Arkstfan

Missed that. I did watch Union (TN) beat Lubbock Christian in the NAIA Division I Women's championship and College of the Ozarks (MO) beat Livingston (IN) in the NAIA Division II men's championship. Both were on CSTV.

Ideally yes. That way when you enter I-A all of your players were recruited to play I-A ball. The seniors last year at FIU and FAU and the seniors this year were recruited to be I-AA players their entire career. Transition by rule only takes two years.

Major Alarm Bell. The students are talking about cutting the student fee if they don't go I-A. I must have missed the part where they talk about increasing the fee to pay the extra cost of I-A. The proposal as it stands is to merely starve the program they have if it doesn't go I-A. Without money it doesn't happen. Starting from the students doesn't suprise me. Some smart university presidents would do exactly that, getting the students to start the campaign in order to create a justification for the move.

Same way all the rest of us did.

Don Strock is the guy to watch out for. The book on Strock was that he was going to have to dumb down the playbook to ever make it as a college coach. He didn't dumb it down and it showed at times (8 turnovers in a three point loss against UNT, 5 turnovers in a 5 point loss to Troy, and another six earlier that led to a rout at ASU) but the Panthers started putting it together late in the season winning four of their last five including a first ever win over FAU.

Humm, only ULL and ULM out of the Belt and saw a few WAC schools missing as well.

Playing I-AA's isn't nearly as big a deal as its being made out to be. My personal philosophy is that if the AD is going to whore the program out two or three times a year to BCS programs and not get a return game that they are better off replacing at least one of those games with a I-AA and trying to get a few wins before they drive all the fans away. In the Belt with the 3/4 schedule you would hope that everyone could find some home/home and 3/2 and 2/1 arrangements to get home games and keep their teams at home at least 5 out of 12 games when playing three home conference games and play six when playing four home conference games. One I-AA counts every year toward the scheduling, attendance, and bowl requirements so it makes no sense to automatically rule out playing them. Realistically with the 12 game schedule and I-AA's counting. There will not be nearly as many vacant bowl spots if any (2004 with all but three eligible teams in bowls won't happen again unless SEVERAL bowls are added). A second bowl will only happen if we partner with someone to create one or we have a top 12 finisher to go BCS. Priority one has to be winning games and developing a fan base. I like the plan the Dr. Lee has at Arkansas State. The non-conference slate this year is Army at Jonesboro, Oklahoma State in Little Rock, at SMU (returns to ASU in 2007), at Memphis (returns to ASU in 2007), and at Auburn for a check. No I-AA game. Only one "money" game. The remainder are simple home/home deals with schools roughly equivalent to us. If we win six or seven on that schedule we won't be top 35 material but we won't suck either. The bonus being that in 2007 we've got SMU and Memphis coming in along with four Sun Belt games and we'll have three slots to fill.

Arkansas State was on the verge of scheduling I-AA Nichols State but we finally reached an agreement with Memphis so ASU goes w/o playing a I-AA.

Smaller crowds for Mardi Gras is no suprise. The nation and the world heard that it would take months to pump the city dry. The nation and the world heard that the whole place was under many feet of water which just wasn't true of the older portions of the city. The nation and the world saw thousands standing in the streets demanding someone help them or saw lots of video of looting of every store in sight (including police officers). The nation and the world heard the reports of medical helicopters being fired upon by snipers when they tried to evacuate the sick and dying. So now you have a lot of people convinced that New Orleans is a wasteland of stinking stagnant water and the ones that aren't convinced of that are convinced that there is no way they are safe there because the whole city has turned into a big version of Mad Max. New Orleans faces a lot of public relations hurdles to be the tourist destination it once was.

Conventional wisdom (which rarely means anything with the NCAA) is that there will be only the rotating extra BCS game approved this year to go to 29 games with any 30th game waiting until 2007 or 2008.

Looks like they tied a ribbon to some old CD's they didn't want any more. Men's curling is at 3:00pm (central) today on MSNBC against Great Britan and tomorrow (Monday) live at 7:00 am central on USA vs. Canada. A split guarantees a men's trip to the medal round. Of course some of us already know the result of that game against Great Britan.

You know its really off-season when one of the most recent posts you've made on your board is to explain the scoring in curling and launch into a rant about what a choker the Skip of the USA women's team is.

There were some issues getting the 2005 schedule together and 2006 just reverses that. I've been told that we go on a new cycle in 2007 and that no one will travel to both Florida schools in the same year and only one will ever have to travel to both Louisiana schools the same year.

For those who like Sagarin, Sun Belt is rated ahead of CUSA. Only 2 CUSA teams have played a top 100 schedule vs. six Sun Belt. Four Sun Belt teams rated 200 or worse vs. seven CUSA schools.

My guess is that right now folks around the Sun Belt have their fingers crossed that Georgia Southern or Texas State won't start a move to I-A in the next year or two at least so they can see how the situations with WKU and La.Tech play out.

Wouldn't most if not all of the coaches at the highest classification be guys who were already head coaches elsewhere or who had quite a few years experience as an assistant coach before being promoted? The average salary would include teachers who are first year teachers. From what I gathered they didn't compare the coaches to teachers with similar experience.

MWC won't consider 12 if there is any possibility that BYU, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado State, and Air Force won't be in the same division.

First and foremost, adding Denver blows the football schedule to hell. Secondly. No way Missouri State would even for an instant consider such a move dramatic cost increase without improving basketball and cuts them off from their rivals. Texas State. They just have a way to go. If the WAC had vision, which they do not have, the solution was in their own past but they weren't smart enough to learn from the mistakes of their past. The solution is also from the past of college athletics. Outside of the rich six and arguably MWC and CUSA their model of a tight-knit league being an economic unit where everyone shares and shares alike is workable. The WAC should have gone to 16. The current WAC sans La.Tech in one division and the other division comprised of La.Tech and seven current Sun Belt football schools. League basically makes 3 TV deals. A primary deal for the entire conference plus secondary deals for each division. (ie. league has a deal with ESPN/ESPN2, west has a deal with Fox West, Rocky Mountain, etc and the east has a deal with SW, South, and Sunshine). Instead of the bulk of the money going into a pool to share, the bulk is awarded based on appearances with a very small shared pool. Football would play 7 divisional games and one cross-over. Basketball would play 14 divisional games and 4 cross-over with cross-overs done in pairs (ie. Thursday at X, Saturday at Y). For the 8 WAC western schools travel would end up being nearly identical or at times cheaper (ie. can fly to Dallas or Nashville more cheaply than Ruston). For La.Tech travel costs would plummet. For the 7 Belt schools travel would increase only a small amount because there would be so few games cross-division. The limited interaction would avoid the strong teams thinking they were hurt in SOS by playing the other division. With a greater number of teams the negotiating clout would be higher with both TV and bowls. The old WAC 16 failed for 2 reasons. #1. They couldn't structure it so BYU, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado State, Air Force and to a lesser degree New Mexico played each other every year. Core rivalries were severed. #2. Everyone of the 16 members received basically the same share of revenue. The new WAC16 avoids problem #1 because it doesn't break-up any natural rivalries except arguably UNT-NMSU and that one has already been severed by choice of NMSU. It avoids problem #2 because an "eat what you kill" system puts more of the revenue in the hands of the schools producing the revenue. WAC16 would be more an association than a league.

I got $10 that says he wasn't going to be eligible next year any way. Rare is the player I hate to see be successful but I hope his draft stock falls and he's an NFL bust. He confirmed any questions about his character. "It's not a big deal," Vick told the newspaper. "I'll just move on to the next level, baby."

Has anyone noticed how much the USC passing attack looks like the NFL? Typical college passing is a lot of inside slants with very hard cuts to the middle. A much easier catch for the receivers and an easy read for the QB. USC sends its receivers out at full speed with a very shallow slant to the middle. A tougher catch to make and a harder read because you've got a bigger chance that downfield help is coming. The QB has to evaluate further down the field because an open receiver is going to be several yards downfield when the ball arrives. If Leinhart busts in the NFL it won't be the fault of his college coaches.

On the football team?????

One of the funniest threads ever. http://mb14.scout.com/ftamufrm1.showMessag...cID=10913.topic Favorite quote: This is just the mayo on our collective turd sandwich.

Haven't gone to look but I wonder if TAMU fans are saying. "Super Texas won our state a national title" "Fantastic Texas won our conference a national championship" Or are they saying "Sh!t, now we have to listen to the whorn fans running their smart-azz mouths about this for the remainder of our lives."

http://www.sportingnews.com/archives/payton/

Wonder how many quality offensive linemen the Texans could get for that pick?