geezer

I agree there could be more support, but Lamar has name recognition in Bmt area.  To grow to the next level the advertisements and promotions will need to be in Houston, Galveston and places further away so there are more students on campus without local family/friends and work commitments on game days.  If there are roughly 10k tickets sold + student tickets for games then why aren't they in the stands on game day.  There are five seats next to mine that someone has paid to have stadium chair seats put in every game and so far three people have sat in them once, the IW game.  Until there is a winning tradition in football there will be lots of people in this area that pay to have a seat when they want to use it but won't show up regularly, won't find someone to fill their empty seat when they have something more important to them to do and won't routinely work their personal schedule around LU football.  Also doesn't help when there are people on sitting next to the aisle that take up more than their seat and are too self absorbed to make it as easy for people to get past them as possible.  In the section I am sitting in this year there are at least two rows of these types.  To get what you would like to see will take time and unfortunately winning which means the attendance may get worse before it gets better.  The other thing Lamar needs to do to grow is find what is needed to get more students into other areas of study.  You mentioned engineering and nursing, what other degrees can LU promote to get more students?

I hope we are learning what type of player it is going to take to compete at this or a higher level which is some size and depth at all positions.  Saw it in the game and then looked at the rosters, Nwst had us outmanned size wise at both qb and rb by an average of about 30#.  Our biggest db is listed at 195 and their qb was listed at 220.  The linesm receivers and lb were overall closer to equal but on average I believe they were bigger accross the board.

[quote name="puddin tane" post="1078315" timestamp="1318195104"] [quote author=geezer link=topic=89532.msg1077938#msg1077938 date=1318159124] I suspect SEL will be our last win this season, with Nicholls and SFA potentially being competive.  Need more size at defensive back and running back and more speed on the line.  Potential Good News is basketball is around the corner. [/quote] [b]we finally have football and you are wishing for basketball[/b]? I think we--[u]coaching allowed[/u]-can hang with Cen ark, SEL, SFA possibly (they are laying an egg)--not predicitng win or lose..just competing well i am worried Slam will hang 60 on us....... [/quote] Just reacting to everyone gets an F or worse so I assumed this years football team was a failure in your view and wanted you to have something to look forward to.  I am watching for improvement from game to game and year to year.  What did we do last year against FCS teams and how do we compare so far this year?  IMO we are better but still have a very long way to go.  As for my thoughts that we may not win another game this year just look at this weeks SLC scores.  Tx State beat McNeese who already has a victory of Nwst.  Sam demolished SFA and CA and Nicholls played a competive game which CA won on the road.

I suspect SEL will be our last win this season, with Nicholls and SFA potentially being competive.  Need more size at defensive back and running back and more speed on the line.  Potential Good News is basketball is around the corner.

I think there are actually more schools looking to jump out of the Big East then out of the Big 12.  For both Nebraska and A&M I believe they think they are capable of competing at a high level in their new conference and they felt like Texas had too much say in the Big 12.  Also the money the SEC and Big 10 have from TV will improve their standing.  As long as Oklahoma and Texas stay the Big 12 is a BCS contender, but they need to add at least a 10th school to replace A&M.

Univ of La, Monroe used to be Northeast La before both they and Lafeyette had their names changed.

Might consider Johnson, Prewitt or other offensive players for D-backs.

I wish him good fortune also, although is looks like Garret hurt is shoulder so had he stayed he probably would have the chance to prove the coaches early assesments were wrong.

Though I have no knowledge of the situation if he is an Electrical Engineering major and was not getting scholarship money or playing time, he probably assessed everything and decided he needed to focus on his education above a game that the fun had gone out of.

I was fairly new to the area and due to work really didn't have a chance to go to any games back then but as I recall the last two years of the Ray Alborn era the Cardinals records were improving and had they not pulled the program out from under him I thought there was a good chance the LU would be competitive as part of the SBC had they stayed there and kept the program going.

Facts: South Alabama is on track to be an FBS program which means they have more scholarship players (hence more depth).  USA is one year ahead of LU in starting up their program.  That said if LU really wants to be a FBS school this is the kind of school we have to compete with, so we have a lot of work ahead.

[quote name="puddin tane" post="1055296" timestamp="1315842417"] [quote author=hipster link=topic=88100.msg1055230#msg1055230 date=1315837709] In Ray 1's career at Lamar he was 13-30-0, in Ray 2's career at Lamar he is 6-7.  Ray 2 by a landslide. [/quote] I'd take Ray 1 over dim whitten for an OC! [/quote] Ray 1 started with a schedule he didn't create and players he did not recruit.  It usually took three years to for a coach to bring in the players to fit the new system, so why don't you compare now with Ray 1 year three and four.

Two games into the year we won the first easily against much lesser competition just as we should have.  We played multiple qbs and did not see anything to make one stand out over another.  This week we played against a team that if we truly want to move to an FBS conference we have to compete with and we were less than successful.  For the most part we stuck with the senior qb and while he may not have done anything terrible he didn't do anything to show me that he can lead this team to a successful conference season.  I think next week we will see much more of the 2nd and 3rd string qbs and then there is two weeks until game 4.  By game 4 I think we will see who is going to be the man for this year and probably the future.

While I am impressed with what Prewitt did last year, in the long term he probably has the least to improve, because it is very hard to increase speed.  Head to head with Bevil, I think Prewitt might come out ahead over the year but with Johnson's speed he has the most oppurtunity to be something special.  Bevil is a senior and through the first three games last year no one was complaining.  I said it last year that it looked like Bevil developed a case of happy feet and it looks like he still wants to just throw the ball up and rely on his receivers to make him look good.  Unfortunately if Lamar is going to be successful as a FCS or maybe in the future an FBS school they better not need to have a walk on quarterback be the starter.  This is by no means is indicating anything negative about Prewitt but believe me there are enough D-1 schools out there that it is very rare a quarterback is missed by any of the top programs.

Yes it would be great if all young people lived clean lives, were polite and respected all of us older people.  It would also be nice if College Sports wasn't about money and winning.  It would be great if an area of nearly 500k people would fill the stadium every home game no matter what the record and a coach never got fired for not winning enough games, but that is not todays reality.  Reality is people generally don't support a consistently loosing team.  Coaches are fired or forced to resign because they don't win and the smaller the school the less chance they have a signing a great player with no issues.  I do not condone anything that this young man or anyone else on the LU team or any SLC team may have done wrong, but I will trust the coaches and LU administration to manage the players and yes I have friends who's lives were turned inside out because of a drunk driver.

Or all of the above.

Off court he is doing an exceptional job, question is what happens on court when the season starts.  Glad I am not hearing much hype from sources close to him or quotes about the level of talent and how good we will be. 

Again it comes back to winning.  Win at either level and it will be filled.  Win as an FBS and money will come in to expand, but even if it was not expanded as long as it is full LU would meet the attendance requirements to be FBS

Beaumont is far from the only place that expects wins to fill the stands.  Have you been to an Astros or Rockets game recently.  It is not hard to get tickets.  Same thing is true in most major leauge cities where the teams have loosing records.  Hardly expect a small university to get support if they are not at least competitive.

Just WIN and we will all see.

Don't claim to be up to date on college rules, do the JUCOs use the same bats as the NCAA?  I know there are people who say the NCAA batting averages were down this year and implying it has to do with the change in bats.

Hope these guys batting averages hold up at the D-1 level.

Just reread the enterprise article and quotes.  Did not see anywhere that Woodward said anything about not having high expectations.  The facts are this is not 30 years ago.  Thirty years ago Lamar was in the top division of NCAA Football.  TV money was a small piece of the pie.  Even then it was hard to get a big name school to play at a smaller school like Lamar.  Usually when it did happen it was because of friendships between the big schools coach and the small school coach who probably was an assistant at some point in time to the big name school coach and then it would be a two for one at best.  Yes thirty years ago small schools still went to the big name schools for a payday.  The number one thing that fills a stadium is a winning tradition and you don't build that getting your rear kicked for multiple payday games and then a poor showing in conference because of injuries.  The return of football to Lamar is a process.  Unless there is a T Boone Pickens out there that wants to pony up a couple of hundred million dollars to buy Lamar a program it will take some time and playing some schools we all would prefer not play to build the program.  Also remember that the worst thing that can happen to a big name school is to play an FCS team and loose.

I agree the fielding and hitting talent does not appear to be what it was in the past.  Lamar barely has a .300 team batting average if they have that and I don't think injuries played a part in failing to score runs.  Fielding is harder to judge but just seems like there were too many errors in the outfield.  Infield errors are harder to judge because a fielder is more prone to get an error on what could be a spectacular play that they just don't quite make, like getting to a ball deep behind 2nd base and then making a hurried bad throw.

I really do not care who the qb is and I will trust the coaching staffs judgement at this time.  The point I was making is if Bevils problem was faith in the line, I don't necessarily believe he will last the full season this year either.  Have no background for JJ to make any judgements by, but until he is proven on the field this is just an open opinion poll and high school bragging rights issue.  Pruitt proved he has what it takes to stand in the pocket and find the reciever, but I am not saying he should be the starter either.  Let them prove it on the field.  We can all second guess the coaches as the season progresses.