Arkstfan

The Sun Belt is a crap shoot in any given year. The 2003 UNT squad was an impressive 4-0 on the road in the Sun Belt and the largest margin of victory on the road was 10 points. An injury, the wrong guy getting the stomach flu, a pass dropped by a d-back is caught instead and it could have fallen apart that easily. In 2005, ASU gave up one sustained drive to ULM, a two-minute drill comeback, that was only relevant because of an earlier pick by ULM setting up a TD. Hold off ULM and we take the league outright. Likewise ULL salts away a 15 point lead over ASU at the start of the 4th quarter that season and ULL could have won the conference. In 2006, Troy recovers an onside kick on the way to scoring twice in under 2:30 to beat MTSU sending Troy to the New Orleans Bowl. Weird things change the fate of a season. In 2005 ASU's wildly inconsistent placekicker hit walk-off game-winners in consecutive games and hit three field goals in a 9-3 win over Troy. Last year ULM misses a chance to tie Kansas thanks to a missed PAT and then falls short on a 2 point conversion that could have sent the Kentucky game to overtime. FIU missed a PAT that would have tied MTSU, a PAT against USF AND fumbled to set-up a short drive that gave USF a one point win, FIU threw a pick on a pass that could have beaten Maryland, and had a PAT blocked that helped lead to the 7 OT game with UNT. While the conference is better than it was in 2001 and has shown continual progress, depth is a major issue, couple that with closely matched teams and you can get some pretty wild results.

Yeah but the site supposedly deducts points for acquittals but they've yet to do so.

ASU had five arrested in a single incident related to a frat party and they were all acquitted.

In 2005-06 Tech received $1 million more from the WAC than ASU did from the Sun Belt and $1 million more in game guarantees and spent $8,000 less on athletics.

There was never a WAC offer to take 2 Sun Belt teams when UTEP left. All that was offered was to snub Idaho in favor of UNT and then a threat to leave UNT twisting in the wind by taking the Cajuns and leaving UNT and Idaho out. ASU and MTSU were only spoken to as possible 9th teams in the event UNT and ULL turned down offers.

You are correct. Idaho wasn't on the table. The offer was only to UNT who wanted time. The WAC told UNT take it or the Cajuns will. They called the Cajuns who laughed in their face and promptly sent UL System data on La.Tech's revenue and expenses to UNT. The WAC inquired of MTSU and ASU but did not offer and found a similar warm reception. UNT countered with a 12 team format and the WAC said NO and UNT with the real numbers staring them in the face declined. Then the WAC ended up inviting Idaho.

What SHOULD have been done was to go to 16 because that could have been done correctly. An 8 team Western Division and an 8 team Eastern Division with a three tier television package. A national coverage package, a regional package independently negotiated for each division, with any leftover inventory for the teams to deal with. A more "eat-what-you-kill" approach to revenue sharing for TV, any bowl net revenue, and basketball, that addresses Fresno's opposition to the big expansion and unlike the old WAC 16 where rivalries had to be split up, that alignment would not have split rivalries and would have led to very limited inter-divisional play.

The WAC was pitched the idea of 12 teams (sans Idaho) taking four Sun Belt schools plus Tech and NMSU to form an eastern division and they rejected that idea. The bottom line for a Central time zone school is this. 1. Tech has made some fair money but those numbers have been temporary. - The final year that UTEP, Rice, SMU, Tulsa were in the league they forfeited their share of league revenue so it was only split 6 ways rather than 10. - USU, Idaho, and NMSU paid $750,000 each in entry fees. That boosted per team revenue sharing in the WAC by $375,000. If UNT had been in the WAC last season the conference check would have been less than that. The WAC shared around $10 million split nine ways. If UNT had accepted it would have been split 10 ways reducing it by about $200,000 and then another $250,000 for entry fee. - The BCS revenue is a one-time thing that can't be counted on. Boise doesn't return a pick 61 yards for a TD against Wyoming or fails to get in field goal range on its final possession against San Jose State and you might have had Notre Dame in the BCS and Boise is playing its bowl game at home. 2. Check Tech's budget. It is roughly a Sun Belt budget but they aren't putting money in facilities at the pace of Sun Belt schools. Check this site put together by Tech fans that shows the deficiencies in facilities there. What upgrades are underway are upgrades we were all (or most of us) were bragging about 1 to 5 years ago but ours were paid for out of our regular budgets and fund-raising, their's are being funded in large part by the one-time money from WAC entry fees and BCS revenue. They had to play some road games in women's basketball in home jerseys because they had been delayed being able to get new road uniforms. Tennis nearly had to forfeit out of the WAC tournament one season because of a budget short-fall. To make budget they've played three money games a year five out of seven seasons. 3. The time zone issue cannot be pushed aside. A 7:00 pm Hawaii kickoff or tipoff is 11:00 pm here. A game that finishes the next day isn't in the next day's paper. The value of radio ads on the network are diminished by the late time. A 7:00 pm Pacific time zone game is a 9:00 pm here. That means limited if any write-up the next day and again a lowered value to the radio network for games that are heard so late at night.

You can cut it any way you like it but absent that one time check and the bonus checks while Idaho, NMSU, and USU were paying their dues to join and the WAC is a more expensive proposition. Some time one of the newspapers there did an article comparing costs and found it about dead even, problem was the years they based it on Tech went to Hawaii in a non-conference game and played Rice and Tulsa in conference play. Think of every sport UNT uses a bus for most or all conference games. In the WAC, Tech has to fly to every single one of them.

More on the ADA claim http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2007/04/how...s-does-big.html

ASU appointed a committee to look at the issue. The committee has said we need to drop Indians, so far the Board of Trustees has not acted on the suggestion so we are still the Indians. It is expected once the decision is ratified that another committee will be formed to begin the selection process.

I'm old school. I like plain jerseys with maybe a sleeve or shoulder stripe and light colored pants with a stripe. Did I mention I grew up watching football in the 70s

I try to take a couple sabbaticals from the net during off-season so it takes me a bit to catch up enough to visit our brothers-in-arms. Back in 1975 there was talk of forming what was referred to as Division IV or I-A. Membership criteria being roughly what was adopted after the 1981 season. There was some talk of making it across the board for all sports but that didn't get traction. What ended up happening was in 1978 Division I football was split into I-A and I-AA. To be I-A you had to sponsor a minimum number of sports (remember everyone was still ramping up adding sports in the wake of Title IX) to be I-A or if you did not meet the minimum number of sports you could be I-A if you met the lower Division I sports sponsorship requirement and met attendance and stadium size criteria. In 1981 the "or" became an "and". I really don't see the NCAA taking any steps to reduce the size of football. I don't think secession of the big schools is very likely. However the growth of Division I basketball may bring some changes. Right now to be Division I you have to sponsor 14 sports and award more than half of the scholarships for those sports. For I-A its 16 sports and a minimum of 200 scholarships. I have no evidence, but I suspect that down the road that the membership in Division I may shift to be more consistent with that requiring 15 or 16 sports awarding maybe a minimum of 75% of the scholarships in the sports played to discourage schools from moving from Division II and putting economic pressure of those barely getting by.

Glad you enjoyed it. We have become so used to all the realignment 1989-present that it we take it for granted as being normal. University leadership tends to like incremental change and of course politics gets involved as well. Looking at additions but not departures The Big 10 went from 1917 to 1953 without adding a member and then another 40 years before adding Penn State. The Pac-10 from 1964 to 1978 without an addition and none since. The SEC went from 1933 to 1992 without expansion. The ACC from 1954 to 1978 then to 1992 and then 2004 and 2005. The Big 8 1948 to 1958 to 1996 The SWC 1923 to 1958 to 1976. That preference for incremental change really led to realignment dragging out. There was a push for the ACC to join the SEC at 12 and instead went to 9 before going to 11 (after getting hung up over Virginia politics) and then 12. As discussed here before, the SWC nearly lost Arkansas, Texas and Texas A&M in one fell swoop in the realignment that sent Arkansas to the SEC in 1991. That resistance to change made it drag out.

Plumm I've looked back through tons of materials related to the great I-A/I-AA realignment of 1981 (actually happened for the 1982 season but passed after the 1981 season. UNT did not have the numbers to make it. UNT had the schedule in place to get back quickly, but to pull it off there would have had to been a rapid fire construction project getting Fouts to 30,000 seats in time for kickoff of the 1982 season. Then it would have meant either a fast bulk sale of tickets to reclassify I-A for the 1983 season. From what I've found the close calls who didn't make it were ASU, La.Tech, Delaware and UNT. McNeese State made it but opted to stay in the Southland while ULL opted to go independent. The Big West and MAC each had a bunch of close calls who came up short but skated on the conference waiver. If they had given us a year to prepare instead of just taking the 1981 results and making the new rules effective 1982, I think ASU and La.Tech would have both made it along with McNeese and ULL saving the Southland as I-A league. Most likely UNT would have been able to adjust as well but would have probably come on in the Southland to take advantage of the conference waiver for protection. Tulsa and Wichita quite likely would have come along as well as both actively sought conference affiliation and couldn't get anything going. Could have been a vastly different world with a one year head's up. Remember though, back in 1981/1982 being I-AA was not nearly as bad for a program as it has been in the past. I-A schools could play up to 4 I-AA opponents. It was not that unheard of for I-A to travel to I-AA. There were only 12 bowl games at the time and little chance of making a I-A bowl. There actually was TV access under the NCAA contract. It was when the NCAA TV contract was struck down in 1984 followed by I-AA games not counting for bowl eligibility at the end of the 80's that I-AA became a really bad deal. The bubble shaped end zone game between UNT and UT was among the last I-AA games to count for bowl eligibility. Up to that point you really didn't see much move to go from I-AA to I-A. You had Southland teams drawing numbers that rivaled Rice, Houston and at times TCU. Once those I-A games dried up it was a stampede to get out because the lack of those games not only hurt the budget, they hurt fan interest because fans lost a benchmark.

There isn't a great probability of major short-term change (ie. quicker than 15-20 years). As noted above, the SEC, ACC, Big 12, are already at 12. Part of what makes splitting 12 ways financially desirable is the conference title game. Adding two more means a huge blockbuster addition that can bring true mega-bucks to the table to offset the split. There aren't many of those. You are talking about a Texas, Ohio State, or Tennessee changing conferences. Not impossible but not likely. The Pac-10 just doesn't have viable choices and need unanimous approval. BYU is the only one in the region with the attendance and TV numbers to look like BCS and a group of large mostly liberal institutions that do academic collaboration aren't likely to happily invite a very conservative institution that frowns on much of what they advocate as OK. The Big 10 could go after a blockbuster like a Texas but other names other than Notre Dame mentioned have been Nebraska (right athletic profile but not academic) and Missouri (right academic profile but not athletic). They are also moving toward finishing the season in 12 weeks. Extending for a title game may not fit their ideal. The Big East has to figure out if they want to remain married to the non-football schools but the other part that equation is who can they add that doesn't hurt their play level? The new BCS deal requires re-evaluating each conference after a few years to insure they are among the top six. Who is available that scores high enough to not hurt? Any addition has to be at least as good as their average team to avoid hurting them. Last year four non-auto bid schools fit that profile. Boise State, BYU, Hawaii and TCU. The year before the list was a bit larger: Tulsa, Toledo, TCU, Utah (by fractions of a point), Boise, Fresno, and Navy (by even smaller margin than Utah). There just isn't a consistent performer in their footprint or close to their footprint. It looks much the same the year before with Bowling Green sneaking in, the rest, outside their region. The last rounds of realignment were triggered by three factors. 1. New model for television. 2. New model for post-season. 3. Disparity withing a conference. The new television model after the NCAA monopoly was broken caused the Big 10 to add Penn State and caused the SEC to add Arkansas and South Carolina. That also caused the Big East to form. It triggered ACC expansion. The BCS riches helped shape who the ACC admitted in the last expansion and who the Big East added to replace who they lost. The TV factor coupled with a wide disparity in value within the SWC caused its collapse. ABC reportedly claimed that any telecast involving Oklahoma or Nebraska drew better ratings in Dallas than ANY game featuring SWC teams that didn't include Texas or TAMU. Unless the marketplace has a dramatic shift (successful court challenge to conference TV putting it in the hands of the schools, change in TV market system to a near total PPV system or a change in post-season that favors smaller higher quality leagues and makes them more valuable than 12 member leagues) we are probably looking at the basic line-up of the rich six leagues for another 15-20 years. One caveat would be that the Big East if it splits hoops/football might look to add one or MAYBE two teams, they aren't likely to find four of the needed quality in order to protect in numbers but a nine member Big East with Notre Dame not playing Big East football (8 football) but playing four Big East opponents each year in football may well meet their needs. The rich six leagues would remain rather constant in that situation until a league gets in a SWC situation where less than half of the league is very high value (1 to 4 teams) and half of the league is very low value. That could happen. If say Florida, Tennessee, Alabama and Auburn become annual top 10 contenders and say six of the SEC schools stagger through non-conference at around .500 every year, are playing in front of half full stadiums, and can't deliver TV viewers. Then a break becomes inevitable but that is a couple decade process. You can tolerate Vandy sucking and Ole Miss, Miss State, and Kentucky being mediocre to bad as long as they can still win their patsy games and post a winning record enough to keep fans somewhat interested. That leaves the shuffling down below for the time being, with some shifting among the other five I-A leagues to get better TV and travel fits.

The WAC which was at 10 when they added Tulsa, SMU, Rice, TCU, UNLV, and San Jose. That was a squirrelly deal, they had agreed to expand to 12, narrowed the candidates to eight (those six plus Nevada who in four or five years in I-A hadn't done worse than 7 wins and Houston who said no). The league was very divided. One group wanted TCU and UNLV. Some wanted UNLV and SJSU or Nevada and remain a western conference. Some wanted TCU and Tulsa or TCU and SMU. The folks at SMU, TCU, Rice had agreed to stick together. The presidents in the WAC couldn't figure out how to split the baby so they took six and split up the core rivalries.

To me the left over four is the interesting part of the story. Three seemed to feel "too good" to associate with newly forming CUSA and wanted to go to the established WAC with its proven track-record. In many ways just a bunch of ticks wanting to feed off someone else. TCU of course actually woke up and became responsible for their own fate and found success. Houston on the other hand turned down the WAC, I suspect their affinity for basketball was part of the deal. We might operate in a very different environment today if the four had hung together and brought in Tulsa and Tulane and a couple of public institutions like Southern Miss, Memphis, and maybe even UTEP.

Maybe it just because I'm an old fart, but I really prefer college teams stick with their school colors with white added when it isn't a school color. Some occasional use of other colors as a highlight or trim is sometimes needed but I really think helmets and primary jersey or pant colors should be school colors or white. I hated it when ASU used silver pants, I wasn't so turned off years ago when we had gray pants but it wasn't as good. UALR may be the worst offender in the Sun Belt, seeing their uniforms you would think the colors are maroon and gold, but it is actually maroon and silver. Caveat here. Unlike the marketing gurus who believe in change, I am a fuddy-duddy who believes there is value in taking your son to a game and the uniforms being substantially similar to the uniforms when your Dad took you.

And the tribes that used to live in Illinois have been raising hell for years asking them to change.

It was enforced the University of Illinois not exactly a pauper in the NCAA world, I got to see them in St. Louis at the Final Four championship two years ago.

First, North Dakota did not win their lawsuit, they won a preliminary injunction that does not translate into winning at trial it just means that they were able to show to a judge that the potential harm to the school was great while waiting posed no great burden on the NCAA. If you look at Tarkanian v. NCAA, I'd say the likelihood of success is very small. An Illinois lawsuit to prevent change has already been booted. Second I'm fine with changing because there are Indians who are offended, its not such an important issue that its worth a big fight, heck UNT can't even make up its mind about a name. What I find fascinating and wish some historians or sociologists would research is the whole trend toward Indian names. From what little I've found the whole thing is really interesting. Between 1912 and roughly 1935 a host of teams in the pros and colleges adopted Indians or Indian related names (Boston in NL became Braves in 1912, Cleveland Spiders changed about three years later and so on). The reason it seems so strange is that the Indian wars ended in 1890. Then 22 years later these names are being adopted. I can't imagine teams in 1975 changing to North Koreans or in 1999 switching to Viet Cong. Yet that's pretty much what happened. My theory for what it is worth is that the period 1900 to 1935 was an era of dramatic change. The motion picture camera was invented in 1895 and started a new entertainment form. 1903 the first production automobile rolled out of a factory with the Wright brothers making the first flight later that year, commercial radio appeared in 1920. My theory is that in a period of such upheaval there was nostalgia for the simpler way of life and the Indian was the model and therefore seen as a positive. The argument is made that it is intended to mock or denigrate and it is often said, "Well what if teams were called _______ (insert racist slur)?" I think the point regarding intention is made by the fact there aren't teams called whatever racist slur you can think of. The absence speaks for itself. If the intent were to mock or make fun of a minority group there would be teams using those other names. The intent of those making those changes I believe was noble, they saw the attributes of Indians being attributes worthy of being held up and being associated with. It is rather simple-minded to to assign a hate motive to such an action. It has offended some, but I don't think I can be convinced it was the intent as some claim. In the end its just not a fight worth fighting.

Not true. First kid wanted to red-shirt and they threw him in the fire. He started eight I-A games and Arkansas won every one of them. Arkansas was 2-3 with Casey starting. Here's the deal. There is a great book that details his recruitment. He wanted to sign with Texas, his high school coach showed his displeasure with the idea of him announcing that prior to the season so he held off. Coach pressures him to pick a school (note the oddity) he announces for Arkansas because he does like the QB coach. Season wraps up Arkansas fires the QB coach. He had been having second thoughts and wanted to go to Notre Dame. Is set to go visit Notre Dame who then demands he commit prior to taking an official visit. Doesn't like the Weiss strong-arm. Arkansas then hires his high school coach to be offensive coordinator. He signs with Arkansas. Staff mocks his high school coach, calling him "High School" because Malzhan is apparently too hard to say. Gets thrown to the wolves late in USC game and rips down the field for TD. State goes ape over him and the other members of his high school team that signed with Arkansas. Arkansas rolls along but word leaks of the book coming out where Mustain had watched a Hog game in high school where Arkansas won late on a big pass play (fans were hard after his play calling) and Nutt practically screams that "He called that play, I called that play brother". Writer is watching with Mustain who says "What a dork" Mustain, now playing at Arkansas goes to Nutt and apologizes for the comment. All is purportedly good. Play calling gets more conservative. Friend of Nutt's brother (an assistant at Arkansas) sends an scathing email to Mustain trashing him and says the players ought to call a team meeting and force him to apologize. Nutt's brother's phone records show he was in contact with the email writer shortly before it is sent. Surprisingly (not) a players only meeting is called and the specific players mentioned in the email demand he apologize to Nutt for the quote in the book (remember he had already privately done that). Emailer also sends another email critical of Mustain, his high school coach and others from Springdale. Copy is sent to various people including Nutt's wife who forwards it to friends with added note that the parts about the Springdale people is "funny". Mustain throws a pick early in South Carolina game and is immediately pulled for Casey Dick and never starts again. Season ends Mustain announces he will transfer. Now there is a bunch left out of that, but there is a misconception that all the mess was Mustain's. That is far from the truth.

No. USA got in trouble with the guy they hired to replace the disaster they hired to replace Arrow. The USA president at the time was apparently a sport expert and wanted Arrow to run the Marymount offense. Forced him to bring in an assistant to install it. Utter disaster. Arrow said time to scrap it, assistant said need to fully commit for it to work. President agreed with assistant. Arrow quit mid-season and it just got worse and they had to admit they'd gone down the wrong path.

I'm no Hog fan by any stretch, but Texas, OU and LSU each hold zero national championships in basketball. Those three combined have 11 Final Four appearances to the six for Arkansas. Only 8 schools have reached the Final Four more times than Arkansas and only 8 schools have been invited to the NCAA Tournament more times. The Swine have a better winning percentage in NCAA play than any of them as well. The Hogs have a winning record against every one of those teams. 26-18 vs. LSU, 84-65 vs. Texas. 12-9 vs. OU. NBA Lottery Picks Arkansas 5 Texas 3 LSU 3 Oklahoma 2