Arkstfan

He resigned for health reasons after missing nine games this year. Neither side is paying a buyout.

Tough call as to which CUSA fan base is going to be the most ridiculously arrogant and abrasive. I mean tough to top La Tech fans chanting “We got football yes we do, we got football how ‘bout you” at UAB fans and the fact that WKU actually invented basketball despite the whole big basketball Naismith conspiracy. Now they have Jacksonville State, Sam Houston State, and Liberty coming in and all three can give those guys a run for the money.

Seriously some of the historically best basketball programs have been schools in the Ohio and Missouri valley regions (geography not the conferences). Gonzaga is in a smaller metro area than Wichita and the school has less than 5,000 undergraduate students. Lexington is smaller than Spokane, WA

Montana State is really good this year and was last year and Bozeman, MT the whole county is 118,000 people. The AVERAGE low in December, January and February is under 20 degrees.

Wichita State is paying out $12.5 million in buyouts. Apparently money ain’t an issue there. Mac left Jonesboro in less than a year, basically closed up shop a few weeks early. Quit Abilene without coaching a game. I don’t think he’s look for a smaller community, though Wichita metro is 647,000 so not tiny. Biggest media market in the state other than Kansas City.

Had more than one long-time administrator at various places say the same thing about MEAC, SWAC, etc. They say, there are easily 75-120 college presidents who would rage and argue against changes that priced them out and forced them to reclassify while they popped the champagne knowing they no longer had to dig for coins in the couch to make the athletic budget. No more subjecting players to long strings of games they can't be competitive in and conference being the only time their teams aren't out-matched. It's not just football and basketball. Arkansas lifted it's no in-state play ban primarily because it was getting so expensive buying mid-week opponents in baseball and the only schools willing to make a long mid-week trip for a check were generally SWAC schools who clobber the Hogs power ratings. Few years ago, Arkansas women's tennis looked meh, then made a big run in the SEC Tournament. Didn't AQ and they were six Division I match wins short of eligible for at-large consideration which requires .500 against Division I. The Arkansas women's tennis team traveled to Nashville to play six matches against Tennessee State AND paid Tennessee State $15,000 to play. Hogs took all six 4-0. The selection committee was unimpressed.

Very unlikely, especially with push to 96. I'm going to repeat my same doomed argument about 96 that I made last time there was talk of it. If you go to 96 outbids need to change. Each year before the season NCAA should rank each league based on three year computer average of the members actually in the league each ranked season. The top 16 conferences should be potential double bid leagues. The regular season champ is in the NCAA Tournament, if you have a conference tournament the champ has to play in it, but the team winning the conference tournament also gets an AQ if the regular season champ doesn't win. If the regular season and tournament champ are the same team, the second place regular season team gets an auto bid. That obviously doesn't mean anything to Big 12 or SEC but it can matter to WCC or Valley, etc. The eight conferences rated 1-8 have their regular season champ pre-assigned to a sub-regional, for example Big East champ this year would go to Albany Big 10 to Columbus or Des Moines, Pac-12 to Sacramento and so on. Fans won't know their seed, but they will know where to book travel to if they win a top 8 league regular season title. Ought to help the sometimes awful first and second round attendance.

Well they could but they won't. Conference tournament only counts as one game against scheduling limits, but only if the tournament champ gets the AQ. You could still have a tournament but you'd have to count every game played against the schedule limit.

Been meaning to drop in to specifically find this thread to see, if Jones was getting the warm wishes he earned from his stint. Glad to see that be the case. Now as to the question of autobids. I've got two reasons why they should happen. One, if you are having a Division championship AQ's matter. They protect against big name bias. I have zero heartburn over the SWAC tournament champ getting in over Oklahoma State the apparent first out. Cowboys were 18-15, had a losing record in the Big 12. Lost at home to Southern Illinois, third in the Mo Valley, lost neutral site to UCF who was 7th in AAC. Went 6-12 vs teams in the top quarter of Division I and lost 6 of their last 8. Yeah Ok State would beat Texas Southern but neither likely to make to make round of 32 either. I'd rather see a fluke run AQ like Texas Southern than see 7th place Big 12 with all those resources and so little to show for it this year. Reason two. Everyone who wants to draw a line puts their conference on the good side of the line. No reason for the wealthy five to not draw the line at five, or feel generous and put the Big East in. If you meet the qualifications for Division I in a sport that can reasonably support an all comers tournament, let every league in. That said, I remain an advocate for tightening the membership criteria for Division I. Look at FBS, you have to award 200 scholarships and sponsor 16 sports. Meanwhile for a school like TAMU-CC could just sponsor 14 sports without football and award 107.6 scholarships and comply with Division I standards by awarding 54 total scholarships. I have a serious problem with 54 many of those split, being adequate to compete in Division I. At minimum it should be 90% of allowed aid for the sports sponsored which in my example would be 96.9 and really ought to be 100 scholarships awarded. The 50% limit for 14 means that there are Division II programs (where the minimum is 10 sports) that are awarding more scholarships than Division I schools and that is with football capped at 36. Men's Track has same limit as Division I as do men's tennis and volleyball a few less common women's sports have equal limits. A Division I volleyball program awarding 50% in women's volleyball is at 6 and Division II giving all allowed aid is at 8. I just don't believe the 50% limit is consistent with the Division I philosophy statement about competing at the highest level possible. If some schools get priced out by awarding 90% of their allowed scholarships, I have absolutely no heartburn, even if they exempt football from the requirement (as long as they play 15 sports and 14 that count). The Ivy League problem is likely going away with their anti-trust exemption expiring and suit already filed claiming anti-trust violation for conspiring to not award athletic aid which will mean the Ivies will dominate a lot of non-revenue sports if it happens.

I believe in forgiveness. I also think one should be super cautious about people going into situations where they messed up again. I wouldn't hire a forgiven pedophile to be youth minister nor a thief to run the cash register. I'd not hire Briles to run a college football program nor would I hire Freeze to coach or administer a college program. Gus? I'd take Gus back in Jonesboro in a heart-beat. Team kept getting closer and closer to perfection. He's a weird dude. He needs the right assistants around him to maintain team morale or you'll lose the team. Need someone on staff who can land the right QB or you have a mess. Fuente if he wants to head coach again will do a good job in the right place

There is a group of ticket buyers/fans you can’t gameday into not eventually realizing they are better off at home. You can’t replicate the joining in cheers, singing the alma mater and fight song at home. The fist bumps and high fives with strangers or the seat buddies you only see at games and might not remember or have ever known their name. I went to Shreveport a week ago to see Jack White. The encompassing sound can’t be easily replicated at home. You don’t get the between song comments and it’s fun to stand and clap and dance in front of your seat. If you don’t like those things buying the record or streaming the music is an acceptable substitute. That’s where we are in live sports. You can build giant video boards, improve concessions, and install great WiFi but what you need is those moments of shared frustration, disappointment, anticipation, and joy and people who want that experience. The biggest frustration I have is the pervading fear of there being a moment without music, an ad, or announcement, makes it hard to talk to someone else. Even all day music festivals don’t bombard you from three and a half hours unbroken.

It’s lousy marketing to have an unreadable logo. Funny thing about old grumps sometimes something new strikes their fancy. On my board you get people who want the stAte logo and those that want the wolf head. Then the team at the Mexico campus used one on one side and one on the other and now people who thought it was stupid when other schools used two logos are wanting us to do it.

Massive stadiums are a holdover from the days when every seat in the house was the same price and the idea of higher priced premium seats was foreign. 18 of 30 NFL stadiums seat less than 70,000 and 11 of the 17 to open since 2000 seat under 70,000 with LA's announced capacity being 70,000. Only three seat 80,000 or more and another three bigger than 75,000. My family and I sat on the 11 yard line near the 50 from 1974 to 2020 and now I'm five rows below the press box with a shelf/table rolling seat, food supplied, short walk to nice new bathrooms. I think what I've seen MLS do is spot on for all but a handful of super attendance programs. Compact stadium with lots and lots of suites, large number of premium seats up high and another set close to the field. Some cheap seat sections for the stand yell folks and a more modest number of seat traditional seats.

Neat logo just weird choosing a helmet and sticker color combination that renders it nearly invisible.

Great coach and wasn’t conceding anything on the field or off.

Friend who used to work with the Independence Bowl said they’d go to site on Friday. In the ACC they’d say we plan on meeting visiting team coach at walk through and the home team people would look baffled and say they aren’t coming until tomorrow. Hoops league.

We used to bus same day to Memphis but now go day before. 70 miles.

USF is moving their game against ECU to FAU's stadium, so the expectation apparently is that southern Florida will be clear by then.

Otaku is wrong. Clear in the article that the student paper asked for the settlement and CUSA opposed. https://sm2media.com/31214/news/usm-paid-1-75-million-to-exit-c-usa/ CUSA asked that the records be sealed and not disclosed under Mississippi Public Records law. CUSA also asked that it not be disclosed to schools going to AAC I suppose CUSA was afraid it would be used to argue for a lower departure that would let the departing schools get some league revenue. https://247sports.com/Article/Conference-realignment-Conference-USA-in-battle-to-keep-terms-of-Southern-Miss-settlement-secret-per-report-187199099/

Some place with an ocean or mountain view drinking coffee on the porch and catching up on his reading if he’s smart.

This is correct. Chadwell was hired to be head coach in waiting.

Just think though. If Texas fires Jimbo (your guess good as mine), Auburn fires Harsin (weird hire) which seems likely and the Rhule experiment ends at Carolina, you could end up with Nebraska, TAMU and Auburn all three bidding for Matt Rhule. He could we be the highest paid coach in college football next year.

Texas roots aren't essential. Gary Patterson was 38 before he lived in Texas. Matt Rhule didn't live in Texas until he was hired at Baylor. Mack Brown won a national title and first gig in Texas was at UT. Hire good coaches, give them what the need to the extent of your checkbook and focus less on clicking off a magic box on a checklist.

Memphis won five games combined the three years before Fuente was hired. Tune into to Memphis sports talk radio. It's September and Grizzlies basketball and Tiger basketball are as lively as talk of Tiger football.

He will likely finish no higher than third in his division in what you deem an inferior conference but think he can contend in a superior conference?????