TechFan

Dont take it personally, they rarely return our emails. "Email is of the devil"

WHAT?

Obviously you have never met my kids!

Tech has me as a fan!!!!!

I am not bragging about wins over Oklahoma State, Alabama or Michigan State. We have embarassing loses to SMU, Rice, and San Jose.

2004 Florida Atlantic 20 UNT 13 1-AA team with a 9-3 record They beat teams like Edward Waters, Texas State, Northern Colorado, 2001 Troy State 18 UNT 16 1-AA team with a 7-4 record They beat teams like Cal State- Northridge, Southern Utah, and Jacksonville State But you are right, you have run the table against the Belt for the remaining years. My point is we all have embarassing losses.

It was in 2001. This is 2005. Ours was in 2002.

You lost to ULM. Your point is????

Thats funny. You really should take this act on the road. Towels by the hour. You slay me!

Tech has implemented a plan to raise money and conduct facility improvements over the next three years. Where the Money Would Go $50,000 to Athletic Academic Center for tutors $100,000 to Marketing and Promotions $200,000 in coaches' salary adjustments $125,000 to recruiting for all 16 sports $2.4 million over three years for facilities improvements (Artificial Turf for Joe Aillet Stadium, Video Scoreboads for Joe Aillet Stadium & Thomas Assembly Center) $100,000 to fund home game guarantees in men's and women's basketball $750,000 for elimination of football guarantee game Is this the dream plan. No way, but it is a start. This is additional money to be spent above and beyond our meager athletic budget. Will we have to force CUSA to create a 13th spot? No, there will be more shake up in the future. South Florida is not going to sit in the Big East for long without some type of help from expansion. It is total speculation, but Central Florida, ECU, Marshall, and Central Florida would make a 12 member league and leave CUSA with 3 holes. UNT, Tech and one other would salvage the CUSA. Like I said speculation only, but South Florida is not going to sit there with nearest conference mate in Kentucky for long, just like Tech cannot sit in the WAC with NMSU as its nearest opponent for long.

Yes the WAC does have some national prestige. Most of the prestige is from Fresno and Boise. Hawaii and Tech have added a little with some key wins, but the overwhelming majority is from the previously mentioned two schools. Losing SMU, Tulsa, and Rice and replacing them with NMSU and Idaho.... does that hurt or help? Neither. Trading cellar dwellers does nothing for either program. Losing Mike Price not UTEP hurts. If Boise and Fresno leave, then the WAC has some serious credibility issues. Is the WAC better than the Belt? Without continous head to head competition, you can only go on OOC records. While I have not researched our head to head record we are 4-1 since 2000 against Sun Belt teams. Can't say that means we win the Belt, since we have yet to play UNT. The only problem the Belt has is the perception that it cannot win OOC games. This can and will change in time. Most likely against Tulsa. Do we have some fans who are somewhat overconsumed with pride? Yes we do. I can name them for you, but you already know who they are. I get into as many arguements with them as I do fans from Marshall (another overly prideful group of fans). You hope that most schools with some resemblance of success has these types of fans. If they do not, then they really have a marketing issue.

Do I think we are better off now than five years ago. It is all a matter of perspective. On the positive our conference payout is higher than it has ever been, thanks to SMU, Tulsa, Rice and UTEP surrendering their portions. Our administration has finally announced a campaign for some much needed facility improvements and other funding increases. Last year, 11 of our 12 football games were televised. We have some great wins against OSU, Michigan State, Boise, Fresno, and Alabama. On the negative side, we were passed over bu CUSA for UTEP. Our facilities need some upgrade (finally going to happen). We are still a small school (8,000 undergrads). We have some embarassing losses (UTEP, Tulsa, SMU, and San Jose State). Despite all our shortcomings and a 6-6 record, we still averaged 17,548 fans last year. At the time, the WAC made sense for us. For the short term, it still makes some sense. The WAC did not make sense for UNT based on economics. The conference payouts were too far down the line for UNT to justify the expense of the WAC. In time, the WAC will not make sense for Tech. As long as the payouts remain high, we should consider staying. If a better deal comes along from the Belt or CUSA then we should jump.

I am not using my earlier statement to illustrate either conference as better, just to point out an error in your arguement that "He really cherry-picked those numbers to make a point. "

The numbers come from the 2003-2004 state report. That includes the 2003 football schedule. In 2003, Idaho and NMSU played in Lafayette. You did travel to Denton, Stillwater, Hattiesburg, Mufreesboro, South Carolina and Minnesota that year. We traveled to Michigan, California, Nevada, El Paso and Tulsa. 6 ULL roadtrips versus 5 La Tech roadtrips.