stebo

http://client1.sigmachat.com/sc.php?id=73780

Jeff, is that Northwest's new stadium? Did they win again last night?

Eh, I guess that I am easily impressed. FIU hasn't won more than a handfull of games over the last 5 years and they are already building their second stadium (their first one was ust expanded a little - but it was a pretty big project to just knock down a few years later). To me that is impressive. This stadium is just a smaller version of the Central Florida one. And I agree with you about aesthetics, I prefer brick and mortar to the aluminum type of stadiums that FIU, UCF, Nevada, etc have... but you have to admire that they got it done with little fan support and very few wins. They now have a home and that is a start for them. I like to see the Belt moving forward and this is another step forward for the Belt in my opinion. My heart is still with the Mean Green

The score should be 10-7, FAU right now. FAU had a 74 yard TD called back for a very questionable "hold"... and then they muffed the snap on a chip shot field goal. I just do not understand why FAU would agree to let Big Ten refs call this game. I am in the camp that thinks OOC games should be called by neutral conference refs.

Dude, that is just the visiting fans side and it is not even the whole side. Look at this picture below, the stands that you are looking at are in the FAR right corner. And FIU just built it, they didn't get some silly student vote - they simply said - We are building a stadium and did it. I would take their stadium over Fouts ANY DAY.

Did you see the bullshit roughing the QB call when he simply got tackled? Even the Big Ten announcers called it as a bad call.

Actually, after look at all the pics - they will easily be able to expand across from the horseshoe type bowl... These stands must be temporary until the full stadium is needed. Check out the full album ,their luxury boxes are nice as well. FULL Album link: http://public.fotki.com/cubanprncs81/fiu_s...ce-i/page2.html

Looks nice. Still not complete and I really am not sure how they will get it all done by opening day against USF, but nevertheless - looks very nice. They are starting off with only 23K seats and will expand up when needed. Here is a shot from their practice a night or two ago.

It just send the message to his team that they are there to WIN and that he believes in them. Maybe not the brightest move because they could be 3 to 0 right now but it still showed some balls. BTW, flip to the Deuce and watch this game (FAU/Michigan State) - FAU looks great and I have a great feeling about this game.

Thought that this was interesting. I remember Euless Eagle posting something about Trinity having a great program last year... anyways, they have moved up to the #1 ranked high school football team in the nation. http://highschool.rivals.com/viewrankhs.asp?ra_key=457

That is the first game as the Red Wolves! Also, that is ASU's very FIRST win over an auto-bid BCS school... EVER!! Way to go Red Wolves!!! A little sunlight for the Sun Belt during a very ROUGH first week, gulp!

Yes, please check your PM and you too, Adler.

I was there and posted under the name dentontotg. I don't know if anyone remembers, but there were some players there, too. I just remember them not leaving the keg area in the back yard, lol. Also, I brought my copy of "Coach" - the Hayden Fry documentary and we watched it towards the end of the night. I just remember thinking - "wow, so I am not the only one that has a passion for Mean Green!"... It was at that party that many people brought their Mean Green memorabilia that eventually was framed and put up onto the smoke stained walls of the Tavern. What a great time. I also have that ugly striped Mean Green Club shirt that we made. I remember that we made them striped so that they would stand out in a crowd and people would take notice but they were really ugly, haha. I wore mine with my date wearing hers straight into Tiger Meat Alley in Baton Rouge - the LSU fans did not take kindly to that and I will never return to that school because of the way that we were treated that day. Ugh... the athletic department got me GREAT seats as far as location... I was a radio sponsor so one of those perks was calling up the AD and asking for tickets to away games. They obliged and put me and my date right in the middle of the Tigers Section on the 10 yard line but on the THURD row - as far away from the official Mean Green section as I could be but REALLY great seats. Too bad the game was ruined by idiotic LSU fans. At half time, I went out to the truck and got a couple of generic shirts and we put them on to stop getting as much crap. I was heckled and spit on by a 12 year old boy while his drunk, toothless father laughed it up as the funniest thing he had ever seen. Damn I hate that place!

I remember reading that UCF got UT to play at home by giving them a 3-1 deal... so UCF has to make 3 return trips for that one home game. With FAU getting $900K to play UT, that is essentially like UCF paying the Short Horns $2.7 million bucks for one home game. Would that be worth it to you all? I think our deal with Kansas State will be just fine for our first home game at our new stadium. Especially knowing that we didn't get raped in the process.

Well, I am not sure if it is the same location that you all are discussing but there is that same billboard right where 35 and 635 meet in Dallas. I work in Las Colinas and tkae 635 East for two exits to 35, then head South into Dallas... as soon as I turned onto I-35 today - BAM! There it was, as GREEN as you can get, bright and BIG - UNT, The Choice for 34,134 students (or something like that)... and it had the branded logo to the right of that statement. It looked very classy and was in one of the most prime areas of the Dallas commute. I was very impressed by it.. Is this the same location that you all are discussing or a different one?

I thought in 1968 there was Div I Large School and Div I Small School... with us being in the latter. Is that not true? Maybe it was a little before 1968?

With the right design, I would throw in some money. The RIP one is pretty good but it doesn't tie in the new stadium. There needs to be a "Vote YES for the new stadium" on it above or below the grave. I am going to guess that you could get 5,000 of those done with your grand plus money from this board. If you can get the shirts done for $4 or $5 bucks each, and use your grand - then you get 100 people on this board to chip in $100 bucks each and you have 2500 shirts. I would pay $100 bucks to see 2500 students packed into the student section wearing that shirt. So you have 1. Do we have 99 more?

The program is already getting a lot more out of season ticket holders than in the past. Remember when you could just buy tickets in Section E and that was it? First come first serve? That was a couple of years ago. Heck, even last year you could get tickets in D or F without a donation. Section E ticket holders all are $500 level MGC members now and D & F are $250 dollar members. We are getting there - and it is happening pretty fast if you ask me. The ticket price is still relatively low but if you add in the donation, it is not cheap. In fact, $500 donation plus 2 tickets in Section E is more than my half season with the Mavs!!! And it is Sold out -.... at NORTH TEXAS! I would say that is progress!

How about if it is phrased this way: "The BOR has recently mandated a student fee for athletics - starting in 4 years, after you graduate - as a future alumni - I would like for the fee to increase: A) $14/credit hour so that we match the amount paid by Texas State at San Marcos students. B ) $13/credit hour so that we match the amount paid by UT-San Antonio students. C)$12/credit hour because I just want enough to pay for a new stadium. D)$10/credit hour because I am a cheap mother f'er. Don't give the students a choice as to if it will take place, just the amount.

I am going to guess that number relates to season ticket sales. That sounds about right. It is kind of skewed because we do not require our students to purchase season tickets in the traditional sense - they get in free with their ID but they pay for those tickets in the form of a fee. So our students are really all season ticket holders to general admission seats. As for the bowl tie in being a secondary bowl tie in - what that will ensure is that we will have the right to that bowl if the other team doesn't have enough qualified teams and that a 6-6 Sun Belt team would be eligible for it. Otherwise, the bowl would have the choice and they would be able to pick a 7-5 Kansas team at large over our runner-up, even if Kansas was 10th place in the Big 12. It is a step in the right direction and I imagine that it will be used right away (the spot) because there are so many conferences that just have not ever had the amount of teams eligible for the bowl spots that they have claim to. In addition to having that spot somewhat secured to the Belt rather then the free market - we probably do not have to pay nearly as much to subsidize the bowl game. A secondary tie in (with a high likelihood of being used at least once every other year) is a much better financial investment than paying for a guaranteed spot. A guaranteed spot could run the Belt anywhere from $400K-$750K a year, a secondary tie in will probably be about $100K or so. I am just curious as to which one it is because if it is replacing the 9th place Big East team than we might get in there every year (they have never had 9 teams bowl eligible since the BCS was set up)... I guess we will find out soon! Very exciting to watch our conference grow!

UL beat Houston in Houston last year and Houston was a lot better than UTEP. I know that UTEP was strong when Price got there but they have had a drop off (2 consecutive losing seasons) and I think that UL (at home mind you) can beat them thus switching that to a winning season for the third year in a row for the Belt. We have no idea how good USM will be - lots of changes there - those games are big question marks. UTEP's losses the past two years: 2007-Texas-El Paso (CUSA) - 8 losses 9/8 @ Texas Tech (9-4) L 31 45 9/15 @ New Mexico State (4-9) L 24 29 10/13 vs. *East Carolina (8-5) L 42 45 10/27 vs. *Houston (8-5) L 31 34 11/3 @ *Rice (3-9) L 48 56 11/10 @ *Tulane (4-8) L 19 34 11/17 vs. *Southern Mississippi (7-6) L 30 56 11/24 @ *Central Florida (10-4) L 20 36 Final Record: 4-8-0 2006-Texas-El Paso (CUSA) - 7 losses 9/9 vs. Texas Tech (8-5) L 35 38 9/23 @ New Mexico (6-7) L 13 26 10/21 @ *Houston (10-4) L 17 34 10/27 @ *Tulsa (8-5) L 20 30 11/4 vs. *Rice (7-6) L 31 37 11/18 @ *Marshall (5-7) L 21 49 11/25 vs. *Memphis (2-10) L 19 38 BTW - their wins last year were less than impressive: New Mexico, Texas Southern (non-IA), SMU, and one quality win over Tulsa at home. The year before, a little better but the slip took place last year: wins over - SDSU, NMSU, SMU, UAB, and Tulane - none of these wins were against teams with winning records.

I am sure that most of you have seen it already but I just noticed it today. The GMG front page is back and it looks great. Go check it out when you can! Awesome job Harry, LoRo, and crew - I love it!

Maybe NMSU chose to pay it out over 4 years and the other two chose to pay it out over 3? And it could be that last year the asked for a one year extension (be exempt) from the withholding thus $400K was withheld this year?

That is great news for the WAC. We don't have to hate those guys just because we don't want to be in their group. I am happy for schools like NMSU and Idaho, hopefully the WAC doesn't screw them out of a full share. If the 8 games are all on weekdays than I would say that the $4 million is about what those teams will lose in ticket sales so I am glad that they got a good amount. $500K per game, divided by the WAC members equally... well, that comes out to about $55K each per game. Will that offset the ticket sales? Probably. San Jose State wouldn't likely make that much on a home game whether it was on Tuesday or Saturday. So it is good for the WAC and sets a level that we can shoot for as our stock rises in the Belt.

I could see a billboard advertising the home schedule for season tickets but that would have to be after a good season (to capitalize on the momentum). BTW, there are UNT-Dallas billboards all over the place. There is one out on Spur 408 that has a guy on it that looks like Obama... I doubt it is him but it sure looks like him when you are driving by at 55 or so.