Way To Go Newmags!

[stebo]

34-33, good guys... in front of over 42,000 in the Sun Bowl.

Also, did anyone see that ASU Red Wolves won yet again? This time over the MUTS with a packed house of about 25K fans

Finally, ULA beat Kent State at home handily, 44-27, pretty good crowd considering they haven't won in awhile.

Probably the most dissapointing thing today - only 16K and some change for the opening of FIU's new stadium. Sure it only seats 20K at this stage and it "looked" full but I would have thought that considering the top 12 opponent with visiting fans - they could have filled it up at least this one day. I was surprised to hear in the broadcast that the construction is not done yet. According to the announcers, those small stands are going to be replaced with a completion on the bowl by 2010. Sure FIU has lost 27 of their lost 28 with their lone win over North Texas but considering the circumstances today (new stadium, local opponent, top 12 opponent, etc...) - they should have had a sell out crowd for their nationally televised game. It looked pretty full on tv but the box score says 16K and some change.

[JesseMartin]

Look around the ESPN scoreboard. Sadly, we're one of only seven winless teams...but 7? Really? Looks like parity is really taking shape. Due to reasons previously discussed in this forum, it does appear that it could be "anybody's game" within a few years. More reason for a playoff system...and more reason to get a decent stadium...

[Green Mean]

Anybody follow the Buffalo vs Mizzou game? I know the final score was 42-21 and does not indicate it being close but Buffalo did put a hell of a time through three quarters. At one point it was 27-21 Mizzou. Props to Turner Gill and the Bulls.

[THOR]

tickets to the first game at fiu were 51 bucks!!!! the announcers were saying that, so i can see why a lot of people may not have made it out to the game.

[chrisfisher]

I hate to say this, but it works to our advantage if schools like UTEP, who we are in direct competition with for recruits, have a bad, or even better, ugly season. So I say, "UTEP, lose them all!"

Edited September 21, 2008 by chrisfisher

[stebo]

Ok, an FIU fan posted a couple of tidbits. First of all, the stadium is 18K seats with capacity of 20K on the grass so they were just about sold out. The attendance was just below 17K. The stadium is not done, it has another side to be completed and that will be done by 2010. Finally, tickets were $51 bucks for this game but season tickets are only $100. They did this to curve USF fans from filling up their home stadium on opening day... smart move actually, because they didn't put the single game tix on sale until there were only end zone seats left which meant that some USF fans are now FIU season ticket holder simply out of default, haha. Finally - it looks pretty amazing in its first phase. Here is a picture.. You can follow the link for some more:

More pics:

http://www.miamiherald.com/photos/gallery/...3.html?number=0

[GoMeanGreen1999]

Ok, an FIU fan posted a couple of tidbits. First of all, the stadium is 18K seats with capacity of 20K on the grass so they were just about sold out. The attendance was just below 17K. The stadium is not done, it has another side to be completed and that will be done by 2010. Finally, tickets were $51 bucks for this game but season tickets are only $100. They did this to curve USF fans from filling up their home stadium on opening day... smart move actually, because they didn't put the single game tix on sale until there were only end zone seats left which meant that some USF fans are now FIU season ticket holder simply out of default, haha. Finally - it looks pretty amazing in its first phase. Here is a picture.. You can follow the link for some more:

More pics:

http://www.miamiherald.com/photos/gallery/...3.html?number=0

I know some will probably disagree with my statement, but if you are in D1 football building a new stadium, and 20k is what you build it for, you need to go back to D1AA.

[stebo]

I guess the first part was unclear but the stadium is not done yet. It is being built in stages. Phase one was to get this part open for this year to get them out of the Orange Bowl. Phase two starts construction literally after this season - it doesn't need to be funded, it already is - they just didn't have time to build it. Stage two will expand capacity to 26K plus 2K on grass... about the same size as ours. Stage three is not guaranteed - just planned. It will be expandable to 45K seats if needed. So, to clarify - they got the first phase done about a day before the game... in fact, I think that they still have work to do. Stage two will start right away when they finish this stage and should be under contruction over the next 18 months so that it is ready by the 2010 season. Make sense?

[GoMeanGreen1999]

I guess the first part was unclear but the stadium is not done yet. It is being built in stages. Phase one was to get this part open for this year to get them out of the Orange Bowl. Phase two starts construction literally after this season - it doesn't need to be funded, it already is - they just didn't have time to build it. Stage two will expand capacity to 26K plus 2K on grass... about the same size as ours. Stage three is not guaranteed - just planned. It will be expandable to 45K seats if needed. So, to clarify - they got the first phase done about a day before the game... in fact, I think that they still have work to do. Stage two will start right away when they finish this stage and should be under contruction over the next 18 months so that it is ready by the 2010 season. Make sense?

I guess I didn't read it well enough. I still don't understand a D1 school building a stadium under 30k, but whatever. How did they pay for it?

[stebo]

Student fees, when it is all completed - it will be an $80 million dollar set-up. I think that this first phase was $45 million and they still have a lot to be built. I know that the capacity sounds low but a lot of schools have lower capacity stadiums than us. The 30K seat requirement came after the 80's and only a few teams in the MAC have 30K seats. I would rather them have 26K bad ass seats with good sight lines rather than have 30K with crummy aluminum bleachers that nobody will ever want to sit in. Take a look at those pictures, there really doesn't look to be a bad seat in the house.

[Green Mean]

I know some will probably disagree with my statement, but if you are in D1 football building a new stadium, and 20k is what you build it for, you need to go back to D1AA.

I do not think I would be surprised if they went back. I think they wanted to top out the first 2 phases at about 26K capacity because if football still fails, they will have a good sized stadium and if they move back down they may very well be the upper echelon of the D1AA football schools.

[stebo]

God, you really don't know a thing about FIU. Look at those crowd shots, it is all young people. They are a young school and they just added football. They have been IA longer than they were IAA. They have higher enrollment than us and have spent 10 times more on their program than we have over the last 5 years. I would worry about NT moving down before I worried about FIU. They are building for the future and realize that it won't happen overnight. Their head coach is paid double what Dodge is.

[buff64]

Did you know that A&M's new preident is a graduate of FIU ?

[oldguystudent]

In regards to the OP, may I inquire as to why UTEP are the bad guys? Did they insult UNT or something?

El Paso was pretty much a second home to me while I was working, and that place supports its football team through good and bad like you wouldn't believe. Other than some of the best Mexican food in the country, they don't have much else to do there.

Geographically, El Paso is a smelly desert wasteland dump. It's population, on the other hand, to a man, consists of the nicest people I've ever met. I have been to that city probably close to 50 times, and have been in every neighborhood. I've not had a bad experience with people there at all (plus or minus one or two off duty and drunk military personnel).

If you visit the UTEP campus, you will see that the great majority of its students are indeed locals from the El Paso area (some are from Las Cruces as the two schools have a reciprocal tuition agreement). UTEP really is to the El Paso area what UNT should strive to be for North Texas -- a public research university that serves its local residents and is an integral part of the community at large.

*I don't know anything about NMSU except for the days a thousand years ago when they were in our conference (Big West) and the basketball coach, Neil McCarthy, would just stick it to us mercilessly every time we played. They were a sweet sixteen team, we were a hapless D1 team that couldn't draw 1,000 people and would probably have lost to the local JC.

Edited September 22, 2008 by oldguystudent

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

In regards to the OP, may I inquire as to why UTEP are the bad guys? Did they insult UNT or something?

El Paso was pretty much a second home to me while I was working, and that place supports its football team through good and bad like you wouldn't believe. Other than some of the best Mexican food in the country, they don't have much else to do there.

Geographically, El Paso is a smelly desert wasteland dump. It's population, on the other hand, to a man, consists of the nicest people I've ever met. I have been to that city probably close to 50 times, and have been in every neighborhood. I've not had a bad experience with people there at all (plus or minus one or two off duty and drunk military personnel).

If you visit the UTEP campus, you will see that the great majority of its students are indeed locals from the El Paso area (some are from Las Cruces as the two schools have a reciprocal tuition agreement). UTEP really is to the El Paso area what UNT should strive to be for North Texas -- a public research university that serves its local residents and is an integral part of the community at large.

*I don't know anything about NMSU except for the days a thousand years ago when they were in our conference (Big West) and the basketball coach, Neil McCarthy, would just stick it to us mercilessly every time we played. They were a sweet sixteen team, we were a hapless D1 team that couldn't draw 1,000 people and would probably have lost to the local JC.

It's more of a positive for the New Mexico State Aggies than a slam of UTEP. NMSU has been a conference mate of ours three times (Missouri Valley, Big West, Sun Belt) whereas we've never been in a conference with UTEP. We have played them numerous times and have a good record against them; so it's not as if we don't like them because they always beat us. New Mexico State usually beat us in basketball too, but unlike Cal State-Fullerton, we were able to return the favor in football.

Some also rag on UTEP because they received the last membership available in CUSA, a spot for which we were in contention.

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

If you visit the UTEP campus, you will see that the great majority of its students are indeed locals from the El Paso area (some are from Las Cruces as the two schools have a reciprocal tuition agreement). UTEP really is to the El Paso area what UNT should strive to be for North Texas -- a public research university that serves its local residents and is an integral part of the community at large.

Although not about football, I did want to comment on your remarks about UTEP and El Paso.

We can't really be that similar because UTEP students are much more a part of the El Paso community since most are from there. UNT students, on the other hand, are from nearly all of the 254 Texas counties, nearly all of the 50 states and from more than 130 foreign countries. We lose some of the closeness with such a wide and diverse student body.

As to a public research university, we are that and have a campaign currently to improve our funding, which is already larger than UTEPs.

[RETSO]

God, you really don't know a thing about FIU. Look at those crowd shots, it is all young people. They are a young school and they just added football. They have been IA longer than they were IAA. They have higher enrollment than us and have spent 10 times more on their program than we have over the last 5 years. I would worry about NT moving down before I worried about FIU. They are building for the future and realize that it won't happen overnight. Their head coach is paid double what Dodge is.

I feel like we are all fiddling while Rome is burning. Look around my fellow Mean Greeners, but the other Belt teams have passed up by....by a LONG SHOT..

No New Stadium will = death to our I-A lives....as well it should...

We can NOT and will NOT be able to compete with anyone but the Nichols State, McNess State SFA's of the world...

Dodge please get a few wins to turn this thing around...I feel like we have fallen...AND WE CAN'T GET UP!!!!!!!!!!!!