Arkstfan

FAU made the I-AA semi-finals and began transition. They won 9 games in transition and went 4-3 vs. I-A. The next year playing a Sun Belt schedule they fell flat and went 2-9. UConn fell off big as they moved into I-A, bounced back and fell again once they began playing a Big East schedule and are doing fairly well. South Florida did well until their second CUSA and first Big East years. UAB was fairly constant. UCF transitioned well and fell apart as they joined the MAC and have rebounded. Studying transition teams it is very rare to maintain a fairly high level through I-AA into I-A and league play. Not that uncommon for a school to have bust year in the process but that is likely attributable to the difference in transfer rules and the smaller scholarship limits. Looking at a historical perspective, the prospects for UTSA are better than the prospects for Texas State. A TSSM has to deal with a real and identifiable history of limited success and is more likely to struggle through the process. UTSA will be more similar to the USF, FIU, FAU, UAB scenarios (though UAB had a fairly decent Division III history). FIU over-accelerated and have a hole to get out of while FAU has done well having a winning record against everyone in the Sun Belt except Troy (1-4), Middle Tennessee (1-4)(2007 the only year they won a share of the title is the only year they beat those schools), and ULM (3-2) (bizarrely the home team has never won in FAU-ULM series) and has a winning record vs. UNT (5-0) ULL (4-1) FIU (4-1) and ASU (3-2) (home team has never lost). It is counter-intuitive, but if you want to push another Texas team for the Sun Belt UTSA is likely the better choice.

Expansion is really a presidential matter.

Actually it was William Safire who wrote it for Agnew.

They don't even play a game until 2011 and they are passing ya'll in 2013? Western Kentucky was a pretty good FCS and they haven't been able to beat you when the program was like a turtle on its back.

I meant I-AA but the whiners changed the name to get more prestige.

My contacts tell me UTSA has missed every fund-raising target milestone. I've only driven by the AlamoDome but what about it makes it a cinch to draw recruits and crowds. Houston gave up playing in an NFL dome once they no longer had the assurance of Texas, TAMU, and Arkansas boosting their crowds. Tulane struggles to draw a crowd. Minnesota averages more than 14,000 unsold seats per game in an NFL dome hosting folks like Iowa, Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State and having gone to bowls the last two years. USF playing in a pro stadium hasn't been able to get close to filling it and they could sell 30,000 tickets for a bowl in their metro area. San Diego State barely outdraws UNT in an NFL stadium. So what is it about the AlamoDome that will send such huge support their way.

FCS opponent Navy @ Bad Big 10 Indiana @ FBS transition WKU 8 MAC games Had Ball State in the magic BCS 12 or better range before they lost to Buffalo in the MAC title game. Problem for Sun Belt is unlike Hawaii and Boise we don't schedule realistically Hawaii 2 FBS @ 1 bad MWC UNLV 1 bad Pac-10 Washington (second loss of 15 game losing streak) 8 WAC Boise (first time) 1 FBS Good Pac-10 Oregon State @ mediocre MWC Wyoming @ 3rd in MWC Utah 8 WAC Boise (second time) Pac-10 champ 12th best MAC Miami (OH) @ Bowling Green FBS 8 WAC No one in the league schedules like that. MTSU's schedule this year is the closest.

The red jersy black pant combo looks like what ASU rolled out against Southern Miss.

Fixed.

My absolute favorite in Division I. Not a horn fan, basically indifferent to them but that is great uniform.

Want to know the REAL difference between the SEC/Big XII and the Sun Belt? They can afford to fire a coach after one year. Sometimes I think we are nuts for not taking a more MAC-like approach in coaching salaries because last time I checked we were paying better than the MAC. Yeah you miss on some top assistants but we are already getting priced out of the top assistant market as it is. I just don't understand why so many Sun Belt schools (mine is among the worst offenders), give a "vote of confidence" extension that doesn't feature a nominal buyout of the extended seasons. Instead you see coaches either getting an extension that the school then can't afford to buy-out or they let the coach's contract wind down and the fact they have only a year or two left on the contract comes up in recruiting. Why not do the extended term at a nominal amount? Another beef (and big schools do it all the time). A dollar for dollar offset of what is owed when a coach is let go and takes another job. What happens is the coach will take a super low salary leaving the old school mostly on the hook. Why not do a 50% offset? If you owe $300,000 and they take an assistant job that would normally pay $150,000 they end up taking the job for only $80,000 leaving the school on the hook for $220,00. He still gets his $300,000. It would be better to only offset two-thirds. Then he might take that job at market value of $150,000 you cut what is owed to him by $100,000. He's making $350,000 instead of $300,000 and you pay $200,000 instead of $220,000.

I think Vito is right because he is agreeing with what I said after the Final Four. You need to figure out what your student body is like and then recruit athletes that can fit in to be successful. http://beltboard.com/?p=386

It's something I'm concerned about at ASU as our new admission standards are above the NCAA Clearinghouse minimum. If the policy isn't written correctly you can't do special admissions and even if it is you never know how it is going to be applied. Ideally, you should be able to get them tentatively cleared before you offer a scholarship because it is unfair for a kid to turn down offers only to find they've got no place to go because their other choices moved on and filled up their class. I like the NAIA rule. No clearinghouse, you either meet the school standards or you don't get to go there.

I'll add my thanks as well. I first encountered Harry online when I was pissed at UNT for dumping a four game series with stAte as part of the coup that send us eastern Big West football members packing because we refused to join for all sports. We've been through the crap times of dot-com bust that left us scrambling to get our sites out from under the bankrupt Rivals (they still owe me a couple hundred bucks, hope all your checks cleared because mine didn't) and the whole what the blue blazes do we do now drama. Shared congratulations over good times and sympathy over bad. Because of the site I've had the opportunity to enjoy some good visits to Fouts and depending on how things go hopefully I get in one last visit to Fouts this year... and get a peek at the 8.5 million cars that pass by every day

If June can get in enough to win bet he has his agent working the phones next fall to find ANY place to go to.

Until schools start scheduling better the RPI isn't going much higher.

Why is it that Tech beating Bama is 1999 gets mentioned all the time, but ULM beat them in 2007 and Tide fans got the fun a driving past this on the way to the Independence Bowl.

TRANSLATION: We have four private schools that think the rest of us are bunch of jucos and cow colleges and we have schools that somehow think the being basketball elite is more important than winning football games and we had three schools whirling and dancing around trying catch the eye of the Big East. We never could get 9 schools on the same page to have a plan. TRANSLATION: The total sounds much better than $900,000 per team which is very sweet but less than the reported $1.4 million per football team of the deal before a bunch of schools left. In a field of five, being second is pretty good and is "one of the most lucrative" even if it is $400,000 a team less than MWC. TRANSLATION: As a writer, I'm all about the cool destination. Never mind that USM probably cannot afford the million dollar hit that a Hawaii Bowl trip brings. I really like to party on Bourbon Street covering USM, but hey Memphis is cool too even though there is a chance the C-USA champ gets shoved out during this contract to play in Birmingham. TRANSLATION: Eat it Rice!

ESPNU reaches about 1.5X as many homes as the Sun Belt Network (I list it as Comcast/Cox but also includes Brighthouse in Florida, as well as Charter and Time-Warner in Texas and WKYU in Kentucky) but the coverage footprint of the SBN is our recruiting footprint while ESPNU is in a lot of households we don't recruit in places like NY, Chicago, and Fargo, North Dakota. Our ESPN contract requires that SBN games be made available to ESPN3 and GamePlan/FullCourt subject to blackout within our footprint, so given a choice I really like our deal over ESPNU and with the FCC repealing terrestial loophole CSS will start being available to other cable providers and satellite maybe as early as this year but probably 2011. Right now Cox Sports is on Dish but only within the New Orleans Hornets protected territory so they probably go live nationally before CSS because that merely requires a reprogram of the boxes.

Might want to look at NMSU again. At least ULM got an ESPN2 appearance last year.

Keeping to discussing the schools asked about. 2009 ARKANSAS STATE ESPN/ESPN2 2 appearances Comcast/Cox Sports + ESPN3 1 appearance Comcast/Cox Sports + ESPN3 + GamePlan 2 appearances ESPN3 + GamePlan 1 appearance LOUISIANA ESPN/ESPN1 none ESPNU 1 appearance Comcast/Cox Sports + ESPN3 1 appearance ESPN3 + GamePlan 1 appearance ULM ESPN/ESPN2 1 appearance Comcast/Cox Sports 1 appearance Comcast/Cox Sports + ESPN3 1 appearance Fox Sports 1 appearance MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE ESPN/ESPN2 1 appearance (not counting New Orleans Bowl) ESPNU 1 appearance Comcast/Cox Sports + ESPN3 + GamePlan 4 appearances ESPN3 + GamePlan 2 appearances If ASU and MTSU were to get coverage like NMSU, SJSU, Idaho, Utah State, they would LOSE TV appearances.

Dr. Wyatt stepped down as system president effective July 1, and now just has a teaching gig (also doing consultant work for some distance learning biz). If he were still system president he would have head slapped the Chancellor Dr. Potts if he even thought of joining the WAC because he president of the campus before the job was split when we were in the Big West. Under his leadership just wouldn't have happened unless the league was falling apart and it was the only option to keep the program. He told me when USU, Idaho and NMSU left that it was great for both sides because he was sick of the travel and the distance and made it hard for him to create and work on joint academic efforts with those schools. Dr. Potts? He's now acting president, but I don't know what his feelings would be but most of his career he worked throughout the south so probably is inclined to view a southern alliance as being more appropriate and he need only call across campus to get the advice of Dr. Wyatt. Dr. Howard, the acting chancellor, I know little about other than he's been a prime advocate of raising admission standards and has run the international student program and used those funds to assist our club rugby team (Final Four in Division I this year!) and to assist funding of the recruiting efforts of ASU coaches recruiting international student-athletes.

Does Missouri State have the will or desire to be FBS? Are they willing to raise the money to add another 8,000 seats to their stadium? My hunch is that out of Missouri State, Texas State, UTSA, Georgia State, Charlotte, La.Tech, and NMSU that Missouri State and Charlotte would have a 100% chance of being invited if they asked. La.Tech 99.9% chance, NMSU 60% chance, and the rest somewhere under 50%.

The TV exposure (times Central) UTAH STATE Friday 7:00 pm BYU ESPN(one of two chances for ESPN to show BYU) IDAHO Saturday 9:30 pm UNLV ESPNU(one of two chances for ESPN to show UNLV) Friday 8:00 pm Boise ESPN2 SAN JOSE STATE 11:00 am @Wisconsin ESPN(under Big 10 contract same as ASU at Iowa last year) NEW MEXICO STATE NONE ARKANSAS STATE Tuesday 6:00 pm Middle Tenn ESPN2 Saturday 2:30 pm @Navy CBS-C Saturday 11:00 am @Indiana (network to be determined) LOUISIANA Friday Oklahoma State 8:00 pm ESPN2 MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE Thursday Minnesota 6:30 ESPNU Tuesday Troy 7:00 pm ESPN Tuesday 6:00 pm @Arkansas State ESPN2 ULM None

Missouri State is the only one on the list that would assured of carrying their weight plus some because of basketball. They have a market that is as crazy about their team as Bowling Green is about WKU but its a market three times larger. Plus they would enter with the best basketball and baseball facilities in the league. Everyone else is "potential".