UALR is doing a feasibility study on starting a football program.
http://lrtrojans.com/news/2017/7/12/...ity-study.aspx
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UALR is doing a feasibility study on starting a football program.
http://lrtrojans.com/news/2017/7/12/...ity-study.aspx
Mayor & Chamber have been pushing for this. I'd say there's a 50/50 chance.
1) Mitigate loss of Hog games to local economy
2) Justify War Memorial's continued existence
3) Build local pride in home team, community, etc
4) Jockey for position in next round of re-alignment
If I'm not mistaken according to its bylaws the Sun Belt would have to take them as a full conference member. They truly do have a clear path into the FBS.
At the same time it was just a year ago when Karl Benson was touting the fact the league was at its perfect number - 10 for football - after adding CCU and dropping NMSU and Idaho. If they were to stay at 10 I wonder who they would replace? ;)
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I don't think this is simply sudden ambition on UALR's part. i expect there's been some conference nudging in order to keep the football membership at 10 after a couple of years pass. Of course any school that might be dropping out of FBS would deny it. And I also have no idea who that might be. ;)
I've wondered why UALR didn't make the move years ago. I think they could pull it off, providing Fayetteville wouldn't block them.
As I think more about this ... it's probably already been decided.
Either they're not gonna do it, and this study is just to show that they did their due diligence; OR
they're gonna do it, and this study is just to show that they did their due diligence.
(Not to be cynical or anything ... I've just been in the public sector in LR for awhile now.)
Louisiana has only about 700 thousand more population than Arkansas yet it has five FBS division schools while Arkansas has only two. Adding another would hurt Arkansas State's (and Central's) recruiting and would also hurt ours in southern Arkansas (a la Dixon, Dancy, and Lovett). We also get a lot of students from the El Dorado area who might find UALR more attractive with a football program.
You reckon? I knew a bunch of El Dorado folks back in the day. Not a SINGLE one of them has ever considered being a Tech fan since their last day at Tech, but they LOVE the Razorbacks.
Saying that, over the years some of the best Tech fans I know came from Arkansas and don't care for the Pigs at all now. Never heard one of them say they chose Tech over ULAR for any reason other than Tech being a better school.
ULM the clock is ticking....
Tick tick tick tick.....
Because Tech had a much better band program...yes?
http://iruntheinternet.com/lulzdump/...16437p.gif?id=
UTA's president continues to totally dismiss adding football (he has this talking point down cold, since he gets asked all the time -something like "as soon as we hit X million in endowment we'll talk about it"). So a balancing team won't be coming from Arlington.
More in-depth story:
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2017/jul/13/feasibility-of-ualr-football-to-get-stu/
UALR has relied on donations to support athletic ventures. The university was able to construct a new basketball arena for the 2005-06 season because of a $22.4 million gift from the late businessman Jackson T. Stephens, and in January 2016, the Coleman family, owners of the former Coleman Dairy company, agreed to donate nearly 8 acres for the university to build a new baseball field and sports complex.
The Razorbacks have played football games at War Memorial Stadium since 1948. Under its current agreement with War Memorial Stadium, UA-Fayetteville will play one game in the Little Rock stadium through the 2018 season. It is unknown what will happen afterward.
UA Athletic Director "Jeff Long has to make some decisions on football games at War Memorial, and there may be some value in this process in how this decision is made," Stodola said.
I posted yesterday in another thread that it would shock me if the Sun Belt presidents and Benson haven't been aware of this for at least the past year and given it their quiet endorsement. And keep in mind Benson believes 10 is the perfect number for Belt football. From the story I posted:
"UALR has received assurance from the Sun Belt Conference that if it does create a football team, the team will have a spot within the conference."
As Dwayne said, for ULM the clock is ticking.
He may say 10 is the perfect number (he's wrong, it's 9) but that doesn't mean he'd kick someone out to get there. Seems more likely they'd bring back NMSU (or another school leveling up or Liberty or someone) to go to 12 than to drop a member within the geographic footprint.
But you never know.
I'm from El Dorado. I came here instead of Arkansas or Miss. State. UALR was a non factor. Like stated above, it's mostly a commuter school and the part of town that it is in isn't very attractive.
I do know several Tech grads that moved back up there and give Tech no thought. Bandwagon pigs fans.
Not being a pigs fan in Little Rock can make one sort of a social outcast, much the way not being a Tiger fan in Baton Rouge can if you allow it to. I give people in those kind of situations a pass if they become what I call "social fans" of the local team. Still, there's no excuse for a Tech grad's losing his passion for Tech, no matter where he lives.
UALR/UArkansas with football would be no different than UAB/UAlabama.
I've been to a few Ark game watching party, I just watch the game. It's hard for me to get overly excited for a school that I have no connection with. Folks here know that I rep Louisiana Tech.
Regarding UALR football, no one will go watch them on a Saturday especially if Arkansas is playing. It's like LSUS trying to start a football team. UALR students have no pride in their school, they have coined it University of Last Resort.
Yes - the played some games at the old Arlington Stadium where the Rangers played. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas–...ricks_football
Texas-ArlingtonTech leads 13-5
1961 A UTA, 8-7
1962 H Tech, 19-9
1963 A Tech, 34-14
1964 H Tech, 19-7
1972 A Tech, 35-14
1973 H Tech, 44-0
1974 A Tech, 42-15
1975 H Tech, 37-8
1976 A UTA, 56-35
1977 H Tech, 34-12
1978 A Tech, 28-21
1979 H UTA, 30-16
1980 H UTA, 21-20
1981 A UTA, 31-14
1982 A Tech, 17-14
1983 A Tech, 24-17
1984 H Tech, 34-0
1985 A Tech, 29-14
Before it was UTA it was Arlington State. Like UTEP was Texas Western. They have now set up at least four systems in Texas now -- UT, Texas A&M, UH and Texas State. I don't think the Texas State System has changed the names of the affiliate schools except SW Texas at San Marcos. The only other ones most have heard of are Sam Houston and Lamar. Evidently SFA and North Texas (UNT) are still stand alone.
Yeah, dropped it in the 80s. No support apparently. The school has changed a lot since then, and enrollment is huge - but they did a feasibility study like this and the start up money scared them off (for good, it sounds like). It comes up all the time, and the President has his canned answer down pretty well.
War-Skawk fans and trolls, don't even think about it. (neither one of you) apples to onions, simply irony:D
UTA ran the wishbone in the 70s. We played a conference game against them in the Cotton Bowl in either 73 or 74. We won big, but boy, was that big ole place empty. Our Tech band seemed to make up about a quarter of the crowd.
Hell, we played a "bowl game" on a high school field in BR in 1969. Lost, too.
UALR was not a consideration for me. I do know a couple people who went there. One seems to have some school pride. I didn't really hear or care much about them. Outside of their flash of success in basketball last year, i dont think people care much. In my class, I personally heard more of people going to SAU and UCA than UALR.
I really hope this UALR football thing doesn't happen. We just don't need another football program recruiting in our back yard. And frankly, with UA-F deciding to pull out of Little Rock, I'm very surprised that Arkansas St hasn't scheduled a few games in Little Rock to try to pick up some of that audience.
We should play in Shreveport :laugh:
I've been living here in Little Rock for 13-14 years. Majority of the population are default Hog fans. The only way A-State could draw a crowd in LR would be play UCA. It would probably draw 25-30k in a 50k stadium.
If UALR does get a football program started, they'll need to avoid scheduling the same time when Arkansas plays. Watching the Hogs on TV will trump watching UALR at War Memorial.
We must haves the home games!
We hates the Shreveports forever!
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7...7nseo1_400.jpg
That old attendance mandate caused Rice to move one game against Tech to Reliant Stadium so it wouldn't count. In those days only one (or maybe two) "home" games not played in the regular stadium could count for the attendance. Rice actually moved a game so it wouldn't count. I went to the game and we probably had more Tech fans than Rice fans. Only about 6,000 in a 60,00+ seat stadium. The game was first moved from Rice Stadium to Reliant for a Saturday night game, but the Texans were playing on Sunday and didn't want the field messed up (they have natural turf) so it was moved again to Monday night.