wardly

the number of honegames we play has nothing to do with average. neither does when we play them. other schools play friday after thanksgiving, and have more butts in the seats than empty benches. point is from 1997 thru 2007 our average home attendance was 15,000+, which is pisspoor.

la tech will never join same conference as la/monroe. in addition, monroe athletic budget is only about $6 million, and they have no t.v.market. conference realignment is based on more than won/loss records. look at s.m.u., with no baseball program and historic poor football/basketball programs. and yes, mac has 13 teams, not 11. my bad.

don't have 08#'s, but 07 was 17,734; 06 was 15,685; 05 was 16,446. most game attendance is not even close to 20,000, including saturdays homecoming game announced at 23,000. there were aprox, 16,000 in stands, rest never made it out of tailgateing parties.

point is that cusa is most likely to split when/if big east adds football only school, such as central florida. their conference has worse travel issues than the belt. at present the mac has 11 schools since marshall pulled out in favor of cusa. since w.k and middle are locked at the hip, the mac makes sense for them. i would hope that before i die that cuas splits and adds us, la-tech, and either a-state or ulala. i think the size of your athletic budget and market will be determing factors, as well as a conference sponsor and baseball program, which we don't have. i also think the alabama and florida schools would fit well into cusa east, and la-monroe go back to southland where they belong.for automatic ncaa invitation purposes, the east may fly the sunbelt flag and the west cusa. i don't see continuing to add 1aa programs moving to 1a gets us or the belt to where it wants to be.

rain or shine, our average home attendance since 1997 is 15,000, who are our core fans. pitifull support .

vegas has the over/under at 4 for qb turnovers.

this is a team sport. regardless of his individual stats, we have only won 1 game, and he gave ulala 10 points on picks pulse fumbled on about their 25. i bet he also leads conference in interception to touchdown ratio, and probably ranks high nationally as well. in colorado/texas game coach hawkins benched his qb[also his son] after two 1st half interceptions. i have a hard time beleaving that if our qb was not the coaches son he would not have replaced by nathan tune at halftime.

our starting qb has had 8 turnovers the past 2 games. am i the only one who thinks its time for a change?

when idaho is ranked ahead of all belt members, you know your conference sucks in football.

shows what a weak conference the BELT is, with 3 teams in the bottom 10. however, we have nowhere to go. with football attendance about 16,000+ as annual average,basketball 4,000,no baseball program, and athletic budget only in the $15 million range, we don't bring much to the table to attract interest from CUSAor anyone else. hope this changes if/when we get new stadium, but it will reguire far more financial support from alumni than they have given in the past.

in 2000 we were 5&6, conference co-champs because we beat middle tenn, who i think was 9&2, and went to new orleans bowl where we were pounded by colorado state. the game was poorly attended, low t.v. ratings, and embarresed the conference because of our record. this proviso would give the sun belt an out.

when is the last time north texas beat a mac team in any sport? in fact, what is the belts record in maior sports the last 5 years against the mac?

if you use the bubbas award as a guage, then wk and middle rank at the top of the sunbelt. since they are joined at the hip, i look for them to move to the mac if given a chance.[ strong bb and base ball programs.]i consider both the mac and wac a cut above the belt, and as regards nt football program, would also include the southland.

take existing cusa west, add asu, la tech, and unt for new swc. then take existing cusa east, add middle, wk, and usa for another conference[ or troy]. back to 1aa is ulala, ulm, fiu, and fau. 9 teams work well. however, putting the belt in a bag with cusa and realine based upon location and market to reduce travel costs and foster regional rivals is too logical to ever happen.

it will be r.v.'s next major project once the football stadium is completed. besides the sunbelts success in baseball, note cusa, which requires all members to field a baseball team[smu was grandfathered in]. i have to believe that at some point the 2 conferences will work together to create geographical balance for both.

two things jump out at me regarding the td hire. 1st, everyone i talked to thought it was great. 2nd, no one knew how deep the ditch was or the length of td's learning curve. he inherited an academic mess, which we are not out of yet.in addition, the new stadium promised him still hasn't broken ground. i feel 3 to 5 wins is realistic, and that he will be given 4 years to either have a winning record in the belt, or 5 to 7 wins overall. after than, all bets are off.

their is no question that we must concertrate on building our athletic program so that we bring value to potential conference suitors. i also believe that economics could impact cusa to the extent that they split , with the east picking up both florida schools and troy. middle and w.k. could move to the mac, and la tech, a/state, and unt to the west. s. ala.,ulala, and monroe would be sol. if we are not chosen by cusa west, then we could replace la tech in the wac. but first, we need to take care of the business at hand, which is to strengthen our overall program.

when cusa realines, which at some point it will, tulane will sponsor la tech. we need to develope a sponsor relationship with smu, otherwise we will be left behind. the private schools will vote as one.

"sell the sizzle, not the steak" is an old sales saying. the sizzle [ new stadium] will initally attract new fans and a stronger oc schedule, as well as better position us when/if conference realignment occurs. i believe that at some time the sunbelt and cusa will form 2 more geographic friendly conferences, with middle tenn and w. k. moving to mac. this also would create new fan interest.however, setting those issues aside, at some point you must put a product on the field that is competative. i am 66, an avid college football fan, and the team we fielded last year was the worst 1a team i have ever seen. if the students, alumni, and university do their part in getting a stadiun built in the worst economy since the great depression, the coaching staff must produce as well. however, i have a hard time finding but 1 or 2 teams on our schedule that we can beat. while it was probably time for d.d. to move on, " be carefull what you wish for" seems to hold true.

check out the realignment grid at collegesportsinfo.com updated 3/31/09 and compare sun belt,wac, and cusa.

the bb banguet was well done, with individual awards as well as video highlights from both teams. what i could not believe was that amber jackson, 1st team all conference as well as all time n. t. womens rebounder, was not mentioned at all in the womens video. it's as if she didn't exist. regardless for the reason for her season ending suspension, from the outside looking in , her lack of recogniation from our coaching staff seemed petty and spitefull and showed no class.

while out defense was nicknamed "mean green" sometime in the 70's, our team was not called that untill rick v. was named a.d. rick was trying to distinguish us from the dozens of other schools with eagles as a mascot, although personally i hate mean green as a nickmane, as well as the u. s. postal eagle we now use. regarding the orange chairs in the super pit, i was told by the ad at the time that he thought orange looked good with grey, and that since the money came fron austin this is what we got. when i asked if a&m would get orange chairs when they built a new arena, i got no response. can't remember his name off hand, but he succeeded hayden fry as ad and jerry moore succeeded hf as coach, as hf held both positions. it was the only way we could afford him, by combining both salaries.

like fresno state in football, you must go on the road to increase your power rating, unless ypu are satisfied winning 20 games and staying home. nobody says its easy, but wk went to louisville this year and beat them.

347 d1 basketball teams, aproximately 1/3 in post season play, and about 1 in 5 with 20 game wins. to win 20 games, be ranked 4th in conference, and only rated 156 by sagarin says alot about our strength of schedule, as well as the sunbelt conference. my point is that it does us no good to "schedule down" in order to win 20 games if it doesn't get you anywhere. we need to raise the bar.

while its nice to win 20 games, it won't get you to the ncaa's. i would like us to schedule more difficult teams when possible in order to raise rating, to win more than 11 regular season conference games, and to win the west division. while i appreciate the job jj has done, i feel it is time to increase our level of expetations. aproximately 1/3 of all teams are in post season play, and a number of them did not win 20 games, but had a higher rating than us. in summary, except perhaps for job security, 20 win seasons doesn't seem as imporant as it did before the turn of the century, especially if it doesn't get you into post season play.