ColoradoEagle

I would guess that Wren and Aresco having a good relationship will help us out.

The only place that we're lacking compared to other schools is top 25 success in football. We definitely don't have that, and it will be a major positive point for the 3 schools who do. That said, we're essentially tied for #2 in revenue, have better facilities (ODU would top us if they had an IPF) than any other candidate, in the top end of academics, and easily the best location/media market. I read the same articles, and realize that the fans writing them are heavily weighting recent football success. They could be right. However, I don't think AAC loses a huge state school in Texas and replaces them with UTSA or a school outside of this state. There are just too many negatives and question marks to UTSA's long term success. It makes more sense to bring in a school that already has an established rivalry with an existing member, and brings in quantifiable numbers to back that up, combined with everything we already have going for us listed above.

The aesthetic of Ford Stadium is nice. Every other category (concessions, seating, comfort, technology, etc) goes to Apogee. It's just simply a better place to watch a game.

We can agree to disagree. SBC had some good hires in Billy Napier and Jamey Chadwell, though I would be shocked to see either still coaching there next year. Drinkwitz was one and done. Outside of some flash in the pan rankings, the realities I noted above still exist for schools in that conference. I don't see CUSA as far and away better, but it is a better conference all around.

Looks like I found some outdated information. Thanks.

Their average revenue/athletics budgets are still smaller. They're still a largely rural based conference and lower tier academic schools. A couple years with a handful of top 25 appearances doesn't change that.

Depends on what's poached. If only three schools are taken from CUSA, then CUSA will poach 1 to 3 schools to replace and call it a day. If both AAC and MWC raid CUSA, then sure, the conference is dead and SBC will take the leftovers. Regardless of how they see themselves, there's still a pecking order and SBC is at the bottom.

Ask her, “When does North Texas play SMU?”

The only one that brings more than every current CUSA school is SMU, and honestly that's not even them so much as our fanbase showing up for that game.

Well, I don't think any school that may move into that conference satisfies those questions. If they did, they'd already be there. This is most definitely a "best of the rest" type of situation. And out of the names that have been thrown out there so far, we're certainly in the running.

We have a higher budget than (almost?) everyone being talked about. SMU owns DFW the same way I own Apple.

A poll on Twitter doesn't mean anything. It's hard to tell what goes through their minds when deciding, but I feel like this would be a rational list of questions: What is the athletic budget? What kind of commitment is being shown to the athletics program? For example: Do they have their own football stadium? Is it relatively new? Are they building additional facilities, and/or have legitimate (not pipe dream) plans in the works? If the P5 (P4?) pull away, will the funding be there to continue athletics? What does it take to travel to the school? How do the academics rank? I'm sure there are other criteria I have no idea about. I'd be surprised if 'media markets' was on the tip of anyone's tongue for a G5 in 2021, but who knows. At this point, it seems like it would be about finding an established program that is easy to travel to and doesn't drag down the prestige of the other schools.

Anything less than 6 wins, and we need to be looking for a new HC. After two 4 win seasons, that's the bare minimum to keep the job.

You can read their methodology. It isn’t secret or nefarious, and it’s fairly extensive. What are you using for comparison? They actually just put out a version 8.0, but I’m on my iPad so it’s not easy to paste here. Interesting that they’ve started ranking individual shows and podcasts as well.

I'd agree with this. I place this type of news in the "cat in a tree" territory, because 1) it's Rolling Stone (does anyone actually rely on that source for hard hitting news?) and 2) it's barely news. The local news station (KFOR) knew that, and that's why they tried to sensationalize it. Even if you do classify this as life or death, the end result of the article is "don't eat horse paste", so it's a net positive I imagine. Hard agree on this. I've always liked the Media Bias Chart (pictured below), and I've watched over the years as CNN and MSNBC have drifted further left (lean) and down (less fact based), and Fox News has drifted further right (lean) and down (misinformation, propaganda, etc). I'm honestly not sure how anyone watches any of them, but for different reasons, obviously. Regarding publishing and retracting later, you're seeing that more and more on the outlets rushing to beat the internet, as you mentioned. Mainly MSNBC and Fox News. CNN has an international presence, so they're slightly more disciplined than those two, but they're nowhere near the journalistic quality they had in the 90s. Sounds like a quote you should take to heart. I regularly reply to El Paso Eagle and LongJim knowing full well that we don't see eye to eye politically, but also seeing that we do share common ground from time to time.

Nah, it's the version I posted. You can watch the original story that Rolling Stone lazily re-reported, since I know you haven't thus far. And I had never seen this article until it was posted here, so the visceral reaction you imagine above is all in your head.

SMU doesn't have veto power, lol. We're well ahead of those schools in a hypothetical conference realignment. UTSA doesn't even have their own football stadium. UTSA, Marshall, and La Tech (especially the last two) run on a Sun Belt level athletic budget. UTEP is in a no man's land travel-wise, and is not enticing to anyone. Rice Stadium is always embarrassing on TV and they haven't had a winning season in 7 years. There's no telling what will happen with all of this. That said, we're in a better position than a lot of people think, just not the position we could ideally be in.

First time seeing it. At least it has more flavor than their food.

Me, a normal person, reading the story: "This is lazy." You, UNTLifer, reading the story: "They're intentionally lying and trying to dupe us! Just look at those winter coats! We caught those motherf*ckers trying to lie to us!"

I actually only listed two highly skewed sources, Mother Jones (left) and Fox News (right). I consider Newsmax and Infowars to basically be parody and farcical. You could survive with Mother Jones or Fox News as your only news sources, you'd just be highly misinformed. With the other two, you basically live in an alternate reality. Everything after that, I'm not going to respond to because you haven't budged one millimeter from how you started the thread despite an honest effort by myself and others to discuss the topic.

I agree, however the frequency of mistakes is also going to vary on output and organization size. The smaller the organization, the much more likely it is they’re not going to do their due diligence and simply reprint or summarize information from someone else. If something is reported by CBS News, for example, it’s likely to be researched far more than something like Rolling Stone. Again, doesn’t mean a large organization like CBS News or the New York Times are going to get everything right (they most definitely do not), but it does mean they have the resources to properly vet their sources and maintain higher journalistic integrity. I would argue that especially the larger news outlets do their best to uphold standards. But there’s obviously also a gradient here, and that’s where I’d again recommend multiple sources and critical reading.

@UNTLifer against my better judgment, I'm going to attempt a real response to this. For reference, I have an undergraduate degree from our University of North Texas in Communication Studies and took several courses that covered media bias, rhetoric, and technology as it pertains to communication. Give that whatever level of respect you deem appropriate. If your point here is that "the media is biased," then that is accurate. All media includes the biases of whoever is creating it. From low levels of bias (AP and Reuters) to highly skewed media (Fox News and Mother Jones) to outright junk (Newsmax, Infowars, etc). It is good to be skeptical of what you read and view, because a person or an organization is giving you information from their perspective, and that will always carry some level of bias. That is why taking information from a website like "Outkick" that openly mocks its reader saying, "Do you want the facts delivered to your inbox each morning?" and one of the options is "No, I prefer mainstream bias" is so laughable. They're telling you straight up that they're biased, clueless, or (most likely) both. This Rolling Stone article was a lazily written non-sourced article repeating bad spin from local TV news. Stuff like that happens. And again! It is good to be skeptical of what you read and view for that very reason. But trusting, "You can't trust these guys, you can only trust us!" by a website from a sports shock jock, "here's why you should be outraged" by a guy who was fired for advocating lynching people, and "ivermectin isn't that bad" as written by a guy who may or may not be a real doctor, but definitely wants you to buy his eBook entitled, "Ivermectin for the World." is ... odd. I know that a certain handful of people who always downvote my posts will just do the same here. Realize, though, that I have talked nothing about politics here. At all. Simply that people should be more skeptical of media, wherever it may come from.

What hard hitting reporting from **checks notes** the psuedonym using author of the eBook "Ivermectin for the World." Seriously?

No, the definition of disinformation is "false information which is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or the media." This is not that. This is poorly sourced reporting that allowed the writer to jump to the conclusion he wanted to arrive at. That type of reporting has always and will always happen so long as humans are doing the writing. If you want to get down and dirty into the bias part of it, even local news in DFW has been having stories about feed stores selling out of Ivermectin. So maybe writing an article exaggerating the effects on hospitals wasn't the best route to take, but saying that yokels are eating horse paste to cure COVID isn't exactly a fantastical take.

It's less a case of lying and more a case of bad reporting. In the end, the message is "don't take veterinary grade Ivermectin" so I don't really see any harm in it, especially since they have also published more information refuting the reporting. Just seems like the latest outrage of the day.