This is why being in the WAC is bad.

[rustondawg5198]

From the Idaho game preview at
http://latechsports.cstv.com/sports/...020808aaa.html

"Tech, which lost to Boise State Thursday - one day after it took the team 19 hours to get from Ruston to Boise - , flew into Spokane, Washington, early Friday morning only to find out the road to Moscow was closed due to snow drifts.
After practicing at Gonzaga University for two hours, the Tech traveling party checked into a Spokane hotel after being told the odds of the road opening were not favorable.

However, at 7 p.m. PST, the road opened and the Techsters checked out of the hotel and began the two-hour ride through the mountains."



19 hours to get to Boise. A 2-hour flight to Spokane, followed by being stuck there for several more hours, followed by a 2-hour bus ride from there to Moscow. After the game, they'll get to make that 2-hour drive back to Spokane on Sunday, fly from Spokane to Salt Lake, Salt Lake to Atlanta, Atlanta to Shreveport and then maybe, if the weather cooperates in ALL FOUR TIME ZONES, get back to Ruston before midnight Sunday. MAYBE.

Tech's men had it just about as bad, if not worse, getting to/from Hawaii and Fresno last weekend. They were supposed to leave Shreveport early Thursday morning. They got to the airport to find their flight was canceled. So they turned around and drove back to Ruston, only to drive back to Shreveport later that afternoon for a 7 p.m. flight to Dallas to catch a red-eye to LAX. After sleeping for about 3 hours in the airport, they boarded a Friday morning flight to Honolulu, played Saturday, flew to Fresno Sunday, played Monday, then flew from Fresno (leaving at 5 a.m. PST) to Dallas on Tuesday. After they closed 6 of DFW's 8 runways, they sat in the Dallas airport for nearly 8 hours waiting for a 45-minute flight back to Shreveport, arriving home around midnight. So total travel time to Honolulu was more than 24 hours, and travel time from Fresno back to Ruston was around 17 hours.

Most Division I programs can charter flights to road games. And most Division I programs aren't traveling an average of 4,000 miles round-trip on every conference road trip.

Obviously, this doesn't apply to football. But beyond that, why would any recruit want to come here and be stuck dealing with all that kind of mess? Other than Hawaii, NO OTHER PROGRAM in the country has to deal with these kinds of travel issues on a weekly basis.

Yes, I know the WAC is "more competitive" and "more prestigious" than CUSA in most sports. But this is just flat-out ridiculous. Practicality should be more of a concern than prestige at this point, in my opinion, if we're going to be a first-rate athletics program.

[DocMarvin362]

Amen. The conference nobility is a good argument, but we need CUSA. Unfortunately, right now, they don't need us.

[Dawgpix]

Most Division I programs can charter flights to road games. And most Division I programs aren't traveling an average of 4,000 miles round-trip on every conference road trip.

Tell me more about how charter flights would be able to take off when commercial planes can't, i.e. men's team flight delays out of Shreveport were due to inclement Louisiana weather.
Yes, the WAC travel is a hassle. Until there's a solution I don't care to make excuses myself.

[champion110]

Tell me more about how charter flights would be able to take off when commercial planes can't, i.e. men's team flight delays out of Shreveport were due to inclement Louisiana weather.
Yes, the WAC travel is a hassle. Until there's a solution I don't care to make excuses myself.

You are correct. Also, can someone tell me how ulm and ull get to Denver and some other schools in their conference? Most schools in most conferences have to travel. While the WAC has more teams that are further away than most, all the travel issues are still in the cards with most conferences.

Winter brings up issues of travel to our colder climate conference mates, but that is just life in sports. I think most of us want to be in CUSA, but we do have to wait for an invite.

[Barkman]

Troy(formerly Troy State) is the next invite.

[johnnylightnin]

Troy(formerly Troy State) is the next invite.

Nope. Folks haven't seem to come to this realization yet. CUSA invites have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH COMPETITION. CUSA wants new media markets...period. Troy is WAY too small (like Ruston). The next invites will be in large metro areas.

[Dawgpix]

Like the combination of Monroe/El Dorado and Shreveport??

[johnnylightnin]

Like the combination of Monroe/El Dorado and Shreveport??

I'm tellin' ya...if it's between us and Troy, I think we've got the leg up in CUSAs eyes. That said, I can see them going UNT...even MTSU before that. I think they really want one of the F_U schools because they think that a school being in Florida magically makes it the next USF.

I've given up my CUSA dreams. Let's kick some but on the gridiron and the hardwood and the conference situation will take care of itself. You don't hear TCU whining about the MWC travel. They take care of their business at home and let the rest take care of itself.

There's not a better option for Tech than the WAC (at least not right now).

[9701Dawg]

I'm tellin' ya...if it's between us and Troy, I think we've got the leg up in CUSAs eyes. That said, I can see them going UNT...even MTSU before that. I think they really want one of the F_U schools because they think that a school being in Florida magically makes it the next USF.

I've given up my CUSA dreams. Let's kick some but on the gridiron and the hardwood and the conference situation will take care of itself. You don't hear TCU whining about the MWC travel. They take care of their business at home and let the rest take care of itself.

There's not a better option for Tech than the WAC (at least not right now).

We just need to capture the Shreveport and Monroe markets and have an AD that can convince CUSA that the indy bowl tie-in to CUSA would happen if we were invited. And we need to increase attendence, the budget, and improve facilities.

[rustondawg5198]

Tell me more about how charter flights would be able to take off when commercial planes can't, i.e. men's team flight delays out of Shreveport were due to inclement Louisiana weather.
Yes, the WAC travel is a hassle. Until there's a solution I don't care to make excuses myself.

Well, with a charter flight directly to the opposing school's city, they wouldn't have to leave at a specific time and run the risk of that flight being canceled then having to wait 12 hours to hopefully snag 20 open seats on another flight, thereby missing connections, etc., etc. And sitting 8 hours in the Dallas airport on Tuesday would not happen, they jump on the plane right after the game in Fresno on Monday night and fly straight back to Shreveport (or Monroe, or maybe even Ruston; heck, that's what Nevada's men did).

Plus, the argument about ULM/ULL having to fly to Denver...that's their ONE long road trip. They also have to fly to Miami/Ft. Lauderdale to play FAU and FIU, but it's a heck of a lot easier getting a flight to South Florida than trying to fly to Moscow, Idaho. And Honolulu, and Boise, and Fresno, and San Jose, and Logan. Everything else in the Sun Belt is bus trips. Weather COULD be a factor, but at least they're not crossing ALL FOUR TIME ZONES on a typical trip.

Let's look at what ULM has to do. ULL, UALR, Arkansas State, North Texas, UNO, Troy, USA, MTSU, WKU...all bus trips. FIU, FAU, Denver...flights without a ton of connections (i.e., major cities). They also don't play a double-round robin schedule, meaning they don't have to go every place every year. This year, their men only have to fly to Denver and Miami once each.

In CUSA, Tech would almost be dead center among the majority of their schools. The only flights would be Marshall, ECU and Central Florida (assuming UTEP joins the MWC).

I know this has been rehashed over and over, but I'm saying we've got to do whatever it takes -- facility-wise, competition-wise, fan support-wise -- to make our program attractive to CUSA. Otherwise, we are going to continue to fall behind, mainly because of the inability to recruit elite athletes to a program where they know travel is going to be a huge headache.

[louisiana_dog]

Well, if we charted flight we would cut out on the stop overs in places. We could take off from monroe, much shorter drive, and fly directly to where we need to. This would cut out all the 3-4 hour lay overs at airports waiting on comercial flights. I have no idea if they could fly direct to hawaii, it seems like a long way to fly nonstop.

[Dawgpix]

yeah, yeah, yeah.
I forgot charter flights can fly through fog and heavy snow.
How stupid of me. But, hey, you come up with the budget money for basketball charters, can you say doubleheaders?

[rustondawg5198]

yeah, yeah, yeah.
I forgot charter flights can fly through fog and heavy snow.
How stupid of me. But, hey, you come up with the budget money for basketball charters, can you say doubleheaders?

I've got no problem with doubleheaders. Maybe it would draw more fans. It's not like anyone is showing up as it is. Maybe if we got the Lady Techster blue-hairs and the 100 or so die-hard Bulldog basketball fans in existence in the building on the same night, we might actually have a half-full arena every now and then instead of multiplying by 3 every night and calling it a crowd of 1400 when there's actually about 450 people there.

[LT]

You are correct. Also, can someone tell me how ulm and ull get to Denver and some other schools in their conference?

The three longest conference trips for ULM:

Monroe-DFW-Denver

Monroe-ATL-Miami

Monroe-ATL-Miami-Bus to Boca Raton

Compare that even to our three shortest trips in the WAC.
________
SUZUKI GSX-R750 HISTORY

[champion110]

The three longest conference trips for ULM:

Monroe-DFW-Denver

Monroe-ATL-Miami

Monroe-ATL-Miami-Bus to Boca Raton

Compare that even to our three shortest trips in the WAC.

Yes, I know the distance is closer for them. Thank goodness we are in a different conference from the ul's, though. Plus, our bottom line looks MUCH better. We need to be in CUSA, but will have to wait.