Arkstfan

New Orleans Bowl isn't defunct. It's just liable to be played in Lafayette this year.

The main difference has been that most of the flooding took place after the storm passed and happened at a relatively slow rate. If it had been head-on, a lot of those folks rescued could not have been reached and the water would have come in much faster with more force. It was bad enough as it was.

50 miles further west and the brunt of the storm surge would have hit New Orleans rather than Biloxi/Gulfport and been eveb worse.

Lafayette though offers the possibility of having resources on hand to help with administration. Also for bowl licensing playing there requires a crowd of 23,250 instead of 25,000. You also have a built in fan base. Playing in Shreveport you don't have the built in fans nor the support network. You also have the question of whether the community will support a second event because they are hugely behind the I-Bowl. It's booster organization is very large.

McNeese will bus to Denton for free? They wouldn't bus to Lafayette for $90,000 when it was offered to them this year.

Wow hadn't heard about McNeese and Southern. Must be at Southern's request because from what I had heard Lake Charles area had no damage and they were prepared to play.

Excellent. Just posted the same thing about Lafayette on the BeltBoard. The Big West (before kicking out ASU, ULL, Tech, and NIU) looked at playing a bowl in Lafayette after UNLV left the league. More importantly part of the New Orleans Bowl budget comes from a state subsidy Louisiana provides to all the bowl games played in the state. Moving outside the state means having to find a way to replace that revenue. Lafayette and Shreveport are the only viable locations.

Scanning around it looks like there won't be any I-AA games cancelled and only one that was in any danger was Grambling at Alcorn.

Not really. Tulane and USM is the only other I-A that has been cancelled so far and they are both open on November 26. With it being a league game that will be rescheduled.

Just to clarify. Troy didn't do four years transition. They did two years transition but moved based on four year attendance average. Now they had made it very clear that they were moving when they started working on their attendance but they were doing it before actually filing paperwork with the NCAA declaring their intent to move. Until that document is filed you can still take I-A transfers without them having to sit out a year.

The bowl trips have helped get UNT some respect but to really get noticed means taking that next step. Boise won the Big West in 2000 and their "best" win was over UTEP in the Humanitarian. In 2002 they won the WAC and their best win was over Iowa State in the Humanitarian. In 2003 they won the WAC again and their "best" win was over TCU in the Ft. Worth Bowl. In 2004 they again won the WAC and their best win was over Oregon State in their first regular season win over a BCS school (and only their second since moving to I-A).

In 1997 Bama was 4-3 coming in and spiraled in for a 4-7 record. In 1999 Bama was 2-0 coming in and finished 10-3 winning their division and SEC title game (totally thrashed Florida) and lost to Michigan in the Orange Bowl which put them at 8th in the final polls. Tech finished 9-2 and univited as an independent in 1997 and 8-3 and uninvited in 1999 as an independent.

National exposure that won't mean much if they can't win the conference and go to post-season and if they lose at home to UNT the odds of doing that are slim.

Yeah La.Tech beat Bama in 1997 and 1999. Since then Tech has gone: 3-9 7-5 4-8 5-7 6-6 MTSU going 8-3 in 2001 and staying home was a horrible blow up there with Larry Fedora leaving as offensive coordinator. They've been hit or miss ever since.

Without looking my guess is that Robert is mad because they could have put the extra money out there to bolster the Las Vegas Bowl where the MWC champion ought to be and it ties the MWC to a bowl no one except TCU wants to go to. Am I right?

The new CUSA's problem isn't rivalries or geography. Their biggest problem is getting along. The eastern schools have a different vision for the league than do the western private schools. The eastern AD's fought replacing TCU at all. Their presidents were swayed by the privates. The privates fought going to 12 games. The western schools weren't willing to devote the financial resources to keep the Liberty because they were more than happy with the idea of sending the champ to Houston while the eastern schools considered it essential to spend the money. They fought over the title game set-up. They have fought over the format for the cross-over games. Unless they can iron out their differences in the meeting rooms the league will be hard pressed to stay together.

Much better way of saying what I wanted to say.

MWC dug up a bunch of money at the last minute. Until then they had not been willing to do much funding wise.

Maybe one CUSA east school goes to the Big East. The rest align with current Sun Belt schools. 2009 is about when the next hit of realignment should come along and at that point there will be little action in the BCS other than the Big East maybe adding one school. The MWC will probably stand pat or add one. The MAC is basically full. The potential for realignment is in reshuffling CUSA and the Sun Belt and adding La.Tech to the mix.

Depends. When conferences rise the normal trend is one team jumps out and several pursue and catch up raising the league. The bad thing for the Belt is that our front runner is what 4-20 in non-conference play? That is not good. MTSU beating Vandy or Troy beating Missouri carry much less clout because they didn't win the bowl berth as league champion so they could be dismissed as fluke wins.

UNT might well end up in CUSA in about five years. Of course it will be a CUSA that probably does not include Memphis, UAB, East Carolina, Marshal, UCF, and probably not Southern Miss. The tension between the western and eastern divisions of the league is mounting. Scuttlebutt is that they only things they haven't fought over have been the items they haven't discussed.

As noted previously. He is currently suspended because the staff did not know of one of the arrests. ASU under Roberts has historically booted players that get in serious trouble even when they are academically eligible.

This story had me scratching my head. I could see Roberts giving a guy a second chance but he's been law and order guy. Couldn't figure out why he didn't boot the guy. Well the rest of the story is out (though not in print yet). He only told Roberts about the on-campus incident. Roberts found out about the off-campus incident from the newspaper. He's suspended now.

For the bizzare check out Richmond Stadium. http://www.worldstadiums.com/stadium_pictu...niversity.shtml The plan apparently was for a circular stadium and they finished half of it. Then they built the new section. Seating chart http://richmondspiders.collegesports.com/f...es-stadium.html

Saw a TV special about George Halas years ago. One of his players remembered a game against the Lions (their top rival) at Tiger Stadium. The Lions won the toss and elected to receive. Halas told the kickoff man to pick out one Lions player on the front line and kick it straight at him. The player said they lined up and yelled "#82 Onside kick to you". #82 showed them he thought they were #1. They yelled again "Number 82 Onside kick to you". Ref blows the whistle signalling start of play. The guy said he give anything to have a photo of #82 as the ball screamed toward him, hit him in the chest and landed on the ground under 10 Bears. He said the Bears ended up routing the Lions that day and it took help from the cops to get them out of the stadium.