Aquila_Viridis

Maybe he is comparing us to the band The Cult. I'll take it.

3 of 14 on third down. Got to do better.

I had to move back to Tennessee and thus had to drive 7 hours back, so am late to post my observations on Saturday night's game. I knew Troy would be a competitive game. They played MS State close the week before. None of the other Sun Belt schools are standing still. We should not take any of them for granted. The reality is our collective level of commitment is hardly enough to keep pace with them. We aren't going to separate from them significantly in terms of quality anytime soon. EVERY win is hard-earned. You may as well come out to the games every chance you get, realize sometimes they're gonna lose, not get too worked up about a tough loss, and be really really happy if you get to see them win. Now that said, I don't understand some of the performances against Troy. Practicing and playing football is a big part of these players' lives, so why do we see in one game so many poor throws, missed kicks and defensive backs not looking for the ball? The ball is a pretty important part of the game. It is in fact 50% of the name of the game. So it seems elementary that knowing where the ball is, must be crucial to success, especially if your role is to prevent someone else from getting it. I would not want to be a defensive back. It is risky and difficult and there is more potential downside than upside. I do not envy anyone in that position. But if one finds themself in that position, the best you can do is avoid the downside, and the way to do that is look for the ball. I would not want to be a kicker either but actually there is a lot of opportunity. I don't buy the headcase thing. Practice makes perfect, well a LOT of practice. It would be great to be a quarterback but wow a lot of things have to come together. I never understand why so many soccer players kick the ball over the goal. That is one sure way to not score a goal. I was reminded of this seeing passes going way too high. It is a great way to throw an interception. We were fortunate in that regard. Still, Saturday night's result would not cause me not to make the trip again. A Tuesday night game though, that is a bit of a problem!

Tough crowd. I like the 'no excuses' mentality but this opponent scored more than 50 points in each of the last 2 games, and one of those was Miami FL. Two weeks ago I said I was happy for NT to be at the same level as Virginia (where I went after graduating from NT). This week NT would beat the crap out of them. When I am pretty sure NT would dominate ACC teams, at this point I am really happy with that. Some of our forthcoming opponents have hung tough and even beaten SEC teams. It will be really interesting to see how we do against them. It won't be easy but there are a lot of encouraging signs.

Yikes! I would like to know the search terms that produced that image. Or was that from your private collection? On second thought, maybe it's best not to know!

Good thing you corrected that Arkansas dude. That way he won't tell it wrong to the chicken he's doing.

It would have been awesome if NT did some things differently years ago and then at this time we could expect to do better against an LSU. That didn't happen so there's no use bellyaching about the score. LSU can get about any giant, fast, intense player they want, at every position. As a result, it could have been a lot worse, against our team or any other at our current level. LSU is comparable to Alabama. Look what they did to Michigan. I am happy to say we are at the same level as Michigan this week. I watched Virginia play. They wouldn't have fared any better. I am happy to say we are at their level this week. The highlight of this game for me was when LSU broke a long run, the one where that ahole LSU receiver got his cheap shot block, and still 2 or 3 other Mean Green ran that back down and I think LSU got no points on that drive. That was heart and pride and it made me proud. We have a player who can run loose in a top SEC defense. Our QB made good decisions. You try executing with those monsters coming at you. As many know, I will be among the first to rain on the parade, but NOT after this effort!

No question that Texas State is getting people there. They always will. But for a certain caliber of students there IS competition between institutions, and from what I can observe directly, UTSA is beating Texas State in that competition. If it is the transfer opportunity, then - back to the original point - that is an opportunity that UTA offers also. To the extent that UTA begins to offer other amenities then UNT could see an impact in the caliber of students it could attract. My point is that the UT System uses these subsidiary campuses to make such gains which come directly at the expense of institutions such as Texas State and UNT. These can be either in the athletic realm or the academic, and I believe that for many reasons, gains in either one of those realms results in gains in the other.

Open your eyes, Neo, and see the Matrix for what it truly is. In a constrained economy, the UT System must make choices about where it can allocate resources. Our poor cousin Texas State is in the backyard of the University of Central Texas (i.e. UT Austin). Thus you see dramatic developments for UTSA. When the economy opens up, the system will leverage its vast resources more liberally, and you will see all kinds of exciting developments for old UTA. They will not pass us by, but they will be there to dilute us in important ways. I have personally observed the effect on Texas State. I have a graduating senior at the very challenging Westlake HS here in Austin. The 'top 10%' practice has kept many excellent students but who are in the middle of the class at this school, out of the UCT and even A&M. Most do not want to go to Tech or Houston or pay for private school, so in droves they are going down to UTSA. Would they even consider Texas State? No. Unfortunately my student has elected to attend at the capital of the Evil Empire. (Nothing would stop the Matrix from incorporating other elements of human pop culture so lay off.) It greatly pains me to send money there but that is his decision. Ironically I see this as a tactic of rebellion. On a nearly unrelated note, there were several positive mentions of UNT at the Senior awards ceremony last night. You will be aghast to know however, that one older gentleman did refer to us as North Texas State.

This is an exciting change for me. I previously supported Lafayatte's ascension to the one true University of Louisiana and the demise of ULM. Now I hope they both mire together forever in the branding swamp that the Louisiana legislature made for them. Now I'll get a kick out of every time ESPN lists them as UL Laf. 'You'll laugh.'

Being in a conference with a quality program like USM is a key benefit of this move. I hope y'all stick around.

That is ridiculous. We had regional rivals as a member of the Southland Conference. Those were not big crowds. I was there.

Thank you for getting us out of the Sun Belt.

Apparently not. I seemed to be the only one who thought it was a good idea. I have to say, I was in favor of CUSA until they asked UTSA and made us look like an also-ran and then added ODU to the list. After that I can't imagine there was actually a MW invite available cause if there was and our people had any pride they'd have gone that way instead. I can't describe to you how happy I would be if tomorrow they came out and said 'suck it CUSA, we're going west'. As it is, no amount of fanfare is going to make a CUSA announcement exciting for me under the circumstances. Remember this is the CUSA that does NOT have Memphis, SMU or Houston. Big deal.

That is the hazard of hanging around the opponent's board. And you could beat us a hundred times and it is not going to do anything for you. People are still going to go 'Florida WHAT?' It'll work well for your mens' soccer team though. At least you have one!

Not even true but so what if it was? If you rank each program by general recognizability and respectability (on a scale 1-5 with 5 the best) I see it as 25-19 in favor of MW. Sounds close but that's over 30% difference. Plus CUSA would have 'Florida International'. What does that even mean? They may as well have named it Florida Whimsical.

Are you insinuating that the actualities of college football conferences move faster than our bureaucracy?!

No what failed them is not having PUF $$ that UT System institutions have. We should not make the conference of UT System droppings better by joining it. Austin will make sure those programs in SA and EP never rise farther than they need to in order to help choke the likes of us.

MWC Air Force Colorado State Wyoming Nevada UNLV Fresno State New Mexico Utah State San Jose State Hawaii CUSA Rice Louisiana Tech Tulane Tulsa Southern Miss UTSA UAB ECU UTEP FIU I agree there are some particular desirables on the CUSA list, but overall the MW is a better list.

Interest of a few in attending away games is not going to make a difference how NT is perceived. And right, either one is going to have some junk, but the New CUSA has a large proportion of junk. But even Utah State, I have seen their stadium full on TV in recent years. The MWC did well for TCU, though certainly TCU did a great job of leveraging the opportunities there. If you list the teams that will be in either conference, the MWC is a better-looking list to be on. And if it's of any interest to you, when I read about how CUSA responded to the UT System's reaction to poor ol UTSA's plight, for some reason I got the same feeling I did when they announced Todd Dodge and I was DAMN right about that.

Old Dominion is the Texas State of Virginia. UTSA, ODU, FIU, MT .... this is not exciting. Please please Lord, deliver us from this and put us in the MWC.

This is a totem pole. The ones below can only move up if we move down. Is that what you want?

No. Hopefully it means we go replace TCU in MWC. That stuff about an inside job sounds like the kind of thing that could happen here too. However I am hopeful that our administrators are keeping clear of the UT (Texas not Tennessee) influence.

Great. We would be joining a conference that is beholden to the UT System. That would not go well.

On the other hand it kind of shows you where Marshall U stands in the mind of the common man. As someone who attended 2 years of Jr. High in Marshall TX, I can only hope that the Marshall U's approach to education is diffurnt. (OK OK it wasn't really so bad and there are truly some super nice people over there.)