Arkstfan

He's a lying SOB. The NCAA contacted the Tribe that purportedly supported their usage and they said they did not support it because they had conditioned that support many years ago on UND doing certain things and UND had failed to meet even one of the conditions.

ASU has to replace its QB, both tailbacks that started last year and the kicker who hit game winners to end the ULL and FAU games and hit three FG's in a 9-3 win over Troy.

It may be the fifth bowl game for CUSA. Remember they durn near lost the Liberty before because the SEC doesn't want to play non-BCS teams in bowls. There is serious speculation that Liberty will dump CUSA for the Big 12 if Houston folds. The Belt ain't out of the hunt in B'ham but just exactly what sort of negotiating do you think happens with bowl games? It's all about dollars. CUSA earned as many units this year as the Belt gets in its six year rolling average. Will we win a battle of dollars with CUSA? Nope. The Big East earned about twice as many units as CUSA did and got a BCS check. Will we win a battle of dollars with the Big East? Nope. The MAC has nearly double the units the Belt has. Will we win a battle of dollars with the MAC? Probably not. The only negotiating the Belt can do is if Troy and WW convince MovieGallery to step up to the plate and sponsor with Belt participation part of that sponsorship. Thing is I don't see Movie Gallery doing it because they did not step in when Wyndham backed out of the New Orleans Bowl.

Actually the HOT rumor is that if Houston folds that the Liberty will become SEC vs. Big 12 leaving CUSA in the cold.

Wrong cause and effect. CUSA expansion. Most recent: UTEP: Smaller market, great fan support, only credible basketball candidate in the expansion pool. Next most recent: Rice: Large market private school great baseball not much else. SMU: Large market private school, little success in key sports. Tulsa: Moderate market recent national hoop success, football emerging. UCF: Large market school on eastern edge of league. Marshall: Small market school with recent national success in form of poll ratings and bowl victories. Prior exapansion: TCU: Large market private school on clear upward football trend. Previous: East Carolina: Small market school with second largest average football attendance and largest football season ticket base of CUSA schools. Army: Nationally recognized. If you look at the types of schools CUSA has typically added, which schools in the Belt look like them? National basketball presence? None. National presence in football? None. Large market? UNT but offset by the fact CUSA already had a presence in the market and added teams closer to the model by being private. Remember CUSA has three dynamics at play. 1. The private school elitism. Tulane's president is a strong force in the league bolstered by his anti-BCS campaign. There was never any question that he was going to fight to get SMU, Tulsa, and Rice nor was it any secret that he was prepared to at least talk to the WAC about membership and led many to think that if push came to shove he could Houston to come with him if had been able to do that, CUSA would have lost all its units and they would have gone to the schools that earned them, namely Louisville, Cincinnati, and Marquette for the most part. And folks wonder why TCU was so ready to get out. They were fed up and didn't like being held hostage. 2. Football priority schools. USM, UCF, Marshall, and ECU are schools that basically have basketball because they have to have it. Only one is large market while the rest have solid fan bases for football. 3. Balanced schools. UTEP, Houston, Memphis, UAB. The four schools that consider basketball important. Of the four if push came to shove Memphis, UAB and maybe even UTEP would throw their resources into hoops if forced to choose. To get in, you've got to get 2 of those three groups behind you and grab at least one vote out of the third group. UNT starts out with the privates unlikely to support and the four "balanced" schools unlikely to support. UNT's problem getting in wasn't the Sun Belt it was that you aren't private and play crappy basketball. Where were the votes going to come from?

The WAC is fine despite La.Tech being in a position that is draining their budget and the oddity of Utah State, Idaho, and NMSU all seeing attendance drop this year. If you look at the collapse of Idaho in the Sun Belt two big things stand out. 1. They hired the wrong coach. 2. During October and November when most games include a number of recruits in the stand Idaho's stands were pretty empty because they were losing AND they RARELY played a team from the Mountain or Pacific time zones at home in that period. Idaho TV is Pac-10 dominate around UI. The Sun Belt schools coming in weren't showing up in scores around the Pac-10 on TV.Those names are only uttered when UI played them. Now in our natural territory the TV is depending on market either SEC, ACC, or Big 12 dominate. The same people we play so many of our non-conference games against. Now for years La.Tech was assured visits to Tulsa, Dallas and Houston. The latter two, vital to their recruiting lifeblood. That assurance is gone except for the non-conference scheduling of UNT. They no longer play road games in their recruiting base, their conference opponents are now less visible in their TV market in their non-conference scheduling, and the travel costs now exceed league revenue by a wide margin and if they get really lucky the scores of some of their road games no longer appear in Sunday's paper. Much better than being in the Sun Belt.

You just become a UNT fan? UNT turned down a WAC offer as did ULL. La.Tech makes more money in the WAC from revenue sharing than they would in the Sun Belt and that sounds really cool, until you hear the rest of the story. Their travel costs literally eat up that difference plus some. They've had two improvement projects on campus in athletics. A metal fence around the stadium and new backdrop for softball and neither happens but for fund-raising. Those of the sort of penny-ante projects that Belt schools fund out of the regular athletic budget.

Earl Bruce is missing the stupid point. Nike changed the color scheme because some snot in the marketing department said gray didn't test out well with folks nationally. Well... SCREW THEM! The uniform is part of the visual experience of the game. The 35 year old guy in the stands with his 12 year old son wants to recapture the experience of when his dad took him to his first Ohio State game. The 50 year old guy in the stands wants to have a touchstone back to the first time he sat in the stands as a freshman. I understand uniforms change due to changes in material and the fashion of the day but you want it to be part of the continuity of the university community. You don't just scrap the look because some marketing nerd in Oregon thinks they can sell more jerseys in New York and California by dumping a touchstone that is part of the shared experience of students, alumni and fans.

Honestly I was suprised to learn that UNT had so little history with anyone other than ASU and ULM. I was also suprised to find that in 15 meetings the winner of UNT-ASU has won the conference 8 times. Also didn't know about ULM beating you twice in a season. Those guys have pissed in your breakfast several times now. You've played Troy three times and they've given you two notable losses. Odd that ULL has won more times in Denton than at Cajun Field. MTSU is a funny case. As much as they flap their lips about you guys I didn't realize they had never beaten you.

Want to know why there are so few rivalries in the Belt? Look at the number of games played. UNT has played ULM 22 times and ASU 15 times. UNT hasn't met any other team 10 or more times. The seven consecutive meetings with ASU is the longest streak UNT has with any Belt school. Here's the UNT portion of the rivalry breakdown I did on Beltboard. http://www.beltboard.com/?p=124 ASU vs. UNT. UNT leads 7-8, seven consecutive meetings. Notable. Teams were conference mates in Southland and Big West. ASU is 3-4 in Denton, while UNT is 3-4 in Jonesboro, difference in the series is a UNT win in Little Rock. Winner of the game has been Sun Belt champion or co-champion the last five years and three times the winner ended up being Southland champion, that’s 8 league titles between the two in 15 meetings. FAU vs. UNT. FAU leads 2-0, two consecutive games. Notable. Only Sun Belt school UNT has never defeated. FIU vs. UNT. UNT leads 1-0, one consecutive meeting. Notable. FIU suffered 8 turnovers in only meeting. ULL vs. UNT. UNT leads 3-7, six consecutive meetings. Cajuns are 2-4 in Denton, and 1-3 in Lafayette. ULM vs. UNT. Series tied 11-11, five consecutive meetings. Notable. ULM and UNT met twice in 1987, in regular season and in the I-AA playoffs. ULM won both games on the way to a I-AA National Championship. ULM’s win over UNT in 2001 was the 6th straight win by ULM in the series and the last time UNT would lose a league game until October 4, 2005. MTSU vs. UNT. UNT leads series 5-0, five consecutive meetings. Notable. UNT is 3-0 in Murfreesboro. Three of the five games have been determined by 7 points or less. UNT vs. Troy. Troy leads series 2-1, one consecutive meeting. Notable. Troy won first meeting clinching a losing season for bowl bound North Texas. Troy win in 2005 snapped UNT’s conference win streak dating back to the 2001 season.

You mean get ugly like Nebraska? Oh that's right their fans are mainly noted for how classy they treat opponents. Want to be hated? Do like West Virginia and try to drop flaming garbage cans on opposing players.

Arkansas State considered doing a Tennessee tag because we have a lot of alumni in west Tennessee but it wasn't going to make us any money so the school dropped out of the effort.

Badgerwolf is correct.

Bingo. Every other Belt team that was in I-AA did.

We already have a former champion in ULM and a former finalist in ASU. That not pizzazz nuff for ya? Know what UNT has in common with FIU?

But dumping beer, ice, and cokes on opposing players isn't, nor is flinging screwdrivers (the metal kind not the orange juice and vodka kind) at opposing coaches. That was the situation in the WAC and Fresno was putting more cops in the area but it apparently wasn't helping so they adopted that rule.

Actually Memphis, Birmingham, and Atlanta all made offers to host the New Orleans Bowl in addition to Shreveport and Lafayette. The New Orleans Bowl committee selected Lafayette because a significant number of the GNOSF members are there and in Baton Rogue and they wanted to remain active in the game. Now back to 2000 when there were oh so many at-large berths. The open slots that year were in Las Vegas (Arkansas bought that slot reportedly losing several hundred thousand on the deal), the second Hawaii game, and Silicon Valley. In 2001 the Humanitarian and Silicon were both open and the Sun Belt attempted to swap Colorado State to the Silicon (to face Fresno) take La.Tech from the Humanitarian allowing Boise State (8-4 and uninvited) to go to a bowl game that year and send MTSU (7-4 uninvited) to the Humanitarian to face Boise. Instead the Silicon and Humanitarian sold their slots off for hundreds of thousands of dollars to Michigan State (6-5 regular season) and Clemson (6-5 regular season). Not sure what they sold them for but the Ole Miss AD who was trying to go to Boise said they dropped out of the bidding at $500,000. Ole Miss was 7-4 after losing the longest OT in I-A history. Are you under the impression those spots are filled on the basis of some sort of merit other than the size of check that may be written that will clear?

Worked well. You forgot the Fiesta and I forgot the Poinsettia.

There is a competition for at-large bowl berths??? When is that held? There are virtually no at-large bowl berths and the few that emerge tend to happen because a league didn't have enough teams qualify.

Rose Bowl. Founded to promote western football and bring tourists to their little festival. Cotton Bowl founded by the SWC so their members would have some place to play. Fiesta Bowl founded to give the WAC champion some place to play. Holiday Bowl founded to give the WAC champion some place to play. Independence Bowl founded to give Southland champion some place to play. Las Vegas Bowl. Founded to give MAC and Big West champions a place to play (they jointly paid for it!) MPC Computers Bowl. Founded to give Big West champion a place to play. Motor City founded to give MAC champion a place to play. Hawaii created to give Hawaii a place to play. Looks like the New Orleans Bowl is in fine company.

The closest we've had to a George Mason in football was the first national champion team from Miami. But today being ranked 5th going into the bowls eliminates you from contention. Under the BCS system George Mason would have played Southern Illinois a couple weeks ago and been done while we have to wait for the drama of UConn vs. Duke in the #1 vs. #2 title game. In football 17 "non-BCS" schools advanced to post-season. Of them only five got to meet a BCS school on a neutral field with neutral officials and the non-BCS went 2-3 given that chance. Well actually Boise got to play at home but they were one of the three losers. George Mason has faced three BCS schools on a neutral court with neutral officials and were seeded in based on a general perception of merit. In football those match-ups either happened by contract before the season began or because a bowl needed to fill an empty contract slot.

It may be a "fake" bowl game but I had the opportunity in January to visit with reps from the Orange Bowl. They send people out to check into other games and they said the New Orleans was easily the best of the 13 games created in the last decade.

Paid attendance can be used to make the requirements and utilizing paid figures everyone in the Belt met requirements this year.

Not denying that Troy has done well but I can't believe a bunch of Texans can't muster enough arrogance to wiz on the idea that Troy has "passed" you. Keep this up and instead of being the Mean Green ya'll can be the Annoyed Pink.

Troy passed UNT? Don't ya'll have several more name wins? A bowl win and more bowl appearances?