VideoEagle

The drop for the last game was primarily because the game was scheduled the Saturday after Thanksgiving when the majority of our non-season ticket holding fans could not attend. By avoiding this weekend and scheduling earlier in the season, we would have acceded the 20K average attendance. As Arkstate Fan pointed out, scheduling for non-BSC schools is a challenging art. By the way, what I heard RV say was if we could get the average attendance to 20K, not 25K, then we could eliminate most, in not all, of the money games. This was back in 2002, 2003 or 2004. Back then we played two or three a year. Plus the payouts were in the $250,000 to $325,000 back then. There are a LOT of variable in that!

Remember the Bottom 10 is just a joke, it is not someone's actual ranking.

The last year of the SWC ended in a six way tie and Tech ended up going to the Cotton Bowl since it have been the longest since they had been (never!). All fix other schools made SWC Conference Champion rings for their teams. Maybe it was just a five way tie, but I know the others made rings for their teams.

I would guess that would be two "NO" votes if Texas State tried to get into the Sunbelt. Certainly not be best way to start out.

Aren't quarterly and quadrennial synonyms?

Don't forget the Big 10 Commish basically dictated the current BCS rules. He had made no secret of the Big 10 pulling out of the entire system if he doesn't think it benefits his teams - they were perfectly happy with the old Bowl system. And an additional Pac 10 problem: eight of the teams really, truly, want to play UCLA and USC each and every year. You can't do that in divisions.

Fly Southwest to New Orleans and rent a car. MUCH cheaper than flying direct - the difference is enough to pay for the car rental and a cheap motel room.

I guess the so-called previews are written based on other previews verse actual research.

Would you prefer yet another conference realignment thread? I think the dyslexic quote ranks right up there with the OU Assistant who's comment about people in Oklahoma was "I've never seen so many people with so few teeth." He was one of Schnelly's assistants at OU. Not sure if he followed him to Florida.

Isn't it next year that NMSU, Utah State and Idaho start getting shares of the WAC payouts? They didn't for the first two or three years as their fee for joining the WAC. If the pot is being divided three more ways next year, the WAC better hope to have another team in a BCS bowl of face a really big drop in that revenue stream.

With New Jersey I say the "Not so WEST conference>"

No.

Usually when a school joins a conference, their “fee” is to forgo the revenue sharing from the conference for a year or two. So the three schools don’t actually pay cash, they just don’t get any of the revenue and the other schools in the conference get a bigger cut for a year or two. In any case, at some point the three schools will either stop paying or just start sharing in the revenue which will further reduce the conference payout per school.

Good for them. Not easy to play a sport and have a great GPA. I never found it easy to have a good GPA not even playing sports!

It certainly shows the differences between the Conferences is not nearly as large as some would believe. It also highlights the need to schedule winnable out of conference games verse being a sacrificial lamb for a big payday.

Back in the 40s and 50s Rice had good attendance at their games. They also had a very good football team. Then the NCAA required the team attend the same classes as other students and most of Rice's team at the time could not keep up with the work. Remember, until the mid-80s Rice had been in more Cotton Bowls than Tx A&M.

Besides what Meangreen 61 wrote above, not all FCS teams want to get their heads stomped in by BCS teams. From their view point, they at least have a chance against NT - especially when compared to an upper level BCS team. That is the appeal to them.

In a few years, USA football is moving up to FBS and gets automatic membership in the Belt. So every other year we would have 5 conference home games. That makes the FCS game just every OTHER year and even more palatable.

You might want to double check your math. If we were to get 25K fans, they only have to spend $28 each to equal $700K. Now, 25K doesn't happen very often and that is the problem. We need to up our average attendance. It was four or five years ago when I read about a home game with 20K to 22K being roughly equal to a "money" game and the payouts then were $400K to $500K. At an average of just $20 a person, we would need 20K in attendance to equal $400K. Or $22.73 a person and 22K in attendance to equal $500K.

Does anyone who's been around longer the 15 years doubt that in another 10 years or so the name will change again as someone tries to "update and grow" the alumni association?

It is just an attendance problem. I remember RV writing someplace that a home game of 20K to 22K was roughly equivalent to an away money game in revenue for the department. The problem is we haven't had that level of attendance in most of our games in the last few years.

If fairness, I'm willing to bet a few NT guys would invite home attractive and will women who's background might not be known to them!

Just because the school moved up from FCS to FBS doesn't have to hurt the perception of the school. If I'm not mistaken USF was ranked fairly high for a while last year.

You're in luck as other towns have Wal-Mart was well. In fact, other towns might beat Ruston and have a Super Wal-Mart.

Did anyone else notice the author of this article, is a sports reporter but also the owner of a pest control company! It must have been that “superior” La Tech education that led him to spray folks homes for cockroaches. If someone who has not spent significant time inhaling insecticide chooses to write an article I might be more interested. But just because Jimmany Cricket who has risen to the rank of bug sprayer and part time reporter in the last 2 decades writes something I’m not sure why anyone should care.