Arkstfan

There is no incentive for Alliance West to support ANY team in Texas for recruiting reasons because they will NEVER play any football games against the eastern schools in conference play. The Alliance is designed to have zero football interaction prior to conference title game. That's not lawyer speak. That's just common sense. The idea that Air Force would support UNT or a western aligned UTEP would support UNT for the east for recruiting reasons is just flat ignorant of what the Alliance set-up is. The western Alliance schools have only two interests in the eastern expansion. 1) Will it improve the overall rating of the conference. 2) Will the team generate enough dollars to make them worth adding? As I've noted in other posts, I think it is likely that USM and Memphis would support adding UNT because they would actually get game exposure in the region. Based on what I know of Rice and Tulane, I don't believe either small private school will favor adding a large public institution in an area they need to recruit. Tulsa, I'm agnostic on their attitude. They have historically voted with Tulane and Rice but seem to often think more like a public when it comes to athletics. ECU and Marshall aren't going to support UNT over FIU because their interest is in shoring up Florida presence and east coast presence. UAB is liable to vote with them because they are likely to prefer shoring up Florida presence over Texas.

Tulsa may be more pragmatic. I don't believe for a minute that Rice or Tulane are.

Based on his time at UNT, you would think people would want him for defensive coordinator. I hope he has two highly unsuccessful games as an assistant. Second game of this year at ASU Stadium and whenever ASU faces them in Memphis in 2013.

UNT isn't likely to get in if UTEP stays in the eastern part of the Alliance because they aren't likely to add any teams this way if they do. There isn't room for UNT unless UTEP shifts west and if that happens UTEP isn't likely to support adding a Texas team to recruit against when they aren't playing any games in the eastern half of Texas. Remember Tulsa, Tulane, and Rice are private schools and probably not favorable to adding a large public in the middle of an area they recruit. Memphis and USM probably would support UNT. UAB, Marshall, and ECU probably prefer FIU. None of the western schools really care. The point of the Alliance is that each division will exist independently and will not play cross-over games in football. UNT does nothing for the Texas recruiting of any western school other than to create an additional school in the region that can offer players a chance to play in the league and hurt their recruiting because they cannot offer the chance to play close to home by playing Rice or UNT.

East Carolina has publicly campaigned for the Big East for decades. Wonderful strategy. I wonder how many FAU recruits have been handed laminated copies of FAU to Big East statements by Howard and told to look at how trustworthy he was. This is a presidential level decision. Public campaigns for membership exist solely for the fans of the school to get people to shut the hell up on message boards and talk radio and to create the impression of activity. They serve no legitimate purpose in reaching the desired goal. If they don't work then the cost is people bitching about the league they were already in. By all reasonable speculation, the Alliance is either going to be an 18 or 20 team league. The math is really simple here. There are 9 CUSA and 7 MWC schools (8 in football and 8 all-sports if Hawaii eventually goes all-sports). If they choose to go to 18, there is one slot and it is almost certainly in the west. USU sits in the middle of a big hole in the MWC. If they go to 20 then they might take 2 central or eastern time zone schools. Sitting on top of the wish list is Temple. High caliber hoops, revived football, and in the fourth largest TV market in the country. The other spot becomes interesting. La.Tech because they are easy to take (ie. no harm to any viable league)? UNT to get back into the 5th largest TV market? FIU to get into the 16th largest TV market and stay connected with Florida? It becomes as much about who is against you as who is for you. My money says Tulane will oppose La.Tech and I'm not positive Rice or Tulsa will support UNT. FIU has no natural opposition. UAB sits almost halfway between UNT and FIU and they are much more likely to support a Florida school because they are more likely to sign Florida kids than Texas kids. You can go in figuring ECU, UAB, Marshall are going to favor FIU. The question is who is the advocate for UNT?

From an NCAA standpoint, it doesn't really matter if it is a new league or a merged league. They will have sufficient continuity of membership to get auto bids in the various sports. Question is whether the NCAA basketball units will be paid to the new league or to the schools earning the units, and chances are they will require everyone to assign their units to the new league so that is merely a minor paperwork hurdle. This is a unique response to a raid. Normally you lose teams toward the top of your league and bring in top teams from the league below you to raise your quality from where it was post-raid but not back to where it was(ie. top team in lower conference is usually good enough to be top 1/3rd of your league pre-raid). This reduces the level of the lower league and maintains the quality gap. They are choosing to cement in where they are post-raid. The raid has narrowed the gap between the Sun Belt (and MAC) and CUSA/MWC and they are apparently doing nothing to restore the gap by merely merging.

Not only do you lose a vote, you are losing an auto bid in every sport. Personally, I hope they merge, I think it is good for the Sun Belt if it happens but it is the stupidest idea to come down the pike in a long time.

Dyer and Chizik blew up before Malzahn came to ASU. The Auburn boards were claiming Dyer was leaving before Malzahn got the job. Frazier by all accounts is happy at Auburn and isn't leaving. I don't know what the deal is with Dyer and Chizik but a positive pot test is an NCAA suspension. People I've talked to tell me Dyer has no suspension to serve and unless Auburn notifies ASU that Dyer is ineligible due to a failed drug test, I remain skeptical.

As the unreviewable spot. Absolutely botched by the ACC referee. NCAA Football Rule 12.3.3(e) listing reviewable plays e. Ball carrier’s forward progress with respect to a first down. The muffed punt? Previous drive Dwayne Frampton (he scored the last TD vs UNT this year) tore his MCL. He is our punt returner so they subbed in and it didn't work obviously. While I am extremely unhappy that a crew that was "rewarded" for good performance during the regular season missed a basic rule of the game, we have no way of knowing what would have happened next. We might have fumbled or thrown a pick six after stopping them and the momentum may have swung even worse to NIU. But you do expect FBS officials, especially those who get to go to a bowl to get the rules right.

Winston pretty well covered it. State law caps what can be spent in university funds, rest has to come from the booster club. If we were in a conference that paid out $30 million a year, none of that could be spent salary above the cap amount. While I hear a lot of talk about money coming in from the NW corner of the state, I've yet to confirm it. I was told the university approached 50 people asking for $50,000 committment. I know five of them. Two from NE Arkansas, one from Central Arkansas, two from out-of-state. I was told the biggest parcel of the money came from a University of Arkansas alum who owns a few large businesses in Jonesboro. By history he has been very generous to ASU when ASU presents a plan for a donation or sponsorship that will result in a big step forward to improving the school and the local community. I believe that this year the bump in attendance and the way it helped make the six game days busy in Jonesboro helped him to believe than a large investment in ASU football would be an investment in helping the overall community.

It shrinks the supply of money games so that is bad but it gives fans several good early season match-ups and that is good.

As the ACC learned with Boston College, it is bad for the long-term health of a league to leave a school out completely isolated (imagine Louisiana, ULM, and UALR out of the Sun Belt). The Big XII needs another school in the region and Louisville is the best of what is left and they actually sell tickets so I'm guessing they also draw a few eyeballs for TV.

The whole thing is weird from the get-go. I really think Big XII is going to pick up two more before July 1 and I would bet Louisville is team #11. I just don't know if Cincinnati, Rutgers or South Florida is team #12. This all has the makings of getting messy.

Made me feel better. I knocked The Den offline for a few hours last week installing new anti-spam contronls.

It actually is a factor. Will they take a goose when they could get the one that lays golden eggs just to save a league? No. But when the Sun Belt put the Big West out of business, everyone was too squeamish to kill a league without offering a home to everyone left out. MWC backed off killing the WAC before because they didn't have the stomach to do it. If they had UTSA and TexSt would still be talking about hoping to start the process to move.

La.Tech I believe is headed to the Alliance and I don't think it is based on market (obviously) nor is it based on any accomplishments they have put forward, nor is it based on their facilities, attendance or any other measure. The Alliance needs a team east of the giant void between UTEP and the rest of the world. La.Tech can be taken without harming a viable conference because the WAC is not viable to remain FBS. It is simply about a warm body that is already FBS that can be taken without harming the MAC or Sun Belt. There are only two reasons that CUSA holds any value for UNT. Rice and Tulsa. The TV deal? It works out to $580,000 per school IF Fox doesn't reduce the money in the wake of losing SMU, Houston, and UCF (three large markets that Fox is strong in). The net dollar difference in the CUSA and Sun Belt deals is $480,000 that works out to roughly a 4,000 tickets per football game with no new donations. Opening Apogee generates more revenue for UNT than the CUSA TV deal and that's if it isn't reduced. If UNT isn't selected. Long-term adding UTSA to the Sun Belt drives nearly the same dollars to UNT as being in CUSA. That's if CUSA doesn't collapse. If CUSA collapses and Tulsa and or Rice gets left behind and one or both become part of the Sun Belt or whatever name emerges, UNT comes out ahead. Amazon isn't in the business of selling Kindles. They sell Kindles because they've got hard numbers showing that Kindle users at least double their spending with Amazon for books and such compared to when they didn't own Kindles. The Alliance and New Big East aren't built around the concept of selling tickets. They are built around the concept of TV dollars. If CUSA tripled their TV dollars that would be $1.75 million. They can make more by increasing ticket sales by $300,000 per home game in football. They are doomed to collapse because they've forgotten they are in the business of selling books and movies and aren't in the business of selling Kindles.

I disagree with the commissioner that we are moving to an eight conference universe. I believe we are moving to a nine or ten conference universe. As I've stated on NCAABBS Sun Belt board, the middle class is disappearing in college football. Look at how the MWC, CUSA, and WAC raids have gone. The elite programs that made up the middle class are mostly gone. Those who remain are left in conferences with lower budget, lower supported schools than exisited in 2004 or even in 2010. The people who did best in the Great Depression or our current great recession are those who had cash on hand and little debt. The AD at FAU was quoted after ASU hired Malzahn as saying Sun Belt schools have been smart in the coaching hires because the contracts offered have been consistent with what we can make in ticket sales. Look at Memphis. They hired a TCU coordinator for $100,000 to $250,000 a year more than ASU is paying Malzahn, drew fewer fans than ASU last year and they are slashing all season ticket packages $50 to $150. The "rich" TV deal CUSA signed with Fox? Works out to $580,000 per school and was signed when Orlando, Dallas, and the better supported school in Houston were in the league. The chasing of TV dollars is like what is happening in boardrooms of failing companies. Slash your core business and dump it to cling to the one steady revenue stream that in the long run won't exist without the core business. Go research the budgets of FBS schools. Whether its Texas or Texas Tech league revenue (which is only partially TV, it also includes NCAA, bowl, league championships, and sponsorships) is generally a third or less of operating income. The core revenue stream in college is ticket sales, donations, and sponsorships. The new Big East and the Alliance are chasing TV dollars and BCS dollars mostly at the expense of playing regionally relevant schools. The problem UNT and Arkansas State share is that we lack a really close school that we can have a rivalry with that helps fuel donations and tickets. Swapping the Sun Belt label for the CUSA label doesn't resolve any of our problems if CUSA doesn't have those regionally relevant opponents. They are ignoring their core business. I tend to believe that if you take care of selling tickets, soliciting donations and sponsorships that the TV part of the picture will take care of itself. You should never make a move solely because of TV. The intelligent conference asks first, "Does this school fit with us in their goals, aspirations, focus, and profile?". The second question should be, "Does adding this institution help anyone in the league sell more tickets and to develop a rivalry?". Look at TAMU. Back in the 80's LSU and TAMU had a short-run series that was extremely popular and Arkansas has a long history with them. Mizzou and Arkansas are a perfect fit though not as currently hobbled up in their division structure. You focus on growing the 70% of your business, not the 30%, especially if growing the 30% is at the cost of the 70%. Rick Pitino has already said he will not comply with a Big East mandate to schedule the football only schools for a total of four games a year for each football only because Boise and San Diego are too far for the program to deal with. How is San Diego State going to help SMU or Rutgers sell more tickets and generate more fan interest? How is a championship game against Nevada and the occasional cross-over basketball game against them going to help East Carolina sell more tickets and spur interest in their corner of North Carolina? Commissioner Waters thinks the Big East will collapse and the fallout will trickle into the Alliance and some into the Sun Belt. I disagree. I think the Big XII will take Louisville and someone else, probably South Florida but maybe Cincinnati or Rutgers. Memphis would be a very long shot. When that happens I have my doubts that the basketball schools will agree to add any more full members. If the ACC were to come back in and take two more, I'd wager heavily they will not agree to take any more football schools to get back to eight full football members. The likely outcome in my opinion is that what is left of the Big East other than Boise State and San Diego State may finally see the light and approach the best CUSA programs and maybe Temple, maybe UMass, maybe a Sun Belt school or two and form a new conference that leaves UTEP, Tulane, Rice, UAB, maybe Tulsa out of the mix. The western schools will take UTEP, Boise State, San Diego State, and maybe USU and San Jose, maybe NMSU (not likely thanks to UTEP and New Mexico) and do their own thing. The Sun Belt will pick up Rice, UAB, Tulane and if available Tulsa. Might take La.Tech or UTSA or TexSt. and we will have the five wealthy leagues. We will have a new eastern/southeastern league to replace CUSA/Big East and a MWC sort of conference and there will be some schools left in the cold like NMSU and Idaho. This post has been promoted to an article

GoDaddy.com requires 7,500. Beef O'Brady requires I think 5,000. Believe New Orleans requires even less.

The WAC has until July 1, 2014 to have added an additional football playing school. I don't think UNT is changing its mind about joining. Why would Montana, UC-Davis, Sac State, Cal Poly, Portland, Lamar, Sam Houston change their answer when the general situation in FBS paints the WAC's future as even more dim than when UTSA and TxSt joined?

I'm not sure a playoff is in our best interest. A playoff reverses the pressure for larger leagues. What happens if Alabama and 8 of their closest friends conclude they are better off in a smaller league to compete for a playoff spot? MAC no longer makes sense to have 14, makes more sense to find a couple teams and split. A playoff also makes what has been mythical pressure to reduce the size of FBS actual real pressure. In an 8 or 9 league universe in the current system we are better off. Still going to get crap PR but we will get better recognition.

Gus might walk in 2 years. But he is four hours from his home town. He now lives minutes from some of his closest friends. He is provided a massive house in an exclusive golf neighborhood he has no car expense for himself or his wife. He and his wife said long before this came up that they do not want to live in a large metro area. His contract includes incentives based on donations weighted with highest rewards for donations from people who have never donated. My sources say he can be at a million before the contract is up if he has success. ASU boosters are providing 85% of his salary. Given state of the program there may be significant salary growth potential.

Six

I was fully for Chico until I saw the Malzahn story had legs. Wild day

Having been working on this since the first leaks, I can give you some of the background. There are only three names in coaching the average non-fan in Arkansas knows. Petrino, Houston Nutt, and Gus Malzahn. Malzahn utterly dominanted in high school. At Shiloh Christian he won two state titles for the classification and they ended up playing up a class because schools in their assigned conference refused to play them after several years of repeated beatings. He then moved to Springdale in the highest classification. His last year they outscored opponents 664–118 and won the state title game 54–20. He was named offensive coordinator at Arkansas for the next season. Nutt didn't like his offense and as the season wore on Nutt began over-riding more and more of his play calls. The Hogs dropped their final three games to finish 10-4. Malzahn quit and took a cut in pay to be offensive coordinator at Tulsa. Terrible time for ArkSt as Tulsa began killing us in recruiting in west and central Arkansas. Tulsa became the first team in NCAA history to have a 5,000-yard passer, a 1,000-yard rusher and three 1,000-yard receivers in a single season. They finished 1st in offense his first year and his second year they were second in the nation in scoring... ALL-TIME, not that season but in the history of I-A football. First year at Auburn broke the Auburn single season total offense record previously set by the undefeated 2004 team. 2010 Auburn gained Newton and a national title. From what I was told Chizik has been insisting on a stronger running game and over-riding play calls leading to a strained relationship (38th in rushing near the bottom in passing this year). The relationship broke last week. Malzahn called Freeze and Freeze encouraged him to apply giving him full details on support, committment, recruiting, facilities, and roster. Malzahn called Arkansas State, expressed interest and named his price. ASU raised the money in short-order.