11k or about 10k UCLA fans didn't come to that game, I doubt Fresno brought 20k. Cal? This year the attendance at Fresno/Cal was 31k per ESPN's and Cal's websites. Am I supposed to believe that 2/3 of the stadium was Fresno fans, especially since Cal averaged 58k last season? The only other time Fresno has played at Cal was in 1995. For home games, Fresno St averaged 34k last year. If 20k was correct, either 2/3rds of all their fans make road games or a lot of them don't bother with home games.

Probably wouldn't be top choice for UH, but I think CUSA East teams would raise the biggest objections. Most of them think we already have too many TX schools. They want more eastern based teams if possible if expansion occurs.

I think UCF is the class of the conference until they lose. While UH can outscore 90% of CUSA even in a offense oriented conference, we haven't proven yet that we have a championship quality defense, which with our offense, championship quality only takes average. UCF has a solid to great defense that is very challenging to the high scoring CUSA teams and a ball control offense that makes their defense look even better.

I saw a ton of zone read plays and if you run zone read, you better have a mobile QB. This year with the smaller line and with Lance's final year, if I was UNT I'd go with the best option QB you've got and run zone read/options as much as possible, running some quick out passes and crossing routes to keep the LBs and safeties back, but it may be a little late to implement that change in offense.

Big XII schools generally don't care how many opposing fans travel. You have to fill your own stadium. Most of the Big XII schools don't have large sections available for opposing fans. Why would you if you can sell out with your own fans which increases season ticket sales and allows for mandatory donations for seats? Worrying about how many opposing fans come to your stadium is the same mentality UH used to have. We used to complain that no one in CUSA (with the exception of UTEP) brought fans to UH. Now we're finally getting to the point where if the opposing team brings zero fans, it can still be a sell out. Hopefully UNT gets to that point too. The stadium will help. Winning will help some too. Once you get momentum, it starts snowballing. One sell out leads to another. That leads to games selling out early which leads to higher season ticket sales. But don't complain about the number of fans your opponents bring. That just makes your fan base look weaker because your attendance depends on something outside of your control.

Bummer. It was pretty cool, but it did go pretty quick. If you weren't there early, you weren't going to catch it. I was lined up in front of the stage where they made the announcement, but the walk actually went to the side and behind the stage so there was plenty of scrambling from one side of the stage to the other to watch.

They announced it several times from the stage that Spacemonkey was playing on. I got there around 3PM and they announced it at 3PM and at least 2 other times after that. I know not everyone could hear everything from that stage though. I guess you can listen for the police sirens escorting the buses and hurry up after that.

Only a few minor complaints about an overall great experience: 1) Leaving the parking lot. It only took 20-30 minutes to get out of the Fouts lot after the game, but since there were only 7 cars in front of me, I didn't think it should take that long 2) Live microphones. The sound system is great. Sounded awesome the week before watching the FIU game there. But that microphone static needs to be fixed 3) The stadium announcer. I have never heard someone butcher so many names in my life. Casey Keenan (aka Case Keenum) did not throw the ball to Tyson (aka Tyron) Carrier. It's not like those 2 guys are unknown players. David Piland did not make a tackle. Some sympathy for that one because we have more than one player with that number, but a QB who is redshirting this year is probably not making too many tackles on special teams.

Meanwhile Baylor only bought 800 seats for their aTm allotment and returned the rest. If you think 4k is low, you're crazy. I know there are schools that do travel that, but we're not Nebraska. And if you need a school to travel 7k+ to fill your stadium (almost 1/4 of the stadium) on opening night, UNT might as well give it up.