Aquila_Viridis

The MWC geography is not comparable. I have been in favor of MWC for a long time if ever available to us. But short of that, I am not interested in being joined with TX State, Rice or any of those schools in Louisiana and MS and not NMSU either. I don't think there is long term upside in it. We have to look forward at what has potential to grow into something.

We need to be with one of the Miami schools, not both. OD and Charlotte are large metros; we should stary with them. But OD is spending a lot more than us; must be addressed. If we could have a steady group then there could be controls among the group to avoid breakaways on budget.

This 'regional rivals' is a terrible idea. If you want regional, go watch the HS games on Friday night. Small time. NT and others can find the money to play related opponents. stAte, not NT, should be in a conference with LT an USM. Here's 10 teams that make some sense together: UTEP, UTSA, NT, Salabama, UAB, MT, FAU, GA State, Charlotte and ODU.

The problem is we are not JUST WINNING. It doesn't just happen. There will not be many wins for '$ to follow', without more spending initially. This fantasy that the thing will grow itself is what has kept our program in the cellar for decades. The fact that we are not even competing consistently with these tiny universities even though spending some more money overall than they are, should say something. Maybe it's dilution; that athletics is not as big a part of the culture at NT as at those smaller schools. Whatever it is, instead of saying 'well we only have to spend $30 million to have a program at all, but not one that wins, so let's just spend $30 million', NT needs to accept that it must find a way to spend more. NT should not be trying to compete with tiny universities. It should be trying to compete with big universities. As for the student fee, I don't know what it is at NT or at other universities. I do know from the above that $250 more per semester would go a long way to closing the gap in our conference. In that case, then the size SHOULD be an advantage. We have more people to spread it around on, so no one bears too much. Again, wherever you try go get the money from, they need to understand WHY. I agree with this to some extent but honestly when I think of fundraising, it is as more of a Development function. Promotions is important, to build connection with the community, and should bring money from attendance, but that at first will only get a drop of what is needed. What we need must be executed like a fundraising campaign. I don't necessarily think of that as an athletic department function or expertise.

Full-time Undergraduates Athletic Expenses Ath $ per FTU Florida 30,314 $125,384,443 $4,136 LT 6,585 $21,849,418 $3,318 Marshall 8,268 $27,397,209 $3,313 OD 15,102 $42,780,118 $2,832 USM 10,841 $24,546,909 $2,264 WK 13,382 $30,212,548 $2,257 Chattanooga 9,066 $17,359,207 $1,914 FA 15,891 $29,794,361 $1,874 MT 17,381 $31,671,166 $1,822 Charlotte 18,309 $28,573,920 $1,560 NT 23,669 $31,268,741 $1,321 UTSA 20,033 $26,177,864 $1,306 FTU #s are from US News 2015. Expense $ are from USA Today 2014-2015 Finances page. I used to think that NT's enormous size is an advantage, but I have come to realize that it's only a potential advantage in the long run. With our current obesity, it is a huge disadvantage and challenge in the near term. Look at it this way: if a really big fat guy (that's us) and a somewhat out of shape small guy half his weight, lose the same absolute number of pounds, the small guy is still going to beat the big guy bad in a race. Only when the big guy loses twice (or more) as much weight are his long legs going to help him win the race. In the situation above, losing weight means spending money. Universities love to benchmark. Above is a benchmarking exercise that shows how woefully underfunded NT leadership has allowed NT athletics to be. It is a serious disservice to the students, alumni and community, because the results of the major sports on the fields, courts and TV sets all say that NT is a crap university. That is not true, and people need to know it. For now, this September, I expect as usual that we'll be announcing to the 20 million people in the state Florida that the U of NT is a joke. I'll make a score prediction based on it: 41-13. In the column on the right above you can see exactly how bad it is. I threw in our upcoming P5 powerhouse opponent and FCS Chattanooga, home of the Mocs, to give a broader sense of scale than just some of our conference foes. Not only do we have no hope of competing against Florida; based on this, I'd wager we would not compete consistently against Chattanooga or several other FCS teams. If we are going to stay at this terrible level of funding, we need to be somewhere where we don't have to play the other teams in the top half of this list. Instead, I sincerely hope our institution's leaders would commit to getting competitive in the ratio on the right. And they can't just put it off on the many apathetic alumni. We few who do already care, need the university to take leadership to address this funding issue. They and their staffs can do far more about it in their day jobs than we few can. Most people who are 'apathetic' are that way because they have never been approached by the university on a specific basis about this and told what a major problem there is and why and what needs to be done about it. A coaching change, an AD change by themselves will not do it alone. I know all public universities are facing budget challenges, but hardly any other schools are finding less money for their athletics programs on a per capita basis. At a minimum, NT leadership must find a way to match FCS Chattanooga, or the major sports will continue to struggle. A more reasonable goal would be to double the current amount. Imagine where NT would be with that! So yes, it is - objectively, based on benchmarking - reasonable to expect, that our athletic budget should be $60,000,000 per year. Obviously that's not going to come from TV or the NCAA or from 17 people. NT leadership has to get out there and find it from thousands of people and businesses in the North Texas region and from internal reallocation. It's not easy, but the results will be worth it many times over. It is time for NT leaders and staff to pound the pavement and beg for money, in a very specific way with explanation (not just 'we need money'), and to find a part of it by reprioritizing from some programs that have enjoyed relative overfunding. If the current leaders (the regents and the politicians included) are not willing to take and require such measures, then out they should all go.

That is not lost on me and it is one of the reasons I have any hope left.

Getting our house in order has a lot to do with who we are regularly playing. Our current slate of opponents, including the stupid games against P5 powerhouses, does not lend itself to getting our house in order. Some of the opponents are good for us, but those are the exceptions not the rule. Though as I've mentioned, finding opponents who are good for us - and again this is based on assumption of continuing our long-standing proportionally extraordinarily low level of institutional commitment - is very hard to do.

I for one will say I had no idea what you meant about him beating a drum like 90. I know what drum 90 was beating. Likewise, i note the qualification in the statement above but nonetheless I do not understand what you mean by that, and accordingly would have to disagree with the statement at this point.

It will only matter who is in that job if his superiors seriously care, as a key institutional goal, whether he succeeds. Changing AD was sort of like the stadium in that it was something that should have happened a long time ago. We've had a new stadium for years but they haven't seemed to care whether there's anyone in it. At this point I view the AD change exactly the same. So, no; it provides a possibility at least, but a lot more needs to be done than making the change at AD.

Their budget is much more. They have built strong support for basketball over years.

Yeh but their existing stadium architecture is whack. Whatever they are doing is better than what we're doing because there is a level of commitment well beyond ours. That could change of course but I gave up hoping for that. I think they are serious about getting in AAC.

Well I have to take UAB and Saladbama off my list. Those schools are tiny too. Nationwide, large urban public universities that have such a proportionally miniscule approach to athletics as NT (but do have a football team of some sort) are very very rare.

New AD will succeed only if higher ups REALLY want him to succeed. What makes you think there has been a change of heart?

No not so much. stAte and Salabama for example. Anyway no I am not too interested in most past or current Belt members. From the current Belt I would take GA State and Salabama. I know you're groaning because of the proud tradition of the 3 mentioned above (and I am only being about half sarcastic about that cause they do have something) but unless after decades NT is finally going to go All In on athletics - and I am doubting that, then we have to come up with an entire different mindset. That means codgering together a different league of schools who share a common vision and institutional goals. I will call it the Urban Stoner League of which we should expect to usually be in the top half. Maybe a San Jose State for example would want to join. On the other hand, by going All In, I don't mean they are going to pour additional state or student money. I mean that they make public statements about a serious goal of consistently winning soon against high level opponents and a commitment to get people working on developing a broad base of other support for the program, that can achieve a budget that will enable such winning. I have never heard any such thing from NT. I don't expect to. The LTs and USMs, Marshall and stAte etc have a higher relative commitment to their programs. They are tiny schools by comparison. But the athletics is a much bigger percent of their whole being. Hanging with that type crowd with our big stoner mindset is not working out. It will not work out in the long run without a basic change in institutional mindset. So right now I see us on a path to nowhere.

No I don't miss the Fun Belt and in the near term I don't care about attendance. I care about winning, alot. I also care about playing against schools that are near decent airports for example, not ones who can kill it on a low budget and enjoy support cause there's nothing else going on there.

I agree. It should be the TailZone. Also that sounds like a zone I'd like to be in.

This thread is certainly built for the future, or more likely, an alternate universe altogether. I like to roam around during the game and the top of the Zone is always included. Until there is some progress though, I won't be seeing that for a while.

Screw WacKy. They and Marshall should form a 2-team conference of crappy schools in the middle of nowhere. We should not be in a conference with them. They can have LT and SO Miss too.

If the paid games from big conference schools are a financial necessity, then something has to fundamentally change so that it is not a necessity. One thing, it is reasonable to expect the NT decision-makers to get committed to finding more money for the athletics program, through means other than these paid games. When you compare how very large NT is to most other schools, it is absolutely sad that NT is being outspent or matched by tiny schools. Setting that aside, while I know that getting people in the stadium will raise some funds, realistically I don't see that being a substantial source because .... ... let's say that NT decision-makers are committed to remaining laughably small-time despite NT's huge size. I can live with that. I can live with small 'crowds' in the stadium. I can live with playing opponents who have almost no tradition or recognition. What I can't live with is losing so many %^&*# games year after year. Do a campaign to raise funds to get out of the contractual commitments. Figure out a way to put together a program that regularly plays opponents it will beat; not all of them, but most of them. Maybe it seems hard to do, but there are universities out there doing it. Study and learn from them. It seems like NT has no ability or willingness to tackle this problem. That means there is terrible guidance and leadership; letting this disaster drag on for decades. I feel like the place is being held hostage by lazy idiots and only a few people care. It really is a chicken/egg problem. At least the airplane-delivered terrorist kite of hate speech went to raise awareness. I feel like there needs to be more attention-grabbing events like that so maybe some more people will understand the injustice that is going on down there. You guys are talking about stuff that ain't gonna happen like P5s often in the stadium, and about SMU; I don't give a damn about them, it's a much better university and has all kind of money and is not relevant to us. SMU is an easy distraction; don't fall for it. Getting people in the stadium (to see what, another NT lopsided loss??) is the least of our worries. Meanwhile the more immediate issue is that you have people over there bending ears saying stuff like 'This is a financial necessity'. GTFOOD!

This doesn't fire me up. I am more concerned about changing - mostly, but not altogether - the set of schools we play every year. That means these conferences need to be reconstituted and shrunk. At first I thought S. Miss, LT and Rice were good for us, but now I think there is not much future in it. I never thought UTEP was good for us, and initially I didn't think UTSA was good for us but now they're the only one I want from our division. Unfortunately, in our budget range we are rather unique. That is why there are two of the schools from Miami in the conference. That is a crappy conference. I would hope that with collaboration (and synergy!) there is another solution. Because of our uniqueness, we really have to rethink what we are trying to accomplish with the program. Getting to one of these type bowl games should not be a primary concern anymore. Our primary concerns should be consistently winning most of the games we play every year and building consistency in annual match-ups against a set of somewhat comparable opponents (MT is a good example, should be on schedule every year). For the most part I don't think our current set of recurring opponents has much long-term potential, and the idea of swapping some out across divisions each year is the opposite of what we need.

Among other things, if they want to keep playing football they should have to dismantle their new football chapel and use the materials to build facilities for people in need.

Selective viewing.

This is a landmark deal. It put a mark on the land where our conference got shown the TV door.

We can only hope that they are tired of looking like idiots so that they would not consider someone from such failure of a department. It would be one thing to promote from within if RV was leaving for a better job, or being promoted, because of success. That is the opposite of what is happening, so promoting from within would be ludicrous and tragic.

I should not have to point out that this would be the WRONG time to cast aspersions on the banner or on the primary, determined and now successful champion of it and of a cause that desperately needed to happen.