It's inevitable: Conference USA as we know it is going to change

untjim1995 · April 18, 2017

26 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

Arkstfan, your university was not "Rv'd" with 15 years of ineptitude.

That was on us, though. We were the idiots that kept him for 15 years.

Ben Gooding · April 18, 2017

9 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

That was on us, though. We were the idiots that kept him for 15 years.

Not really.

untjim1995 · April 18, 2017

12 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

Not really.

Us, as in the university...do you not agree? If not, who was responsible?

Arkstfan · April 18, 2017

42 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

Arkstfan, your university was not "Rv'd" with 15 years of ineptitude.

I beg to differ.

Our administration faced with new state regulations requiring us slash how much we received in school revenue moved us to I-A at the start of the 1990's BUT did not increase funding for football at all. From 1990 to 1999 at no time did AState award 85 football scholarships and at points we were below the I-AA/FCS limit of 63.

We dumped a home game to be played in Little Rock vs. Wyoming in 1995. We sold a home a game vs Colorado State back to Colorado State. We sold a home game vs Texas Tech back to Texas Tech turning those two home games into road games. We had an AD sign a (then) fat contract with Oklahoma but he had neglected to enter on his calendar that he had also signed a contract to play Mizzou that same day. Most of the profit from the OU contract was spent to pay the buyout to Mizzou.

The only winning season 1990-2004 was 1995 and featured THREE FCS opponents. The 1999 team if they had been able to score a TD on one of two trips inside the Utah State 30 and if USU doesn't give up an 80 yard busted play TD to Boise we could have been the trend-setters going bowling at 5-6.

A friend jokingly called the NCAA rule change requiring five countable home games the "save us from ourself rule". The requirement that we had to actually award all of our scholarships, changed the program. AState is 91-82 since the NCAA FORCED US to award all of our football scholarships, we were 38-106 before. From 1991 to 2002 we lost 8 or more eight times.

We hired an academic director that the commissioner told us we should avoid. 31 players were certified ineligible improperly. They were eligible but the paperwork was done wrong and had to vacate ten wins.

We've been in football hell. After the 1987 season we had the 1995 padded winning season but did not post more wins than losses again until 2011. We had a three exactly .500 seasons (2005, 2006, 2008).

We had TWENTY-THREE mostly miserable years and 17 of total ineptitude.

Aquila_Viridis · April 19, 2017

6 hours ago, Arkstfan said:

Don't ever let facts ruin a self-serving argument.

UNT spent $31 million on athletics. Of that $21 million came from the school or fees. You actually generated from athletic operations $11 million.

AState spent $29 million. Of that $14 million came from the school or fees and AState generated $15 million.

Unlike UNT, we have very few opportunities to hop on a bus and go much of anywhere. We are 300 miles from the nearest football playing member of Sun Belt or CUSA.

You'll have LT, Southern Miss, Tulsa, and WK (though yes some are a haul) but, with the lack of growth in our area and depletion of flights to and from our airport, you'll also have the Memphis Tigers looking forward to their visits to Jonesboro someday.

untjim1995 · April 19, 2017

On ‎4‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 9:38 PM, Aquila_Viridis said:

You'll have LT, Southern Miss, Tulsa, and WK (though yes some are a haul) but, with the lack of growth in our area and depletion of flights to and from our airport, you'll also have the Memphis Tigers looking forward to their visits to Jonesboro someday.

Memphis will never be in a conference with Arkansas State..

Edited April 21, 2017 by untjim1995

Arkstfan · April 19, 2017

10 hours ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

You'll have LT, Southern Miss, Tulsa, and WK (though yes some are a haul) but, with the lack of growth in our area and depletion of flights to and from our airport, you'll also have the Memphis Tigers looking forward to their visits to Jonesboro someday.

We have signed a four game series with Memphis.

10 hours ago, untjim1995 said:

Memphis will never be in a conference with Arkansas State or MUTS.

Memphis would join a conference with AState before one with MTSU.

They can look at their giving records and their ticket sales records and easily see they don't make jack off people west of the Mississippi River. West Memphis and environs don't attract professionals from Memphis. Traffic funnels into two bridges so it's a suck commute and if you are making any decent amount of money you live in a suburb in Tennessee or one in Mississippi (more house for the money) and a lower income tax rate than Arkansas. Other than a few alums working as teachers or as a local bank branch manager Memphis doesn't have many alums crossing the river.

Memphis support does stretch westward toward Jackson which is about where what MTSU interest there is fizzles out (and that's mainly alums in Jackson for MTSU). Memphis competes with MTSU for fans more than they compete with AState and they absolutely compete more with MTSU before the legislature.

AState is Memphis' second most played series.

Arkstfan · April 19, 2017

Oh and I forgot to add, we spent 1997-98 dealing with a president who wanted to drop football. Our five member board had two in favor of dropping, one in favor of keeping it, and two on the fence. The for football guy finally swung one fence sitter to make it 2-2-1. The president of the senate (who would later become governor) had a come to Jesus with the president and informed him that the Jonesboro campus funding was going to be dramatically slashed and the junior college in Beebe was going to be funded as a four year school. The president said you can't do that and the senator said sit back and watch, I've done harder deals than that. Just watch your budget.

The president had to go convince the remaining fence sitter to switch for football and football was saved on a 3-2 vote that they were supposed to revisit in two years but never did.

We didn't have a rose petal strewn path. We were in the pits of hell and just made the decision to climb out.

Cowtown · April 19, 2017

we sound like two of the four Yorkshiremen

Edited April 19, 2017 by Cowtown

FirefightnRick · April 19, 2017

18 hours ago, untjim1995 said:

That was on us, though. We were the idiots that kept him for 15 years.

Speak for your self.

1 hour ago, Arkstfan said:

Oh and I forgot to add, we spent 1997-98 dealing with a president who wanted to drop football. Our five member board had two in favor of dropping, one in favor of keeping it, and two on the fence. The for football guy finally swung one fence sitter to make it 2-2-1. The president of the senate (who would later become governor) had a come to Jesus with the president and informed him that the Jonesboro campus funding was going to be dramatically slashed and the junior college in Beebe was going to be funded as a four year school. The president said you can't do that and the senator said sit back and watch, I've done harder deals than that. Just watch your budget.

The president had to go convince the remaining fence sitter to switch for football and football was saved on a 3-2 vote that they were supposed to revisit in two years but never did.

We didn't have a rose petal strewn path. We were in the pits of hell and just made the decision to climb out.

Still not as bad as the nosedive we've been on for a decade and a half. Just read the audit from last summer. That and the fact the previous administration lost $80 million of tax payer money and it's a wonder we have an athletic department at all for the new folks to run.

Rick

Edited April 19, 2017 by FirefightnRick

Arkstfan · April 19, 2017

19 minutes ago, FirefightnRick said:

Speak for your self.

Still not as bad as the nosedive we've been on for a decade and a half. Just read the audit from last summer. That and the fact the previous administration lost $80 million of tax payer money and it's a wonder we have an athletic department at all for the new folks to run.

Rick

Man, I know yall have struggled but we went 15 years with one winning season in football (no post-season) and one post-season in men's hoops. It ain't fun.

Upside is that while the administration basically didn't care about athletics, at least they didn't do any big screw-ups that had the bond rating of the school dinged or the state questioning whether they were competent to manage the university.

Cowtown · April 19, 2017

You were lucky to have a hole in the ground...we were evicted from our hole in the ground and had to go live in the lake!

TreeFiddy · April 19, 2017

3 hours ago, Arkstfan said:

Man, I know yall have struggled but we went 15 years with one winning season in football (no post-season) and one post-season in men's hoops. It ain't fun.

Upside is that while the administration basically didn't care about athletics, at least they didn't do any big screw-ups that had the bond rating of the school dinged or the state questioning whether they were competent to manage the university.

Posts are becoming more troll filled every day.

Edited April 19, 2017 by TreeFiddy

Cerebus · April 19, 2017

5 hours ago, FirefightnRick said:

That and the fact the previous administration lost $80 million of tax payer money

Fake news.

The real story is that a financial person here asked the state if they could use certain monies for certain purposes. They were told yes. They did and then later someone else at the state level decided it wasn't the correct decision. Shit storm ensues. People threaten NT with having to pay back the money, people grandstand and promise they are going to lead investigations.

Except it all goes way. Why? Several state institutions had also asked the same question and got the same answer. Trying to make this a big deal for NT would have made it a big deal for several other (more well connected) schools. So everyone was just told to stop using money in that way, everyone has, the story went away.

Arkstfan · April 19, 2017

30 minutes ago, TreeFiddy said:

Posts are becoming more troll filled every day.

Troll? Talking about yourself I guess. Rick's the one who raised the issue.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Arkstfan

Rudy · April 19, 2017

6 hours ago, Arkstfan said:

We didn't have a rose petal strewn path. We were in the pits of hell and just made the decision to climb out.

So you got busy livin?

FirefightnRick · April 20, 2017

5 hours ago, Cerebus said:

Fake news.

The real story is that a financial person here asked the state if they could use certain monies for certain purposes. They were told yes. They did and then later someone else at the state level decided it wasn't the correct decision. Shit storm ensues. People threaten NT with having to pay back the money, people grandstand and promise they are going to lead investigations.

Except it all goes way. Why? Several state institutions had also asked the same question and got the same answer. Trying to make this a big deal for NT would have made it a big deal for several other (more well connected) schools. So everyone was just told to stop using money in that way, everyone has, the story went away.

Interesting.

Rick

Aquila_Viridis · April 20, 2017

14 hours ago, Arkstfan said:

We have signed a four game series with Memphis.

Well then it'll be that much less of a change for them. There's a lot of 'never' s getting tossed around, but I think there's gonna be some scramblin'.

Arkstfan · April 20, 2017

32 minutes ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

Well then it'll be that much less of a change for them. There's a lot of 'never' s getting tossed around, but I think there's gonna be some scramblin'.

My gut feeling (which can't be trusted because there's Pecan Praline ice cream in the freezer but too late for me to get any of it) is that we see some sort shuffle/cooperative agreement sometime between tomorrow morning and the spring of 2020 involving CUSA and Sun Belt.

That will be followed by AAC having to fess up by the summer of 2020 that they aren't getting a raise and maybe losing dollars on the next TV deal.

Then sometime around 2022 - 2025 the Big XII loses some combination of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas (my guess is OU and Kansas which sends UT to independence in football or a quasi-independence like Notre Dame unless it looks like LHN will be folded at the end of the contract then they have their pick of leagues).

What's left of Big XII forms the core of the new top league not in the Power group making a mess of MWC and AAC.

Christopher Walker · April 21, 2017

On 4/19/2017 at 2:57 PM, Cerebus said:

Fake news.

The real story is that a financial person here asked the state if they could use certain monies for certain purposes. They were told yes. They did and then later someone else at the state level decided it wasn't the correct decision. Shit storm ensues. People threaten NT with having to pay back the money, people grandstand and promise they are going to lead investigations.

Except it all goes way. Why? Several state institutions had also asked the same question and got the same answer. Trying to make this a big deal for NT would have made it a big deal for several other (more well connected) schools. So everyone was just told to stop using money in that way, everyone has, the story went away.

Yep.

On 4/19/2017 at 8:51 PM, FirefightnRick said:

Interesting.

Rick

It was estimated at one point had the same pressure actually gained traction in Austin and College Station, those two systems would have been looking at having to return north of $600 million. Those schools kindly asked that this just move along, and so it did.

VideoEagle · April 21, 2017

1 hour ago, Christopher Walker said:

It was estimated at one point had the same pressure actually gained traction in Austin and College Station, those two systems would have been looking at having to return north of $600 million. Those schools kindly asked that this just move along, and so it did.

That certainly explains why it's no longer a problem but no one seems to want to explain why!

wardly · April 27, 2017

The back and forth comparing A-State vs. UNT reminds me of George and Jerry on Seinfeld arguing who is the biggest loser. That ship has sailed, and it is time to move forward and quit dwelling in the past.