Jackson's Clarion Ledgers Rick Cleveland on C-USA Expansion

[LaTechRandy]

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pb...404150340/1201

You'll have to wade through the Eli rhetoric at the beginning of the article!

[EJ]

Q. Is something about to happen with Conference USA? Is C-USA going to expand to 12 teams or stay at 11?

A. Another guess: Conference USA is going to choose Texas-El Paso over Louisiana Tech and expand to 12 teams. The league could have a championship game as early as 2006.

Q. Why UTEP over La-Tech? I thought the league was trying to take on a more regional look. UTEP is closer to New Mexico than Houston or Dallas.

A. UTEP has great basketball tradition (and attendance) and averaged just under 30,000 for football last season. It's also a larger TV market.

What Louisiana Tech offers more than anything else is a tough, competitive football team that will beat your fanny on any given Saturday. Ask Alabama. That's not the best calling card when you're trying to join a conference.

[quote="EJ"]

A. UTEP has great basketball tradition (and attendance) and averaged just under 30,000 for football last season. It's also a larger TV market.

"Just under," eh?

Time to stamp out some ignorance....

[arkstfan]

Send your warm wishes to Memphis and UAB. They carried UTEP's banner when it looked like the Miners were done.

I just sent this e-mail.

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SUBJECT: UTEP correction

Dear Mr. Cleveland:

In today's "Answer Man" column, you wrote that UTEP had averaged attendance of "just under 30,000 for football last season." Apparently, you have either been misinformed or have a very loose definition of "just under." The Miners' average home football attendance over the 2003 season was 20,009, and only twice in 7 games did attendance surpass 20,000. According to the box scores provided at the UTEP athletic web site, http://www.utepathletics.com/football/fbschedule03.htm, their game-by-game attendance was as follows:

26,224 vs. Cal Poly SLO
18,195 vs. San Diego State
17,211 vs. Sam Houston State
28,144 vs. Louisiana Tech
17,095 vs. Tulsa
18,095 vs. San Jose State
15,101 vs. Fresno State

Please note that their largest crowd of the year happened to be when they hosted Louisiana Tech.

Despite the current conventional wisdom, much of the recent infatuation with UTEP during these CUSA expansion discussions is largely based on exaggerated descriptions and/or manipulated facts incorrectly indicating some vast superiority of the UTEP athletic program over Louisiana Tech's, thus negating UTEP's obvious geographic disadvantage and the publicly stated preference of other potential CUSA Western Division schools to be reunited with their former WAC mate Louisiana Tech. I am disappointed to see that you have also fallen victim to--and become part of--this campaign of misinformation.

Sincerely,

Name/Address/Phone

[altadawg]

I just sent this e-mail.

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SUBJECT: UTEP correction

Dear Mr. Cleveland:

In today's "Answer Man" column, you wrote that UTEP had averaged attendance of "just under 30,000 for football last season." Apparently, you have either been misinformed or have a very loose definition of "just under." The Miners' average home football attendance over the 2003 season was 20,009, and only twice in 7 games did attendance surpass 20,000. According to the box scores provided at the UTEP athletic web site, http://www.utepathletics.com/football/fbschedule03.htm, their game-by-game attendance was as follows:

26,224 vs. Cal Poly SLO
18,195 vs. San Diego State
17,211 vs. Sam Houston State
28,144 vs. Louisiana Tech
17,095 vs. Tulsa
18,095 vs. San Jose State
15,101 vs. Fresno State

Please note that their largest crowd of the year happened to be when they hosted Louisiana Tech.

Despite the current conventional wisdom, much of the recent infatuation with UTEP during these CUSA expansion discussions is largely based on exaggerated descriptions and/or manipulated facts incorrectly indicating some vast superiority of the UTEP athletic program over Louisiana Tech's, thus negating UTEP's obvious geographic disadvantage and the publicly stated preference of other potential CUSA Western Division schools to be reunited with their former WAC mate Louisiana Tech. I am disappointed to see that you have also fallen victim to--and become part of--this campaign of misinformation.

Sincerely,

Name/Address/Phone

Good job, thanks.

For anyone who thinks this error is unimportant;

10,000 fans X 7 games X $15 a ticket is 1,050,000!!!! A whopping $1million of overstated revenue, not counting parking, concessions, merchandising sales, adverstising, etc...


Tech88, if you are out there, it's all part of the conspiracy.

[DawgyNWindow]

I just sent this e-mail.

VERY well put!

Don't these "reporters" look anything up before they print it?

Don't these "reporters" look anything up before they print it?

More importantly, will the presidents?

I just don't see ANY sense in adding a team that would be 900 miles away from its nearest neighbor, absolutely sucks at the sport we're most trying to concentrate on, and will be gone at the first opportunity, just because their basketball team is a little bit better.

Y'all obviously know your own frustrations which I could not imagine, but I don't think y'all can understand mine at this point. CUSA as it was founded was a bi-polar, over-exetended piece of insanity, that I grumbled about constantly. Finally, after 8-9 years, things shook out (pretty much as I predicted from the start), and we got to putting together something more sensible and viable.

Now this. Freakin' UTEP! They want freakin' UTEP!!

It's times like these I think I should've gone to Alabama.....

What Louisiana Tech offers more than anything else is a tough, competitive football team that will beat your fanny on any given Saturday. Ask Alabama. That's not the best calling card when you're trying to join a conference.

Why would C-USA not want a competitve team? This statement makes no sense. It makes the conference look better and gives it some credibility. Are the powers that be REALLY as stupid as I think they are? If the rumors are true, the UTEP offer will SHOW us how stupid they are!

Why would C-USA not want a competitve team?

Because in this day and age, everybody's looking out for #1. Nobody wants one more tough football game on the schedule unless there's a paycheck to be had or a lot of tickets to be sold. The schools who won't be in the Western division are just as happy being able to whup up on 2.8-wins-per-season UTEP every other year than risk losing one to La Tech every other year. On top of that, you know UAB and Memphis want the stronger basketball school, because playing UTEP is a more marketable matchup in that sport.

Man, I actually thought this kind of selfish crap was behind us.....

[BadDawgy]

Let's not get our panties in a wad just yet. These are RUMORS. Maybe that have some weight, maybe they have none? It pisses me off to see a purebred ignorant jackass named Rick Cleveland spouting this horseshit, but you have to remember that it is just that...horseshit. He apparently doesn't know his butt from a hole in the ground...I think he has a journalism degree from our favorite JC?

Let's not get our panties in a wad just yet. These are RUMORS. Maybe that have some weight, maybe they have none? It pisses me off to see a purebred ignorant jackass named Rick Cleveland spouting this horseshit, but you have to remember that it is just that...horseshit. He apparently doesn't know his butt from a hole in the ground...I think he has a journalism degree from our favorite JC?

What's sad is that our press box is named after his dad, and in this case, he doesn't even do as much research as I do before printing stuff.