Arkstfan

MAC vs. SBC records before the bowls and number of league losses 2013 MAC Champ 10-3 (NIU was 12-1) (1) [runner-up no regular season league losses) SBC Champ(s) 8-4 7-5 (2) 2012 MAC 11-2 (0) SBC 9-3 (1) 2011 MAC 10-3 (1) SBC 10-2 (0) 2010 MAC 9-4 (runner-up 10-3) (1) [runner-up 0 in regular season) SBC 7-5 and 6-6 (2) 2009 MAC 11-1(0) SBC 9-3 (0) The MAC teams are averaging about one fewer league loss and generally play an easy non-conference slate. That gets an average of about 2 more wins and a record that gets you ranked. It also produces a couple dismal years in the bowls.

When the MAC was tied to the International Bowl the conference strongly encouraged everyone to get passports in September to avoid the $60 per head expedite fee and make sure there was no last minute scramble for documentation. There is a passport exception for the Bahamas call closed loop cruise. You leave on a ship that returns to the same port in the US. But booking a boat last minute seems counter-productive.

The MAC isn't around the college football kingmakers of media. The MAC is enjoying "the WAC effect". When Boise was ripping up the WAC they had some of the worst rated teams in the country in the league. But Boise was winning non-conference games and other than Nevada from time to time was winning WAC games. The MAC's record against the Sun Belt when the MAC suddenly emerged as a quality league goes counter to the idea that it is a good top to bottom league. They've got a couple teams that can hang in any G5 league and a lot of schools that would be second division in any other G5 league. But that's part of the trick. No one outside a few hardcores actually looks at a conference top to bottom, they care about the top couple and move on. That's the risk facing AAC and MWC, they are strong enough down the line to make it hard to produce a 13-0 or 12-1 champ.

On the matter of the AAC, it is also worth noting that AAC's television deal produced about one-third of the revenue that had been projected when they were first in vacuum mode adding new members. I've never been able to confirm, but I think the evidence strongly suggests that their television consultant failed to understand the current marketplace with a market first principle. Why would a market driven idea produce one-third of the projected revenue? Markets are far less relevant, this is a carriage fee economy and to demand big dollars you need schools that have fans who will drop direct for Dish if direct doesn't carry their team, or will drop Time-Warner for Verizon Fios, or will just come to the conclusion they can cut the cord since they can't get the product they want. That doesn't mean well supported market teams don't have value, the AAC's deal is new and produces more than any other G5 league but their consultant mis-read the market value. Guessing the future is mostly futile who saw the first iPod and said this will change how we make calls, interact with others, access the web, read and buy books, watch video, and interact with others? Yet that's exactly what happened. 10 years from now we may see G5 leagues following the Facebook/Google model of give us your personal info and we will give you personalized ads based on that information via apps on TV and other devices. We might have a freemium model where you get one conference game a week from but have to subscribe for others and get other add-on data like real-time stats, interactive control of replays where you select angles. We might have an in-app purchase system where you can buy tickets, merchandise, etc live within the app. It could be a subscriber model. It might be a carriage model where internet providers pay a fee for free distribution in certain markets, rather than cable sat providers. The best thing anyone can do is develop their market. Not their TV market but rather their market of people interested in viewing and attending games because odds favor those being key metrics.

Most schools in the so-called G5 have changed conferences almost as often as they've changed football coaches. These leagues by their very nature are never stable because the marketplace is always evolving. Since WWII, Colorado State has been in three conferences and indy once, New Mexico four conferences, Wyoming 3, UNLV four just since going I-A in 1978, SDSU is on their 6th status not counting the Big East. In the AAC. UCF on status #4 since 1996, Cincy on #7 since WWII not counting BE and AAC as different. Houston on #7, Louisiville is moving to #8 not counting BE/AAC as different, Memphis #5, Rutgers headed to #6, USF #3 since 2001 not counting AAC/BE as different, SMU #4, Temple #8 treating AAC/BE as the same. Current alignments are based on the rise of the carriage fee as an economic model for TV. When it changes (it will change, it always changes) the current leagues won't be the best alignments to deal with the change and the conferences will change again. They always do.

Facilities wise AState is currently in the process of $33+ in facility upgrades. New indoor practice facility is under construction. Press box will be renovated from 5000 square feet to 40,000+ with suites, tv production studio and control room, indoor/outdoor club seating. Both expected to be open by the start of the 2015 season (actually indoor may be ready by spring drills), then new offices, weight room, meeting room locker room, sports medicine facility etc. But CUSA cannot afford to expand unless the new TV deal warrants it or it can make a difference in CFP money. First year the top rated conference will receive almost $6.7 million in performance money. Second $5.3 million, Third about $4 million, Fourth about $2.66 million. Fifth $1.33 million. League making the access bowl will snag another $6 million. The big question is the G5 distribution in later years. It will rise about 50% from year 1 to year 12. If the conference per team pool remains constant (favored by AAC and MWC) the performance pool will rise dramatically as all new money will flow into the performance pool. If that happens 1st will be $21,25 million, second will be $17 million, third $12.75, fourth $8.5, last $4.25 On the TV side, unlikely that TV will make expansion worthwhile. The CBS deal was signed before losing 7 schools to AAC. ESPN has a large telecast requirement with the AAC deal and is sublicensing content to CBSS (rumor is there is a deep discount involved). If CBS is getting AAC games more cheaply than CUSA games, and AAC is producing better ratings for them, not likely that CBSS is going to increase its CUSA offer. Fox is the mystery. First they signed CUSA when the 7 where there but also before they obtained rights to distribute Big XII and Pac-12 nationally. Now they hold second tier national rights for Big XII and they have jointly obtained Pac-12 top rights in partnership with ESPN. The mystery comes from the Big 10. If they get Big 10 top tier alone they will suck deeply into the cash reserves. If they partner like they did for P12 it will be costly but not a bidding war with ESPN. But likely outcome is Fox adds Big 10 content. The situation gets even messier. Fox used CUSA heavily on Thursdays. The NFL is now doing a full Thursday slate with half the games on CBS. Thursday ratings were already down because of the NFL Network limited schedule. Thursday will see ESPN and Fox either moving less attractive games there as filler or go to alternate programing (All-Star Bowling!). Fox may then choose to move into Tuesday and Wednesday. Ratings have been pretty good in those slots. Fridays aren't that likely, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany has already said they would strongly consider a Friday package. ESPN is carrying Pac-12, AAC, and MWC on Friday nights already. Those factors make it highly unlikely TV is going to throw enough money on the table to make 16 workable.

If you break down by 2014 alignment, it's a wash for CUSA but then that was sort of what most expected losing Tulane and ECU. Lost a great program and lost a program in a great city.

Thompson wasn't kept because Anderson had someone he wanted to hire as DC. Love John Thompson but Gus didn't take him to Auburn and Harsin didn't take him to Boise. They both thought they could do better. The AD is of a mind that AState has hired three hot offensive coordinators and gotten two great and one good season from them, why tinker with the settings. There was a recent article in the Washington Post that opened with AState's hire of Anderson and went on about the trend of hiring offensive minded guys and Al Groh complained that the reason there were so few defensive hires was because there were so few people with a football background working as AD's. Well our AD was an ass't football coach at Kansas, he not only played football at Arkansas State, he played defense. Sorta neat story, if you watched the GoDaddy after the block you see the state trooper (Robert Speer) come over and hug John Thompson. The trooper was three time all-Southland Conference on defense at AState and was telling this weekend of the first time he saw Thompson at AState. Speer walked in and introduced himself and Thompson said, "1971 Forrest City vs. Jonesboro. You bloodied my nose on the first play of the game."

Weather was bizarre with a cold front moving in. Sprinkle. Stop. Wind picked up. More sprinkles, Harder wind. Irony of the final play. It took place one yard (same hashmark) from the defensive stop that won last year's game for AState. Next is coach #5 (#7 if you count interims) in five years. It's been a wild ride. Fredi was a terrible passer (once Kennedy was hurt we had no choice, and that's why we tried several WR passes) and to lead that last drive was simply amazing. I watched Ball against you guys and thought they looked good until they faded late.

No one has ever treated a military academy worse than Rutgers where the students chanted the full version of "You got effed up" at an injured Navy player several years ago. That said, the academies can be a bit tiresome as they have a group of fans that pander for respect and get offended at every perceived slight. Army fans had a full-blown message board melt-down calling AState classless and disrespectful after they played us because after games our band plays the fight song and the team splits up and sings it for the fans. This apparently drowned out their players singing the alma mater to the 1000 of their fans who were at the game. We apparently weren't respectful by yielding our tradition to their's.

Remember, it was 149 days between UCF, Houston, and SMU leaving and C-USA finally announcing teams and 86 days between Memphis leaving and the expansion decision. That was one of if not the slowest reactions to a raid ever. According to people close to the situation there was a serious divide over what to do. You had some who favored simply adding UNT and stopping at 10. You had people who wanted to go forward with the Alliance as an 18 team circuit who favored moving UTEP west and were split between FIU and UNT. You had ECU pushing to go back to 12 by adding three eastern teams. Then Memphis left and the dynamic changed again. The sad part of it all is that Boise and SDSU made that Big East commitment, no one I ever talked believed the Big East would get the numbers Big East was touting. A contact I have with ESPN Regional said they would be doing well to get $38 million with Louisville and the hoop schools, about 1/3rd of what Boise was promised. When those teams left it fell significantly. If Boise and SDSU had never bought into the smoke and mirrors one of two things would have happened. The league would have collapsed or it would have moved on Tulane and ECU before CUSA's expansion was announced and would have been down to six members without the primary advocate for ODU, UNCC and FIU. Timing is everything.

He didn't screw up the MAC while he was there. Momma said if you can't say something nice... But I've heard some hair-raising stories about the atrocious way he dealt with UNT and FIU when things were still up in the air in realignment basically assuming both were leaving and implying that the membership would be happier if you left. Then after FAU and MTSU go sent out a release with the records of the staying members vs. CUSA with the departees included. He has complained to our AD about AState fans booing him last year when he presented the conference trophy after the MTSU beating. Our AD asked him what he expected when he suspended our best defensive player for targeting when the supervisor of officials had said a suspension wasn't warranted on the play and that email got leaked because he was too dumb to delete the supervisors comments when he sent his suspension decision to an email account subject to FOI. Karl's answer is he hired a new supervisor of officials. When NMSU wanted back in AState, Louisiana, and Texas State wanted them as full members (ie. if you are taking their worst sport, why not take the ones they are good at) but WKU's president and Karl lobbied against full membership and so we get NMSU football only. The ultimate though came as the season was wrapping up. The league changed the football regulations. They now state that if there is tie for first both tied teams are guaranteed a bowl. Once ULL accepted the New Orleans bid he began lobbying GoDaddy to take WKU and tried to assure AState that the I-Bowl was taking us, but we've got big donor on the selection committee and he was telling us it was far from a done deal. Our AD pointed out that WKU couldn't accept GoDaddy because there was still a chance that AState would tie for the conference. He issued a press release saying those rules were merely guidelines and weren't binding and then moved them to a password protected part of the league website. Never mind that those non-binding guidelines permit the league fine a school if the school negotiates with a bowl directly. Our AD didn't negotiate, he started sending text messages to the director of the bowl with photos of AState fans lining the streets of Mobile and crowd shots from last year's game. The bowl invited us without waiting to see if did capture a share of the title (which we did do). If Karl had been commissioner in 2001, MTSU would have gone to New Orleans. It's crap man, total crap.

First Karl was in love with MTSU and they left him. Then he was in love with WKU and they ditched him. Now he's in love with the Cajuns so y'all better get ready for them to join CUSA. They are still promoting the Cajuns playing in the New Orleans Bowl on the website, twitter and facebook and you have to dig around to see any mention that AState is playing in a bowl.

Petrino doesn't stand a chance. Hope you guys enjoy him. Our wonderful Sun Belt officials let his team clear the bench, run across the field to try to brawl and never threw a flag.

Thompson and Conque don't stand a chance of getting it. We have people we tried to interview last year who wouldn't talk to us who have already called asking for an interview. Right now the fan favorite is Auburn OC Rhett Lashlee but I don't think he will be the front-runner with the AD.

Only fair, that's what he left at USF.

Rumor has it ASU will have beer sales after the new end zone facility opens, question is will be limited to those in the suites and loge seating or open to all.

It's interesting that the Liberty was the focus given when Iowa State came available that Karl Benson delayed his flight out of Memphis to beg and plead with the bowl to stick with the handshake deal he had for the bowl to take the winner of Arkansas State vs. MTSU. The I-Bowl was playing good old American politics. Two in-state teams getting the highlight at a time when they were trying to get a tax passed. Per a good friend and member of the committee, Tech had told the bowl they would accept if ULM were not invited and it pissed off the bowl committee. Tech was given an acceptance deadline with no promises on ULM. Time came and went with no answer so they invited ULM and then extended a second offer to Tech with a new deadline and that came and went with no response. At that point their sponsor demanded they take Ohio and be done with it because Steinbrecher of the MAC told them if he didn't get a committment soon he was locking Ohio into Detroit leaving only 6-6 Central Michigan available. They were pinned in with their choices being ULM vs. MTSU in a rematch or ULM vs. Central Michigan at that point. Rumor was that late Saturday night GoDaddy was balking at taking MTSU after the Jonesboro blood bath and was looking to take Tech.

In February of 2012 the top corner at Rivals Alabama combine signed with Arkansas State. He only played defense in one game (GoDaddy Bowl) but he played a bit on offense including a 19 yard TD run against UNT and a 57 yard TD rush against ULL on ESPN. If you play defense and have breakaway speed, you can find yourself on the offensive side of the ball at least part-time.

Schools would rather miss on a kid by calling, texting, writing too much than not enough. Lord help the parents of a hot prospect who goes into the recruiting process without unlimited texting on the cell phone account. I'm not a pay the players person but the whole lot of the leadership of the NCAA, member conferences, and member schools should be horse whipped if they don't put together a group of players, say three or four HIGHLY recruited players and three or four more middle of the road recruits and find out what they liked and what they hated and craft rules that reduce the things they hate and encourages the things they liked.

Winthrop Intelligence had an interesting study of FBS attendance. One of their findings (relevant to this thread) is that hosting an FCS is bad for attendance UNLESS the team is from your state or a border state. Otherwise, you lose ticket sales playing FCS schools.

Interesting stuff. Tell it to an 17 or 18 year old recruit and watch his eyes glaze over. Hayden Fry left coaching 15 years ago and coached his last winning team 16 years ago and left UNT 35 years ago. How many people in that sweet spot of ages 26 to 35 to become season ticket holders are going to buy UNT season tickets because of Hayden Fry. Plumm Arkansas State cannot compare to UNT in football I've got nothing to counter your pronouncements Except to say eight in a row.

One other distinction between FCS and FBS. Even though the initial qualifier standards are the same, the schools are not. There are very few schools in FBS where you can meet the bare minimum for Division I and not require special admission. Getting special admission varies widely. I know that ASU coaches have been told to back off certain players who looked to meet NCAA standards because for one reason or another gaining special admission was unlikely. If you are a coach and think two different players are roughly equal and one is barely going to make it in and the other won't have any trouble, you go with the safer bet. In FCS there are far more schools where you can be admitted with credentials below the NCAA standard. That won't make you eligible but the FCS coach is more likely to stick with you.

My point was in response to the sarcastic comments about UNT not trying to recruit highly regarded players. I think a zero star player making a fine living in the NFL establishes that recruiting ranks miss more often than not. The first draftee in our streak was a walk-on from Arkansas who slept on a friend's couch for a semester as he tried to earn a scholarship because he couldn't afford to live in the dorms. A few years ago USA Today tracked one of their high school all-american teams. Only about 25% made the NFL. As to my thoughts on legacy... Legacy is for fund-raising and keeping alums engaged. I'm 47 years old, Abner Haynes played his last NFL game before my second birthday. You show a recruit a bowl runner-up trophy from when he was 10 years old, that has far less impact that the personality of the coach, the facilities, the reception from the players on the team during the visit, the game day atmosphere of the visit.

Initial qualifier standards for FCS and FBS are identical as are degree progress requirements. Division II on the other hand can take players that can't go to FCS or FBS. The only real difference is the free transfer from FBS to FCS. As to Division II remember that when Bowden signed his first Division II class at North Alabama EVERY SINGLE SIGNEE had been previously signed by an FBS school. 25 former FBS players. Some didn't make it academically, some didn't get the playing time they wanted and about half had left or been booted from schools for on or off team disciplinary issues. Several years ago an NFL team (the Cowboys maybe???) drafted a player who had gone to a four year school, red-shirted, then transferred to a juco, played two outstanding years of juco ball but wasn't going to be eligible in FBS or FCS because of degree progress requirements. Because of his age he was old enough to declare for the draft and did and was picked up.