VideoEagle

Thanks for the details. Now things make even more sense. IF we'd put up additional stands in 82, we could have immediately reapplied. Yes, we'd have had a year or two at 1AA, but we'd be back up to 1A soon enough there would have been no long term harm. However, the pro-athletics people at NT had expended a LOT of political capital getting Bob Tyler in as coach. When that proved a disaster, there wasn't the will to keep trying. I don't know, but I suspect there was a payout involved in Tyler's firing which cut into any funds that might have been available for new stands.

That's a very vague statement. To whom did he reach out? Did they not answer the phone (or email, or text, or tweet, or Facebook message, or Snapchat, etc.) Or have they said we'll get back to you when we know definitively if we can use you and haven't made that decision yet. In his own words, "It's too early."

We aren't sure who starters for either team are going to be, but they can predict the outcome of the game? Are they predicting the cloud cover that day also?

We are on the top row of the lower bowl. While some around us have the seat backs, on the top row, you can lean back against the wall easily. It also give you a place to put drinks, programs, etc. but that spot isn't accessible - at least not easily - if you have a seat back. The seat backs are great for every other row than the top!

Been there, done that. Good luck to them, I guess.

Very true - they do have more money. But we should be in the top 100 with New Mexico, Cincinnati, Houston, MTSU, UTEP, San Diego, Tulsa, and Hawaii. #31 is Denver, our old Sun Belt conference mate. I notice a lot of AAC and MWC schools in the top 100. There is more than simply winning at football to being in a better conference!

The entire point of this award is to help draw attention to the sports some people don't "GAF" about. The idea is to show a well rounded athletic department is a vital part of a well rounded university. The idea is to penalize schools that only pay attention to revenues and not to the kids. You'll notice the top of the list is dominated by Power 5 conferences that stress being successful in ALL their varsity sports. Because I got an MBA from Baylor, I'm on their email even though I've never given any money to athletics. Multiple emails this spring have talked about 14 of Baylor's 15 varsity sports made their post-season. Before the scandal broke, Ian McCaw emphasized in 2014 12 of Baylor's varsity sports were ranked in their 25 nationally. (McCaw came to both Dallas and Fort Worth and talked to Baylor business school alumni at least twice a year.) Being well rounded is important to the athletic departments as it does increase overall donations. As for "no one caring," I live in Coppell where there are a lot of kids trying to get la cross, track, swimming, wrestling and other lesser known sport scholarships to top schools. No, t-shirt fans don't care, but the parents of the kids on a partial scholarship in something like softball do. By the way, if you don't have these sports Title IX ensures you won't have a football team either.

Don't forget the each school in the Big XII gets to keep their Tier 3 rights and can see those games on their own. That money isn't part of the $348 million!

The NCAA announced they were investigating Baylor back in May 2016. And in November 2016, the NCAA announced they weren't going to pursue "Penn State" like punishments for the school. At least part of that was driven by Baylor firing everyone involved and working with the Justice Department to develop better Title IX compliance procedures. The rumor is the NCAA does plan to pursue individual in the case who are still involved with college athletics, but that is just a rumor so far. The only news here is Baylor is asking a judge to allow Baylor to cooperate with the NCAA without passing the same material along to those involved in suing the school. While that doesn't seem possible to me, there are a lot of very good lawyers working for Baylor.

A side benefit of this poll is it shows that NT fan 1. exist and 2. read and/or see the DMN and/or DRC and 3. will actually act on what they see. It won't make huge changes in reporting but if it happens often enough it will start to get noticed.

The legend of Dickerson's NCAA testimony is that he didn't say anything that could hurt SMU, but asked the invesitgators a hypothetical. "If I was given a car by a booster of a school, but didn't go to the school and didn't return the car, is that an NCAA violation?" The answer was no, it's technically not. Dickerson drove a maroon and white something through out his college career. I think it was a Camero or a Tran Am, but I'm not certain. The fact is was maroon and white was a running joke. Dickerson spent a lot of time on or near the NT campus as our African-American coeds were prettier (and I think more numerous) than those at SMU.

Just let it go ...

If you go to a sports bar in Addison or Las Colinas, you'd find it IS true. Granted, Boise is better known. But La Tech, UTEP, UTSA and even Rice have more demand than any MWC team except Boise. Depending on who Boise is playing, that some times includes Boise. As for going to 16 teams, members of Mountain Division are the ones who created the MWC because their fans HATED the idea of a 16 team league. These are the same fans driving the MWC to consider giving up ESPN and Fox to avoid mid-week games. As far as Mountain and Wester games verse Eastern games, the Rangers, Mavericks and Stars have all very publicly complained about later starts hurting their coverage even in the age of the internet. While fewer people open the physical paper, the online editions have grown dramatically. And even in the age of the internet, 7pm Western time is still three hours later than 7pm Eastern time. There's a reason viewership for Western and Mountain evening games in the Central time zone is a fraction of that of Eastern and Central games. As for limiting the times of the start, again, they will NOT make this deal again. Period. I know CSU, Wyoming and New Mexico were very vocal about never doing that again. AS for TCU increasing their crowd, that have more to do with TCU actively working to get their core fans to come out no matter whom they are playing. They stress the opponent doesn't matter, come see the Frogs. They started that campaign while in CUSA and continued it through to today. Yes, SMU has the large financial resources. But back after the announcement of UTEP joining CUSA there was an article about the decision. Banowsky was very clear that when CUSA compared the facilities and salaries of NT, La Tech and UTEP that UTEP was far ahead of either of us. And that was what convinced the member schools including those in the East to accept UTEP over La Tech and us. I don't know where the article is, but Banowsky was very clear on the reason. Yes, there was a master plan at NT, but no visible money to fund it. And no will at the time to get the money. SMU didn't block us from joining CUSA in 2005, bad decisions by our administration did. SMU was happy about the result, but they didn't block us.

So much to comment on here. First on SMU "blocking" us from the AAC. They don't have that kind of pull in the AAC. They didn't have that level of pull in CUSA either. The first time we were considered for CUSA SMU publicly wanted La Tech. But neither La Tech nor NT were chosen. But it wasn't because SMU did anything - our facilities and budgets were significantly lower than UTEPs and that's why UTEP was chosen. By the time CUSA was ready to expand again, we had improved both. Today, we still are behind in budgets to the AAC although we seem to be much closer and are close if not actually there in facilities. So, it's NOT SMU blocking us - we are doing it to ourselves! Next, when TCU joined the MWC they were given special adjustments for game start times. The MWC - specifically CSU, Wyoming and New Mexico (possibly some others as well) - have said they will NOT make that kind of deal in the future. Secondly, the schools in the Mountain division are very insistent about playing each other every year. That's why the MWC was formed in the first place! And before some starts with "if the TV dollars are enough they will," this is the conference discussing droping ESPN, Fox, et al because their fans hate mid-week games. Lastly, not sure what's meant by "better known teams" in the MWC. They might be better known in California, but not in DFW.

Welcome to the 21st century. Even high schools now play in domed stadiums.

The "evening games" refer to mid-week evening games. The MWC is actively discussing going all digital as a result - the TV money isn't enough to offset the ticket and donation losses.

I guess it's a function of where you live. I'm in Coppell and a had many neighbors say "Go Mean Green" on their evening walks although not a one of them actually went to NT.

IIRC, Aggy tried to say the battle flag was "desecrating the Texas flag." "Desecration" generally means to damage, destroy or mutilate a flag in public. Obviously, the battle flag does none of those things. Then there is the whole first amendment/freedom of speech thing. The battle flag was so obviously fine I'm not sure the AG bothered to even respond.

That's like to have a stronger negative effect on their recruiting that all the other things combined!

Best reaction to the article. It's a ranking survey of 8 people on the "best gameday experience." Nothing subjective in that evaluation, is there. Honestly Vito is the only one surveyed I've ever heard of. Also, gameday experience is NOT the same as best or nicest facility. It's where the fans had what the people taking the survey personally define as "best experience." Winning and losing has a huge effect on that, which is going to skew the results down for a number of places on that list. When the survey is opened up to more that the original eight, you notice very, very different results. When I voted this morning, Apogee was only 2 votes ahead of Kyle Field with both at less than half of what DKR is getting. TSU, Rice, UH and UTSA are all at less than 1% with Ford right at 1%.

Thanks to Google and Wikipedia ...

I believe he plans to stay here for a while. But, life happens. No one knows what the future brings. It's not just a function of money but also exactly what the offer is (school, position, money) and what's happening with his family at the time. Being a football coach is a nomadic profession, but a coaches personal and family life does play a factor.

I'm still amazed at the number of people who honestly believed Bob Tyler was going to be the next Hayden Fry. They based it solely on his having been a head coach who was fired from an SEC school. They ignored the fact he was fired over NCAA violations. Hayden had been fired by SMU because he had not turned them into a consistent winner after over a decade and the SMU people thought they'd given him enough time. A lot of the pro athletics people pushed really hard for Tyler despite the warnings from Mississippi State. I don't know the logic in rejecting Corky. I suspect it was "assistant without D1 head coaching experience" vs "an experienced D1 head coach." I read gripes about Seth's hire for the same reasons. Sometimes that up and coming assistant really IS better than the experienced head coach!

Excellent thought! There's no doubt twitter and social media have dramatically changed how college recruiting works. You only have to look at the number of schools with a dedicated person handling (read: CONTROLLING) their social media. It's all about getting through the noise. Does that mean we can't control the message going to our recruits, no it means we must work harder to get our message out to the recruits. It means coordinating a message across all contacts - phone calls, letters, emails, texts, twitter, facebook, snapchat and what ever else is coming along. I personally think the BEST way to do this enlist the help of our current players as they are closer to the process and at least know what channels got their attention and what messages they think will get through all of the other noise.

From what I understand, no school that applied for a waiver was accepted. Arkansas State got the farthest and were eventually turned down. Someone - I think Cincinnati - threatened to sue the NCAA and were granted 1A status. But no one else threatened and no one else got to stay 1A. Again, @Arkstfan knows more of these details and I have just read/heard them second and third hand. I might have confused Vandiver and Hurley on who stopped the dropping of football altogether. But I understand it was close.