Green Menace

Thanks. The more corporations the better. Should have included those fine companies in my post but was in a hurry and forgot. Hey, what do you expect from someone from South Jefferson County! ;D

I can see both sides to this issue of how deep into football should Lamar really shoot for. I don't think shoot for the moon day one is necessarily the best way to go. Very costly unless you have unlimited athletic funds coming in. My guess is the majority just wants to see football back at Lamar. I personally think that Lamar has access to the big money, both individuals and corporations that will be willing to donate to the cause. Think of the trial lawyers in Beaumont. Their ego begs them to put their names on university buildings and athletic facilities, including stadiums. Think of the corporations like ExxonMobil, Jasons Deli(headquartered in Beaumont), and others. For Lamar to move up to the highest level they absolutely must have the committment from the President and the Board of Regents, not to mention the faculty. Then they must pay their coaches the salaries that will keep them at Lamar, assuming they are doing a good job. That means coordinators mus be in the lower six figures. Then the team must be not only competitive on the field and exciting to watch, but they must also win. Lamar would do well to use Boise State as a model. Their president set out with a goal of being in the Pac 10 someday. They have moved up from the Big West, then the WAC, and now the have their eyes set on the Mountain West Conference. I'd say Boise is one of the most successful programs in recent years to move from D1AA to D1A. They have been successful on the field, they fill their stands every game, they travel well, and they have undergone serious stadium expansion. Bottom line, the President and BOR have to set the goal for Lamar Football. Then proceed to get there. I seriously do not think money is a problem for Lamar.

NT needs a new stadium because old Fouts Field is crumbling. Get this, on game day, NT has to rent 19 generators to provide enough electricity to run everything. It is not ADA compliant, and the because of the growth of the University (close to 35,000 students), they need the land and surrounding parking lots and practice fields for academic buildings and high rise parking garages. Fouts was designed as a multifunctional stadium which includes a track. The site lines are terrible. NT needs a new stadium in the worse way, yet we are having a terrible year in football. Stadium is scheduled to open for 2011 season. Get this, a couple of years ago NT installed all new, "waterless" urinals in the men's bathrooms at Fouts Field. Don't ask me how they work, but they do! Damndest thing I've ever seen or used!

Giovanni Vizza out of Alamo Heights HS in San Antonio, NT's #1 QB for 11 games last year as a true freshman, tough as boot leather. NT's problem is having a HS school coach with mostly HS assistants who had know clue about the speed of the game at the FBS (D1A) level. Dodge believes his 100% spread offense will outscore the opposition and there is no need to recruit quality defensive linemen. I could go on and on. Suffice it to say that NT fans are on edge and a little testy right now! >

Ha! The way UNT is playing right now we should be looking to form a conference with Mary-Hardin Baylor!!

That's the bottom line. Wonder what the cost to Lamar would be to send the soccer, vollyball, baseball, tennis, etc., out to Hawaii, San Jose, or Fresno? Travel would be a killer. Lamar better have some sugar daddys to foot the WAC athletic bills. What about the fans? Gotta wonder what the cost would be to follow the Cardinal football team to an out of town game or two. WAC would have to add some travel partners in the "Eastern" division. Plus, Fresno, Boise, Hawaii, and Nevada may not be around forever if the MWC or Pac 10 comes calling. Then what kind of conference would you have? La Tech, New Mx State, Idaho, Utah State, San Jose, etc. You get the picture.

Thanks for the kind words, but we don't have it yet. The new stadium has been on the "want list" for 6-7 years now. It's now reaching the boiling point at NT- either sh!t or get off the pot.

Lamar already has the basis for a very fine football facility. No reason they can't accomplish what the University of North Texas hopes to build from scratch to replace aging Fouts Field. Proposed NT Stadium

I'm not a coach, but have followed recruiting at the FBS level for a long time. Aside from a good QB, Lamar needs to go after as many big, quality defensive and offensive linemen that they can get. Every year. Yes, the skill positions are important, but wide receivers and defensive backs with speed are readily available. And speed at the obvious positions is important. But, those "big uglies", the guys in the trenches, are the players LU needs to concentrate on. Just my humble opinion.

Financially strapped? Not really. But the extra cash does come it handy. It allows a program like North Texas to bring well known programs to teh home field. North Texas will host Kansas State next year in Denton. Most non-BCS programs play one or two recognized BSC teams for that possible upset, like ULM upsetting Alabama, or Troy beating Oklahoma State. NT also has a multi game series with Army coming up in a few years. NT was supposed to play Univ. of Miami (Florida) this season for something like $400,000. LSU came along and offered NT $850,000. What would you do? Tough to pass up. NT's goal is to only play one "money" game a year like most non-BCS programs. For Lamar to host a FBS program in Beaumont, they have to come up with some serious money. I doubt even a North Texas would come to Beaumont for less than $150,000 to $200,000. Factoid: Did you know that North Texas hosted Florida State in Denton back in 1974 I believe. NT lost by one point in six inches of snow! I certainly wasn't dissin' UNT, so relax and get off the soapbox. The secondary will not get shredded this season, hopefully. No soapbox here. And I did not take your question as "dissin" North Texas. Heck, I wish they would come to Beaumont. At least I wouldn't have to travel 700 miles RT to see them play. ;D Peace, my friend.

Financially strapped? Not really. But the extra cash does come it handy. It allows a program like North Texas to bring well known programs to teh home field. North Texas will host Kansas State next year in Denton. Most non-BCS programs play one or two recognized BSC teams for that possible upset, like ULM upsetting Alabama, or Troy beating Oklahoma State. NT also has a multi game series with Army coming up in a few years. NT was supposed to play Univ. of Miami (Florida) this season for something like $400,000. LSU came along and offered NT $850,000. What would you do? Tough to pass up. NT's goal is to only play one "money" game a year like most non-BCS programs. For Lamar to host a FBS program in Beaumont, they have to come up with some serious money. I doubt even a North Texas would come to Beaumont for less than $150,000 to $200,000. Factoid: Did you know that North Texas hosted Florida State in Denton back in 1974 I believe. NT lost by one point in six inches of snow!

Ha! North Texas better learn how to stop the run and the forward pass this season. Our defense is....well,....let's just say suspect. New DC Gary DeLoach will have to pull a rabbit out of his hat to show any improvement over last years disaster with Mendoza.

Hopefully, Lamar won't have that many empty seats like the Rice game depicts. I don't understand why Rice still plays FBS football. ;D

Denver has been given an ultimatum: Sponsor 15 sports within 5 years or find a new conference. UD has been put on notice. Denver Unless the Sun Belt loses a member, I think the conference is pretty well set. The SBC is a football conference first, thus the Denver ultimatum. I don't think the SBC will be adding any FBS newbies should programs like Lamar or Tex State-San Marcus make the jump. The SBC has enough mouths to feed with the limited BCS revenue they receive.

Not bad for a seven year old league. If Lamar wants in the FBS, maybe the SBC should be their first goal. At the annual league spring meeting, Sun Belt members learned its football payout from membership in the 11-league Bowl Championship Series. And for the first time, the Sun Belt passed the Mid-American Conference — yes, the MAC, which has been playing football at the highest level for six-plus decades — in the BCS payout. And get this: With just one more key non-conference win, the Sun Belt would have passed Conference USA — the chief geographic challenger for southeastern mid-majors. Will Sun Belt football build on it's success ? [Hidden Content]

Nope. You are wrong. UTEP and UNT. For non-BCS programs, it's not where you've been, it's location and how much you can bring to the conference table. Seriously, not here to debate. I enjoy your posts and insight into Lamar's football efforts. True, that's why people are already talking about UTSA and they haven't officially started their football program yet. That's why LU and SETX need more time to grow. The big plans for downtown Beaumont would help along with a growing population. Lamar needs to keep growing and finish all the planned facility enhancements. Let me talk out of both sides of my mouth. ;D They do not some history in football for cryin' out loud. UTSA has nothing close to football. Then again, neither did Florida Atlantic.

Nope. You are wrong. UTEP and UNT. For non-BCS programs, it's not where you've been, it's location and how much you can bring to the conference table. Seriously, not here to debate. I enjoy your posts and insight into Lamar's football efforts.

UNLV...you really want Lamar to be the next ULM and LaTech? Two programs who since ULM moved from the SLC to the SBC and La Tech, from the SBC to the WAC...have seen their premier programs fall flat on their tail? You don't hear about Lady Techsters WBB anymore, do you? If a school leaves the CUSA, who is next in line? LA-Tech Tech and Lamar is about the same size. Tech and Lamar was former rivals in the same conference. So why is it Tech is a big name school and Lamar is small time? So yes, I'd rather see Lamar in Tech position. UL-Monroe recently beat Alabama in football. Yes, I would rather see Lamar in UL-Monroe position. I'm not here to debate you, but why would CUSA choose LaTech as a member should CUSA decide to add someone? Conferences look for large population base, transportation(air), hotel accomodations, etc., and last time I checked, Ruston was non of the above. Sure, LaTech has been around FBS for a while, but they bring nothing to the conference. During CUSA's last expansion, the top two universities considered for expansion were UTEP and North Texas. UTEP won out because of there great attendance in FB and BB. Forget that they are a zillion miles from there nearest conference mate (SMU). Of course, I was pushing for NT while we were on a high, of sorts. Four straight FB championships and four straight bowl games. Sure, it was only the New Orleans Bowl, but it was in New Orleans! No better place to host a bowl game! But, the invite did not happen and UTEP joined. Non of these far-stretched conferences make sense with the cost of travel, etc. UTEP should be in the WAC and North Texas should be in CUSA. NT will have well over 34,000 students this fall and reside in a very large (overall) market (Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex). Too bad several professional teams reside there too. Still, NT will continue to try and move to a more recognizable conference, or stay in the Sun Belt and help elevate it's stature in college sports. The SBC is getting pretty close to the MAC and CUSA already. Some think the SBC passed those conferences already. Personally, I don't think so.

All I know is, I'm ready for some college football in Beaumont. Enough of this ice hockey and arena football mess.

Tulsa would hang 65 or 70 on Lamar. Tulsa should put up about the same on UNT. We'll see this year. With that idiot HS defensive coordinator Dodge brought in last year, no doubt TU could hand that many on NT. However, we have our old DC back(from UCLA) so we should see some improvement. Probably not near enough to beat Tulsa.

Tulsa would hang 65 or 70 on Lamar.

From a UNT blog- "UNT head men's basketball coach Johnny Jones confirmed Wednesday what has been rumored for the last few days -- assistant coach Tic Price is headed to Lamar."

From a UNT blog- "UNT head men's basketball coach Johnny Jones confirmed Wednesday what has been rumored for the last few days -- assistant coach Tic Price is headed to Lamar."

Only if Higgins "willed" a boat load of money to Lamar Athletics.

Being the North Texas fan that I am, I'll try to leave out the bias for my school if at all possible. CUSA, should they find a need to expand, will more than likely look to the larger markets. Larger markets mean more TV sets and more viewers. Easy travel; large airport, etc. Let's look at some of the teams mentioned as possible candidates: La Tech- Very small market but LT has been 1A for a very long time and has decent tradition; good academics UTSA- Very large maket; large airport for travel; would be the only 1A football team in town; only one pro team to contend with. Problem is, they don't even have a team yet, nor a commitment to field a team, much less an FBS(1A) team. No facilities. UNT- Very large market; large airport only 15-20 minutes from Denton; competes with several professional teams; 3rd largest public university in the state with 33,000 students; came very close to being added to CUSA during the last expansion/replacement from a few years ago; UTEP beat them out with greater attendance at FB games, plus the Sun Bowl stadium; said no to WAC offer a few years ago when the WAC was trying to create an Eastern Div. for La Tech; good academics. Troy- Nice stadium; small market; have no knowledge of Troy's size or academics Western Kentucky- Successful BB program; no knowlege of market size, academics, etc. A newbie in the world of 1A football. MTSU- Nice stadium, good FB coach, great bluegrass music in Murfresboro, but I know nothing about their size, market, or academics. Texas State University-San Marcos- no comment. In general, I just don't see CUSA taking some of the teams mentioned by other posters, especially those that are not 1A already, and certainly those that have no football. If CUSA has an immediate opening or two, look for them to take La Tech, UNT or MTSU. The holes left in the Sun Belt will be filled in by the TSU's and possibly UTSA's of the world.