The Fake Lonnie Finch

Even Western Kentucky, who has only been in the conference four seasons, has two winning seasons - building off of David Elson's 0-12 beginning in 2009. Eight years, we're the only Sun Belt school without even a non-losing season. Was our cupboard any more bare than schools that were 0-12 at points, like FIU and WKU? Our facilities any crappier than those schools? I'm sad to say, that we are one of only four programs without at least a non-losing season in the last eight. Our Fraternity of Suck includes: UNLV, New Mexico State, and Tulane. Every other program has managed to squeeze out at least one non-losing season over the past eight. So, it's a race - who will be the last to suck? The odds don't favor us: -UNLV is sticking with Bobby Hauck despite three consecutive 2-win seasons. I guess the Rebels figure winning is never going to come. -New Mexico State has retianed Dewayne Walker after a 1-11 season, his fourth consecutive losing season in a row, and the school's 10th. After winning four games in 2011, Walker was given a three-year extension! Telling quotes about the state of New Mexico State football: "There's no way there will be a buyout," said Bob Porter, an Aggie basketball player from 1948-51 who remains a loyal supporter of the athletics program to this day. "He's here as long as he wants." NMSU Athletics Director McKinley Boston said when Walker was initially hired, his assignment was the bring together the locker room and make the Aggies a unified team, which Boston deemed accomplished. ... "When players are going to class, getting good grades, no social-misconduct issues and we're showing improvements, those are things that are important that you look for." No one sets the bar lower than New Mexico State. No one, I say! I mean, who really expects players to able to win and go to class? I can't for the life of me figure out why they didn't make a run at Todd Dodge at least as OC. -Tulane's Curtis Johnson just finished his first season as head coach at 2-10. The guy was a position coach with no coordinator experience when hired. Look for this to go the way of Colorado's similar experiment with Jon Embree and OU's with John Blake. Of the four other 8 year (minimum) suck schools, we have the best odds of finally turning in a non-losing season. Anyone know if Vegas will set odds? That's one bet you can put your money on us to win!

Arkansas State: 2 winning seasons, 5 non-losing seasons 2005: 6-6, Steve Roberts 2006: 6-6, Steve Roberts 2007: 5-7, Steve Roberts 2008: 6-6, Steve Roberts 2009: 4-8, Steve Roberts 2010: 4-8, Steve Roberts 2011: 10-3, Hugh Freeze / David Gunn 2012: 9-3, Gus Malzahn / John Thompson Florida Atlantic: 2 winning seasons 2005: 2-9, Howard Schnellenberger 2006: 5-7, Howard Schnellenberger 2007: 8-5, Howard Schnellenberger 2008: 7-6, Howard Schnellenberger 2009: 5-7, Howard Schnellenberger 2010: 4-8, Howard Schnellenberger 2011: 1-11, Howard Schnellenberger 2012: 3-9, Carl Pelini Florida International: 2 winning seasons 2005: 5-6, Don Strock 2006: 0-12, Don Strock 2007: 1-11, Mario Cristobal 2008: 5-7, Mario Cristobal 2009: 3-9, Mario Cristobal 2010: 7-6, Mario Cristobal 2011: 8-5, Mario Cristobal 2012: 3-9, Mario Cristobal Louisiana: 3 winning seasons, 6 non-losing seasons 2005: 6-5, Ricky Bustle 2006: 6-6, Ricky Bustle 2007: 3-9, Ricky Bustle 2008: 6-6, Ricky Bustle 2009: 6-6, Ricky Bustle 2010: 3-9, Ricky Bustle 2011: 9-4, Mark Hudspeth 2012: 8-4, Mark Hudspeth ULM: 1 winning season, 3 non-losing seasons 2005: 5-6, Charlie Weatherbee 2006: 4-8, Charlie Weatherbee 2007: 6-6, Charlie Weatherbee 2008: 4-8, Charlie Weatherbee 2009: 6-6, Charlie Weatherbee 2010: 5-7, Todd Berry 2011: 4-8, Todd Berry 2012: 8-4, Todd Berry Middle Tennessee: 3 winning seasons 2005: 4-7, Andy McCollum 2006: 7-6, Rick Stockstill 2007: 5-7, Rick Stockstill 2008: 5-7, Rick Stockstill 2009: 10-3, Rick Stockstill 2010: 6-7, Rick Stockstill 2011: 2-10, Rick Stockstill 2012: 8-4, Rick Stockstill North Texas: 0 winning seasons, 0 non-losing seasons 2005: 2-9, Darrell Dickey 2006: 3-9, Darrell Dickey 2007: 2-10, Todd Dodge 2008: 1-11, Todd Dodge 2009: 2-10, Todd Dodge 2010: 3-9, Todd Dodge / Mike Canales 2011: 5-7, Dan McCarney 2012: 4-8, Dan McCarney Troy: 5 winning seasons 2005: 4-7, Larry Blakeney 2006: 8-5, Larry Blakeney 2007: 8-4, Larry Blakeney 2008: 8-5, Larry Blakeney 2009: 9-4, Larry Blakeney 2010: 8-5, Larry Blakeney 2011: 3-9, Larry Blakeney 2012: 5-7, Larry Blakeney Western Kentucky: 2 winning seasons 2009: 0-12, David Elson 2010: 2-10, Willie Taggart 2011: 7-5, Willie Taggart 2012: 7-5, Willie Taggart / Lance Guidry

Yes. This pretty much says it all. I think Rick deserved a bust for getting Apogee built. But, at some point the wins have got to come. Digging out of holes...many coaches have dug out of holes as bad or worse than we have either after Dickey or Dodge. The winning really does have to start next year. I don't see what good another 4-8 or 5-7 will do for us. I know this gets tired - hearing and saying - but, good lord, Tulsa was on the verge of going FCS after going 2-21 in 2001 and 2002. Kragthorpe did it in one year...one year with a roster full of the same players that had gone 1-10 and 1-11 the previous to season. Plus, the starting QB left after 200s and transferred to OU...to play baseball. So, he did it breaking in a new QB on top of having a "bare cupboard" and "crappy stadium" and "little administrative support" and "no fan base." I can assure you that the 2002 Tulsa-UTEP game drew no more than 200 live butts in seats. I don't care what the "paid attendance" was. Area junior highs were outdrawing Tulsa at that point. We were in the dadgum Sun Belt conference and just had our 8th straight losing season. I mean, come on. Every other school in the Belt, coaching changes or not, has had a winning season or two in those 8 seasons, but not us? It's got to stop. The excuses have to stop. The winning has to come. Otherwise, we and Eastern Michigan really are just the University of Perpetual Football Sucking.

Also, I'll admit to not being impressed with the schools we seem to be "winning" recruits from. However, I will say that our OL coach is doing one heck of a job getting underclassmen ready to compete. So, I'm not as concerned at getting a JUCO OL at the expense of Central Arkansas and Grambling as I would be a WR.

WAC had basically no limit on the number of partial qualifiers you could take until five or so seasons ago. So, if a kid in California couldn't make grades or test scores, he was snapped up by Fresno State or Boise State. Under pressure from the NCAA, WAC tuned their recruiting rules to basically fit the other conferences. Fresno State lost their momentum at that point. Boise hasn't lost theirs. But, they aren't news the way they were when those non-qualifiers were still on campus. June Jones whining about Fresno and their taking on partial-qualifiers back in the day: http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/Aug/10/sp/sp02a.html Boise did the same until the WAC cracked down. They handled the momentum they gained off of it better than Fresno. But, it's not tough to remember those 2000 - 2002 years when Fresno State was the talk of the non-BCS town.

http://travel.southwest.com/travel/destinationDetails.html?cityName=San+Jose http://travel.southwest.com/travel/destinationDetails.html?cityName=Reno Hmmm...weekend in Reno/Tahoe...weekend in Rustin? I like the sound of us in the MWC. I'm dreaming like Samuel Taylor Coleridge on an opium trip; but, I like the sound of it.

Peculiar...it's an engineering school. Also peculiar is their endowment...817 million. UNT's, I believe is just over 100 million. I'm telling you. There is money at TU.

AD at Cincy was at Auburn when Tuberville was the coach. When Cincy coach was hired away, ol' boy called Tuberville. And, after what happened to Cristobal, why not leave? Schools will fire a coach.

Sell alcohol at Apogee. Sell dope, too. We need all the drunk and stoned drivers we can get on the road. The safety of the general public be damned; drunks and burners gotta have their fixes.

TW Blog on TU's AD search and Big East vs. C-USA vs. MWC conundrum. As mentioned earlier, he throws in basketball RPI. Tulsa is little, weird...and basketball is important to them. I'm just sayin...when I was there and they were in the midst of going 1-10 and 1-11 in 2001 and 2002, they were seriously talking about dropping football to I-AA or dropping it altogether and concentrating on becoming Gonzaga-like. It's a weird, weird, little school, you guys. http://www.tulsaworld.com/blogs/sportspost.aspx?AD_or_no_Tulsa_faces_important_questions_in_need_of_answers/50-18086

TU has 24 players from Texas, and 49 overall from states not named Oklahoma. They do a good job of getting players from around the country. About a quarter Texans, another quarter from the other lower 48, and half from Oklahoma. Not bad. http://www.tulsahurricane.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/tuls-m-footbl-mtt.html

Yes, Tulsa is tiny...but, it has wealthy and generous, when prodded, alumni. The other thing people will never understand about Tulsa, unless you attend, is that many of those wealthy alumni care more about basketball than football. Their little basketball arena gets very loud and racous. The Tulsa-UTEP basketball games when I was there were great...ditto, the Tulsa-Fresno State match ups. Watching Tark chew his towel and work the refs from the first row were great sports memories I carried away from that little place. Being small and weird like they are, I'm telling you that TU looks at the basketball angle. And, MWC is now a step up in basketball over C-USA as well since Memphis is gone.

What's the problem? Clamping down on public criticism of leaders is standard M.O. in Cuba and North Korea. On the whole, I'd say Sun Belt's value to the college football world is roughly equivalent to those two countries' value to the planet earth. I'm ready for the gulag, Karl. (Is it mere coincidence now that he spells "Karl" the same way Marx did?)

This guy might have said, "He's too tall to play linebacker effectively."

http://tulsa.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=1774&tid=160708219&mid=160708219&sid=1115&style=2 This guy claims TW briefly posted a story confirming TU and UTEP to the MWC, then took it off line shortly thereafter. E-mailed one of the former TU players I graduated with, he said MWC for sure. Our saving grace could be the money, with MWC pie being split too many ways...but, renegotiating the TV deal is one of the things supposedly on the MWC agenda this weekend. Whatever is happening, something is happening. (The thread devolves into the TU folk snobbing a UH poster who claims Big East superiority, then waxes positively about the Cougars' chances of parlaying the realignment confusion into an ACC invite. Yes...he did.)

Has anyone discovered whether this is the brother of the Walker DL from Garland at Oklahoma?

Is Smiley interviewing for a job?

If it "doesn't matter" that we don't drive it then Rick and Lane for sure need to be physically present in front of the movers and shakers this weekend. If they are in their offices fielding calls from Banowsky, we're screwed. He's about to be commissioner of C-Sun Belt. As far as Banowsky is concerned, Rick and Lane are "in an out of town meeting" today and will call him (maybe) when they get back.

Rick, and our smiling/e-mailing president Rawlins, should be 127% into the Tulsa president's brown butt trying to get him to consider us as a geographic package with Dallas "TV market" (which we don't drive)...YESTERDAY! Rick and Lane have got to be on airplanes this weekend, not phones, making our presence known. Surely, they cannot be sitting back waiting on Banowsky to do something. That guy is a freaking zombie. We'll be in the Southland if we keep following Banowsky's lead.

It's crazy. Cray - zee.

Tulsa. Their money donors have been clamoring for the MWC since Houston and SMU left for the Big East. Other Tulsa rumor is Big East. Again, just rumor. But, it wouldn't be a shock either, given SMU, Houston, Boise State, and San Diego State now being "Eastern" schools. The guys I know who played football at TU, then stayed on to get their law degrees, say they will not be in the C-USA much longer. Good for them, not so great for us. We are joining a crumbling C-USA. Banowsky is being terribly outflanked here. He's up on the podium last week waxing nonsense about some bigger academic/geographic picture. So stupid. We and Banowsky can wish and hope all we want that this thing isn't about money, but it is. Our adminstration was two decades slow in paying attention to the facilities. And, we're now a part of two conferences where the commissioners can't pull their heads out of their asses on what is happening around them. What are they paying Banowsky to do at this point? As I said a couple of weeks ago, the best thing he and Benson can do is admit defeat and try to piece together a conference out of the remaining schools between their conferences. Go ahead and throw a lifeline to New Mexico State and Idaho. Along with Tulsa, my guess is Southern Miss and UTEP also bolt from C-USA. I also wouldn't be shocked to see Old Dominion jump to the Big East before they play a down of C-USA football, if the new Big East is in the least bit viable. Pathetic.

He was an OL coach, and our OL coach seems to be doing well. What we need is a WR coach.

Here's Mack's #1 problem: his monkey-f*cking fanbase. It's his idiot fanbase who whined and whined and whined about OC Greg Davis. Well, so they dumped him. And, what have they done since then? The moronic OC from Boise can't do dick in the Big 12 because he isn't running his gimmicky offense against MWC and WAC level competition anymore. He ran three gadget plays late in a bowl game against OU seven seasons ago. That's all that's on that moneky-assed baboon's resume, and the Texas fans clamored for him. He hasn't done dick against OU, or anyone else in the Big 12, with Texas and he never will. If Mack had half a brain, he'd fire that guy and bring back the guy who knew how to coach quarterbacks and got them into two national title games - Greg Davis. Don't even get me started on that horse fart DC Manny Diaz he hired, whose resume was chock full of Middle Tennessee State tenure. How Mack Brown and DeLoss Dodds fell for that pair of knaves, I'll never know. It's ruining them.

Okay, I want everyone to remember this Cristobal thing every time a coach leaves one place and people bitch about him being a traitor, stone stepper, etc. Cristobal was loyal to FIU, built them into a winners, and was crapped on after a rebuilding year with the graduation of QB Wes Carroll and WR T.Y. Hilton. This is why coaches leave when they have the opportunity to leave. Sorry, you can't be loyal anymore. Best of luck to coach Cristobal. He took a situation with little monetary support and little in the way of facilities and won. He's a good coach. He's a great OL coach and will catch on somewhere. FIU is the only non-BCS qualifer he ever coached for. Someone needing OL help will pick him up. Crazy.

He might have been at the end of his rope even without the gambling scandal. The alumni up there are not happy about the state of the C-USA, and the money element has been trying to force a move to the MWC.