Division I shakeup?

[jettison]

It's obvious there is no game this week, as we are seeing more discussion about burgers and crystal-meth induced ideas about NFL roster-filling with former/current Mustangs... Check out this link.

<A HREF="http://espn.go.com/ncf/news/2001/1018/1265862.html" TARGET=_blank>http://espn.go.com/ncf/news/2001/1018/1265862.html</A>

I think it's a good thing 'no-shows' apparently don't count against attendance in this plan, because SMU would be in trouble. Or maybe not? Thoughts?

[PK]

I think it is rather interesting that both of the Houston schools are having attendance troubles and they don't even have a pro team in town to blame it on. What that says, I'm not sure. For all practical purposes, we don't have a pro team in town to blame it on either. It is most unfortunate that we are not producing a consistently exciting and winning football team while the "caboys" are nose diving into the cellar. Our window of opportunity to develop more "Dallas" fans is not going to be very big for very long....or maybe it will be....there IS the Jerry factor!

The writing is on the wall. We have got to build up our fan base and keep them coming....period!!!! That means getting the right people in place to put this program back in a competitive condition that will attract fans. It's going to take a lot more than playing rap music at the games for sure!!!

[PerunaPunch]

I kinda think it would be a good thing for our program -- at least so far as getting talent to the hilltop. Fewer D1A schools means that more talent would be concentrated at the top, which in this case (for once) would include us.

I think it would have the same effect, albeit to a lesser extent, as SMU being in better conference. Of course, I'd much prefer to become more competitive through better recruiting, coaching, fan support, attitude, and the other, more tradtional ways of building a winner.

[PK]

As weird as it may seem, evidently the WAC actually ranks higher than CUSA in a number of areas. As much as it is obvious that people in this area don't care a lot about the Hawaii's and the San Jose's of the western part of the WAC, evidently the people down in Houston don't think much of either of the conferences. It will be interesting to see what happens to TCU's attendance numbers when they start having home games with the teams from back east.

It's not hard to see that the old SWC was a better fit for us in that we had fans of all the schools right here and filling up our stadium was much easier. I really don't see a switch to CUSA as the answer....but then again I don't see much of any other options that are going to help. Regional conferences make more sense, but the money folks (TV) have pretty well killed that.

Our best bet right now seems to be in getting as good a set of OOC games every year that we can, i.e., teams that lots of people would want to see.....and then win those games. Old rivals like Arkansas, Texas Tech, Baylor,and Houston would bring fans and then some other NAME schools would be nice. The main thing is to fill the stadium every home game.

[Big D]

PK, I noticed the rap music was gone at the Hawaii game, I think, at least I didn't notice it. The music was much better, and I appreciate the folks that read this board, and cared enough about our concerns to change it. Nothing important, your mention just made me remember it, and I had forgotten to comment on it until now. I thought Gameday was much better last time, and I really enjoyed it (except the loss). Go Ponies!!!

[Guest]

Personally, I'm against shutting teams out of Division I. Just like I'm against the idea of the Colts leaving Baltimore, the (original) Browns leaving Cleveland. Can you imagine the city of Houston without Division I football? That would be like Houston without NFL football. (Wait a minute .... oh, they're getting it back.) OK, it would be like Los Angeles without pro football. There's something so pure about the game of football that every single city and state deserves to have college football and pro football. Here's hoping all teams -- including Rice and Houston -- stay in Division I. And if a few more teams join, that's great too. As far as attracting players, that's up to us, and not by weakening the competition.

[PK]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Big D:
<B>PK, I noticed the rap music was gone at the Hawaii game, I think, at least I didn't notice it. The music was much better, and I appreciate the folks that read this board, and cared enough about our concerns to change it. Nothing important, your mention just made me remember it, and I had forgotten to comment on it until now. I thought Gameday was much better last time, and I really enjoyed it (except the loss). Go Ponies!!!</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree with you, the Hawaii game was much better. I was so upset with the outcome of the game I didn't really think too much about the other aspects of it. I only made my comment above to reinforce what I was trying to say.....superficial cosmetics is not what's going to get the Dallas area fans in the seats at Ford.