stebo

I think that I might have to start drinking to understand that post... and stebo "drinking" is soooo 2005, get with the times man!

I really don't want to get in the middle of all of this but multiple bowl bids and top 25 votes are a fairly new thing for lower run IA schools. The MAC went literally decades with no bowls and/or ranked teams. The Big West and the WAC both were 1 bid teams back in the day. It is a fairly new thing having bowls for 6-6 teams. The Belt could easily buy their way into the Boise Bowl or the San Fran Bowl but we are not that stupid. Does the WAC have three bowls? Kind of - they have bowls hosted by members of their conference at their home stadiums. Could the Belt do this? Sure - they pulled off a bowl in Lafayette after Katrina, I am sure we could set up a couple more if we wanted the bragging rights. The truth of the matter is that the Belt hasn't had enough bowl eligible teams to justify buying into a bowl until the last three years. The first three years we were VERY lucky to have one team that was even above .500. Now we have a couple of teams doing better - well, only a couple have been left home during bowl season - Troy last year, NMSU a few years back, and MUTS the initial year when NT went with a losing record. Every other year that a team needed an at large bid we were able to place a team. With even more bowls coming on line this year we will have even more options when conferences come up short. I am sure that the folks at MTSU are thrilled that we weren't tied to the Boise Bowl so that they could go to the Motor City instead. Troy bought their way into Silicon Valley just fine. We need to be smart and find the right fit - so far the only contract that is up that we would be interested in is Mobile and it is very possible that we will score that. Be patient young grasshopper - this is a good problem to have but it is a NEW problem. Oh, and BTW - we will have a top 25 team eventually... I bet that it comes sooner than you think.

ArkStFan's write-up is pretty much right on the money. Tech is in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. They really cannot do much about conference affiliation and the Belt is simply not an option for them unless the Belt were to add a school or two of higher caliber. Now, there are schools like Troy and FAU that are raising their own caliber but Tech will not recognize those things because those schools are in the Belt. The only problem is that CUSA is their only realistic destination to help them out. CUSA gave Tech and North Texas a list of shortcomings when we were passed over last time. North Texas has spent the last 5 years working on these things and Tech hasn't been able to. As long as they stay the same - they will never be able to meet those CUSA requests. CUSA requests that all incoming schools have an Athletic Budget of $20 million or more. Tech's budget right around $10-$12 million. The only reason it is that high is because of the extra revenue from the WAC but that is a year to year thing and the WAC isn't going to keep landing BCS busters forever. Plus Tech uses most (if not all) of that extra money for travel. If they leave the WAAC, they do not get revenue sharing for their final year thus making it difficult for them to make it through that transition (to any conference). Tech is kind of like a guy working paycheck to paycheck... they need their income every year or else they will have to do without. What they have been doing is just limiting their facility improvements... I mean, they don't even have a Jumbotron and their fans have to have bake sales to send their tennis teams to places. Basically - summed up - They can't afford to leave the WAC... they can barely afford to stay, but that is all that they really can do (financially and ego).. and since they are on such a tight budget, they cannot afford to make the improvments needed to become more attractive to CUSA for the future. Their best bet is for the MWC to raid the WAC. If that were to happen than they could pitch the idea of an East/West WAC with the East being Tech, NMSU, North Texas, ASU, MTSU, and Troy. But the problem there is that the Belt has made a pact to stick together. We would really have to see how that pact would stand up to a deal like that. I think that type of deal would be just enough to break the pact. FAU, FIU, ULM, UL, USA, WKU would be left and I am sure that they would add Georgia Southern, Texas State, and/or Appy State to stay in the football business.

We did this a couple of years ago. We got prizes and were recognized on the field during a game. It was pretty fun, I think that I sold 27 season tickets... but it was done on a point system and you could also get points for a MGC donation. I went for quantity and pushed the Family Fun Pack Unfortunately I came in 2nd or 3rd because some banker in Denton cheated... he gave away season tickets to new account holders or something. Jerk, lol.

I agree that FAU has done a lot with smoke and mirrors but so did USF. USF was kind of a joke when they got off the ground as well. They play at a pro stadium, thus minimal student involvement (no sense of owenership).. and they had their coaches working out of trailers for years. What USF did was put together a smoke and mirror campaign that made their reputation a lot higher than the reality. Perception vs reality is always a tricky one... Anyways, FAU has the perception of the biggest up and comer from the Belt right now. They have a huge athletic budget and a legendary coach. As for the Belt, they are the better option for NT right now. The WAC deal has been discussed over and over on this board and I don't want to re-type what I have already typed a thousand times. If another conference in this time zone were to come calling than it would obviously be a better option. So far none have called so I really don't feel the need to piss where I sleep.

Emily and I were at Bongaroo and we did not even attempt to stick around for that jerk. The real reason why we was delayed was because of his ego. There were two main stages at Bonnaroo and one was a tad bit bigger than the other. Kanye found out that he was scheduled to perform on the smaller of the main stages and threw a fit... he demanded to be put on the "main" stage or "else"... Well, the folks there had already dealt with a few cancellations and had to add Widespread Panic to the lineup for the 4th year in a row to make up for those bands pulling out (ick).. so there was no way they were going to let him out of his contract. The problem is that Pearl Jam went long as usual but they had every right to because THEY were the real headliner for that day. Kanye started getting the boo birds at about 4:00 when he had delayed for a 3rd time and wouldn't come on stage until they stopped. He came out at around 4:45 and didn't even apologize - just did his thing and walked off stage. What a douche.

I love you Shiner in a Can Eagle

I just am friends with several players (past and present) and they read this board religiously. They read it from the day that they start considering North Texas. So I can just imagine this young man - with an offer from UTEP - and one from NT... coming to GMG.com the day after he orally commits to US over them; only to find a plethora of comments about how we don't really need another WR. I mean, give the guy 24 hours of congrats first and then talk generally about needing more "beef".. it is the off season and people tend to just complain because they are bored... but I think that a lot of posters don't realize that these athletes don't post... but they do read (just about every day). They are fans just like us. Some even post, I think you would be surprised as to their board names, haha. But it is greatly discouraged for players to post from what I understand. There might be some sort of NCAA rule about it, I dunno.

Would you really have wanted Dickey to talk to students? He would have talked them out of coming to the games. And last year Dodge was way too busy getting used to the college game to start this. Am I the only one that doesn't think that RV should have to think of every good idea? It should be a community effort by the whole staff, right?

Thank you SHOSS - as I said below: I just gotta say, if I were this kid - I would call Price at UTEP and take his offer after reading this board. Our fans are a bunch of whiney babies. This kid just committed to play for our school (who cares at what position?) and the very first day of the committment I am sure that he will come onto this board to read about it.. He will get to read "well, nice to have you - but who cares really, you don't play defense and we will not even give you the courtesy to say welcome aboard for 24 hours"... His committment is an oral, non-binding committment. I almost encourage him to yank it after reading some of our fans responses. Hey kiddo, stick it out with the Mean Green - you will be catching lots of passes from Riley someday. Don't worry, we will have a defense out there to handle that as well. Welcome aboard and thank you for seeing the vision of Todge! We all know he will do great and we are glad to have you part of the rebuilding efforts!

I just gotta say, if I were this kid - I would call Price at UTEP and take his offer after reading this board. Our fans are a bunch of whiney babies. This kid just committed to play for our school (who cares at what position?) and the very first day of the committment I am sure that he will come onto this board to read about it.. He will get to read "well, nice to have you - but who cares really, you don't play defense and we will not even give you the courtesy to say welcome aboard for 24 hours"... His committment is an oral, non-binding committment. I almost encourage him to yank it after reading some of our fans responses. Hey kiddo, stick it out with the Mean Green - you will be catching lots of passes from Riley someday. Don't worry, we will have a defense out there to handle that as well. Welcome aboard and thank you for seeing the vision of Todge! We all know he will do great and we are glad to have you part of the rebuilding efforts!

Darn, lol...

Actually, Stallings said that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Fouts and that we should worry about filling it consistently before trying to build another. Well, we fill it once or twice a year now and I consider that consisently (by fill, I mean 2/3rds full - that is a huge step up from when Stallings did his analysis). Also, we have the first half of the athletics village completed over there - including endzone complex... they will NEVER leave it just sitting there overlooking an empty field. The thing will get built, it is a matter of when (and how hush hush they can keep it). The Athletics Center was built with about $2 million in donations (for an $8.7 million dollar project). We need to raise about 20% to get it off the ground... we have raised about half that. It isn't that far off and the student fee will be voted on by SGA, not the general population. There is no way that they put that to a general vote again. They will put it to a student vote via SGA. Why would they not talk about it yet? Because the artsy-fartsy's would make sure that they took over SGA so that it didn't happen. This thing will be voted on smoothly and with only a couple weeks of backlash. It is badly needed and I think that parking and stadium age/safety will be the angle this time.

I am curious, would anyone on here actually travel to either San Fran or Boise for a bowl? I sure wouldn't, not with the game on TV. Even Georgia Tech only brought about 300 fans to Idaho. I hope that the Belt doesn't pay its way into either bowl, it is a waste of money in my book.

Even with Boise's Fiesta Bowl appearance, I imagine that we would draw about the same that we did when we played them in the Big West... average at best. Nobody around here really cares about any of those WAC teams. Maybe Hawaii would draw well, so let's schedule an OOC 1 and 1 with them... same goes with Fresno, they have a little bit of name recognition but really not enough to justify a conference change and all the expense that goes with it. I don't think that we want to pay to send women's soccer to Oahu. It is funny because people say that: "Yes in my opinion it would be better than going to ULM, ULL or anybody in the Sunbelt. If people are interested in NT football, they will watch somehow someway." Yet, that is the arguement FOR the Belt... if someone is interested in North Texas football, there are going to come watch anyways - whether it be against Utah State or Troy. They (non BCS Auto Bid teams) are virtually all the same as far as name recognition.... little to none (with the exception of the MWC teams and some of CUSA). The WAC, MAC, and Belt are all suffering from the same lack of tradition. At least with the Belt, they are regional and name rcognition can somewhat come with time. The average student will never be interested in seeing Nevada, SJSU, Idaho, etc... even La Tech - which is right up the road from us - scheduled a home and home with us and we had very mediocre attendance for that game. Very mediocre. There is nothing prestige about being in the WAC, it just costs money that we could be spending on bettering ourselves. We just need our fans to come see North Texas and not worry about the opponent.

No, that is not a personal attack - it was sarcasm and a joke. I hope that nobody is offended.

LOL, honestly - I don't either... but NT80 is one of those guys that knows everything about everything, hates the Belt, thinks that the WAC was a missed chance for us, and generally just annoys most people on GMG by "correcting" them... so I thought that I would correct him for once (and it sure was fun, haha). But, yeah - IA and IAA are easiest for me, too. I have to stumble those words out, FCS/FBS... and half the time I get them backwards! What Benson was trying to say is that Division I is Division I for all sports except for football. At NMSU's current level, they are atthe highest level of play, the FBS division. If they were to miss their attendance another year then they get put on probation for two years. If they don't hit it during the two year probation then they are moved down to FCS (formerly IAA). I do need clairification on Idaho and Utah State... since they were both warned after 2006 (I remember that article) - and both of them failed to meet criteria last year. Will they be put on probation THIS year or after one more year? Also, somebody commented on FAU in this thread. The rule simply states that the attendance is counted by tickets sold. The rule says that the lowest priced ticket cannot be more than 50% off the highest priced ticket (to prevent having a booster buy 15,000 one dollar tickets).. What FAU did was smart... they knew that they were building a program so instead of taking in general donations - they tied ALL donations to large chunks of tickets. In other words, if you were a donor at the $500 level, you got $500 worth of tickets. They also had some nicely attended games for USF and Minnesota. FIU did the same thing. That is why both of them have low box office attedance but just above 15K for their audited NCAA attendance. It is not against the rules, no need to scream about it. And for those bitching about ULM... they had more people at home against a SWAC team than we did against Navy. The Belt is getting better all around, just be patient.

Well, you should change your sentence to say WAS, not IS - you are talking in the present tense and of course; as we all know, IAA and IA are WAY in the past.

Click on me to learn about FCS and FBS - its old news, but not to everyone I guess

False again, there is no such thing as IA anymore. There is Division I FBS (Bowl Teams - formerly IA) and Division I FCS (Championship Teams - formerly IAA).

The rest of that article is probably the most important. This is a new problem for the Belt, we haven't even had a team to consistently fill a second bowl bid until recently. We all want the Belt to grow and have bragging right of a second bowl game but it was way too much of a gamble in the past to put the money up. With the two new bowls added, we could probably get a tie in with a bowl in Boise or San Fran, but most likely a regional bowl will have a space open and we would end up sending a team like Troy to Boise when they could be playing in the Motor City Bowl like MTSU did. That does nothing for the conferences' reputation, because really - none of our teams are going to travel any fans to Boise under any circumstance.

Fees can be mandated by the BOR without a student vote. When the last fee was voted down, the BOR imposed a lower fee anyways with the reasoning that we had to become Title IX compliant. The SGA endorsed it and even voted on it - maybe that took the place of a student body vote, but the actual fee was not voted on by the student body (they rejected the larger fee that would have built the stadium already). People are always looking for someone to blame, well - its a little bit of everyone. The students that voted it down. The administration for wording the fee so that it would go into effect right away. The idiotic alumni that went back to campus and tried to "campaign" for the fee when most kids wouldn't have even known that it was on the ballot in the first place (and it would have passed). It is a little of everything... also, there were two other huge fees going on at the time that had just gone into place... the Rec Center fee and the Health Center fee. If the fee had been structured properly, it would have been worded to start 4 years after it was voted on - so that the kids voting on it wouldn't have to actually pay it - thus not caring about it in the first place.. it wouldn't have been hidden in with a bill to fund Title IX (all that did was cause distrust among the people voting for it)... I also keep seeing people post about selling naming rights to the stadium. Those things come with time but they never come before the ground is broken. I cannot think of a single corporation that has bought the naming righs for a stadiumor arena before it was already funded. Even the American Airlines Center sold its naming rights AFTER it was fully funded by taxpayers. Troy sold its stadium's rights after the thing was built. Maybe Papa Johns put their name up first? Maybe... that is really the only one that I can think of but they were drawing 40K a game and would have built it anyway - it was already fully funded. We have to build it by any means possible and then go out and put a great product on the field. If we do that, the stadium will be full and we will have plenty of companies that want their name on the stadium/field/locker rooms/etc... And yes, I agree with Flyer - there will be a fee, it will not be voted on by the student body, and it will come next year so that the stadium is open by 2010. We didn't build that entire endzone complex and athletic center just to leave the field empty next to it.

Yes, I agree... it is financially feasible. But can they find another opponent? I guess that is the question. The bowl charges a really steep fee to get in and I can't think of a team that has ever broke even in going. The Pac10 has been there and didn't like the arrangement so they left. MWC might be an opponent but they might just go the at large route. That can be dangerous now that there are two more bowls. Only 7 teams got left out last year so only 3 teams would have gotten left at home if the two bowls had been in existence. Would Troy have paid roughly $400K to go to the Humanitarian Bowl? I really don't know. Would we? I would hope not.

I wonder of the Boise Bowl will find a replacement team or go the at large route? Would the MWC send a team there? I would hope that the Belt would say no. The Boise Bowl served its purpose but it might be time to close up shop. I don't know, maybe MWC vs WAC would be a good match-up. Would PAC-10 ever go there?