untjim1995

At what point do we have to come to grips with the very real probability that there just isn't enough interest in our teams from the student body and local citizens and just accept that 3-4k in attendance is about as good as we can do unless the opponent brings in extra butts in seats or some other exception to the rule (CIT Championship, for example). I know we all get beaten down by the lack of support, but maybe its time to embrace the fact that we all love the teams of our alma mater and that is our way of being the cool minority of folks who care. We can still win with very low attendance, as McCasland and Johnny Jones have shown, when the coaching is good. At some point, I know we lose those coaches to go up the food chain, but we are going to lose them anyway if we are good for a decent stretch.

Your answer lies within the simplest of strategies--$$$. Those schools buy their time on those stations and have advertisers geekd up to be on their broadcasts. Those schools also have good to great to incredible media deals--in CUSA, we don't.

That’s not even including teams from the Big East, WCC, A-10, AAC, or MWC.

No chance at all...

How about this fellow that hired Benford and Dodge...not to mention Shanice Stephens. The three worst coaches in each revenue sport’s history at UNT.

I was on campus last week and they had a sign out advertising the next home basketball game by the RTVF building...

Vizza got the crap beat out of him that freshman year on that old Fours turf and I’m sure he felt as if the HS facilities he played in at Alamo Heights was way better than he had here at the time. I think he looked at the beating he took and always felt insecure about Riley being there and decided to move on.

https://n.rivals.com/team_rankings/2020/cusa/football I read on here that we were near the top of CUSA in recruiting rankings, but rivals shows us around 7th in the conference. Is this completely different from 247?

The what ifs here are both maddening and sad. Hayden Fry would've stayed here if we had any kind of decent support, administratively or attendance-wise. What if he had stayed? What if we got into the SWC or Big Eight? What if we had upgraded the facilities and gave him the financial support the program deserved back then? Even harder to imagine, where would we be today because of being proactive and supportive to the football program instead of turtling under after he left and basically giving up for 12 years by dropping down and staying at 1-aa? I've always figured, had any of these occurred, at worst, we'd be like UH today, being higher up the food chain, better support and better reputation with recruits. And, at best, we'd be a Tech-type of program, bringing in lots of money, having big crowds for almost every game, and enjoying great teams to play week-in and week-out in conference play. But who knows? Maybe the SWC private school contingent really was too difficult to overcome and the Big Eight really would've had no interest in us. But, if we had stayed above I-aa, we could've been a Louisiana Tech or Tulsa, programs who made their way as independents until the right conference setup finally happened. I know this much--the issues we still deal with today all stem from him realizing this place wasn't ever going to be what he dreamed it could be. He wanted it more than the administration and local citizens wanted it. And I imagine that being at Iowa and being able to have that support made him realize just how much he made the right decision for his career.

Spot on... We won’t go anywhere without winning. And if you can’t win in CUSA, you can’t win anywhere. But if we ever could get that part accomplished at a sustained level, I could see us getting some interest from the MWC. But for now, the MWC has been very smart to wait out the Big XII’s GOR expiration in 2024. They know they can get some solid programs into their league from Texas that are way ahead of us in the SBCUSA.

The toughest part about number one would be having to start up new TV deals and starting from ground zero with the NCAA for tournament purposes—IIRC, it takes two years to get automatic bids into their tournaments when a conference begins. Number 3 is interesting only because TCU will be in it. Would that also block SMU, too? Because in a TV market driven conference, I doubt that either SMU or UNT would be able to get in.

My guess is the Texoma Four go to the PAC and KU goes to the B1G. Where anyone else goes from there is up for debate, but KSU and WVU are higher properties than ISU, TCU, and Baylor.

I agree, but TV markets are all that matter to conferences these days. You have to sell markets to networks to get decent money. Its why your Southern MissEs and Marshall’s are screwed. Great program history, but no tv market to sell. They are stuck forever in the SBCUSA setup. Abc it’s why UNT and Rice are blocked from AAC consideration. Same with Texas State and NMSU being Blocked to get into CUSA. Just like in CUSA, it took SMU moving upward to the AAC to get us into CUSA now. if/when the G5’s recognize geography is the way to lower travel costs and increase attendance, the tv market fascination will not be top priority, then you might see some of these conferences look like the old SWC or Big Eight.

The sad reality is that SMU and UH would support UTSA or UTEP well before they would back us for AAC

Not to mention that most judges are graduates of these power schools, too...