Magnolialeague.com?

[Stallion]

No 30,000 is just fine for a private school. Of course, you failed to mention that the Ole Miss on their helmets stands for the University of the State of Mississippi. They have an entire state to support them with no meaningful competition.

[PonySnob]

And in addition, SEC fans tend to travel very well to away games.

[Stallion]

As for the shock and surprise concerning the MagnoliaLeague, I suggest you learn something about college football first-maybe then you wouldn't be so shocked and surprised. Seriously you have got to be a faculty member to be so naive. Please enlighten us.

[PK]

Ole Miss, Arkansas, UT...they are all similar in that they are the only game in town. They are equivilent to the Cowboys for Dallas. The size of the student body is not relevant other than the number of alums it creates. The student section in UT's stadium probably wouldn't hold 10% of the students enrolled. It is alums and the people who live in Austin (they are all alums right?) who fill the stadium. Same with the other schools mentioned.

[LawSchoolPony]

[quote="PK"]Ole Miss, Arkansas, UT...they are all similar in that they are the only game in town. They are equivilent to the Cowboys for Dallas./quote]

Lets review a few facts:

Population of the ENTIRE state of Mississippi = 2.5 Million

Population of DFW = Over 5 million

Number of Division I football teams in Mississippi = 3 (UM, MS State, S. Miss) + smaller division schools like Delta State, MS College

I'll give you Arkansas, they really are the only ones that count - I wouldn't give Ark. State much credit.


Stallion: "They have an entire state to support them with no meaningful competition."

--See above...I would consider both MS State and S. Miss meaningful competition. The state's population is less than half of that of DFW, yet these 3 schools have much higher attendance. All 3 of them are not that much bigger than SMU/TCU, and have really only grown in attendance/alumni production in the past few years. I'm sure most SMU alumni are in or around Dallas, at least in TX or nearby. SMU just has bad alumni attendance, bad student attendance.

[LawSchoolPony]

All in all....I hope we do reach a point where we have 30k attendance...Ford would look nice w/ so many seats filled - especially if they were wearing red!

[PK]

LawSchoolPony, you are not catching my drift here. Look at it this way...before there were an abundance of professional sports in the Dallas area, SMU drew fairly decent crowds. During Doak Walker's days, they had to build the Cotton Bowl to hold the crowds that wanted to watch our games. In Austin, UT is their pro team (pun intended). Mississippi does not have a pro team nor does Arkansas nor does College Station nor does Lubbock nor does Oklahoma City...those teams are the only game in town...understand???

[magnolialeague]

Stallion, I'll just keep reading your posts so I can learn from you...Yes, I must be faculty.

If you love sports, you'll love this finish:
http://tgap.net/vandy/UOvsVU.wmv

How about Reggie Bush HS film
[url]http://video.on.nytimes.com/ifr_main.jsp?nsid=b-6e1d86b3:107e9a96c58:-6d82&st=1133497566235&mp=WMP&cpf=true&fr=120105_113135_w6e1d86b3x107e9a96c58xw6d81&rdm=870560.9728282988

Go to Sports

The part of the economics that most fans ignore are the pressures on the smaller schools. Facilities upgrades and poor performance is weighing in on these programs. So what they gain from the large state schools they are losing in alumni interest and networking. Also, the larger schools are tiring of sharing the loot, and some have requested the end of one-and-ones to two-and-ones, and some have asked to stop sharing the gate revenue.

[Dopey Doowrong]

I think.....hmmm...I THINK you might be ON TO SOMETHING!!!!!!

How do we get this magnolia-thingy ball rolling? Could we call it the AZALEA League, though? I've always liked Azaleas.

[magnolialeague]

I've also had Kudzu suggested.

[Charleston Pony]

SMU's goal should be to average close to 30,000. Sellout games with former SWC mates and with any visitor that brings 5000 or more of their own. SMU needs to develop a SOLID base of 20,000 or more fans including a road following of 3-4,000 if we want to compete at this level. Better get the students more interested or find a way to make more of the Metroplex community identify with SMU if there is going to be any hope of accomplishing those goals

LONG LIVE THE 1500

[Col. Nathan R. Jessep]

http://www.magnolialeague.com

As a TCU fan, I'd rather kill myself than be part of that.[/quote]
---

'2003', if you didn't kill yourself after Sept 10th, this should be no issue.

[EastStang]

Such a league would, as I stated earlier, be decent in basketball, but really not mean much to anyone in football and sooner or later decend like their Ivy League and CAA brethren into the realms of 1-AA. An all private school league would have no pressure to make any concessions to athletes at all to remain competitive, and would turn into a college professor's wet dream league. No, I can't subscribe to any such league.

[magnolialeague]

www.magnolialeague.com

The problem with the status quo is that the small schools are reluctant to keep up with the arms race of the big schools. The football factories are increasing their stadium size, adding luxury boxes, improving their player facilities, and paying top dollar for coaching staffs. Small schools are not going to upgrade facilities that are visited mainly by fans of opposing teams. The good news is that some of the money makes its way into other sports: basketball, baseball, soccer, golf, and tennis. However, as a football fan, this arrangement sucks; and it is not a good arrangement for the schools because fewer alumni return for games which reduces networking and fund raising. Hence, a Magnolia League once every four years is designed to create a competitive schedule for the perennial losers at the expense of spreading their wealth with those in non-BCS conferences.

Losing is almost as big of a threat to the football programs at the small schools as money. Losing has decimated the fan base, has crushed recruiting, and has created a laughing stock culture. I agree with the posters on this board who are in favor of attracting around the range of 30,000 fans. This is possible as many of Magnolia League schools are in either great cities or located in close proximity to great cities. History for a high school kid is not the 20, 30, 60 years that some of these schools have been atrocious, it is the past 5 to 10 years. Some recruits like the idea of playing in the big time and receiving an education, while others don’t want to endure 4 to 5 years of losing and frustration.

If the Magnolia League met every year than I could understand the irrelevance argument; however, the proposal is to play once every four years. One of the goals is to promote conference pride as well as team pride (i.e. the Conf-USA representative against the ACC representative). With skillful marketing the goal is to attract urbanites and their families to come to the stadium and build hometown fans. Our schools need to think like minor league baseball and promote the event as much as the team. Billy Beane has done this incredibly with the Oakland A’s.

The Magnolia League
1. Football Only (Yes…in hoops this would be great)
2. Conference plays once every four years
3. 12 game schedule
a. 8 Magnolia League Games
b. 3 SEC, ACC, or Big12 Games
c. 1 Local Rivalry
4. Playoff round
5. Championship
6. Bowl eligibility for teams with winning records

Team Records over the Past 4 seasons
Army (West Point, NY)
2005 Record 4-6
2004 Record 2-9
2003 Record 0-13
2002 Record 1-11


Baylor (Waco, TX)
2005 Record 5-6
2004 Record 3-8
2003 Record 3-9
2002 Record 3-9

Citidel (Charleston, SC)
2005 Record 4-7
2004 Record 3-7
2003 Record 6-6
2002 Record 3-9

Delaware (Newark, DE)
2005 Record 6-5
2004 Record 9-4
2003 Record 15-1
2002 Record 6-6

Duke (Durham, NC)
2005 Record 1-10
2004 Record 2-9
2003 Record 4-8
2002 Record 2-10

Furman (Greenville, SC)
2005 Record 10-2
2004 Record 10-3
2003 Record 6-5
2002 Record 8-4

Navy (Annapolis, MD)
2005 Record 6-4
2004 Record 10-2
2003 Record 8-5
2002 Record 2-10

Rice (Houston, TX)
2005 Record 1-10
2004 Record 3-8
2003 Record 5-7
2002 Record 4-7

Richmond (Richmond,VA)
2005 Record 9-3
2004 Record 3-8
2003 Record 2-9
2002 Record 4-8

SMU (Dallas, TX)
2005 Record 5-6
2004 Record 3-8
2003 Record 0-12
2002 Record 3-9

TCU (Fort Worth, TX)
2005 Record 10-1
2004 Record 5-6
2003 Record 11-2
2002 Record 10-2

Tulane (New Orleans, LA)
2005 Record 2-9
2004 Record 5-6
2003 Record 5-7
2002 Record 8-5

Vanderbilt (Nashville, TN)
2005 Record 5-6
2004 Record 2-9
2003 Record 2-10
2002 Record 2-10

Villanova (Villanova, PA)
2005 Record 4-7
2004 Record 6-5
2003 Record 7-4
2002 Record 11-4

Wake Forest (Winston-Salem, NC)
2005 Record 4-7
2004 Record 4-7
2003 Record 5-7
2002 Record 7-6

William & Mary (Williamsburg, VA)
2005 Record 5-6
2004 Record 11-3
2003 Record 5-5
2002 Record 6-5
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[Stallion]

OK if you are going to make this ridiculously stupid and naive suggestions over and over why don't you at least attempt to respond to the financial and economic reasons that it has not and never will be considered by anyone with even the slightest understanding of college football. I listed about 5 reasons that it is never going to happen-and yet you never deal with the nose in front of your face. This is simply a faculty members wet dream and your letter grade is an F.