TexasTerror

Bobby Knight was throwing a fit about this the other year -- how officials are overworked and making bad calls because of it. These individuals do make quick turnarounds between games, whether they are calling a collegiate or HS game the night before. I've been in officials meetings before the game (having worked on the scorers' table for at least four institutions) and have had officials tell me where they've worked the night before.

Three SWAC contests -- just what the doctor ordered. The SWAC has actually gotten better the last few years (particularly Grambling), but Lamar should be able to get their first win in school history with someone from those teams, if they do not get ULM before Grambling.

Not all teams are as fortunate... Wednesdays are Big XII and C-USA in our referee alliance. The top refs are heading there. With the SLC on Wednesdays, we are getting third tier officials. The Sun Belt schools did not like Wednesdays officiating and moved to Thursday. They were the third tier before the SLC and them "switched" spots...

That's not true -- I'm a young pup and learn quite a bit from the next generation up -- but sometimes, things said just are too out of this world and need someone to bring that back to Earth.

Teter has been fired... [Hidden Content]

I know this is an old news subject, but a date is now set... Rice is set to play three SLC teams at home including the Cards. To those who go, who have been to Autry in the past, you'll have to let me know what you think of Tudor... Owls have a nice schedule -- A&M and Oklahoma coming to town. Harvard is nice too. Road trips to UALR, Richmond, Dusquesne and Texas plus an event in Utah -- saw that line-up somewhere, think it includes Cal Poly. [Hidden Content]

ABR3 -- you ever travel with a basketball team? I've done it before. Not a proponent of Weds/Sat. I'd rather be at home Thurs/Sat or on the road Thurs/Sat, not all of this split up trips. A) Worst officiating -- we're on the same night as many of the conferences we get officials from (see C-USA, Big 12). In fact, the Sun Belt moved men's hoops to Thursday to get better officials -- as they are in the same Dale Kelley group as we are. Church Night -- has an impact on attendance due to all those who go to Church. C) Equal, if not more missed class time. If the game is more than x amount of hours away, a team will leave the day before. This conference is larger and further apart than it has ever been before (think Corpus, Conway and Cajun Corner). The "travel partners" that existed, especially when playing foes in the other division is non-existant. Splitting up the Cajun Corner means that instead of one long bus trip to that side of the conference, teams have to go back twice -- sometimes, both mid-week games. There's complaints on other boards. You read the UCA fan boards, but it's not just them. As noted above, the conference is larger and further spread out. This is a bus league for most purposes -- it's not like you can take flights around the league, just not cost effective.

Thanks for letting be sarcastic in a retort to UNLV... ABR3, most of the time when dealing with an individual who has a fundamental misunderstanding of collegiate athletics and refuses to look at the truth, numbers and more -- I got to have some fun.

UNLV -- I know that you are not a math whiz by any means, but have you ever compared enrollments or alumni bases of the two schools? You think that has something to do with things?

Would not expect the SLC to give them a look, even with football until a) facilities are upgraded and their membership issues with the NCAA -- lawsuit goes up in November are worked out...

Seems to me, they held off the announcement until SLC Media Days. That's when you do any and all major announcement pertaining to the conference because that's the only time a year you have every SID staff there, most every media member, etc. Burnett helped open the door for A&M-CC, but the problems that exist there have been in place since before they came into the SLC. Ronnie Arrow has a track record and apparently, there was a lack of institutional control present. UCA has flourished in the SLC and getting back into Arkansas was a great thing. Tubbs is at fault over the Wednesday move in basketball. Anyone affiliated with the SLC could agree to as much. The neutral site tournament, which I agree with, is a mutual Tubbs/Burnett thing. Tubbs gets the most crap from it -- especially since many believe he pushed it in an effort to get it into Beaumont, but I think a profitable conference tournament at a neutral site would be great for the SLC. SLC-TV is just another innovative thing the conference has done. I know you do not follow football, but we've gotten the shaft there for the last 2-3 years. Basketball hasn't been too much better. This helped the schools in the conference and this gets a big thumbs up. Oddly enough, the diminished coverage and the SLC working to fix it has been going on for several years, before Lamar students even passed a fee...

If you want to give me a hard time -- SLC took a risk in bringing in non-football Lamar, especially with what was at the time, a slumping basketball program. No telling if LU was going to bring in football when the SLC let Lamar back into the conference... As far as A&M-CC goes, that's not good at all. They got to get their ducks in a row...

UNLV -- what happened to your reading comprehension? While it does not state a time, it states that they've had this committee in place and with as big a decision as they came to and the SLC timeline (when meetings are, etc) -- had to come before Lamar's big announcement. Takes time to make things work...

The HBU fan forum talks about football, but nothing substantial regarding it. Now that they have a home for football, it would be great if they got it because that would push the GWC closer to the auto-bid and most importantly, if they stayed in the GWC, it would provide an excellent OOC foe for SLC teams. In fact, I'd think HBU's entire OOC slate would be SLC and SWAC (other than the typical sub-Div I).

We are lucky to have Tom Burnett as our commissioner. Under his lead, a lot of great things have happened, even before Tubbs came into the league as AD at Lamar. The big things have been our relationship with the Big 12 in football officiating, something that is now being emulated all over the place. Southland TV is huge. Taking the conference back into Arkansas, wonderful. Burnett is one of the power players at the FCS level when it comes to ADs. We got someone very well respected...

Figure the amount of teams in the conference will change by the time Lamar and McNeese have to worry about this, could be at the conclusion of UCA's two years (plus one year into another school's) with the folks in San Marcos looking to jet the conference.

Never said Lamar was not better in every sport (except baseball). I see the progress. Can't question it, never have, never will. As I noted, SHSU is better off with our AD. Anyhow, as noted in the above post -- that's all of AD vs AD...your AD gave you football, that's a gift because you can't be a Texas school and not play football... And thus, we talk about football... There'll be a few years with no McNeese vs Lamar to end the season. Could bolster attendance if the game is earlier in the year, especially if one team is slumping (we saw that when PVA&M vs TXSO was at end of year -- crappy attendance, compared to much better as they typically play at beginning of season)... Then again, figure each school will still maintain the high attendance and nice gate from having the other on the slate. Can't hurt being however far the schools are from each other down I-10... ABR3 -- wanna join me in getting UT-Arlington or A&M-CC to get football so we do not have this issue? Though, nine conference games may be too much -- at least, we can avoid the lack of rivalry game in the final week. Perhaps we can do some sort of rotating schedule of some sort like some conferences do.

I've had plenty of conversations with individuals regarding Billy Tubbs and his influence around the league. It's no secret to anyone. I'm not outright saying Tubbs is a bad person or he is bad for the league, but there's no question Tubbs is doing what he can to "improve" the league, whether individuals and schools agree with his actions or not. Yes, he may have a father with accomplishments, but there's no question our athletic department is at a whole new level. For three of the last four years, we won the Commish Cup. Sounds like a lot of nothing, eh? SHSU used to finish sixth to eighth regularly before our AD took over and many told him SHSU could never do that -- well, we did. Three years in a row. Academically, we are the "academic flagship" of the conference. Over the same few years we have dominated in athletics (and this continued into this year) -- we have placed more individuals on the Commissioner's Honor Roll than any other SLC school in addition to having the highest GPA. Sure, Lamar and a few other schools don't have football, but we continue to outpace Texas State-San Marcos, who claims to be the academic giant of the conference and for the schools that do not have football, you'd think the football GPA would bring our GPA down, but somehow -- there we are, at the top of the SLC and actually inching very close to a 3.0 cumulative GPA for the whole department! New baseball/softball complex. New scoreboards at all facilities. New track and field complex. An increase in conference championships. Solid hires in men's basketball, baseball and football -- three most important sports. I'd rather have our guy over Tubbs any day. We're forward moving, not backward thinking. And doesn't your Assoc AD really handle the day to day operations? Know he did when Billy was doing basketball, but I figure his role couldn't have diminished that much... ABR3 -- let's stop here. Don't want to get into an argument regarding ADs. We each think the world of our own. Yours has ultimately given you football, soccer and soon -- softball. That's great stuff. Your athletic department is heading in the right direction, ours is definitely going that way. Back to the original subject at hand, I'm dropping the argument after this post after lending credibility to what our AD has done...

Bobby Williams -- his dad is one of the legendary players in Rice football history, who later became an NFL scout. BW was actually a position coach for the Kats football team under Ron Randleman, our long time head coach who guided us into Division I and retired in 2004.

Not sure if Tubbs had something to do with this or not. Ultimately, the new changes to the FCS calendar (11 games in 11 weeks) will make it a burden on UCA to schedule a season-ending game each year. To me, it seems as if the SLC wanted to share the burden and make every team have the problem at some point along the way. Did Tubbs have something to do with this? Can't say yes or no. This was not a basketball decision like his moving SLC games from Thursdays to Wednesdays, which means the SLC is lower on the totem pole for officiating crews than we were on Thursdays -- a Tubbs decision. ** UPDATE ** Was reminded that the Missouri Valley has nine teams which means they have the same situation. Perhaps the SLC and MVFC could come to an agreement between the two pitting the teams with byes together for two consecutive years.

What's that? Not a fan? I'm confused -- let me hear from ya, ABR3...

Tip of the cap to BearFan101 for this one... There will be at least four years in which Lamar and McNeese will not tangle during the last week of the regular season according to a policy the SLC is putting in place re: scheduling. The SLC will be rotating who has the bye week in the final week of the regular season starting in 2011. This makes sense because that final week of the regular season is going to be very tough to fill, especially with the 11 games in 11 weeks that will unfold in FCS football (outside of the SWAC) starting in 2010. The conference is sharing the burden amongst numerous schools. I'd think that UCA would see if Arkansas-Pine Bluff can get them in (perhaps a neutral site game in Little Rock). All the SLC schools will probably look mostly towards the SWAC, who has a bit more flexibility in their schedule. The Great West Football Conference may have a team that is available, as could the Pioneer League. Would also figure that a school would do a home-and-home to cover both dates with school if they could. ------------------- For the first two years beginning in 2011, the Bears will have an open date on the last playing date, a week before the beginning of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. That's an open conference date. UCA officials are free to schedule a nonconference game, but one at that date can be challenging. "But that's only for the first two years," said Tom Burnett, SLC commissioner. "With nine teams, the open date at the end of the season will be rotated, and UCA is first in the rotation." Theoretically, after the first two years of the late open playing date, UCA will not have a conference bye on that date for another 16 years (with the home-and-home rotation scheduling block among the nine teams). As the schedule rotates, teams will have to move about their "rivalry games" a bit. But such a game only has special meaning at the end of the season if it decides a conference championship or a playoff berth. Otherwise, a true rivalry game has the same meaning any time it is played. [Hidden Content]

First affiliate...KVHP-TV, the Fox affiliate in Lake Charles, La. The same company owns them and the Fox affiliate in Beaumont, Texas... Lake Charles in. Figure Beaumont will follow. Time to announce a few more... [Hidden Content]

I'd be curious to see what the state of Lamar athletics would be if the school decided 10 years ago to add football. Probably be in the Sun Belt right now still...why exactly did LU leave the conference? I've seen you guys talk about bad leadership at the time, but what was the guy(s) thinking that pushed them to leave? Escalating travel costs?

beat writer... According to a caption in the McNeese State football photo galleries from Media Day, Gary Laney has left the Lake Charles American-Press to take the sports editor job at the Beaumont Enterprise. In doing so, Lamar and Beaumont gain the individual who is widely accepted as the top beat writer in the conference (and one of the best in the country), who has a great deal of knowledge regarding all things SLC/FCS and just a great individual. Congrats Lamar and Beaumont on this coup...you guys have a lot to look forward to! Now, the Beaumont Enterprise actually has someone who can write about football, particularly Lamar football compared to what was being written...