Arkstfan

They can’t afford the upgrade to the new photoshop.

Auburn was insisting that any new coach keep Kevin Steele and another assistant I can’t remember. Hey coach we want to hire you because you’ve shown you are a good coach BUT we don’t trust you to pick staff. Auburn is nuts. Fired Bowden year after he tied for the division for a 1-5 start after not winning less than 8 despite sanctions from Pat Dye infringing on his first two years. Replaced him with Tuberville. They interviewed Petrino mid-season to replace Tommy but he won the Iron Bowl and beat Wisconsin in a bowl. Fired for 5-7 after winning 20 the prior two seasons combined. Hired Chizik and fired him two years after a national title. Fired Gus who has a 3-5 record vs Saban because 6-4 in SEC this year wasn’t good enough. Auburn is crazy

Harder hits in bumper cars. Cincinnati v Houston was a brawl (and kept Tulane out of NOLA bowl for Cincinnati). La Tech back in the days of Joe Raymond Peace was once involved in 5 brawls over three games. AState was one of double ups. Most memorable was a Tech player throwing his helmet at an AState player. Bounced off his helmet and into the hands of a student who made a dash for the exit with the helmet. Jonesboro police didn’t agree with the student’s reasoning that the Tech player obviously didn’t want it anymore and the cops gave it back. The next year the NCAA produced a video featuring plays of unsportsmanlike conduct for officials as part of a crackdown on such behavior. All but three plays featured Tech or Miami who tied for most examples. Old style brawls are rare these days.

This is a free transfer year, with the ability to go over 85 rides. Any coach with sense is all over the portal this year.

Yeah breaking even is a good outcome for any bowl where you aren't selling 5,000+ tix to the fans at face value. The exposure and extra practice is the real value, though the jokes above about cough syrup and condos are pretty good value too :)

I don’t get the logic of increasing their travel when they aren’t going to make more. There’s some internal strife in the league. Talk going that Central Arkansas will leave for the ASun again more travel to what benefit?

Like to run the streak of coaches finding other employment to five.

How many P5's would hire an option coach? That seriously keeps his leverage down.

Friend talked to AState QB Logan Bonner, who is from Rowlett and is in the portal but UNT wasn't one of the schools he has talked to. He's talked to WKU, USM, FIU, FAU, East Carolina, and Texas State and he said he expects to talk to Blake about Utah State.

Napier was staying because he didn't get offered. Word is Greg Sankey has been adamant to presidents around the league that they want absolutely nothing to do with Freeze. Saban was all set to make him OC at the Saban School for Wayward Coaches and Sankey got him to back out. Beyond the moral failings which one might have thought would matter to Liberty there was a lot of bad stuff going on in recruiting at Ole Miss and he showed his character when he called six reporters and lied to them claiming almost all the troubles happened under Nutt and things would be OK which ran right before signing day when in reality the violations under Nutt were mostly dumb minor things. There were numerous allegations tied to Freeze that the NCAA couldn't prove to the satisfaction of the committee on violations but were thought to be true that didn't become public. Freeze would be the logical hire for Tennessee but will they cross their commissioner? Freeze is making $2 million he isn't leaving unless its a prestige job, he's not going to go and be the latest best hope to build a program that's been on its back forever. As to Chadwell. There aren't an abundance of AD's who are going to throw 7 figures at an option coach. Vandy might do it but only someone who sees no other path to success is going option because the fans want to see the hoochie in the air and be excited by big throws and catches not seven minute TD drives because most fans are ignorant of what good football really looks like.

I'm going to give my two pennies on Coastal. I was very happy the Sun Belt added them. Much happier than when we added UTA, TXST or GaSt. They had too good of a history across too many sports. They were above average FCS and arguably superior to Liberty in football (they were dead even head-to-head but Coastal had done more post-season). They were better in hoops and far far superior to anyone we could add in baseball. They had their fecal matter together. I was on their board and they were like it would be good for us in hoops and baseball but we can't swing it in football. I was convinced it would work because they had always risen to whatever challenge they faced and they had a great advantage. They were in a small media market and the nearest FBS schools (Clemson and South Carolina) were too far away for local sports guys to get blessing from editor and station managers to go cover them regularly. Small market TV guys want their mug on camera to build their reel to get better jobs. That means Coastal is the biggest sports story in the market for local guys to cover. It builds your fan base and kids can come to town and the local TV station is talking about Coastal. It adds up.

Most ADs when interviewing a coach ask who they intend to hire for their staff. Odds are it was known from the get go.

The Knight Commission is why presidents took over most of the responsibilities the faculty athletic reps had. NCAA the reps did most of the voting on NCAA stuff and typically handled the conference matters. Odds are when UNT joined the Valley the AD and FAR hammered it out and president was kept apprised and agreed with what they suggested.

That was the best finish I’ve seen this year. QB for Coastal is a freaking freshman

I think schools tend to overpay. Let’s say you are Eli Drinkwitz. You are making $750,000 at App State. Of course you accept $4 million a year from Missouri but what are the odds he would have turned down $1.5 million to coach Mizzou? App showed some sense. They elevated OL coach and instead of paying him $750,000 like Drink they paid him $425,000 more than tripling his salary as OL coach. How many FCS coaches making $250,000 would turn down $400,000 to coach an FBS? As a friend says ADs are playing with the house’s money and don’t pay the salary the coach has the leverage to demand but just throw out a number that is intended to convince fans they are serious.

One voter moved Iowa St up 10 spots despite losing to ULL. Tennessee hasn’t played and moved up.

The story from a very good friend of mine (we lived together for 7 months) and was on the I Bowl committee was that it went down like this. They were short on both sides and had a list of like 7 schools. Selection committee decided to vote on the 7 (or so) one vote per member and if one got more than 50% they’d get an invite and if they didn’t they’d drop the lowest and keep revoting until someone got a majority. Tech got like 3/4ths of the vote first round. Then they voted on remaining six and ULM got the majority by one vote primarily because there was some fear ESPN wouldn’t like it. This surprised me because I thought ESPN took a much more active role. The director calls both and ULM accepts while Tech asks for time. Told OK but need answer today. ULM told to keep it silent. Short time later two (or more) selection committee members say they’ve gotten calls from Tech AD saying he will accept if they invite someone else. Committee meets. Gets heated. Vote is taken to determine whether they want to reopen the selection and replace ULM. The Warhawks get more votes to keep them than there had been to select them. Director calls AD says it’s ULM. Do you want in or not. AD says wait until Sunday because we think we are going to the Liberty if Big XII puts two in the BCS leaving a spot open. The call Liberty and they will only say they are looking a couple teams but can’t do anything until final BCS standings come out. They then call Banowsky to see if he will help. Says he has talked to Liberty and they are not making any commitments. Asks if they think NOLA would swap and take ULM instead of ULL but in meantime he’d lobby Tech because he’s not encouraged by Liberty but won’t rule it out. They then call Benson. To see if he will lobby NOLA to take anyone other than ULL. Says I don’t think so because if they can’t get the Cajuns they’ll want the winner of AState and MTSU and he’s already got an agreement from Liberty and GoDaddy that Liberty is going to take the winner and GoDaddy the loser if Big XII comes up short. With NIU having upset Kent State it looks like there won’t be a buster and Big XII is getting two in. I Bowl ups the heat and goes public with ULM invite. They call again and Tech again says wait. They call the MAC and are told 8 win Ohio will be available. The Bobcats had been ranked before fizzling with a rash of injuries. They table it. Meet again next day. Tech saying wait or change opponent. Committee says screw it votes to take Ohio if they are available. Meanwhile unranked Wisconsin routs Nebraska and when BCS formulation comes out NIU is 15 and since they were top 16 AND rated higher than an AQ champ (Wisconsin) they bust and Iowa State is available for Liberty. Huge disappointment in Jonesboro because we thought we were headed to Memphis. AState instead goes to Mobile. ULL was already locked into NOLA. So now dash is on to find a spot for MTSU and Tech and only chair left open is Detroit. Detroit and Tech talk but goes no where because Detroit has a deal with WKU. MTSU gets same message. But wait there’s more. MTSU on league conference call says this is a load of bull. We tied for second and should go to Detroit over WKU who finished two games back of us. WKU points out that bylaws say champ has to be placed and AState is going to Mobile so after that rules are silent. ADs vote that decision belongs to the bowl but encourage Detroit to consider MTSU. Detroit has been talking to WKU for weeks and has plans to send band and has multiple busses reserved for fans and students. MTSU only promises to take x number tix and no other plan. Detroit takes WKU. MTSU and La Tech get left out. My friend on the committee said the back channel requests to dump ULM changed the entire mood. The support for taking ULM had been tepid. There was some offense taken that Tech had been their clear first choice and didn’t have reciprocated interest. Throw in the counter negotiation and mood completely changed. And just for fun. The next year WKU scheduled press conference to announce they were going to Mobile and had to cancel because AState was co-champions and had to be placed and there was no opening for them. The bylaws giveth and the bylaws take away.

Holy crap! WTH happened to ESPN tucking AAC games on U and ESPNEWS? That’s under the AAC contract! I’m surprised especially since we are on ESPN2 at 2:30 that day. There was speculation that ESPN was going to move some AAC to + to try to drive subscriptions but I’d have thought that went out the window with 54 teams sitting.

Those old pads made guys look like monsters

It's not about patches on a jersey and never has been. Conference can negotiate some TV exposure and bowl contracts but it all comes down to what you do about it. All the benefits of Big XII membership and Kansas football is still Kansas football, the good years are an aberration. SEC membership means Vandy football is still Vandy football. Last year Vandy lost to a terrible UNLV team that fired their coach for being so bad (who'd have thought hiring a coach straight from high school was a bad idea?). Nebraska cashes larger checks in B1G but they are on the same slide to mediocrity that started back in the Big XII. Having most favored status in Big XII hasn't changed the reality that the University of Texas is a program w/o clear and distinct leadership, they are governed by a Politburo of politicians and donors who can't agree on anything beyond the need to spend more. Always comes down to the individual school.

Rained hard coming down basically sideways in Sherwood for less than 15 minutes. After the hard rain went out hour later wasn’t even sprinkling. Crazy for hard storm to shoot through so fast.

Went to AState-UTA in 1984. Game was telecast by someone because I ended up on camera taking photos on the sidelines. Fun day because I went TCU-Baylor that morning for the Raycom morning game. Box office at TCU wouldn’t take travelers check so some TCU fan bought my ticket.

Arkansas State at Kansas State moves into the slot from FS1

Fox, FS1 and FSSW hold no rights to any games being played on the opening weekend and the only to get any rights would have been sub license from ESPN or CBSSN. The question is why isn't CUSA primary partner CBSSN taking any of the three CUSA games that weekend. They aren't even carrying any games and hold no rights to NHL, NBA, MLB or even the US Open Tennis which will dominant ESPN2 that weekend.

While I agree, reality is unless it’s cheap and and easy won’t happen. The other day Hugh Freeze announced Liberty had gone 3 weeks without a positive. Turned out last two weeks they didn’t test because no one had symptoms. In other words weren’t willing risk players missing practice unless obviously sick. In many of these cardiac cases it’s usually a combination of factors aligning for it to be fatal so most you find would probably be fine and you’d have to replace them.