If home-and-home series were common between G5 and P5 teams, practically all teams would play 6 home games and 6 away. But that isn't how college football works, which also speaks to its illegitimacy as a league.
If home-and-home series were common between G5 and P5 teams, practically all teams would play 6 home games and 6 away. But that isn't how college football works, which also speaks to its illegitimacy as a league.
You went from this...
To this...
Most teams have 8 conference games, one FCS game, and three games to use as money games, home and home with other G5s or P5s. It's been like this since 12 games became the rule. THIS is how the college football game works.
Oh, if that's how it works, I'll look forward to seeing LSU in Aillet Stadium soon.
I guess it's a question of what one considers "common." I realize now what I mean is that it's not the norm, and it should be.
http://conferenceusa.com/standings.a...&path=football
Not that it matter a whole bunch, but I noticed we didn't get credit for our bowl win in the final standings.
It's common for many of the P5s to do home and home series with G5s. Of course lsu and Bama won't do them, but teams like Miss State (who actually did one with us), Kansas (who asked for one with us), and Baylor (who would have done one with us if our AD had a clue and had not asked for a 2 for 1 for no money) do them all the time.
We have hit a plateau in our athletics. We are doing nothing but treading water right now. (enough clichés?) Since the AD is supposed to be the director, the leader, of athletics one can assume he's the issue. He does not appear to have what it takes to keep moving us up the steep, highly-competitive slope. For instance, I can see FAU being chosen for a new conference, or some reorganization, over us. Yes, they have a HUGE advantage of location, population, enrollment...but they are a relative newbie in the arena of Division I sports, especially football. Look where they came from. But, for Tech, we can't just shrug our shoulders and lament, oh well, some schools (UCF) have a competitive advantage beyond our control....woe is us. Ah, no. You find something else to build a resume' on. And that IS the primary responsibility of the AD.
Yes, FAU has all the advantages dawg80 says but they have one major drawback. No fans. The same can be said of UCF, FIA and USF. This obviously doesn't matter to conference selection committees. All they see is what they perceive as the potential market. But their market has no potential. Except for Florida and Florida State and sometimes Miami there are no college football fans in Florida. Yes, FAU has 40K students, but they obviously don't go to their home football games, even if it is the conference championship.
Speaking of fans....ya gotta love it! On a blog I'm on, a Bama fan was arguing he's NOT a bandwagon fan because he was raised a Bama fan, by his parents, who have always been Bama fans since the days of Bear Bryant. So I asked, great! what degrees did you and/or your parents earn at Bama. Oh, he said, we're not alums. He attended some small college in Tennessee and his parents never went to college. But! they have always been Bama fans. Why, I asked. Because we live in northern Alabama, they're the local team, and of course they are "BAMA!" Well, aren't their other schools in northern Alabama who have football? Took him two days to reply, so he obviously did a little research. Those schools are no where near the caliber of "BAMA!" Exactly, I replied. Your parents became Bama fans because they were big time winners under Bear Bryant, the classic definition of "bandwagon" fans. Now, you lean on your parents' bandwagon status as justification for your own. This is the "DACA" of fandom!
I suppose our AD gets some credit for the "new stuff" even though the DAC was a done deal when he arrived. That "new stuff" didn't help attendance this year after the MSU game and our MBB program is going steadily down hill. Those are really the only two sports that matter. We are right were we were after we joined the WAC and had some success. As you said we seem to have hit a plateau.
We are still out running those who are being chased by the bear, but not by much.
I guess by Dawg80's definition all fans of a school's team who are not alumni are band wagon fans. If they stick to their favorite team through losing seasons they are not just band wagon fans. I realize that Alabama has had few losing seasons in the last 20 years or even 40 years so you can't really measure the band wagon-ness of their non alumni fans. Some people call them Wal Mart fans. I think sometimes we could be perceived to be a little snobbish when it comes to our fan base by referring to the possible non alumni fans as such. If they will fill our stadium and cheer for our team I will take all I can get - band wagon or Wal Mart. Lord knows our own alumni won't show up in hordes. FAU's problem is that they have 60k students (I just read an article that upped my earlier guess) and can't fill a 40k seat stadium. If all our students came to our games that would only fill about 1/3 to a little less than 1/2 of our stadium.