Arkstfan

The division split is a creative solution that can be helped with a permanent inter-division match-up. BYU isn't going to be high on the Pac-10 list. If Colorado were willing to come in (who cares that they are on the side of the Rockies that feeds the Atlantic rather Pacific) then maybe Utah would be acceptable. After that, the candidates aren't that attractive to what the Pac-10 is.

What gets said by us unwashed masses insulting other schools isn't a big deal. The Dooley case was different because it was an athletic director. In this particular case this athletic director gets a six figure salary and answers to the college president who answers to the University of Louisiana System president and board. The University of Louisiana System president and board also govern ULM. Even if the schools were in different systems this fiasco is a breach of etiquette in academics, but this is like UT-San Antonio publicly trashing UT-Arlington.

Shawn is a good recruiter, especially if you are looking for a good shooting guard. Most ASU fans would have been pleased if Coach Brady had retained him, despite our desire for a house-cleaning.

They are scraping off the rust. They no longer have a need to swing the main grandstands back to accommodate baseball and as old as it is they aren't sure they can swing it back to football configuration so they won't do that any more. (actually made that decision two years ago http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/...607280343.html) Since it won't be moved into baseball configuration they can tack some lounges onto the sides of the grandstand. They will paint. They will replace faded plastic. They will fix the roof. They will firm up the walkways which were only used when the stadium was in football configuration but not baseball. Nice steps to keep the place viable but its not an impressive renovation.

That's why ULM had to respond. Fan comments, even a few coach comments you pay little to no attention to. From the Athletic Director, you have no choice but respond.

It's not tyranny of the WAC. It's about one school with an immature athletic director who acted like a message board loud-mouth rather than a professional.

So if TCU's AD said TCU doesn't compete with UNT for players and talked about the inferiority of UNT academics while explaining why you don't play in football you would be happy to schedule in track, volleyball and men's and women's basketball?

Looking to and being accepted are two different things. The Sun Belt has taken 2 straight from I-AA and will take 2 more. Of those four, three were members of the conference before going I-A. CUSA did that with UAB and USF. The Big East with UConn. The MAC with Buffalo and Marshall took teams from I-AA who weren't members.

The track record of teams from the lower end of the Sun Belt football standings in the WAC is stellar, they are all doing great unless you measure success by wins or selling tickets. Call 'em and see if they'll revisit the invite.

Under what set of facts is the Sun Belt the worst conference? At least 3 I-A leagues did not have multiple NCAA basketball tournament bids like the Sun Belt and two failed to advance past the first round. (MAC, WAC, CUSA) Four I-A leagues failed to have multiple teams in the NCAA Baseball tournament. (Big 10, MAC, MWC, WAC) In football the Sun Belt in the BCS conference rankings finished ahead of the MAC and missed beating CUSA by fractions of a point. Perception is one thing and if you want to think the Sun Belt is bottom then perceive what you wish, but the facts don't match it.

Stebo heard an economist on the radio arguing that the government had made a mistake pushing home ownership so hard. He mentioned several markets where there are a lot of jobs available and said that the problem in those markets is that they can't get workers. He said that the really poor can't afford the move period while there plenty of middle class people with in demand skills who can't afford to move because they are stuck with homes they can't sell for what is owed on them. That's Tech's dilemma. They can't get out of their WAC membership for what they would owe to make the move.

Boise played one BCS school in regular season, Oregon State and won, but they got them at home.

Tech did the right thing when they joined the WAC. Conventional wisdom said the MWC would expand (it did but not as much as many pundits expected) but they went after CUSA rather than WAC schools. The ACC expanded and conventional wisdom said that Duke and North Carolina would find a school to join them in blocking expansion (they did to a degree as UVA blocked any plan not involving Va.Tech). If conventional wisdom had been correct the five eastern members of the WAC would have controlled expansion after the expected MWC raid. Instead the ACC domino fell, the Big East domino fell and CUSA got raided and thanks to Tulane's insistence CUSA dipped into the eastern WAC. Likewise I think a strong argument can be made that Tech was on track as the WAC tried to recover from losing 4 out of 10 members. Tech pushed to add USU to be part of a six team western division and wanted NMSU to join them in an eastern division that would take four Sun Belt schools (UNT, ULL, ASU and a pick 'em of MTSU or Troy). If that offer had been on the table it would have had a good chance of being accepted. Idaho, ULM, FIU, FAU, and most likely Troy would have been left to die even though there was supposedly an "all or none" pact. The WAC though wasn't willing to have more than two central time zone programs. As it stands today, I don't know that Sun Belt membership is a great deal for Tech. Historically playing in the same league with ULM has meant ULM matching or bettering Tech in a variety of sports. Choosing between two schools so close together with such similar facilities gives ULM the edge because of the larger community. Financially as awful as the WAC is for Tech, especially if they aren't getting BCS bonus money, the truth is that it is cheaper to starve slowly. Without a waiver Tech would have to play a year in the WAC without any revenue sharing. For a program that is coming up short financially as it is, it is unlikely they could make up the financial difference. Even after the year of WAC membership without revenue the question becomes can they save enough in expenses to make up the difference in conference revenue? That answer may well be... No. Tech's athletic budget is similar to ASU's but Tech generates $2 million of it in game guarantees and conference revenue sharing that ASU doesn't get. Maybe they keep their scheduling practices in place and the dip is ONLY about one million but can they save enough and sell enough tickets and get enough donations to make up that million? I doubt it. They have taken such a negative stance toward the Sun Belt that it will be all but impossible to un-ring that bell. If the WAC can keep sliding into the BCS and can start performing in the NCAA Tournament to offset non-BCS years then Tech can continue on indefinitely even if they don't improve donations, sponsorships and ticket sales. If Tech doesn't right its own house then a lack of BCS performances and a lack of NCAA Tournament success will start strangling them and a shift to the Sun Belt won't reverse that course. The bottom line is their future is wagered on CUSA adding them within three to four years. If that pony don't finish the race I don't know what they are left with.

Tech fans who judge Sun Belt facilities by ULM or their visit to UNT are ignorant of the state of the league. Their stadium is better than Fouts but the rest of their facilities aren't as good or are no better than what UNT has and UNT has paid for plans and fund-raising that are more ambitious than the projects at Tech.

Don't look at the WAC standings to see how well they do there and don't compare their power ratings and RPI in all sports to see how they compare overall to the Sun Belt. Also please avoid looking at how they've done head-to-head vs. Sun Belt schools in all sports.

This is a school with fans who think the ASU-Tech series should be renewed if its 2 for 1 in favor of Tech with ASU's home game in Little Rock but in reality signed a 3 for 3 with UALR and gave up one of the home games due to their pressing need for a money game make it a 3 for 2.

Does he write that EVERY summer? 16 makes sense if: 1. You can create two divisions of 8 that don't care if they play people in the other division. For example take 8 Pac-10 schools and 8 Big 12. That would work. Take 8 Sun Belt and 8 WAC (7 Sun Belt plus La.Tech and 8 WAC schools). Then you have a conference that is for most purposes two independent conferences of 8 that act jointly as one economic unit. The Big 8 and SWC toyed with this idea. 2. You can make more money as a joint operation than independently. The Big East is currently in this circumstance but it makes more basketball money than any other conference and the power in basketball that makes that possible is almost evenly divided among football and basketball members. The basketball members bring the league into TV markets they cannot reach in football. If the balance shifts on who is producing income, they will splinter quickly.

Video your memory is good. USC and UCLA are generally the best gate receipts for most Pac-10 schools and it has been long assumed that Washington, Washington State, Oregon and Oregon State would always oppose expansion because it is highly unlikely that they would end up in the same division as USC and UCLA. These were the schools who were strong proponents of the nine game schedule. BYU does not play on Sunday. The Pac-10 plays a lot of Sunday basketball and baseball as well as playing Sunday in most every sport except football. Most of their championship tournaments play on Sunday as well. Now I happen to think BYU might have a different stance toward Sunday play if the Pac-10 were asking but we can always act like they are actually devoted to their beliefs and assume Sunday will remain an issue. Here's the thing when you look at Pac-10 expansion. First look at how the members see themselves. Seven out of ten members are also members of the Association of American Universities (all but Arizona State, Washington State and Oregon State). The 60 AAU schools pull in 58% of all research grant funds in the US and 52% of all doctoral degrees. In the last decade nearly half of Noble Prize winners were affiliated with one of those schools and three fourths of all US winners. There are only three schools that play I-A ball that are members of the AAU that aren't in one of the six BCS auto qualifier leagues (Buffalo, Rice, and Tulane). The Pac-10 is going to be very hesitant to look to a school that doesn't have a very high national profile academically. Not saying they will totally exclude lower tier school but it is an extra hurdle to clear. Next look at the pool. Let's say the Pac-10 excludes Central and Eastern time zone schools from the candidate list. That leaves like 17 schools in I-A. Now look at the TV markets of those schools. Denver is #18 but it's on the front range, you've got to cross the Rockies to get there (but Colorado is AAU). Next is San Diego at #27 but by all reports, the Pac-10 is already very strong in that market. The networks are unlikely to give more money for adding San Diego State because the impact would be minimal in market the Pac-10 dominates already (that's like the SEC adding ASU to improve in the Arkansas market or the B12 adding UNT to improve in the DFW market). Salt Lake is #35. Las Vegas is #43. Albuquerque is #45. Fresno is #55. Honolulu is #72. Spokane serving Moscow, Idaho is #77 and Washington State is in that market already. El Paso is #99. Reno is #110. Boise is #118. All the way around there just aren't a lot of TV eyeballs to attract other than by adding the University of Colorado and a Utah school. BYU with its huge influence in Salt Lake City and huge average attendance makes perfect sense but do you see West Coast colleges welcoming a college that deems homosexual behavior or advocacy for homosexuality to be an honor code violation that can result in expulsion? That leaves the University of Utah but its support while outstanding among the non-BCS crowd still pales compared to most BCS schools and it generally struggles to attract top in-state students (academically) when BYU wants them. If you pass on them next in line are UNLV and Fresno and neither come close to fitting the Pac-10's academic image of itself. The core problem for Pac-10 expansion remains finding two schools that fit academically, athletically and bring eyeballs.

For that tournament to happen it has to be approved by the Board of Directors. The membership of that board is one conference president from each conference. There are six automatic qualifier conferences and five that are not. For a tournament to happen, at a minimum at least one of them have to agree to a playoff.

First I've heard of it.

Money is a big factor. A bowl game that would take an SEC or Big XII for the promise to buy 7,500 tickets will ask the Sun Belt to buy 7,500 tickets AND pay a $500,000 (or more) "marketing fee". The Liberty used to be MWC 1 vs. CUSA 1. The MWC left because they had to buy 10,000 tickets at $42 each and pay a marketing fee reported to be $750,000. If the MWC sold no tickets their pay out was less than $50,000. If they sold all their tickets they still only added $420,000 to that total on what was announced to be a payout well over $1 million. The SEC sends like #8 and only has to promise to buy 10,000 or 12,000 tickets.

Denver is a great member... the location just sucks. If they were in Tulsa or Memphis it wouldn't be an issue. The travel just doesn't work. It would be nice if UNO works out their issues because they like UALR fit snugly within the footprint and help travel in basketball and non-revenue sports. Truthfully, I was surprised when the presidents took the step of taking that vote knowing UNO was at risk.

Here's the thing. Marshall and ECU complain about the cost of travel to Texas but there isn't any school interested in CUSA that is a really big travel saving for either school. They can cut the travel a bit but not dramatically.

Sad thing is he is one of the friendliest writers in Arkansas (outside of Jonesboro) to Arkansas State. That's what we have to put up with.

I can't find the article online but around the time of the Big 12 land grab there was an article that explained what happened with ABC. The Big 8 and SWC were struggling to get a TV package similar to the Big 10, Pac-10 and SEC deals. They approached ABC and asked for a combined bid that would cover both leagues with every SWC school playing one non-conference game against the Big 8. ABC offered the same money as for two independent deals. The Big 8 folks then asked ABC to give them a figure for just the Big 8 plus UT and TAMU and it was identical. Part of ABC's logic was that ratings in Dallas were through the roof for UT games and good for TAMU. Any game involving OU drew better ratings than SWC games without UT or TAMU. The fall off in Houston and San Antonio was nearly as dramatic if TAMU or UT weren't involved.