The same reason UTEP, SMU, Tulsa, and Rice left.....STABILITY. Fresno, Boise, and Hawaii have made it CRYSTAL CLEAR they want into the Mountain West Conference.Originally Posted by champion110
The same reason UTEP, SMU, Tulsa, and Rice left.....STABILITY. Fresno, Boise, and Hawaii have made it CRYSTAL CLEAR they want into the Mountain West Conference.Originally Posted by champion110
No it's not that I don't get it. I understand that ya'll think it is better for ya'll to stay in the SBC but I don't think that ya'll get the fact that the SBC is looked down upon in the national spotlight.Originally Posted by Overcusser
Now grant it the WAC may not be the best fit for us but it is ok for now and we are going to improve and get better.
The only reason that I think that ya'll are playing it safe is because ya'll won't take the offer to step out of the SBC b/c ya'll like beating up on those lowly SB teams and going to the New Orleans Bowl every year.
Whoever said we wouldnt step out of the SBC? Just because the WAC isn't right for us doesn't mean we will be in the SBC forever. In the last go around the WAC offerred us a spot, we turned it down. But CUSA also took a look at us- If they had offerred, we would have left the Belt. What kept us out of CUSA was a lack of a baseball team and our facilities. Both of those needs are being addressed.Originally Posted by #1techfan
We are fully aware of the Belts perception in the national spotlight, However just like you. "it is ok for now and we are going to improve and get better" It's just that the SBC provides us with a better chance to get better. We don't have to kill our budget, don't have to schedule 3 or 4 body bag games each year to fund the program, Can keep investing in new facilities and adding programs. The Belt is only 4 years old as a football conference. It has progressed in that short time. Last year it was already rated above the MAC in the Sagrin power ratings. And ratings will probably improve even more this year as we lost 3 of our weaker programs- Idaho, Utah St, NMSU to the WAC (like it or not those schools are going to hurt the WAC's power ranking this year).
You are probably too young to remember this but there was a time when the WAC was viewed as a joke conference. Back in the 70's and 80's BYU would win the conference and would go to the WAC 'consolation' Holiday Bowl every year. and they never got any national respect because they were viewed as playing inferior competition. When CUSA formed it was viewed as a joke conference. Made up of cast offs and I-AA move ups. Look at them now and its only been a little over a decade of play.
The sun belt has ridiculous potential now that the Florida schools have been added.
I think we'll get some florida prospects this year w/ games @ FIU,& @ FAU.
The belt is looking up,and this is the belt's breakout year,hopefully we'll get the muts and their 18 returning starters to our 9
A high ranking Southeast Conference official told SBC commisioner Wright Waters in the New Orleans Super Dome not so long ago that he saw a bright future for the Sun Belt Conference with what it was doing in only (then) its 4'th year. In fact, he told Waters the SBC had a much brighter future than other leagues in the non BCS.Originally Posted by #1techfan
I don't think the national perception of the WAC is much different than the Sun Belt. Understandably, I think you would like to think it is, but the schools who took SMU's, UTEP's, Rice's and Tulsa's spots in the
WAC sort of creates an equalizing effect (if you will) and FWIW, it was Sun Belt schools that replaced them. The WAC lost several schools with some storied football traditions (albeit ancient ones) and gained schools with hardly any football traditions at all.
It is fully understandable that a hardy handful of you from La Tech feel you would be getting egg on your faces by leaving the WAC because that would be an admission that a whole lot of people from inside and outside the SBC would have been correct with their evaluations of both your finanancial and geographical situation. Yet as has been discussed a few times now, after all the schools who left for the CUSA monies dry up its going to be like someone else posted except for this: I don't think the La Tech adminstration is going to have to make a hard decision at all, because it will be their reputations and their heads on the block and they are going to make decisions that keeps your school from taking a bath in red ink AND helps them keep their jobs.
<>*<> Let me add that in 1982 when our then NT president called a special meeting to announce that we would be moving down to NCAA D1-AA** or his subtle option that there could possibly be no football at all in Denton. Your options will be nowhere as drastic as that if your administration sees that your school would best be served by leaving the Rocky Mountain time zone. Count your blessings with that because others have experienced worse scenarios and had far worse options.
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** Actually, NT could have stayed in NCAA D1-A back in the day except we had an AD who didn't send in a fee that would have insured it plus we had Texas Stadium we could have used as our home stadium back then.
Well we are in the WAC right now and it is working for us right now and we are working on getting out of the WAC in the future and into CUSA. Now I know everytime someone on here brings up the fact that we are trying to get into CUSA ya'll say that UNT, ULL, and Troy will be taken before we will but I seriously doubt the fact that CUSA would overlook us and go get ULL. ULL's atheltics are not good, their football team is not doing well and they had their glory days in baseball. Now in basketball they compete in Div. 1-AA, so I really don't think that CUSA will overlook Louisiana Tech and go get ULL but that is my opinion.Originally Posted by Overcusser
Now you are saying that the WAC was once looked down on in the national spotlight like the SBC is right now. But that is in the past and we are talking about the present. We will see how the SBC goes in the future and it may prove me wrong in saying that the SBC is worth nothing and do well but right now the Sun Belt and it's members are not looked upon too well in the national spotlight. So lets just see how the SBC pans out in the future.
FYI- #1TechFan. There is no such thing as 1-AA in basketball. It's all divison 1. They only sport where the D1-AA designation applies is in football.
The I-A and I-AA designations may be on the way out anyway. Division I football schools could soon be classified as either Division I Bowl schools (the former I-A classification) or Division I Football Championship schools (the former I-AA subdivision).Originally Posted by Overcusser
But I thought that you were one of them saying the the talent level in Texas is top in the nation, why would you need those second rate Florida boys to take roster spots away from your precious Texas boys that are better than everyone else in the nation??Originally Posted by ntmeangreen11
Are sending their whole team to Ruston or saving most of them at home to avoid getting tired?
Well, quickly the NT folks have become defensive about their conference. I understand that. No one likes to be on the bottom.
Maybe we should leave it alone now. Tech is in the conference that is best for them right now and NT is in the conference that best fits them.
Uh, pardon me, but just who is being defensive about their conference in all this discussion the last few days? If you haven't comprehended much the last few weeks, NORTH TEXAS has NEVER wanted to be part of the WAC when the WAC really needed NT and the DFW market and now that you have 3 ex SBC schools in it with no TV markets, why are yall so excited since you all loathe anything having to do with Wright Waters and the SBC?Originally Posted by champion110
The WAC has become a battle cry for some of you except its a battle that will not be won once the "left behind" funds run dry up and any college football novice can add and subtract, look at your present athletic budget and then just say one word to yall concerning all this and that word? Duh?
Our October game with the Dawgs will show some of you who can talk big in the Summer the realities of what you will see in the Fall and I'm serious as a heart attack about that. We know who and where you recruit. You will find out who and where we recruit in October when we will have an even stronger team than the one some of you may read about in September.
The surprise of this whole discussion is what seems to be one of this board's administrators apparent change of heart with the WAC when he trashed your administration back when yalled first joined and his reason then was his perception that your campus leaders were selling out your school's entire operation budget to go to the Rocky Mtn. time zone; and this was even a WAC that had SMU, Rice, Tulsa and UTEP in it. So with Idaho, NMSU and Utah State in it "NOW" the WAC has suddenly just vaulted above the 'Belt and become better?
Besides those in Ruston or a hardy handful of you with an LTU affiliation, who else in this nation is even remotely close to thinking the way some of you feel about the WAC? We don't even begin to think the 4 year old (going on 5) SBC has arrived and is where most of us feel it will be 5 years from now. Our 4 year old football league is probaby where most would be in its infant stage at age 4. Yet how many 4 year old NCAA D1-A leagues that opened for business in the last 30 or so years had a bowl in its very first year and is now talking about a 2'nd one? The SBC is on schedule for growth and not worrying about any of its schools trying to leave in search of a new NCAA non BCS conference holy grail.
IMO, yall are just rallying around the wrong flag pole for all the wrong reasons and some of your posters (probably your more mature ones) know this. They know your throwing good money after bad while the SBC schools in Louisiana are passing you in athletic venue's construction soon to start or on the drawing boards to eventually start constuction. Is seeing all this happen around you in your own state worth what some of you think is the 2'nd coming of the Big 12, ie, the WAC?!?!? Can you even hear the laughter among some of your fellow non-BCS Louisiana schools while yall continue to rally around a league where your nearest rival is just how far from Ruston now? Any of you going to tell us how even "THAT" is such an advantage and a perc, too? To be honest, I'd bet ULM and ULL want yall to continue in the WAC while they do their best Road-Runnin' "beep-beep" passing you with athletic venues construction on the way for their campuses while leaving dust in their wake and in your eyes.
Just food for thought......
Last edited by PlummMeanGreen; 07-20-2005 at 07:15 AM.
You seem to think that the Belt is catching up to the WAC. I haven't seen that. Do you think that ulm or ULL or any of those belt schools are going to help you from the bottom of the heap. Yes, the Belt is in its infancy stage, but I don't see that this is going to chance with the schools that you have. I do see Troy and NT putting some money in facilities, but that is about all.Originally Posted by PlummMeanGreen
The WAC is not a long term solution for Tech. We would MUCH rather be in CUSA, of course. However, you are talking the SUN BELT here! That is a much lower ranked conference than either CUSA or the WAC. So, we took some bottom dwelling belt teams this last round. You do see that they wanted to move up, at least. We, also, lost our bottom dwellers, so it just about evens out.
There is no comparison between the belt and the WAC. There just isn't!
I think we can agree on one thing, though. I think we would both jump at a chance to join CUSA, if the offer comes around.
You got that right.Originally Posted by champion110
That is exactly right. That is the bottom line of this whole discussion. The problem is that schools like UNT, ulala, and Troy are doing the things necessary to put them in a position to move up. We are not.