Legend500

Having attended several basketball games around town, UTSA's facilities are probably third, with St. Mary's (1-AA Heartland) being a practical palace. Wolff Stadium (which they list for some reason) is closer to every other school in the city than it is to UTSA (20 minute drive, at least). Intramural fields as major facilities won't get you out of the Southland. As far as academics are concerned - don't even bother with the "tier" system. It's horribly inaccurate, and has a history of humorous flaws. The best one was when they listed Princeton has having the best law school in the nation. 2 years in a row. Unfortunately, Princeton doesn't have a law school. Having served on a law school admissons committee, I can tell you that everyone uses the non-profit Carnegie Classifications (which are free online). UTSA is two steps down from UNT, but most of the CUSA is one step down from UNT, so that doesn't really add into the equation.

Living in SA gives one a particular view of UTSA. But frankly and in indecipherable language... They're nuts. The thinking here is that SA should have an NFL team, and since they should have that, they should also have a BCS team. What's more, they generally think that the State will pay its athletic budget, and that around $7 million a year is all they need to run a program (according to our new favorite newspaper, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, we will be up to $33 million once the full force of the fees kicks in). The Alamodome is an advantage, but they don't understand that when it's the City of San Antonio getting the gate, parking and concessions, it's not gonna help UTSA one bit. Additionally, I've had a few people say that the city's so big, they can sell out if only 5% of the city comes to their games - which of course they'll do (as a reference, that logic means that we have 335000 in average attendance at our games.) People forget non-Spurs sports history quickly around here. They forget that Trinity plays IAA games in an empty stadium, that St. Mary's had a TAA (pre-NCAA) team for a year but had to drop due to no support, and that Incarnate Word draws a host of 1,700 fans a game. on't even ask them how the attendance will be after losing to Nicholls 45-0 at the end of the season - they haven't considered losing a game...

If there ever was a better definition of lipstick on a pig, it's doing anything but dynamiting Aillet.

I think one of the biggest concerns for the WAC right now is probably a Sun Belt poach. If we can eject ULM (I know! betrayal! in college football!) and add LATech and NMSU, that murders their conference. The WAC without Boise is nothing - the only reason Hawaii, Fresno and Nevada got any attention was because Boise was getting it, too. Without Boise, the WAC is name-only, and the difference between WAC, SBC and MAC is trivial. The CUSA invite will happen. If not, we should improve the house we're in. As for the WAC - too bad.

No. I want to remain in an FBS conference.

1. No 2. Yes

I'd hate to say it, because I'm a big believer of keeping all sports on campus, BUT... Why not just pocket the 7 million to start with (especially since we need to add a women's sport), and add 4 sports - Men's baseball, Women's X, and Men's and Women's ice hockey? Both the baseball and hockey teams can play in Frisco to start with, and hopefully build up support for our athletics on the north side of Dallas. It just seems to make more sense than spending 7 million on one sport that might not go anywhere.

If the SEC's gonna head west, they need to go Big. Literally. Although I think a Florida expansion is the best option, they could also try to poach Texas, A&M, OU and Okie St. That would be quite a lot to swallow, but it adds a number of good games to the SEC schedule.

We also forget that for Division I conferences, there are two sports that matter. Not only does UTSA need a football team, they need to do better than getting whipped out of the Southland conference basketball tourney in the first round, too.

Another side question concerns the FBS moratorium now in effect. Does anybody think that the NCAA would be comfortable with 12 Texas FBS teams? It seems like they want to cap FBS at 120.

UTSA's AD says independent is the way to get into the FBS... San Antonio Express-News So, it sounds like UTSA is currently without a home in the FBS, and might be without one in the FCS. Are they either 1) the next USF or 2) setting themselves up for failure?

Re-invite Louisiana Tech to see if they're serious about staying as a FBS program (I can only imagine how much the travel costs are hurting them now). Failing that... Heresy of Heresies... Texas State?

UTSA absolutely expects to move to an on-campus stadium at some time in the future. The stadium would be funded jointly by UTSA, the school district, San Antonio and Bexar County. Not an unusual relationship for the city - SA, Bexar and SAISD just started a joint sports project at St. Mary's. I would not be too concerned. The facts of life in FCS (i.e. losing to Pine Bluff by 40 in front of 10,000 in a 70,000 seat stadium). They could be lucky, but it's not likely - TxSt and Lamar are ahead of them to get into FBS - much less the CUSA (if it continues to exist in a recognizable form after the next re-alignment.

She's brought at least 100 times that amount to the University since she started (over $50 million is new research & endowment). A 1/100th cut of that seems eminently fair. Too bad it's now illegal to make money in this country.

Don't be mistaken, the real action is on the ground in Austin. The legislature is going to pass on the idea this session - the state has opened a can of worms in opening this question. But note the two schools whose administrations have been absolutely silent on this debate - it's no coincidence that TTU's chancellor named only two schools - North Texas and Houston, Whatever this expansion eventually entails, UNT and Houston will be a part of it. Most likely, the state will expand flagship status by including the home campuses of the three other FBS systems (UNT and Houston and their respective legislators have a deal, and it's probably not good to leave Tech out.) UTD is in there as well, but it would be a stretch. Don't underestimate the effect which the Strauss-coup has on this decision. A Houston and UT centered legislative leadership has been replaced by a DFW centric leadership with no educational loyalties. It's a good thing this does not happen this session anyway. Most of the other systems have asked for a new Chevy during this fiscally tight time, but UNT is asking for a Hummer and a Maserati to strap to the Hummer's roof with the Law school, massive construction efforts, athletic fees and Pharmacy all being batted around. In this case, no news will continue to be good news.

Wow. Pot? Kettle? UNT is one of the main factors currently lowering competition in the Belt. So we're really not in a position to dictate terms here. As far as UTSA/TxSt goes (the #2&3 of the San Antonio - Austin market) I wouldn't get too excited. One of these teams doesn't exist yet, and will have trouble getting off the ground in the current climate - the other is having a hell of a time raising funds; mainly for the same reason. Both of them are interesting some time down the road. Neither the Sun Belt nor the CUSA can survive intact in the upcoming realignment. Best case scenario is a 14-team North/South conference. Something like: North: New Mexico State, Texas-El Paso, Tulsa, Arkansas State, Southern Methodist, North Texas, Louisiana Tech South: Texas-San Antonio, Texas State, Houston, Rice, Lamar, Louisiana, Tulane To some extent, it's dreaming, but it sets up one heck of a regional conference which should easily attract a regional TV deal and have relatively stable membership. As far as re-creating the Southland, I'm afraid that's the level we're at. Even moving up to the CUSA wouldn't solve that problem - the West is so weak compared to the East that it's a conference bound to rip apart. Both LaTech and NMSU are better served by such a conference. The CUSA West survives unscathed. The only team looking in is Louisiana-Monroe, which is not as good a pick-up as LaTech. We've been at it since before SMU even existed, UH was still swamp, Rice was still a vegetable, and people still went to Hardin-Simmons in Waco instead of TCU. We should be used to getting passed up. Now, how do we fix that? A much better question.

Warning - Sarcasm included! I think the real measure of futility would be of a titanic, profound sort. I'm talking the third largest school in a huge state that's been playing football practically since before its largest rivals and competitors in a given area even existed as colleges but yet is still behind the curve. Or maybe a school that size also renowned for its fine & liberal arts programs that can get sidelined from being a tier 1 school because of some imaginary 100 million dollar research requirement where, for some reason, only the hard sciences qualify. Any administration or school so incompetent at self-promotion deserves to have the same administration, alumni and donors drug out into the street and.... severely lectured. You know who I'm talking about. So how to fix it? 1. Get a Board willing to shove fee increases down the student's throats (they can pay for SMU or go to Tech if they don't like it). 2. Get a Board willing to threaten and cajole the state into tier one status. 3. Pay off, donate to, influence and outright force friendly or unfriendly legislators to assist us. 4. Get an administration willing to be clear about our university's benefits and historical strengths (the separate Journalism program is a great step, the Engineering program not so). 5. Get an administration interested in supporting and building up the main campus - without unnecessary distracting forays into social engineering by building a new campus. 6. Get alumni support. With notable exceptions of the people on this board, the alumni has now failed to support this university's potential (mainly in sports - alumni giving to academic programs are pretty good) for 118 years. 7. Resurrect the Domingo Garcia early-2000s plan to realign the university systems into some sort of rational regional set-up. UTA, UTD, UT-Tyler and TAMU-Commerce should rationally be UNTA, UNTR, UNTT and UNTC. You can get Tech on this plan by making UTPB, UTEP and West TAMU into TTUPB, TTUEP & TTUW. Houston by making SFA and SHSU into UHN and UHH. Texas and TAMU probably wouldn't mind this if we let them keep the funds they get now to run those schools in their budget - giving them more money to focus on their traditional campuses. It would be near impossible to do, but if UNT managed to talk or cajole even one of the other systems into supporting this - we could get somewhere. UNT, Texas Tech and Houston should not have to compete with out-of-area UT-Wherevers, and all three would probably be interested in protecting themselves through such a re-organization. We must get tough - between our DFW delegation and any allies we could get from the non-UT/TAMU delegations (Houston and Lubbock) we need to start shoving fee increases and reorganizations down the State's throat both to improve our football and our academic programs. If not, UTEP, UTD and UTSA are the future - not UNT,TTU or UH.

Ahh, I still have a soft spot for Scrappy the fightin' parrott.

I recall when I was working at Barnes and Noble how much of a kick we always got out of selling the sheep those college guides (US News, Princeton, and Fiske). They're completely and massively worthless, with 40% of the rankings based on how the editors "feel" and 10% - 20% based on ad revenues from certain sponsoring universities (of which SMU is one). The LSAC (Law School Admissions Council) has even suggested suing these guys for fraud, and is made up of the deans of just about every law school who want to see these guys done away with (including SMU). The real measure is a classification system from a non-profit known as the "Carnegie Classification" - try to find that ranking on SMU's website....

I too see no problem with stating the (painfully) obvious. It's something that we have to keep in mind - UNT has built a world-class (and cheap! A bargain!) Fine arts and social sciences university, but that does mean problems for an athletic program. The best example is on the west side of campus - an architectural wonder (good enough to be given a page in the definite architecture book published by Phaidon internationally (one of only five texas structures and around 25 US structures mentioned)) with near-perfect acoustics and world-class reputation sits next to an aluminum stadium which until recently hadn't been painted since Ike was president. That is the truth of the matter in a nutshell.

Great hire for Dodge. Some of us may have doubted Dodge's hiring decisions, but he's really pulling it through. Props all around.

There's a major difference between the situation here in Bexar County with the 15 million for UTSA and the 6 million for St. Mary's (The city is really behind UTSA, and pretty much everybody running the county and city graduated from St. Mary's) and the situation in Denton County. Remember, unlike San Antonio in Bexar, Denton is the 2nd or 3rd largest city in Denton County (behind Carrollton and maybe Lewisville). This means that Denton can't just declare something and make it true. The real decision to support something like that would have to come from Carrollton, Lewisville, Flower Mound and Southlake, as well. That's not gonna happen without a county-wide push for UNT. Can Dr. B do it?

June Jones would be a great hire for SMU (and it's not yet official - his agent told the DMN that there were some NFL teams interested as well) but I don't think he's the second coming. The problems at SMU are deep - much deeper than just the coaching staff. Will this make SMU more competitive - yes. But will a coach which could only go undefeated in the regular season by playing Northern Colorado and Charleston Southern make SMU a power again? No. Dodge, playing Georgia next year would be able to do a better job than a 10-41 result that Jones got (and Georgia let up on them). Good hire for SMU and we need it to work out (A stronger SMU is good for all three teams here) but not a groundbreaking one.

Baseball is primary, but Wrasslin' is cheap to run and popular in its own way. The only other sport I'd want is Hockey (popular, with local facilities and a conference member which is awesome in the sport, plus the prestige of being the first in Texas to offer it on the NCAA level (but hockey would be expensive as hell, especially compared to Wrestling.)) But title 9 means we'd have to add a few women's sports...so...how about Women's Bowling, Golf and water polo...can't be too pricey.. anyone got a spare 100 mil? (50 for the Fball Stadium, 30 for the Baseball Stadium and 20 for the new programs)

To think that the two most disappointing (and losing) teams in the entire state of Texas are TCU and the Ponies....why does that make me so very happy? And TTU brings a heck of a show to the AAC...and Tech is desperate to hold onto the Dallas market for applications to the University (a certain school just north of Dallas is sucking up applications, leading Tech to be stagnant in the growth of the university at a time where most are growing quickly). That's as good of a reason as any.