MeanGreen61

Now that's cruel

Tell me the folks on this board don't need a REAL football fix !

From College Football News http://www.collegefootballnews.com/2005/Bo...s/BowlDates.htm Nuttin' but da facts http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/champio...ns_sunbelt.html

Losing to the MUTS wouldn't keep us from another title if we won the remaining six. The MUTS will lose at least two in conference.

Oh please ! Now you're making excuses.

The truth sure does hurt Tech if these are some of the 'studs" that led the vaunted Bulldog defense last year that gave up over 31 points, 407+ yards total offense and 176+ yards rushing per game? WOW, now that's impressive

Tickets renewed, donation in

O-N-E since you gotta ask. How long had it been since we'd been in a bowl game when we went in '01 ? Look it up.

3 since '02 but it is conference wins that's gotten us to bowl games isn't it?

Internet rumor .... Was one of DD's "under the radar" recruits at the beach this past weekend?

Maybe the new track location at the athletic village will still be called Fouts.

Bank leaves Fort Worth Bowl By WENDELL BARNHOUSE STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER There will be a Year Three of the Fort Worth Bowl. It just won't have PlainsCapital as its corporate sponsor. Tom Starr, executive director of the bowl, confirmed late Thursday afternoon that PlainsCapital had declined to exercise its option to sponsor the game for a third year. PlainsCapital, a bank founded in Lubbock which has expanded to the Metroplex, had a two-year sponsorship contract with an option for a third year. Starr said that the lack of a corporate sponsor would not prevent this year's game from being played. It's scheduled for Dec. 23 at Amon G. Carter Stadium. "The first year was great but last year was a failure," said Alan White, PlainsCapital Corp. president and CEO. "We didn't want to be involved and not have some teams to attract some people. It's as simple as that. "ESPN and the city of Fort Worth did everything they could do, but for us it just didn't work." The Fort Worth Bowl attempts to match teams from the Big 12 Conference and Conference USA. However, the bowl has yet to have a Big 12 team and White said that was a major reason his bank decided to drop out. ESPN and the Fort Worth Bowl have been negotiating with the Big 12 to move up in the conference's selection order, but have been unsuccessful. The first year of the Fort Worth Bowl featured TCU playing Boise State. That game drew 38,028. However, Year Two was hindered by frigid weather -- a wind chill of 17 degrees -- and a matchup between Cincinnati and Marshall. That game drew an announced crowd of 13,204. PlainsCapital's decision to drop out as sponsor was not a surprise to the Fort Worth Bowl. PlainsCapital was scheduled to make its decision on the option year in March and the negotiation period was extended for three months. The Fort Worth Bowl is owned by ESPN Regional television. Pete Derzis, senior vice president of ESPN Regional Television, praised PlainsCapital for the "energy and enthusiasm" it brought in helping the Fort Worth Bowl get off the ground. "Their sponsorship was a great marketing tool for them as they entered the Fort Worth/Dallas area," Derzis said. "But marketing strategies change." Starr and Derzis said the search for a new corporate sponsor has already started. Derzis said he was on the phone with contacts Thursday in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. "We're actively looking for another corporate sponsor," Starr said. "The money from a title sponsor is key. ... ESPN Regional has sales departments in every major city. They've got a lot of tentacles out there." IN THE KNOW Fort Worth Bowl The brief history of the Fort Worth Bowl: Date Result Att. 2003 Boise St. 34 TCU 31 38,028 2004 Cincinnati 32 Marshall 14 13,204

Careful.........or we might send KILLER after ya

Paris Hilton after trying to figure out this thread

Massey Composite pre-season rankings is now open. Only 8 rankers so far, but here's the results. #81 Troy #84 North Texas #97 MUTS #102 Florida Atlantic #106 ULM #108 ULL #116 Arkansas State #119 FLorida International Other of interest: #5 LSU #41 Kansas State #75 Louisiana Tech #92 Tulsa http://www.mratings.com/cf/compare.htm

You're a funny, funny guy. Thanks for the laugh!

Houston Chronicle's take on TCU's move to the MWC http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/s...college/3255853 July 7, 2005, 1:25AM There's a method to TCU's madness Eschewing rivals to join far-flung Mountain West serves to advance Frogs' ambitions By TERRANCE HARRIS Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE Eight Conference USA schools are closer to TCU than the nearest one in the Mountain West. The approximate distances from TCU to schools in each league: C-USA Miles Mountain West Miles SMU 40 New Mexico 629 Houston 266 Air Force 720 Rice 266 Colorado State 932 Tulsa 310 Wyoming 1,014 Memphis 496 UNLV 1,195 Southern Miss. 525 BYU 1,203 Tulane 555 Utah 1,251 UTEP 609 San Diego State 1,321 Eric Hyman has little use for dispelling rumors. But the former TCU athletic director wants it clear the decision to move the Horned Frogs to their fourth conference in a decade was not about SMU or the desire not be realigned with their Metroplex partner. Instead, the jump from Conference USA to the Mountain West Conference had everything to do with the private school's desire to be a player on the national stage. The Horned Frogs officially made the leap Friday, the same day Hyman was breaking in his new office as athletic director at South Carolina. "Not one time did we make a decision based on what SMU was doing," said Hyman, who spent nearly eight years as athletic director at TCU. "It had nothing to do with SMU. "If you go back to the goals and objectives of what TCU laid out several years ago, they wanted to be a nationally prominent program. What we tried to do is build a road map to try to achieve those objectives." Goodbye, C-USA In the minds of the decision makers at TCU, that meant changing conferences for a third time since the Southwest Conference disbanded in 1996. That meant forging a partnership with eight universities that met secretly and decided to break away from TCU and the rest of the Western Athletic Conference in 1998. That ultimately meant exiting C-USA, a league whose realignment would have placed TCU and its fans within driving distance of natural rivalries such as SMU, Rice, Houston, Tulsa and even Tulane in the new West Division. Now, the Frogs will have to wait for rivalries to be born at a distance against New Mexico, BYU, Utah, UNLV, San Diego State, Colorado State, Wyoming and Air Force. It's a scenario that has some puzzled. "We wish the TCU people the best moving forward, though we are still scratching our heads a little bit over their decision making," C-USA commissioner Britton Bankowsky said. "But nevertheless we respect it." Officials at TCU aren't looking back. Instead they are looking to the future and the possibility that one day the Mountain West will become a player in the exclusive club known as the Bowl Championship Series. The league realized a mild breakthrough after last season when undefeated Utah became the first non-BCS school to earn a berth into a lucrative BCS game — the Fiesta Bowl — in January. Before then, BCS leagues Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10, ACC, SEC and Big East along with Notre Dame had kept the invites to their four bowls to themselves. TCU had its chance to be the groundbreaker on the non-BCS front in 2003, but an undefeated season and BCS hopes were derailed by a late-season loss to C-USA foe Southern Mississipi. The Frogs finished the campaign 11-2 after a loss to Boise State in the Fort Worth Bowl. "This (the move to the Mountain West) places us with a conference that has made unbelievable progress in a short period of time," said new TCU athletic director Danny Morrison, who has been on the job for nearly three weeks after leaving his post as commissioner of the Southern Conference. "It has outstanding schools, both athletically and academically, and it's well-positioned nationally for a BCS berth. "That is a credit to the institutions that make up the Mountain West Conference." Doing the math Still, there is no getting around how far TCU seems willing to go to achieve its goal of being a player in big-time college athletics. In addition to the absence of any natural rivalries, the Frogs likely will incur significant cost increases in travel to MWC schools for its 19 teams. New Mexico will be the closest member school at an estimated distance of 629 miles from the TCU campus in Fort Worth, while the swings to schools such as San Diego State, Utah, BYU, UNLV and Wyoming will all exceed 1,000 miles. Hyman said he hired an accountant to do the math on how much more travel would cost in the MWC than the old single-division version of C-USA, which could include trips to places such as South Florida, Charlotte, Louisville and East Carolina. The increased expense came to less than $200,000 annually. "You would be surprised when you look at it," Hyman said. "The difference really wasn't that significant." And MWC commissioner Craig Thompson vows that what difference there is should be more than made up for through increased revenues generated by conference members. This past year, Thompson said his league had a record-base distribution of $2.6 million to each member school. TCU, which has had 10 wins or more in three of the last four seasons, opens fertile Texas recruiting ground for MWC schools and also brings in the lucrative Dallas-Fort Worth television market. MWC is wasting little time taking advantage, putting the Horned Frogs-Utah matchup in front of an ESPN viewing audience in their inaugural MWC game Sept. 15. "Hopefully, we are going to be generating new revenues that are going to effectively eat up any travel cost," Thompson said. "It is going to be more expensive because there is no getting in a 15-passenger van and drive over here." 'West-oriented' As far as the eroding of rivalries, Hyman simply shrugs off that notion. "I'm not trying to be disrespectful to any schools, but nobody had ever heard of some of the schools like East Carolina and South Florida," Hyman said. "But everybody is familiar with Utah, BYU and Air Force and all of the others." He says that school officials studied home attendance records the past several years and found little difference when the MWC schools came to visit versus the C-USA programs and the Frogs' so-called natural rivals, including SMU. "The mindset (at TCU) is West-oriented," Hyman said. "If you look at some of the attendance (of some C-USA opponents), it would surprise you. It's not what you thought it would be, and I've got 20 years of factual numbers. "I know when we go to SMU, we sell a ton of tickets. But when they come to our place, they don't sell as much. It's great for the Metroplex and great visibility for both schools, so we always want to continue to play them." And that TCU will do, keeping SMU on the schedule consistently for the next several years, with this season an exception. Not like OU vs. UT All those close to the situation seem to agree that TCU's shifts, while perhaps unorthodox, do not appear to have anything to do with distancing TCU from SMU. Both entered the WAC in 1996, and both were expected to jump to C-USA as a pair, but SMU did not receive the invitation. "I don't sense that their decision was a function of them not wanting to be in the same configuration as a particular university," Banowsky said. While Hyman certainly concurs, he also suggests that the rivalry isn't as heated as some might have been led to believe. "It's a great game, but it's not like a rivalry like Texas versus Texas A&M or Texas versus Oklahoma," Hyman said. "I would have loved to see more passion in that rivalry. It's passionate but not the extent you would like to have." terrance.harris@chron.com

Everybody seems to have annual predictions. College Football Poll has been fairly accurate in predicting NT' seasons since we've been 1A. 6 correct, 2 1-game off, 2 2-games off. They haven't posted this year yet, but here's last year's predictions/finishes for Sun Belt schools. Pre-season Predictions/Actual finish #24 UNT (9-2) #57 (7-5) #53 Troy (7-4) #53 (7-5) #72 MTSU (6-5) #82 (5-6) #80 ULL (5-6) #97 (4-7) #105 ASU (2-9) #103 (3-8) #106 ULM (2-9) #90 (5-6) Scroll down to projected/opening 2004 rankings http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/season_preview.html

Well you may not like it, but it has worked well enough to get us 4 straight bowl games.

Sorry Deep, I just couldn't resist

Season ticket holders don't hafta sit in another zip code

We beat LaMo here by at least 10. They play us tough in their house, last 2 games a 2 point difference. Here it's been a different story....and the game is here!