CUSA is having a rough time in bowl games

[markay714]

Sure is interesting how well Conference USA is doing in their two early bowl games. There's no way I would have figured that N. Texas would've won their game. And, Marshall just isn't that great either to beat Louisville. Looks like they'll get quite the black eye this year. Sure would be nice for the WAC to win ours this go 'round!

[weunice]

How can we not have been able to see that North Texas was any good? Because they play in the Sun Belt? We need to stop giving North Texas a hard time. They have EARNED my respect.

Here are the games they lost.

08/31 at Texas ( 7 10-2) 0-27
09/14 at Alabama ( 10 10-3) 7-33

09/21 at TCU ( 41 9-2) 10-16
09/28 at Arizona ( 70 4-8) 9-14
10/05 South Florida ( 28 9-2) 17-24

The only "bad" loss they had was against Arizona and that game was very close. They were competitive against pretty good teams in TCU and South Florida. North Texas was a few plays from having 10 wins with losses to Texas and Alabama. Their defense is STOUT. I wish we had a defense that was half as good as theirs. UNT plays Tech this season and they up their series record to 6-4. I have no doubt about that. Tech scores at MOST 10 on UNT.

[Jetstorm]

North Texas is for real, and everybody had better start waking up to that fact. They are 11-1 in the Sun Belt since the league began (that 1 loss being to ULM, so I now see why Tech folks don't respect them) and are truly the class of that conference. More surprising is that the Sun Belt had two winning teams this year. New Mexico State went 7-5 and narrowly lost to UNT for the title. The Sun Belt is making great strides, and has a chance to become a competitive league if things keep going up.

[weunice]

And definately competitive with the WAC. Folks here seem to think that the WAC is a huge step up in competition from the SBC. This season, at least, it isn't. Sure Boise is the class of both conferences. Outside of that NMSU and UNT would have been very competitive in the WAC. The whole idea that

MWC, CUSA > WAC, MAC > SBC just isn't holding much water any more. They are almost all the same.

The advantages that the WAC gives us are
a) name recognition both in conference and teams
b) more bowl bids, even though they are not all that great for EWAC teams
c) other sports
d) valuable academic ties (Rice, SMU, Tulsa etc)

On c, at least this season, we appear to be losing ground ... I read recently that the Sagarins have the WAC rated 19th as a conference in men basketball while the SBC has climbed to the "major" level at #10. Not good!

In football: The oh so strong "better" EWAC? Check most any rankings system. We finished as the bottom 5 teams in the WAC. The best of us finshed behind Utah State, Middle Tennessee, New Mexico State and North Texas in the composite ranking system. Only one of us (Tech) edged Arkansas State. The results would be no different in most other ranking systems.

Of course this is clearly just one year ... who knows what next holds. I like the direction SMU is taking. Tulsa is headed in a new direction as well. At least two teams looked to be improved next season. I just know it irritates a lot of folks on this board because when you look at the FACTS, the EWAC played worse football than the SBC did this season. That is a hard pill to swallow. You can say that ULL and ULM make it worth avoiding and I can point out that UTEP and Tulsa finished BELOW them and cost more to travel to.

As long as we are barely breaking even and including the near certain situation that we will be playing less BCS schools on the road, travel costs DO matter. All costs matter. We will be funding more sports (also to make requirements) with less revenue. You find the money with the dwindling fan support we have. We are not the only school facing this reality. A regional conference is looking more and more likely and the chances of it including one or more SBC teams is a given. I would not be shocked to be in a conference with ULL, UNT, ASU and maybe NMSU within 5 years. Trust me, I like where we are. I know a lot of folks have major reservations about a situation like this, however, it beats 1-AA any day.

And yes, I think doing something about the coaches would help but I think our problems extend FAR beyond that. See the Boise attendance last season for a little ammo.