GrayEagle

Hey, if any of you will loan me your voter ID card I'll be glad to see that someone votes in your place. Of course, it might not be who you favored.

If the FAU AD hasn't heard from the Alliance lately then I don't hold out a lot of hope. Personally, I'd prefer FAU over FIU but on paper they don't match up quite as well. Now when they get around to expanding to 24 teams, I think they have a much better chance.

Even though we may be leaving I don't want to dump on the SBC. I'm actually glad that we were a part of the football development of the conference (mostly early) and wish them every success. I believe that Charlotte and UTSA are good markets for the Sun Belt and will, in time, help them get better payouts. I also hope that they make room for Appalachian State which would boost football in the conference. The Sun Belt Conference has a bright future as long as they can keep adding better coaches. The rest will follow.

Someone on the Mean and Green Forum posted the below link re the Las Vegas Sun interview with Neal Smatresk (who I believe is the current president of the MWC). http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/mar/15/taking-new-look-athletics/ He and others talk more about a 20-team conference and maybe these are subtle hints that this is the thinking of those who would structure this alliance. If so, we have been included in each model that I've seen but the other three have varied (although FIU has been in most). What would be your preference for the remaining leading candidates? My preference would be to admit San Jose State and Utah State in the west which would allow UTEP to stay in the east. Instead of FIU though I would prefer Florida Atlantic or MTSU. Both are more traditional universities and I believe that both will have better attendance than FIU. Each has produced good teams in the past and are capable of doing it again. Florida International has the more proven coach currently. It is larger and in a larger market. It has the best academics of the three. But, its wide diversity and scattered campus doesn't bode well for future attendance. FIU's stadium only seats 23,500 and has no press box. It smacks of minor league. Florida Atlantic is the only FBS university in the West Palm Beach market, a smaller market than Miami, but still a rather large market. Middle Tennessee is in a good market (Nashville) with a better history in football, more competitive in every sport and has better facilities. I'd much rather have UTEP in our (I know that I'm making an undocumented assumption) division, section, pod, whatever because they are in Texas and we have a longer history with them.

No, but very few are. The 50 percentile of SAT scores of incoming freshmen show that Vanderbilt grades were 205 points higher than those at SMU. I also believe that athletes are cut a little slack compared to the rest of the student body. One reason that SMU is not heavily embraced by the Dallas community is that it is the only major university in Texas whose student majority is from other states. In addition to that 40% of their enrollment is graduate students, resulting in far less focus on athletics.

At the risk of a bunch of negatives I would never attend or listen to any of their works because of the blasphemy in their name and song titles.

One additional thought that I meant to express on the 22-team scenario. I believe that the Alliance believes that in a few years Boise State and San Diego State will want to return to their roots. If they hold a spot open for them then they would also need to hold spots in the eastern division for balance.

I believe that if there are 18 teams there will be two divisions of nine teams each. It's likely that you would play all eight in your division. Then for some cohesion two formerly OOC games could become OOD games assigned by the league office. But, it could be structured to play say six in your division and a couple from the other division as conference play. I don't really expect there to be more than two inter-divisional games per year due to travel costs. If they decide on 20 teams then four pods of five teams each would make sense. You would play the four teams in your pod plus four games in some combination from the other pod(s). Somehow I don't see a 22-team conference this soon. However, if they did then I see 11-team divisions. That would still make for more complicated scheduling. For the replacement of Hawaii in non-football sports my vote, if I had a vote, would go to Denver.

They're still in the mix. What I get from other boards (and you know that they're always right) is that UTSA, Texas State, Louisiana Tech and Georgia State will be added. But, that was before Charlotte began talks. The Sun Belt needs some larger markets and San Antonio and Atlanta would be good to get but Charlotte is also a large market so you'll have to find out if Benson wants 12, 14, or 16 teams.

It's not just public employee unions; it's all unions. What happens when a union gets its demands? To pay for the wage increase for a select few, the company must raise the price of its goods. Non-union employees may or may not get a raise but if they do that cost is added into the selling price and the rest of the public pays for the union's benefits. The price increase reduces sales and often profits, especially if a competitor doesn't have the same costs to bear. Union leaders must demand more benefits to justify their enormous salaries and the cycle starts over again. China can produce the same goods that we produce for 1/5th of our cost. Understand why we must outsource so much of our production? We can't afford our own labor.

All of them look great but I'm partial to #1. I don't see how anyone would understand the "feathers" on the SOW uniform. Looks unbalanced with the rest of the uniform. If our green pants are the same color as the top then I'd prefer black. My last criticism is the feather extending upwards from the cap is overkill. Shorter, please. Now, something I've wondered about for a long time. Why do we still call ourselves the "Green Brigade"? We haven't done military-style marching in years. Can't we come up with something catchier than Green Brigade?

As long as the attendance can be reported as 'tickets sold' rather than butts in seats you will have this big variance with some programs. Nevertheless, Memphis gross revenue was almost $42 million last year and SMU's was about $37.5 million. Of course, in the Memphis case basketball plays a huge part in their total revenue but I imagine that FedEx and other season ticket holders do not attend all of the games, basketball or football. Add to that the fact that Memphis was so goshawful last year and you get tons of empty seats. SMU is near the same except that they don't have FedEx; just rich alumni. Our glass house has the same problem. For instance, out of the four seats to my left at Apogee only six total were used throughout the season. That's eighteen empty seats that were paid but not used. Hell, even my four weren't used all of the games. I'd rather see the someone there but at least we do get revenue from a lot of empty seats.

I appreciate Karl Benson and his kind words about the University of North Texas and if it hadn't come from the Bleacher Report (sort of the National Enquirer of college football) those comments would have more validity. Maybe the timing wasn't right following the demise of Big West football but I don't recall a long look from the WAC when we were in need of a conference. It could have been our fault that we weren't ready to commit to spending the amount required for such a venture. Yet, the Big West had pretty big travel costs as Louisiana and Arkansas State left just before we entered. Nevertheless, his 16-team WAC did not include us so he couldn't have been too overly infatuated. I wish Karl tremendous success in his role as Sun Belt Commissioner whether we stay or go. He does seem to have vision and is forward-thinking in his conference design.

Nooo! What was their best attendance? Six to eight hundred? And, even though they gave us a rough time, they weren't very competitive. If the Belt needs another non-football school they should look no further than Arlington. Steal them before they become entrenched in the WAC. Their attendance should improve with their new arena.

Well, they have a replacement already. UMass will also be another football member only. I don't think that that the MAC will try to add any additional member, especially a full member. I'm pretty confident that Middle would turn them down and WKU already has when raising football to the FBS level.

The writer apparently didn't research the star rating for Feldt. Cam was a four star athlete (5.8) on Rivals. He was the second highest-rated athlete that Arkansas signed in 2010. It's been told that he and his brother Boone feed off of one another so I believe that you'll see him turn it up a notch this fall.

I don't think that it will go away until the name North Texas is associated with winning. Most of our success was as North Texas State so I consider it as somewhat of a left-handed compliment. Just keep ignoring it and it will eventually go away. UNT on the helmets is a whole 'nother topic.

Kenny Buyers apparently didn't attend the Air Force Academy. He was not listed on their 2011 roster so he would not be considered a transfer. He is enrolled at UNT and participating in conditioning drills and should be available for spring practice as a walk-on.

We need to schedule just one sporting event at a time so that Brett can cover all North Texas sports for both the Denton Record-Chronicle and the Dallas Morning News. Heaven forbid that Belo assign help for Vito on occasion.

I can confirm that he attended the opening of Apogee. I've seen it reported somewhere that he had fallen and broken his hip.

I get it. This is a terrible home schedule. Overall, we've had worse but yes, two (maybe three) of the home games suck. One thing in favor is that the two conference games that probably mean the most to us, Louisiana and Arkansas State, are here and one is on national TV. Look, I've got a helluva lot less time to watch games at Apogee than the rest of the posters on this board and I can deal with it. I don't like it but I can deal with it. Hopefully, this is the last time that this will happen. I'm sure that it won't happen again to this degree. Maybe...just maybe...we will have more attractive home conference games in the future and we will have that to help sell this current year disaster. Now, to offset the poor home OOC schedule I wish that the AD would give us discounted tickets for LSU, Houston, or Kansas State as a sort of second OOC "home" game. I'll send RV an e-mail to that effect and I hope that some of you will also. Just grit your teeth, grin and bear it. We'll all get over it in time. This should be a very good year to the tune of seven or eight wins. I can feel it in my bones.

While I agree that there won't be any added before May 1st that doesn't mean that there won't be some (or all) selected. In fact, the conference needs to know how many will be in each division so that the network of interdivisional play can be established. Also, who and how many could have a bearing on the TV contract so at least the key teams have likely agreed in principle by now. I would expect that is a reason for secrecy/silence. I am concerned for the Sun Belt if the "National" Conference goes to 24. That would mean the addition of eight teams. If North Texas and FIU are indeed two of them that would still leave six slots to fill. At the moment it appears that no more than three will come from the WAC. That would leave three more slots to fill and, unless the Alliance wants to consider FCS teams, all will no doubt come from the Sun Belt. Commissioner Benson needs to get an early start on this. In my opinion, the new alliance should stop at 20 for now. That's four five-team divisions. You'd play the other four in your division, two from the other east division and one from each of the other divisions. That would make it seem like one conference rather than four. They can add teams and change the style of play later.

Wow! This almost smacks of facetiousness. Northern Illinois was guilty of the same thing that he's accusing Temple of doing back in the 90s. They left the MAC, foundered around and finally went to the Big West before they came back into the fold. The MAC is truly becoming a joke. They only have a few good teams and most of them don't draw flies. Nine of their 13 teams averaged less than 16,200 last year. Ironically, six of them just crawled over the magic 15,000. Eastern Michigan and Kent State take turns having the lowest average attendance in the FBS. This past year Eastern Michigan averaged a whopping 4,267! Three still have stadiums that seat less than 30,000, which was lower than the minimum allowed when they joined the FBS. Can you blame a football-only member for seeking a better conference? Especially one who was their attendance leader.

It's true that they don't bring anything in football; it's been their history. But, they're very good in basketball with good attendance figures as well. Unless the Belt decides to go to sixteen teams I don't see a place for them. They'd still be at least 600 miles from San Antonio, San Marcos, Arlington and Denton, their closest potential rivals.