Arkstfan

The National Weather Service also announced that the forecast rain for November 17 has been rescheduled to November 15.

When contemplating a shift, you have to ask "what is to be gained?" Southern Illinois is a hoops school first. So they would certainly entertain a change that would improve their standing in basketball. For that to happen what are the leagues consistently better than the MoValley that make as much or more money? SEC? No chance at joining. ACC? No chance at joining. PAC-10? No chance at joining. Big 12? No chance at joining. Big East? No chance at joining. Those six are the only leagues with clearly better exposure that are as good or better than the Valley. After that you have the A-10, which is currently below the Valley and generally fights for the same spots. CUSA, currently below the Valley but has typically made better money, but can it be sustained with only Memphis making noise in hoops? MWC, currently below the Valley and lousy geography. When you look at the options, where is the incentive for SIU to go from FCS to FBS? The MAC and Sun Belt would take them for all sports but they move from a league where the championship is telecast on CBS to ESPN or ESPN2. They move from a solid 2 bid league to leagues that have not been 2 bid of late and tend to go home the first day of the tournament. CUSA? They were one bid this year. What benefit does FBS provide them? 1. A lesser basketball league. 2. Greater access to money games, but they tend to not play money games playing one I-A a year opting to play a single MAC game each year except for last season when the only I-A opponent was Big 10 member Indiana. 3. Greater expense by adding 22 football scholies and likely needing to add one women's sport, which would then require having to play a money game each year in addition to current practice. There just is no benefit to SIU to move up, instead it would be a detriment to their program. Scratch them from your list.

PG Jim Jones was suspended for the entire non-conference slate.

It's not really a play-in game. It counts as an NCAA Tournament game (which I discovered by accident when I saw a particularly weak program listed as having won a Tournament game, they count that as part of the tournament).

Stand-up, you aren't looking at the right numbers. Play-in status is NOT determined by conference ranking but rather by the seeding of the TEAM. If you peruse the RPI sites you will see that unless there is a nice RPI bump from tonight's game or some upsets in the lower or similar conferences that the two lowest rated teams in RPI will be the winner of the SWAC and the winner of ASU/UNT. I fully expect that one of the upsets will occur and there will be a decent RPI bump however, it isn't likely that it will be enough that either ASU or UNT will be rated higher than five teams in the RPI, and that pretty much means being a 16 seed.

Without an extra period UNT is averaging 61.5ppg in Lafayette.

When a team averages 65.5 ppg against us, we tend to not think too much of their offense since we give up an average of 71.6 ppg.

The cynical fan has noticed that who recruits a kid seems to have a great deal to do with how that player is rated by the recruiting services. There are three reasons for that. http://www.beltboard.com The whole recruiting industry is rotten to the core.

If they or anyone can't pay their bills without heavy reliance on game guarantees they've got serious issues and they will have to have a large stroke of luck to be successful. When you play three money games on a 12 game schedule you lock in 3 losses and to get in a bowl you really need a 7-5 record. The WAC is tied to three bowl games and 6-6 won't get in you in a bowl unless the league has no available 7-5 teams. In the WAC you will play 13 games every other year. In those seasons you are bowl eligible at 7-6. To get to 7-5 on a three money game schedule you've got win one non-conference (this year a I-AA) and then finish 6-2 in league play. That means win all of your home games and split your road games. In a 13 it means go 2-3 in non-conference and 6-2 in league. To get to 6-2 in conference you've got to win your home games and split the road games. To avoid losing more than two you've got to beat one of Hawaii, Boise and Fresno. Since joining the WAC, Tech is 1-5 vs. Boise (five consecutive losses), 2-4 vs. Fresno, and 1-3 vs. Hawaii. Now let's say you do that and get a 7 win season. The WAC only guarantees bowls to teams finishing 1 or 2. A 6-2 record may very well get into one of those slots but it could be a tie and if you've lost to a team you tied you could fall out of the 1-2. So if you don't snag a 1 or 2 seed then what happens? Well you cross your fingers because you know Hawaii is staying home if they've won 7 (which is just as well, you can't make money or take any real number of fans playing a bowl there). So you are between the New Mexico and MPC Computers bowls. Odds are that if you aren't 1 or 2 and don't have a dressy record (ie ranked or on the verge) that each bowl committee is going to pass on Tech if they can. For example Tech at 7-5 this year would have almost certainly been passed for any available WAC team in New Mexico except Idaho and maybe Utah State, likewise Tech would get passed in Boise for anyone except maybe San Jose. So unless you are 1-2 or the WAC is short of being able to meet obligations, you won't get a WAC tied bowl. That means needing an at-large spot. Well there were two at-large spots this year but if Pitt stops UConn from making a two-point conversion in the second overtime, there is only one available slot. If Indiana doesn't throw a pick for TD against UConn or doesn't lose to I-AA Southern Illinois, Indiana is in the Motor City Bowl. If Kansas doesn't drop one of the three games they lost by a TD or less they go to bowl. If Boise loses one game they probably miss the BCS and the WAC has more teams than bowls and probably sends San Jose to the Poinsettia. Tech is backed into a corner because the top of their conference is very tough and their scheduling means a bowl berth is only available by placing 1-2 against that tough top or by making it to 7 wins and praying something is open without an available BCS team or an available regional team.

CUSA doesn't get to play?

The rumor has been around that Tech actually put out feelers about returning to the Belt shortly after UTEP was accepted to CUSA and UNT rejected the WAC. The story is the guys who represent the bulk of their donations threatened to pull 100% of their money if they went to the Belt. Of course we know universities won't do something stupid just because some loud-mouth big money donor demands it. It's been reported on the Tech board that they have less than 500 athletic donors TOTAL. When I was on the booster club board at ASU we had right at 1,000 and that was when football was really sucking and basketball was so-so. After last year we bumped our minimum donation for numbered parking spots for football up to $1250 a year and have over 200 members at that level or greater. Per the reports submitted by each school to the federal government, ASU and Tech had nearly identical budgets last year but Tech took in a ton more in game guarantees and league revenue. That means their ticket sales, donations and sponsorships were significantly smaller than ASU's.

Got to disagree. If you are AD at Kentucky, Ole Miss, Miss. State, Kansas, Missouri, or Oklahoma State you know the odds of having a team that can make an 8 or even 16 team playoff field is slim but you always have the bowls. Even if the bowls survive a playoff the measure of success will be making the playoff field. #1. you aren't going to favor any system that gives all conferences an automatic berth to all conferences because you don't want Troy and Central Michigan in a playoff while you are in the surviving bowls. #2. You aren't going to favor a system that raises the profile of the conference teams you compete against even more because that puts you even further behind. If a 16 team playoff were adopted and if no change is made to current NCAA rules regarding playoffs you would get a playoff that has 8 automatic berths (assigned prior to the season based on prior year ranking of the conferences because auto berths cannot be more than half the field) and would have 8 at-large slots. So you would probably had auto berths for ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, CUSA, Mountain West, Pac-10 and SEC this year based on last year's rankings. The playoff field would look like this using the BCS rankings (seed next to name) Automatic berths (15) BYU (2) Florida (16) Houston (6)Louisville (1) Ohio State (10) Oklahoma (5)USC (14) Wake Forest At-Large (12) Arkansas (9) Auburn (8) Boise State (4) LSU (3) Michigan (11) Notre Dame (13) West Virginia (7) Wisconsin

9 gives you a 4/4 schedule home and away. 10 means either a 5/4 or skipping one opponent every year and that opens the door to the top two teams not meeting and finishing with identical records. In football you want odd numbers to get that even home/home split without skipping a team or you want to go all the way to 12 and have a title game. In basketball even numbers are better because it allows the league schedule to be a week shorter or avoids having to have some three game weeks in order to squeeze the conference schedule into a tight time frame. That's very important for the Belt because we have an early conference tournament due to television and historically try to avoid league play prior to January 1 because being a southern league interest in basketball tends to not come until then. The best size for the Sun Belt would be 9 football and 12 basketball.

The NCAA has changed the rules. What they found was that when the minimum was $750,000 many bowls could not generate enough money to pay that so they would align with a conference willing to enter into a "marketing" agreement with the bowl. The conference would pay thousands of dollars for the bowl to "promote" the conference by adding the league's logo to their materials and the logo of the team selected. Then they would boost the ticket requirements. The new rules require only that a bowl pay enough to cover a team's reasonable expenses. The take home remains the same but it eliminates the shell game used to make it appear that the bowl is paying tons of money. When the Las Vegas Bowl suggested dropping its payout in order to eliminate the "marketing agreements" the Pac-10 balked because they preferred paying $200,000 for a marketing agreement and receiving $800,000 over no marketing agreement and receiving $600,000. Amazing isn't it? For way of reference. The vaunted $1.3 million the Liberty used to pay the MWC included marketing agreements and ticket purchase minimums totalling roughly $1 million. If they didn't sell their tickets well they didn't even cover the cost of the trip.

You are ignoring how collegiate athletics works. Overbuild and you can't sell season tickets effectively because the fan base KNOWS they can walk up and purchase a ticket at any time. Something can be full and can be sold-out drives season ticket sales. Fans have to be concerned that they won't see the game they want to see or will be stuck in lousy seats to get them to buy season tix in appreciable numbers. When you reach that point you can start getting real money in donor club money and that's where the real money is in athletics. Any reasonably intelligent design firm can create a stadium that can be easily and cheaply expanded. Central Florida is estimating their stadium can be done for less than $1,000 per seat and that cost includes site work and full infrastructure (lights, electricity, plumbing, press box, concessions, bathrooms, and installing the field). Arkansas State's expansion (east side deck and end zone seats) cost less than $100 a seat in 1990. A properly designed 32,000 seat stadium could be expanded to 52,000 for less than $4 million today and if you are in a position that 32,000 seats is not sufficient affording $4 million would be easy.

That is one of the greatest sports columns ever written. There was nothing wrong with the logic, it just proved that "the logic" only carries you so far. Last year we had tri-champs in the Sun Belt. One coach had prior I-A head coach experience, one had moved in from being a I-AA and Division II coach, one was an ass't with no head coach experience. This year the coach of the year will be a guy who had never been a head coach. The person is more important than the resume.

BTW, you inspired something that might even be funnier (to those of us not actually going through it). Well, you wonder why I always dress in black, Why you never see bright colors on my back, And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone. Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on. I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town, I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, But is there because he's a victim of the times. I wear the black for those who never read, Or listened to the words that Jesus said, About the road to happiness through love and charity, Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me. Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose, In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes, But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back, Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black. I wear it for the sick and lonely old, For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold, I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been, Each week we lose a hundred fine young men. And, I wear it for the thousands who have died, Believen' that the Lord was on their side, I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died, Believen' that we all were on their side. Well, there's things that never will be right I know, And things need changin' everywhere you go, But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right, You'll never see me wear a suit of white. Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day, And tell the world that everything's OK, But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back, 'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black

My sense of humor gets in the way every now and then. Some day down the road after the appropriate time had passed the time to induct DD into some sort of hall of honor or such would have come and feelings would have been such to make that a genial time to remember the positives. His refusal to go gentle and rage against the night will make it harder for that to happen and that is a shame.

You might appreciate this http://www.beltboard.com/forum/forum_entry...=all&order=time

Interesting. If timing were the issue (ie. wait until the season ended) then there is no need to look at the "body of work". If the belief is that the "body of work" ought to be the issue then it takes little effort to see that Dickey produced two, arguably three good seasons at UNT and quickly fell back to where the program was when the Sun Belt started except that level was no longer sufficient to be competitive in the Sun Belt. Should have stuck with the timing issue and said, no one that would be a legitimate candidate is available to interview at this point so waiting would not have made a real impact.

FYI http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/foot...n.ap/index.html While everyone knows Boise is #14 in the country, San Jose State is a solid 6-2 on the year.

Question. Under the Texas law or regulation can an interim be named during the posting period? In Arkansas it isn't uncommon for a job that has to be posted to be filled by whoever they want during the search period and then when the search period is over they pick Joe Bob to get the job because he has all that great experience of being the "interim".

When La.Monroe went to I-A in football they no longer offered I-AA football. The Southland used to require all members to play football in the conference. That rule was why ULL left when the league was reclassified I-AA in football. It also caused UT-Arlington to get booted when they dropped football. The rule was later changed to require members to play in the Southland when they offered a sport the league has a championship in (same as the Belt). With that rule change once La.Monroe no longer offered I-AA football they no longer had to play SLC football because the SLC didn't offer a championship in I-A football. The Sun Belt used to allow associate memberships in football, but the NCAA has changed the definition of a I-A conference to require 8 I-A schools playing all sports in the conference. Remember, Utah State and Idaho were slated to become all-sports members because of that rule and their departure forced ULM to have to give up associate membership. Also remember when Sun Belt football was forming that when La.Tech announced they would not join for football they were poised to be expelled because of the league rule. If the WAC wanted to offer UNT football only membership, UNT would have to join the Atlantic Sun or Mid-Con for other sports because UNT would be automatically expelled from the Sun Belt (no vote required).

Western did it in 1992 or 1993 making the Sweet 16 and falling late to Florida State. But we desperately need that to happen again because we can leverage that money like the MAC has to buy TV appearances and bowl slots.

You aren't getting it. Your Sun Belt brethern are going after DFW recruits when they are juniors. UNT would come waltzing in around November of their senior year try to recruit them. Its not about being in the Sun Belt and its not weird exceptions to the rule. UNT doesn't have a clue how well it could recruit in the Sun Belt because UNT ain't doing it. Only thing the WAC would give you is even greater embarassment. Ever been on a flight with a bunch of 6 ft plus 250 plus football players for hours? It's awful. They don't make seating arrangements to accomodate them. How they stand the flights home is beyond me. Especially when you land in Hawaii after 7 or 8 straight hours in the air and play a game the next day, and you are wheels up 5 hours after the game. Most teams schedule an open date after Hawaii because the travel is so rough.