NTXCoog

Tulsa 2015.

I don't think it's fair to imply that all or most of the UH improvements are from 1 booster. If that was your intention, I'm sorry I misunderstood. $15 million (over 10 years) of the football stadium was based on corporate naming rights. Much of the rest came from a fee voted on by the students. Plus private donors. The $25 million Guy V Lewis basketball practice facility was funded primarily through a group of anonymous private donors who bought the naming rights and wanted it named after Coach. The $2.4 million softball field was donated by John and Rebecca Moores The $4 million baseball renovations were from Darryl and Lori Schroeder The $1.5 million track renovations were from Carolyn and Ron Yokubaitis The IPF as of Feb had $5.7 million+ donated from multiple large private donors. The $60 million Hofheinz basketball renovation are $20 million from naming rights (currently not announced. Assuming corporate, but could be private). Most of the rest will come from other naming rights (floor, scoreboard, etc) with some kicked in from the student facility fee. Don't have break down on Herman's money. Good chance that Fertitta had something to do with that amount. Yes that's a lot of large private donations plus corporate sponsorships, but not like Pickens who pays for almost everything at OkSU

Unfortunately in the athletics facilities arms race, the multi sport indoor practice/training facility has become passe. Most schools are building football specific facilities. Houston has had a nultisport facility for years. Unfortunately that doesn't meet current standards. So it's primarily used by track and other sports and the new facility will be football only

The UH AD has only been AD for 1 year and only at Houston since 2014. Before that he was AD at Coastal Carolina. Prior to that Mack Rhoades was brought in to get a new stadium done. He did that. Now he's at Mizzou. Bet he has regrets with that choice with all he had to deal with from their football team last year. So I'm not sure who in the UH athletic department other than the AD would have the experience needed at UNT. But you're not going to want to hear one of the main reasons the current AD has been so successful: It starts with the Chairman of the Board of Regents Tilman Fertitta and UH President Renu Khator. Both heavily support UH athletics in general and UH football specifically. Fertitta was personally involved in the salary negotiations with Coach Tom Herman, and I'm sure he's kicked in plenty of his own money to the athletic department I'm not sure that type of support (and money) from the UNT administration is currently available to follow the same path.

There's a right situation for scheduling FCS teams: when your attendance is starting to be solid or sold out, you want that 6th or 7th home game, but you need it cheap. UNT might be in the need it cheap phase, but the attendance isn't there yet for FCS home games. I think UNT is at the edge of bodybag scheduling but needs to transition to the 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 phase

Marshall can complain, but they did nothing in CUSA prior to teams leaving to the AAC. 40-57 (41%) with only 2 seasons >=.500, both 7-6. Only once did they have a winning conference record. Maybe if Marshall carried their weight prior to the split, CUSA's reputation might be better. While Marshall looks good now, them having little success until after the split only fuels the perception, true or not, that they're only winning now because the conference is weaker.

My company let go of one of its executives with a $500k buyout. I hate that she got the money, but the company will come out ahead because her incompetence cost the company 100x more than that over the prior years. It's like the old joke, why is divorce so expensive? Because it's worth it. (Says the guy having his 20th anniversary this year)

Rice stadium holds 47k, big, but not the huge 70k that it used to be. And the end zone tarps don't cover seats. They cover where the seats used to be before they ripped them out because they needed to be condemned.

But the one that makes sense geographically has the lowest attendance.

Actually there are 351 D1 basketball jobs. Some of the D1 basketball jobs at schools without FBS football teams are better than jobs at FBS schools.

Texas and the Big XII sure didn't own the Houston market last year. Of the top 10 rated regular season games in Houston last year, the SEC had 6 of them. aTm had 2 of those 6. The Big XII only had 2 of the top 10 rated games. Only 1 involved UT, the Big XII's premier game (OU/UT) came in 4th, 1 spot above UH/Temple. The other Big 12 game in the top 10 was TCU/Baylor. The only other UT game in the top 20 was UT/Notre Dame. UH had the other 2 top 10 rated games. Yes, UH had as many top 10 games as the entire Big XII and as many as aTm. UH had 3 of the top 20 games, more than UT and as many as aTm. The Big XII has lost the Houston market to the SEC and it only gets worse every year.

Very interesting article with quotes from Smatresk

Very excited for you guys. Something that has been needed and it's great that so many more fans will now have hope for the athletic department. Don't give up and keep supporting UNT.

Unrelated? The UH Board of Regents this week removed term limits for the chairman of the board. Smart move

They may have great fans, but they just don't have enough of them. Reported 11.6k last year. I do have sympathy for them though.

I love ESPN3. Better than questionable regional networks. I used to connect my computer via HDMI but now I Chromecast it.

On top of the mean, look at the median of the G5 rankings. The AAC median is higher than their mean indicating they have some bottom dwellers really dragging the conference down. MWC and MAC mean and median are about the same. CUSA and SBC, the median is higher than the mean indicating they have a few good teams that pull the average up. While the mean and median are about the same for the MAC, they have the highest standard deviation indicating they have the widest distribution of rankings.

From SMU's AD: "Many students believe SMU should look to move into another conference. But Hart says getting into a Power Five conference is not one of the goals of the university. 'Our goal is to be the best program in the American Athletic Conference,' he says. 'We don’t feel like conference affiliation is a hindrance to our goal to compete at a national level.'" Anyone believe SMU doesn't want to be in a P5? Either doesn't want to say they're trying or realize they're not making it.

If both of those are ahead of Cook, why did Cook finish #7 in the Heisman voting in 2015? Why was Cook 2nd team All American in 2015? I don't see Perine or Mixon on either of those lists.

I'm not going to say OU won't run away with it. I don't know. But you're overselling OU and underselling UH. Do you think OU's QB is a comparable runner to UH's? Greg Ward had more rushing TDs than anyone on OU's team, including their running backs. He was #5 in the nation in rushing TDs last year. Not among QBs, but amongst all runners. 1 TD behind LSU's Fournette, 2 behind Cowboys draft pick OSU's Elliot and just 7 behind Henry at Bama who led the nation. Do you really think a DE can keep up with Ward? He outruns DBs. Mayfield just isn't a mid-4.4 forty time like Ward. Not saying Ward's a better QB, but he's not the same type QB. And Ward did that last year with a makeshift OL due to injuries. At one point we were starting 3 freshmen and a converted DL. Imagine what he can do with a healthy line. Houston RBs? Yes we lost our top 2 RBs who were injured most of the end of the season anyways, but then again, we didn't really have a RB vs FSU and did OK putting up 10 times more rushing yards than FSU with the exalted Dalvin Cook. Without a RB for most of the game, we put up 187 rushing yards against the FSU defense that averaged allowing 142. We even had a CB play RB for 2 games last season. But we do have Duke Catalon, a 4-star transfer from UT playing this year. No OU RB is considered as good as FSU's Dalvin Cook, yet UH held Cook to 33 yards on 18 carries. Again, don't know how the game will turn out, but you're picking only UH negatives. Yes, I'm only picking UH positives, but that's just a balance to your points.

Define vastly for attendance difference. I've shown that UH has over 1/3rd of the tickets already taken despite season ticket sales not being finished and individual tickets not going on sale yet. If not another ticket was sold to UH fans (unlikely), the max difference would be 2 to 1. Even if UH had only it's average attendance from last year at the game and not the higher attendance for the last several games (that SMU Thursday night game when the Texans were playing in town the same night did bad things to the average), UH would have half the seats. I've shown my numbers on why UH won't be vastly out attended. Can you refute them or show why you think otherwise? Or are you just pulling your attendance thoughts out of your ....?

OU may have its way with UH. Maybe not. But i bet you thought the exact same thing when UH was about to play #9 FSU last year. Everyone except UH fans and some AAC fans thought the same. Boy were they wrong And you're missing this is not a moved UH home game. This is the Texas Kickoff game. The same game that aTm and ASU last year. The same game as LSU and Wisconsin the year before. It may be a recruiting tool for OU, but was it less of a recruiting tool for those schools? Its also quite likely the attendance will be higher than the aTm game last year. Might be highest of any of the Texas Kickoff games. If so, it wont solely be because of OU unless you think OU has a higher following than aTm and LSU in Houston (they dont) And if ou fans outnumber uh, it will be by a negligible amount. This game is included in the uh season ticket package. We've already sold about 20k season tickets not counting 5000 student tickets that will be available for the game. Since NRG holds 72k, UH already has over 1/3rd of the seats before season ticket sales are done and before individual tickets go on sale.

Because of Cougar King. Understandable That bowl hasn't been the Weedeater Bowl since 1997. Some may think Herman is crazy or classless but he's not dumb enough to insult a current bowl sponsor

Last year UH had 7 home games not counting the conference championship game so one could try to argue the OU game is giving up a home game

They were undefeated and ranked #7 in 1998, the first nonBCS team to do anything special which helped force some changes for nonAQ bowling. But yes that was a LONG time ago