Arkstfan

Everyone knows that taters love gravy and consider there to be no higher honor that getting mashed and covered in gravy.

The Big 8 was on the ball. They really got interested in expansion when the SEC bailed out of the ABC TV deal with the CFA. The offers received by the SWC and Big 8 weren't very good. The leagues agreed to cooperate. They pitched two ideas together to ABC. One was just a bid on the total package of both leagues. The other was the total package with a guarantee that every school would play one or two games per year (can't remember which now) against teams in the other conference. ABC gave them a figure, it was the same as the first offer to the SWC and Big 8 added together. The Big 8 didn't rest. They then asked ABC to give them a number for the Big 8 plus Texas and Texas A&M and another number for the Big 8 plus Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Houston. The number stayed the same for every combination. At that point the Big 8 was hell bent to add Texas and Texas A&M and them only. Take the money that was going to be divided 16 ways and divide 10 ways made perfect sense to them. Even splitting 12 ways made more sense than going 16. That's not to say that the Big 8 was happy about adding Baylor. The Big 8 folks felt that the private schools had held back the ACC in football, they noted that the sole private schools in the Big 10 and SEC pretty much owned the cellar and that in the SWC the privates clearly had to cheat just to be able to keep up. They really preferred Houston but they weren't willing to fight Texas politics to get them. The funny thing to me though has little to do with that. When Realignment I (Penn State to Big 10, Arkansas to SEC, formation of Big East) was taking place there was an attempt to take the old Metro Conference and add football into a large league. It became apparent Florida State wouldn't stick with the Metro with the SEC and ACC courting. Miami (not a Metro member but a target for football) was the back-up plan for the SEC if FSU said no. FSU said no and Miami became a quick problem. There was just barely enough support to get them in the SEC. Miami then asked about being able to leave baseball as an independent. The SEC didn't even bother to consider it and moved on to South Carolina, taking offense at Miami's attempt to negotiate terms. Losing South Carolina cost the Metro another member. At this point the Big East seeing several schools talking to the Metro about football membership panicked fearing they would lose the football schools to the Metro in all-sports eventually since it was almost as good of a basketball league (and in better shape losing two of the worst basketball schools to the ACC and SEC). They started planning to make their own run at adding football. Just as it seemed that Metro football was about to happen, Louisville balked at joining Metro football declaring that to be a national program they had to be an independent. With that move Metro football died and Big East football was born. Irony of irony Louisville devoted huge resources to trying to get into the Big East when the BCS was born, yet would not have needed to do that if they hadn't killed Metro football. Adding to the irony, if Louisville hadn't killed Metro football and they had found the sort of success they had in CUSA later on, when the ACC expanded last year it would have probably been Miami, Va.Tech and Louisville that joined the ACC instead of Boston College. Their arrogance cost them 15 years of membership in a top national league. Miami's attempt to be a baseball independent cost them between $40 million and $60 million in revenue over 14 years by being in the Big East instead of the SEC.

Who knows? I expect we will appeal. We will be one of the schools that won't win our appeal (Florida State will win their appeal). At that point... We might change or the administration might just say screw it and stay the Indians. The only real impact is in NCAA run post-season events. You can figure we'll be a lower seed any time we make it so we'll be in road uniforms and most of our road unis say "Arkansas State" instead of "Indians". The only thing we'd have to change would be the logo on those uniforms and that just means digging out the old stAte logo instead of the stylized ASU with the Indian embedded. Take care of that next time we order uniforms.

THAT is Red our "spirit character" The guy that does it is awesome, he's won tons of awards (and even managed to crack me up by throwing bags of pork rinds into the stands during the Arkansas game). But the suit looks like Doug Funny after going to Jamica and getting a new hairdo and a sunburn

You guys go right ahead and be fruits

You mean their stolen name? From the MTSU web site. During football season that year, the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal held a contest to name the team. The late Charles Sarver, then a Middle Tennessee football player and later principal at White County High School in Sparta, Tenn., won the $5 prize for his entry of "Blue Raiders." Sarver later indicated he had "borrowed" the nickname of the Colgate Red Raiders, but substituted MTSU Blue for Colgate Red. Ever since then, Middle Tennessee athletic teams have been known as the Blue Raiders.

Humm. ASU's president said they had no idea the decision was coming which he said was unusual. Wonder how it is that the president of a conference mate neglected to warn us or ULM about it?

PETA is after South Carolina and Jacksonville State http://www.peta.org/alert/automation/AlertItem.asp?id=269

Now I would totally understand (though be slightly disappointed) if it were Boise fans wanting to pay for a Boise player's father, but come on.

From what I've gathered, ESPN has indicated that it will not fill its remaining TV slots for that Saturday until some time in October.

In my case playing the Saturday after Thanksgiving means I'm unavailable. My wife's family does their dinner on Saturday, we go to my family on Thursday, her brother goes to his in-laws on Thursday, and her sister goes to her in-laws on Thursday then we all get together on Saturday. A telecast would be greatly appreciated by me.

Actually it was changed twice. It was first set for the 19th and moved to October 8 to accomodate ASU. Then it was moved to November 26 to accomodate UNT's TV game with Troy. So what was done to help ASU was UNDONE to help UNT.

Most played series in ASU history. Third most played for Memphis (just behind Ole Miss and Southern Miss). Especially sweet for me. I was in a big war on the Memphis board earlier in the summer where they were saying the only way ASU and Memphis would play again would be if it were Memphis only, or a 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 series and I let them know Dean Lee wouldn't sign a contract with them unless it was home/home (of course it helped that I already knew we were close to signing this deal )

I'd rather see a situation where it is flexible as to where the champion goes. Just say going in that the league champ is guaranteed a bowl. If someone qualifies BCS send 'em off there. If Troy wins the league and the sponsors of the Ft. Worth Bowl want them there while New Orleans wants ULL, let 'em go that way. If Arkansas State is second and bowl eligible and {cough} SMU is slated for Ft. Worth and its a rematch (could happen in 06 and 07) then flip us over to New Orleans. If ASU is first Memphis is slated for Fort Worth flip us over to Fort Worth. It is much more important to create two good match-ups for our bowl partners than it is for New Orleans to be THE destination for the league champ.

Those are hard issues to resolve or to make progress with. Much easier to deal with nicknames, mascots, and logos.

When the title sponsor for Fort Worth is announced it will be clear who was most important to the deal (though UNT being so close is very nice).

Why not protect those of Greek ancestery? Besides we have two Trojans in the league as well.

That's because there isn't consensus. Arkansas State works with the Cherokee Nation on its logos and images and Florida State with the local Seminoles. There are those in leadership opposed to it and those who favor it. The NCAA knows better than those in favor and has taken it upon themself to let them know that they have better awareness of what is offensive than the poor ignorant Indians who are in favor of such usage.

It's a bunch of bull. It's all a smokescreen to screw the small schools. http://www.tribalgrounds.com/index.php?mod...view&ANN_id=413

Interesting isn't it that a bunch of university presidents know better than Native Americans as to what is offensive to Native Americans who have endorsed nicknames used by various schools. Truth is this deal means zip. It doesn't apply to bowl games, the NIT and WNIT. Teams can still play they just won't have their nickname announced and won't be able to use the nickname or an Indian type logo on their uniforms in NCAA championship competition.

As I posted on the BeltBoard, looks like CUSA is solid for Fort Worth. They will face TCU if available. If TCU isn't available they will have a contract requiring them to take a team from another conference Look for Fort Worth to announce a new title sponsor, a company that sponsored a bowl that died last year.

If you think the TV schedule is made in New Orleans rather than Charlotte and Bristol (homes of ESPN Regional and ESPN) you are sorely mistaken. Not every game ESPN had interest in was added to the TV schedule. Arkansas State refused to move the Missouri game to Monday for TV. They weren't offering enough for ASU to take the financial risk. ESPN and Regional aren't interested in the best games, they want "storylines" right now Howard is the interesting storyline in the Sun Belt as far as they are concerned. If FAU finishes with a winning record this year, it will be worse next year.

My take -ACC no change -Big XII no change unless something bizarre happens -Big 10 no change unless Notre Dame becomes interested or they become so determined to expand that they turn to Nebraska, Mizzou or Syracuse. I don't think that is likely. -Big East might add one team down the road. They have to fend off the MWC's run at gaining their auto berth so they cannot add any school that might lower their strength. -Pac-10 no change. They are going to a full round robin schedule in football. Home games vs. USC and UCLA are very important to ticket sales around the league, anyone that could end up losing home games against them is against expansion. Besides no school that comes close to fitting their model is available other than Utah. -SEC no change. -MWC they are in striking distance of stealing away the Big East's auto berth. League (except TCU) is built on driving distance rivalries, going to 12 means a chance their best team gets knocked off on the cusp of a BCS bowl. No team fits their model more solidly than Boise State. Not likely they go to 11 or 12. -CUSA. A house divided. The biggest mish-mash league out there with four privates and 8 state schools. Remains to be seen if they can hold reasonably close to the MWC level or will drift toward a WAC level with a few good schools and some schools that are placeholders. -MAC with 12 full members and 1 football only the MAC has to figure out whether to stand pat or add one or wait and see what happens with Temple long-term. -Sun Belt can make up ground on CUSA needs Denver to find a geographically appropriate home needs an additional full member. -WAC the WAC is finding a nice niche with a couple nationally relevant teams and the remainder being the best available to fill out the numbers (placeholders). Only disconnect is La.Tech.

15k hasn't been eliminated, its been modified. Instead of every year its once every two years and instead of actual attendance its actual OR paid attendance. I tip my hat to ULM. If you are going to have to go on the road to get a fat check to keep your budget afloat (and we all seem to) then why not get the bonus of insuring that attendance is taken care of? Under the current NCAA rules Arkansas can only count one game in Little Rock anyway and they always play two so why not let your opponent get credit for it? Now if ULM uses that to only play four games in Monroe (especially with 12 games in place) then they should be ashamed unless they provide the fans with a regional true neutral site game. ASU's administration has vowed that the only time we will ever leave Jonesboro with only four home games will be when we are in Little Rock. That might happen in 2006 when we will host three conference home games and Army in Jonesboro and will play Oklahoma State in Little Rock. That accounts for 9 of 12 games and we know one game will be at SMU. It's probably safe to assume we'll play at least one money game as well. So what we do with the remaining will determine whether Jonesboro gets four games or five.

This says it all. The businesses in Jonesboro didn't lose a game to KC. ASU was contracted to be in Columbia twice. This deal makes it once in Columbia, once in KC.