ColoradoEagle

College baseball is a money loser. Can we please get really good at one major sport before looking to add a vanity sport? The next two months will tell us how serious we are about pursuing big time athletics.

Good Lord.

2007-2009, but seems right outside of that.

I don't understand why they go basically the whole season with 1 or less mid-week games, but then load up the whole conference two nights in a row.

UAB and, to a lesser extent, UTSA. UAB will benefit greatly from being in the same conference as Memphis. The overall strength of basketball in the conference should also help solidify that program and return them to the national stage. UTSA, I think you're already seeing it. There's no way they get that deal with Traylor before AAC. First and foremost, the money simply wouldn't be there. Second, whether real or imagined, the idea of P6 did keep him from going to a lowly P5 school like Tech. I'm convinced that if the uniforms continued to say CUSA, he would've been out the door. There's a lot less daylight between the AAC and Big 12 now than before OU/UT left. Might as well stay in a highly paid position in an actual city.

As I pointed out in another thread, the writer of the article doesn't even understand Texas geography or culture. UNT is in Denton, so it's a small market. SMU is in Dallas, so they're bound to get the city's support all the way to the Big XII! Again, tell me you know nothing about Texas without telling me you know nothing about Texas.

This was true at one point in time. When it was an underfunded athletic department, competing in the Sun Belt, playing games at Fouts Field. Today, they'd be earning one of the highest salaries in G5, playing in a brand new stadium and IPF, in a fully funded athletic department, and in the top G5 conference. Also, living next to two of the biggest cities in the country, and in Texas, certainly doesn't hurt. There will be plenty of people lining up for this job.

None. Wren said during either the initial press conference or the event at the stadium that we would begin play in September 2023 or 2024, depending on how things work out.

He’s had 3 losing seasons in 20 years. He’d be the best hire we’ve ever made. That said, I’m sure there will be no shortage of schools beating his door down.

The teams moving to the Sun Belt are currently 8-16 on the season. The AAC adds are 27-21. Sun Belt added a couple programs with histories in Marshall and Southern Miss, but that’s about it. There’s a reason they added after the AAC and not before.

Highly doubtful. I'd be shocked if Wren didn't start talking with a consulting firm last year, if not the year before, about a potential replacement. Any opportunity he had to save his job vanished weeks ago. He's currently at 3-9 over his last 12 games. If you just leave 2020 completely out, he's 2-10 out of those 12. He's gone.

AAC taking 6 CUSA schools and Sun Belt adding 3 made it a necessity for the schools left.

We have a lot of work to do. The next coach will need to hit brand new heights, especially if we're going to compete for AAC titles. We've taken a step back, but after taking several steps forward. One step forward after that abysmal drought would've been a winning season. In the past eight years, we've had three winning seasons. In the eight years prior to that? Zero winning seasons. Again, we have tons of progress to make, and I want to start seeing us flirting with the top 25. But at the same time, we've come back from a really dark place in the program's history. Enough to where it is expected that a coach who isn't winning will be terminated within a month despite being on the hook for millions.

It is slowly dying. Viewership is down 12% this year compared with 2019. The average NBA fan is 42 where the avg. for baseball is 57. The fact that people only care about their local teams combined with Sinclair’s bungling of the RSNs is accelerating the process.

Southern Miss is official.

I'd live there. And you'd have to pay me. I can't afford a house there on my salary.

Obviously Fouts was much more dire than the SP. That said, the Pit is nearly 50 years old, and it shows. DentonLurker nailed it. It's not the embarrassment that Fouts was, but it and the practice facility are nearing their end of life as far as athletics are concerned.

We've been to five bowl games in the last 8 years. I realize a lot of us want to do better than that, but it's a hell of a difference from the drought of 2005-2012. The only thing that kept me going back then was Johnny Jones. We're on an upward trajectory, and I have no doubt that will continue even higher once we move on from Littrell.

If we're trying to field top 50 or top 25 teams, we need to have top facilities. It's really as simple as that. And you already knew where I was going next. 😂 A ticket to basketball needs to be harder to come by than currently, and the venue needs to be smaller to amplify the sound and bring fans into the game. We have a real chance to advance our profile in the sport and as a school through basketball, and the new facility will be a major step. I just hope we don't get caught up in the desire to revive baseball. I want it eventually and will be an avid fan, but it's a dying sport and does nothing for our brand.

They're not getting rid of the Super Pit, at least not to my knowledge. The problem with the Pit is mostly that it isn't AD owned, and the facilities you don't see are subpar compared with upper tier basketball programs.

Solid reasons for keeping Fouts Field.

We desperately need a new AD owned arena after the athletic center expansion. It'll solve the basketball practice court issue as well as giving volleyball an upgrade. From a fan experience, the SP is fine, but everything else about it is definitely dated.