Arkstfan

Great sightlines and roomy. Compared to the games being played at Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field. http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2010/11/yankee-stadium-set-for-notre-dame-army.html http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2010/11/wrigley-field-turned-into-northwestern-football-field.html http://www.clubhousecancer.com/2010/11/danger-looms-in-the-east-endzone-of-wrigley-field-for-northwestern-vs-illinois.html

The NCAA did not sue the school. The school sued the NCAA. The NCAA rule only says you can't use Indian imagery or names in NCAA post-season events (on uniforms of the team, band, cheer, or dance squads) or host NCAA post-season events in facilities using those. ASU considered going forward just swapping out the headress logo for the stAte logo and accepting the fact that programs and PA announcements would just be "Arkansas State" with no team nickname. The NCAA waives the rule if the name is that of a specific tribe and the tribe (or tribes) have specifically given permission for such usage. The Ute and Seminole tribes granted that permission. The situation in North Dakota is little trickier. There are two Sioux tribes. One granted permission the other told the school and the NCAA they did not want their name used. The cited reason? The school had previously offered to create a number of scholarships for members of the tribe and to create a program of study in their history and culture. The "program" was listed on the school's web site at least for a time but they never actually offered any of the classes. The scholarship program was created but was never funded so while technically there were such scholarships, they were worth $0. Unsuprisingly broken white man government promises weren't particularly well received. Pissed off would be an accurate description of the reaction. So the school having botched that deal, instead ended up spending over a million (that was the total over a year ago) on legal fees trying to get an injunction against the NCAA. The NCAA brokered a deal. We'll give you an extension to go smooth things over with the tribe and if you meet the deadline, you get the same waiver as Utah and Florida State. If you don't get it smoothed over, we'll waive the no hosting requirement since you don't control your hockey arena. The AP article is rather hysterical because most of the "Sioux" things listed aren't related to athletics and not relevant to the NCAA rule.

Back when John Bobo was coach at ASU (Big West era, UNT was still in I-AA) he started moaning and groaning frequently about money games. A friend of mine who played in the 50's had been a big fan of John, who was one of the most likable people to ever be a I-A coach, was livid. He finally called him (this guy was not a huge donor) and told him he didn't care what he what he told his wife, his mother or his next door neighbor but never wanted hear him complain about any game being too tough publicly. The players read the paper and watch TV and if they see their coach doesn't think they can win, they aren't going to think they can win. Funny thing is early in his time at ASU he went into Starkville with a terrible terrible terrible team tied the Bulldogs, later in the season Miss.St and Arkansas tied so we got some joy from that, but you don't win when you don't expect that you can win.

6-5 10-3 10-2 Boise State's records before going WAC. Two Big West titles in there. 10-3, 12-1, 14-0. Three seasons before MWC invite. 9-4, 13-0, 10-3. Three years of Utah before Pac-12 invite.

This is what I keep trying to get stAte fans to understand. It's an old saying, and Coach Brady loves to cite even more than I do (and I use it often). YOU GET WHAT YOU TOLERATE People can sit around and cry like a bunch of babies about what they don't have (conference affiliation, 100 yard indoor practice fields, three home uniforms, big recruiting budgets etc) or they can raise expectations and focus on what they have that they can exploit for success. As long as people think a great season is 7-4 or 8-5, they won't be that upset with a 6-6 season. If a 6-6 isn't that bad, then 5-7 was just a couple breaks away. I do not believe that it is outside the capability of several Sun Belt teams to be 12 or better in the BCS rankings if they exploit their strengths. Ball State with a crappy schedule, a 40 year old stadium that doesn't even seat 30,000 was one win from being at that point. They are 20 minutes closer to Indianapolis than ASU is to Memphis, similar MSA population, located in a rural area. Look around the Sun Belt and everyone in the league has several advantages over Ball State. Name me one school in the Sun Belt that would have a high official say "Our goal is to be in the BCS in four years". Most CUSA AD's and presidents wouldn't go on record saying that. Who is willing to stand up and be accountable for saying "Our goal is to be in the final top 25 within four years." The boldest statements I've heard so far was the ASU chancellor saying "Why can't we be like Memphis in basketball" and John Brady saying "While I am here, we will go to an NCAA Tournament and win a game. I don't see any reason we can't have a shot to go to a Final Four like George Mason did." Until a school sets higher goals than win the conference or earn the auto berth to the NCAA Tournament, the results WILL NOT CHANGE. When the NCAA raised academic standards more than one coach said the change would knock a lot of good players out, what happened was that when kids understood what was required to play Division I ball, most of them rose to the challenge. I wonder if Nevada football would be ranked today if not for the challenge of chasing Boise after they set such a high standard. Someone has to rise up and set the standard.

150 is a rolling average of three years. When you look at schools that average 150 over three years, that stays relatively static. Texas Tech was 72 last year. Let's say their three year average is 75. You can play them and either UNC-Ashville or Mercer or SC State and hit 150. Now the downside is LSU is in the toliet so you need a Nevada or Illinois to balance them (actually Sam Houston would come close to balancing them). If you play Kansas you can balance them with Florida Gulf Coast and your pick of Southern Miss or Northern Colorado. Play two top teams and you can play three or four real dogs in non-conference. If you want to play one win Bryant, you have to play two teams who average around 52.

No one has been more vocal in opposition to it than John Brady who said the league was fine as it was. I happen to think that when a conference is in the top half of Division I in resources and profile and the champion goes to the NCAA tournament tabbed as one of the bottom nine teams (ie securely in the bottom third) in the tournament and the league is consistently rated in the bottom half of Division I that something is bad wrong. Apparently not enough schools got their competive juices flowing after WKU's run so now we turn to a rule to prevent schools from causing too much harm to the one trying and expecting results.

Bowden's last signing class at UNA was ALL Division I transfers many with criminal or disciplinary issues at the schools they left. Lots of ACC and SEC guys. If you can't dominate Division II with 27 former FBS and 4 FCS players, somethings wrong. They lost 5-0 to Valdosta last week and generated 101 yards offense.

If I'm in the business of making cars, or cutting hair or selling insurance no. In college athletics contrary to popular belief it isn't the business of winning, it is the business of selling tickets and soliciting donations. You make that business easier by winning games and attracting public curiosity. If I were a university president my biggest concern about Leach would be the likely faculty backlash, otherwise I don't think you can find a coach who does better out of the blocks in the areas of ticket sales and convincing people there is something going on worth being part of.

I don't think Leach is a hot commodity. Jobs that opened after he was fired that would not interview him. USC, hired a coach who had ties to conduct that led to their probation and had marginal success at prior job. Tennessee, hired La.Tech coach with moderate success. East Carolina Ruffin McNeill who was the interim at Texas Tech after Leach was fired but would not interview Leach. South Florida, hired Skip Holtz, who had a pretty good resume and unlike Leach no allegation of player abuse. Who knows what stupid things politicians think but hiring Leach is GOOD for the lawsuit from the state's viewpoint.

I doubt that would make a significant difference and would be welcomed because it would mean he's mitigating his damages. Now he might not want the UNT job because he is arguing that the damage caused to his reputation is preventing him from getting an FBS job, but a bona fide offer from UNT puts him in a bad position on that assertion, other than to argue that he had to take a job at much less pay with a much lower profile. I'd be more concerned that Leach hasn't come to grips with the fact that AD's are going to shy away from a coach who got sideways with ESPN and presidents are going to be leery of a coach fired for purported abusive behavior toward players. Same issue with Leavitt finding other work except for the ESPN issue.

You missed the point by a mile and three-quarters. BYU as an independent needed the WAC's ability to provide them with four games per year. They needed a home for their other sports. Killing the WAC means no one giving them four games per year and their preferred home dying is a screwing of BYU. Your analogy isn't remotely close to what happened. More apt would be the Sun Belt working a deal to get SMU and Houston to join and CUSA offering UNT a spot, UNT rejecting it and CUSA raiding the rest of the Sun Belt so that it is no longer able to be a league. And for anyone who think USU was acting with honor in rejecting the MWC, isn't paying attention. USU wanted to affiliate with the most popular program in the state (by a wide margin), a program that outdraws MOST BCS teams. Their interest wasn't WAC or MWC but rather BYU,

What is really important in comparing costs is to not use the fraudulent comparison that Tech touts. Compare Tech to ULM not Tech to ULL, because ULM due to location can bus to sites that ULL can't and Tech could bus to any place ULM could bus to.

BULL I went through a Houston media guide a couple years ago. The only difference in Houston attendance now and in the SWC is they don't get the attendance spikes that Texas, Texas A&M, and Arkansas provided. Their fan base is their fan base and it hasn't changed. The only people they lost were the ones who were there wearing burnt orange, maroon, or Hog red. Those weren't people donating or buying season tickets.

USU invite tells me all I need to know. You don't want to be in a backalley knife fight with the MWC. They went for them first to provide maximum screwing to BYU.

Look at the six team WAC. Who is the premier program? If your answer is anything other than Hawaii, I suggest you look again. You need numbers if you are the WAC. Texas State is easy if you are so inclined. Montana is best pick but has rejected three prior offers to move up. Sacramento State is possibly close to making the move if they want to. The best option is Cal-Davis a very good program, they just aren't there stadium-wise. You want to make life easy for Hawaii so you want Cali schools. Your focus is Cal-Davis, Cal-Poly, and SacSt. Davis and Poly need more seats. There is no rule since they changed FBS criteria that you draw 15,000 to stadium with PERMANENT SEATS. You help Davis and/or Poly rent 8,000 portable seats and meet attendance. They can start transition in 2011, play a WAC schedule in transition in 2012, and as an FBS in 2013, same method we used with FIU/FAU. If they can iron out the Cali schools, Texas State and UTSA are probably hosed. They might take one simply to give Tech a bit of relief on travel. Now you have a conference that goes from Ruston to Hawaii and is functioning on bad Sun Belt season revenue.

If you can get a bunch of waivers and rule changes from the NCAA and BCS, it works great. Otherwise its the stupidest idea ever. First to pit CUSA-MWC you need that spot locked in, which means giving them a spot without them actually meeting the criteria set forth to get a spot. Second to have that game you have three choices. 1. Get the NCAA to approve you playing an additional post-season game which sure looks like a playoff and likely won't be well received giving teams possibly a 14th game, maybe 15th if they go to Hawaii. 2. If you can't do that you can merge into one league and then have a conference title game, but you need a waiver from the requirement that every team in a division play each other. In CUSA division with 12 teams, that means playing 11 conference games and 10 in the MWC division. 3. If you can't get that waiver, then you use one of your 12 regular season games to play that showdown. Now if you merge, the NCAA doesn't operate on a one-school one vote system, each conference receives a vote. Right you have 11 leagues. Merge and there are 10. The interests of MWC/CUSA are going to be more like Sun Belt and MAC than Big 10 and SEC but now the vote is 6/4 rather than 6/5. At 6/5 you need to convince but one to join you in the vote. You go from one autobid per 10 or 12 schools to one for 20+ In sports like baseball, volleyball, that can be a really big deal. You could have all the football schools from one league join for football and stay in the other sports but the school losing the football schools, now is a I-AAA league again impacting voting. The whole idea assumes that either there is no rule book or that the NCAA and BCS are going to clap their hands and say "That's wonderful! Let's change a bunch of rules to make that happen!"

The WAC dying? Just because 16 teams leave in the span of 11 years shouldn't be misconstrued as a problem with the league.

No one rushed to save us when the WAC fired what appeared to be the kill shot, and would have been had UNT and ULL not held firm. It is in our interest to put the WAC out of business. The question is are there 8 university presidents in the Sun Belt willing to cast votes to add Tech and NMSU.

Tech and NMSU probably can leave without penalty because the WAC does not have 8 FBS schools and is therefore not an FBS league.

Could it be that most people understand that the WAC is on life support if not already dead so not a viable option for UNT, while the MWC is aiming at schools with longer track records of success and even if UNT were on radar, UNT joining likely results in TCU leaving? Doesn't leave a lot to discussion about UNT.

RPI boost

Denver would likely end up in the WAC as they try to put something together to at least take care of sports other than football. UALR? Might want to call the Southland if Tex St and UTSA leave.

In life there are winners and losers. The WAC has 16 teams since 1999. They are down to little of value. Time for the Sun Belt to grab two, kill them and collect the power-up coin. http://beltboard.com/?p=432

I don't see any compelling reason to expand at this time. I think the current 9/12 soon to be 10/12 format is good. I'm not a fan of title games by non-AQ leagues, the money isn't there. As I scan the horizon looking for schools that we ought to look at, my list of schools looks roughly like this. 1. Missouri State. Sort of the Midwest's version of Montana except they aren't nearly that good in football. In their market, they hold about the same percentage of the fan interest as WKU does in Bowling Green but the market is 3X larger. Would enter the league with best basketball and baseball facilities and it wouldn't be close. Problem is they aren't likely to leave the Valley for football reasons. Still would be the head of my wish list. If they call we start talking how soon can they come. 2. Louisiana Tech. Already FBS, might be the tipping point to get the league into the I-Bowl in next contract. Doesn't add anything new to the league but they are in the region and aren't transitioning. That carries value. 3. Appalachian State. Fringe of the footprint, can transition easily, compatible with most of the league academically. Sucks to get to. 4. Georgia Southern. Better within the footprint bridges Troy/USA to FIU/FAU gap. 5. UTSA. Decent not great hoops, clean slate helps in transition. 6. Texas State. No consistent success in either football or basketball