Arkstfan

When UNT fans grouse about the one play only CFL sized end zone at Austin, consider this... An illegal procedure penalty against Arkansas State last year that was admitted to be an error by the Big 12, may have cost the Sun Belt a million dollars. The Sun Belt passed the MAC in BCS revenue sharing and was one key non-conference win from passing CUSA. Other games that could have changed the day? ASU's 6 point loss at Southern Miss. UNT's loss to SMU MTSU's barn-burner point every half minute game with Louisville MTSU's loss on a late FG to Virginia Troy's loss at Georgia Maybe UNT's loss to Navy Maybe ULL's loss to Ohio One game. That was the difference in over a million dollars and being #3 among the non-automatic bid conferences and being #4. http://www.dnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A.../807100311/1006

Depends on the program. To me part of what makes college games special is that a fan transported forward in time 30 years ought to be able to see his team on the field and figure out pretty quick who it is that is playing. Fashions change as does the state of protective gear but it shouldn't be a mystery about a team and a father taking his kid to the game ought have memories triggered by seeing the team of when his Dad took him to his first game. I guess if a program is bad enough you want to rid yourself of the past but college athletics in part are about memories of when you were a student, that's supposedly one of the justifications for athletics, to draw us old farts back to campus. We all set aside one weekend a year for the purpose of us old farts having a chance to reunite with old classmates.

Here's highlights. RaiderInTheZone I agree with that. It's unfortunate the administration felt I was a complete embarrassment to the school as did some of their bigger fans and alumns. I was just always passionate about MTSU and defensive. That's where I went to school straight out of high school. But now, I'm glad I broke ties with MTSU. I think I cared too much for the school to the point that I really wasn't giving myself a chance to look at what other schools have to offer. I'm actually headed back to school in the Fall and I'm headed out West to do it. I chose Division II Adams State College located in Colorado because they offered me a scholarship and I really like their Exercise Science programs. They offer a twist to physical fitness with scheduled outdoor fitness challenges like mountain climbing, ice climbing, hiking and much more through their Adventure Programs. Alot of this stuff you couldn't do here in the southeast and especially not at MTSU. ASC actually plays two FCS schools this fall at Montana State and Southern Utah. I don't think ASC has a good football team though. It's okay. I want to do what is right for me, and MTSU and the Sun Belt was deadweight I cared too much about. It consumed too much of my time, and too much of my money. I am thankful for the opportunity that Adams State College is affording me. I definitely respect FCS football more than Sun Belt football. At least FCS football is entertaining to watch and every team has the chance to win a title. You guys don't understand how God awful the Sun Belt really is. I've seen it. I've lived it. It's not as glamourous as some may think. Go...gate Are there thoughts of MTSU dropping out of FBS? RaiderInTheZone I doubt it, even though they should. That entire conference has no business playing in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

Someone or several someones at MTSU screwed you over and you go on a raging hate-fest against everyone in the Sun Belt?

Why would you go way out there to see a team that didn't make the NCAA Tournament, didn't make the NIT but did lose first round of the first CBI when you had a Sun Belt team that made the Sweet 16 come into your gym?

It was all about the money. Tulane's threat was to defect to the WAC. If TCU were invited to the MWC (which we now know did happen, and would happen if SMU and Rice were invited), that defection would have caused CUSA to forfeit all of its NCAA basketball units and Marquette, Louisville, and Cincinnati had racked up a bunch. Those units would have gone to the school earning them rather than the conference. Without those units, Marshall is better off in the MAC. UCF might have still be interested but CUSA would have been Memphis, Southern Miss, Houston, UAB, and ECU and had less money than the Sun Belt though still with some TV deals assuming they weren't canceled or renegotiated. That assumes Houston wouldn't have headed to the WAC with Tulane, which they might well have done. If Tulane and Houston had defected CUSA would have been down to four, five with UCF. The question would have been do those schools join the Sun Belt where they can have an automatic NCAA berth or do they work with 7 of the Sun Belt to form a new league and wait the 5-6 years for an auto berth. Idaho and Utah State probably get cut loose. FAU probably doesn't get an invite. Football only member ULM maybe gets full membership, maybe gets cut loose. Non-football members possibly get cut loose including FIU. Could have been a very interesting scenario. Likewise, if Tulane doesn't throw a snit, SMU, Rice, Tulsa and later UTEP stay put in the WAC and the Memphis plan is followed where CUSA adds only Marshall and UCF to get to 9. TCU insiders claim they were set to turn down MWC if CUSA sticks at nine but found SMU & Rice untenable. That means MWC ends up staying put or adding either Boise, Fresno or Hawaii but only one. That leaves the WAC at 9 and likely either adding no one or adding USU. Tulane really reshaped the game.

ASU is playing Texas Southern but WKU is supposedly paying the difference between what they would receive for the game with ASU. WKU backed out in order to play Kentucky.

Don't forget that the worst conference in I-A... Sent the same number of teams to the NCAA Tournament as the MWC. Sent more teams than CUSA, MAC, and WAC. Won more NCAA Tournament games this year than the MWC, MAC, and WAC combined. Sent more teams to the NCAA baseball tournament than the Big 10, MAC, Mo Valley, MWC, and WAC and sent the same number as the Big East and tied with the Big East in performance. Was one of five conferences to be represented in the Women's College World Series and finished tied for fifth with UCLA.

It's not bad, it could be better but it was designed to be our transition from Division II to Division I facility in the early 70's and needs have changed. The worst thing that happened was we started down the road just as inflation took off we ended up shaving some of the back rows off and didn't run the stands to the end lines instead stopping at the goal lines. That made it 16,000 seats rather than 20,000. The best thing that happened was we started getting ready just as inflation took off and we ditched the track from the original plans.

JAS was a good stadium until the early 90's when the construction boom took off. Fouts I'm afraid was out-dated about 30 years earlier, but each was built with a different purpose in mind. Fouts is in a way a plus for UNT, because it will be an easier sell to explain replacing it. I wish we could replace Indian ASU Stadium because there isn't enough room on the sidelines, the pressbox is too small, the lockerrooms are on the wrong sides forcing teams to cross each other entering and exiting, lighting is insufficient, and the steel sections don't match the concrete but its not bad enough to focus donor attention.

Road WAC record 19-14 .576 Considering the travel Hawaii has to play those games, I'd say that's a pretty dadgum good record and that was really drug down by a couple bad seasons.

June Jones lost two games to I-AA teams at Hawaii and built a team that went to the BCS, albeit a team with sloppy habits like giving up yards after each catch to try to get extra yards that work fine against inferior teams but not so well against a team like Georgia.

Didn't realize there was a comedy section here. The WAC got where it is because 3.5 schools made a decision to spend money, build a fan base and be competitive in football. The WAC presidents have consistently rejected Commissioner Benson's public suggestions regarding expansion in the conference doing it when the 8 broke away, when TCU left, and when Tulsa, SMU, Rice, and UTEP left. Commissioner Benson made no bones that he would successfully lure Tulane and Houston into the WAC (worked well) and that he would land UNT and boasted to UNT that if the Mean Green said no that ULL would snatch up the offer which they did not do and couldn't even get a positive response of interest from ASU and MT. He failed to do due diligence on adding La.Tech to the conference taking the boast that the Independence Bowl would add the WAC hook-line-and-sinker. I've got a friend on the I-Bowl committee who can tell you of the stunned look Commissioner Benson had when he was greeted by laughter from I-Bowl members over the idea that they would take the WAC thanks to La.Tech. The I-Bowl committee members got tons of hate email and threats of boycotts because they thought Notre Dame was a better opponent for LSU than La.Tech. There is no love there. The WAC sided with CUSA and MWC on the BCS revenue distribution plan and managed to screw themselves out of making even more money. I love the armchair experts touting the greatness of the WAC yet in the past five years at least six Division I-A institutions have examined membership in the WAC and turned it down and in the last decade 13 schools have abandoned the league.

Three stats I'd like to see (hint to anyone willing to do some work). Jones was 76-41 at Hawaii and 69-39 vs. I-A (counting 2004 FAU as I-AA) 1. Record vs. I-A competition with a winning record. 2. Road record 3. Road record in WAC play. The closer those three numbers are to .500 or exceed .500 the more impressed I'll be.

I saw an article where they purported to show that the WAC was a better financial deal. However.... 1. The representative year (2000) for what it would be like to be in the Sun Belt, Tech traveled to Monroe, Tulsa, Middle Tennessee (pretty fair so far), Auburn, Miami (still pretty fair), Kansas State (OK) and HAWAII (yeah Hawaii is really typical of Sun Belt travel). 2. The representative year for WAC travel (2002) they traveled to Boise, San Jose, Clemson, Texas A&M, RICE, and SMU, so in the "typical" year used as an example they traveled to two conference games that aren't even half the distance to the closest WAC opponent. 3. In 2005, 2006, and 2007 La.Tech received $125,000 EACH YEAR as its share of the admission fees of NMSU, USU and Idaho. 4. Yeah the WAC got a good share of BCS money but it took Hawaii winning five games by a TD or less to pull it off, just one game goes the other way and there is no added BCS share. Even if Hawaii's schedule goes down like it did, if BYU doesn't get called for pass interference against UCLA on a play that began after the 25 second clock had expired, the Cougars quite possibly beat UCLA and don't turn the ball over 4 times in the second half against Tulsa, BYU finishes undefeated and ahead of Hawaii in the BCS standings leaving the Warriors playing in the Hawaii Bowl. You can't count on the BCS money because that's how thin the margin is between getting the money and not getting it.

With the cost of travel rising if there isn't realignment up above it may happen at our level to save money.

Considering that since UNT rejected the WAC (in great part influenced by documents from Louisiana showing what La.Tech was having to spend and was bring in for revenue) I cannot imagine the answer would change. Since that time the cost of fuel has doubled. Airlines have created baggage fees (try moving an athletic team without carrying extra equipment). The number of flights have been cut making it harder to get an entire team on one flight. But also since that time, the Sun Belt's share of BCS revenue has increased and NCAA money has increased and one long road trip will be going away.

Basketball and other teams that fly commercial are really going to get hammered. The cost of flights is rising. Then there are the baggage surcharges and teams to tend to always have a ton of bags because of the athletic equipment. To top it off planes are fuller now so getting everyone the same flight is going to become difficult.

You recruit against SMU. That pretty much solves it. The plus of Army is that the games there are guaranteed to be on TV.

TEN SPORTS COLLAPSED AT ONCE? (eight last place finishes plus the fall of women's basketball and football) That some baaaad coaching.

I still think the likely result down the road barring a big surprise is a basically east/west realignment of CUSA and Sun Belt into a tighter geographic footprints.

Some of you are truly amusing. First you don't get it. Conference affiliation while nice, doesn't build a program. Duke from a BCS league just got a court decision handed down that held that ANY FBS or FCS school would a comparable school. In your own state Baylor has proven BCS membership does not a program make. Houston, Rice, SMU and TCU learned they couldn't just show-up and collect a check forever. Second you don't understand the WAC. For years and years the Big West was the hands down dregs of Division I football. In 1975 their best program, San Diego State left. Over a period of less than 25 years the league lost five members, not to better conferences, but because the schools gave up and dropped football. Remember when the NCAA clamped down on Division I-A standards after the 1981 season sending more than 40 schools from I-AA to I-A? After that move there are only 4 schools that were I-A in 1982 that aren't I-A today. Wichita State and three Big West schools that dropped football (Long Beach State, Cal-Fullerton, and Pacific). Today the WAC is made up nine schools, eight are former Big West members. Fresno escaped the Big West first, then Nevada, then Boise and former member La.Tech, then Idaho, Utah State and NMSU. The first three have taken care of their programs. They built fan bases. They improved facilities. They won games. It gave them a chance to escape, but they got sucked back in by the people they escaped. That didn't kill them, instead they continued winning games and learned going undefeated in a weak league can put you in the BCS if you play a crappy enough non-conference schedule to finish undefeated. Nothing magic about that formula. FAU could go to the BCS this year but to do it they'll have to beat three BCS schools. Boise and Hawaii faced but one each, both at home. Third you don't get what a life-sucker that expense and travel is. When La.Tech entered the WAC they won it immediately in football. They dominated in women's basketball. They were very competitive in men's basketball. But all that came with players recruited when playing Sun Belt schools. Recruiting southern athletes to go west Louisiana Tech has taken a program that was competitive across the board in the WAC and seen it become a program that finished LAST in 8 of the 13 WAC sports they play. That is atrocious. UALR and ULM tied with three last place finishes in Sun Belt play across 19 sports. It takes three Sun Belt schools and six more sports to equal Tech's accomplishment.

The screwdriver sticking in the turf near June Jones probably didn't help their reputation.

Fresno is in the #55 market. They do not fit the academic profile of the Pac-10. They have an outlaw reputation and fans have been noted for their vulgar chants and a few incidents of throwing objects. As to the comments regarding 16 team leagues, as I've said before it can work. What it requires is either two groups of 8 that want to play the schools in their group of 8 and little interest in playing the other group of 8, or it requires a deal like the Big East where football has fewer members and the basketball schedule can be tweaked to create the games that preserve rivalries.

The problem with Nevada is that it is the #110 TV market, just ahead of Tyler/Longview, Lansing, and Boise. Colorado is a perfect fit in every category except the map.