Yes...Wofford was NAIA in 1991.

The fact that we play a small number of games against lower division does not bother me as much as the fact that our program itself has fallen so much. We are by no means the respected mid-major power that we once were. The team that Coach DeChellis left here would have gone through this conference schedule with no losses or at worst, one or two losses.

DeChellis wasn't accepted- and to this day a guy like Rod Shaw will try to criticize him (best he'll say is "I didn't like him")- because of geographic bigotry, the fact Bill Meade was laughingly getting people to believe the local high school coach was the second coming of Rick Pitino, and the fact he was the "unknown" of the four candidates interviewed.

Made no difference he was "throwing people off the team." Actually, the players own lack of enthusiasm for classwork did that.

Nobody weeps over a player thrown off a 7-20 team. They generally WANT players thrown off a 7-20 team.

That responce from Mullins shows you how dense he is.

"Oh, I think people wouldn't accept teams from Philadelphia and New York."

Meanwhile, Sullivan County is trying to recruit people from those areas to start businesses here under the logic that people tend to follow Interstates.

I don't know if that's true or not. I do know if people from Harrisonburg can accept the CAA, I don't know why people from Johnson City can't.

Regardless, I doubt they would have had us.

Concerning C-USA- you know- I think it would have been admirable to have pursued that conference.

And had Mullins WAITED to drop football, it might have been possible. You could have easily after another losing season in football and another NCAA berth that ETSU was looking to get bigger time in hoops- and they might be able to join a conference like that if their facilities were better- so if we get rid of the financial drain of the gridiron . . .

Instead, they leapt before they looked.

One conference we haven't mentioned is the OVC.

It's all premature, of course, but let's discuss this.

Jeff Long, the AD at Pitt and formerly the AD of Eastern Kentucky, told me personally that the OVC wanted ETSU back in when they had a football program and such.

Now, it is my belief the Southern Conference is not going to let ETSU back in as long as they have Mullins and Stanton. They will look at the way they handled dropping football as dishonest- and it was- and the fact is the So Con doesn't need them.

So, would the OVC renew its interest with a football team?

Something to ponder.

Stanton will be in a condo in Palm Beach when football is started back, making one cameo for the first game. He's not the issue. Dave could be, but I doubt it, most university presidents don't want an incompetent horses ass as an athletic director. Patience, they're both going away.
I say to hell with the OVC, doesn't really fit ETSU the way the BSC and Socon do.
Here's you a project (since I know you don't have a date, but if you do don't wear that penguins starter jacket, it won't get you a second date), look up the distances in mileage for the OVC schools and compare them to the A-Sun. I mean would we really be better off travel wise going to Missouri? I mean yea, we have three in-state teams but they're all on the other side of the state, and I personally don't want ETSU anywhere near anything that Wayne Andrews could be at. He's worse than a raging hemorrhoid with Walgreens out of Preparation H.

THe problem with your scenario is that every public comment I have ever received from David Mullins from his bosses is that he isn't just doing a great job, but is likely the greatest athletic director of all time.

We see him as the man who killed football and got ETSU kicked into the A-Sun and can't hire a coach to save his life- and that is accurate.

What I am afraid ETSU will see him as is the loyal man of 17 years service who has seen to it that women's soccer is televised on the internet and will stick up for volleyball so it isn't overshadowed by football.

So he will stay on and hire a poor coach and there will be more politics than ever before in ETSU athletics.

Right now there are several coaches who NO WAY NO HOW want football to return- and we haven't talked about this.

You think Tony Skole- who revived the baseball team somewhat on going into the Atlantic Sun- wants to leave the conference and have a football stadium on the wish list of athletic facilities along with his baseball field?

You think Murry Bartow wants to give up his only recruiting tool that he'll have- the promise of a new arena- so he can play in the now dramatically falling Vault of Victory in ANOTHER mid-major conference that won't get on TV?

You think Fred Warren wants to have his golf donors now hit with a feel good gladhander from a football team?

See, you're looking at a price tag on Dec. 20 coming out. Now- my guess is that the task force is a tool used to try and generate the funding for the proposed athletic facilities that nobody really is gung ho about right now.

kevster Wrote:I found a program guide from a game I attended in 1991. Basketball. I couldn't believe the teams we played back then. Our out of conference (regular season) schedule included:

NC State
Tennessee
Southern Miss (home & away)
Oral Roberts (home & away)
Xavier
James Madison

And, if I remember correctly, we won all these games except one of the Oral Roberts games.

We also played in a Christmas tourney in Tokyo, but I don't know what teams were in the tournament.

I've forgotten who else was on the schedule, but I did notice this. By far, the weakest team on the schedule was Wofford. No NAIA teams. No Division II teams.

I also looked at the schedules for the few years before 91. They did include one or two smaller schools, but NOTHING like what we have now.

I don't want to hear any more of this "Our schedule has always looked like this" bull. It hasn't always looked like this. All of the ASun teams are weaker than any of the teams mentioned above. Most of theme are weaker than the weakest teams in the Southern Conference.

We've gone from:

Late 80's: Being a strong Mid-sized Division I program
Early 90's: Being a national power (top 20 ratings, big wins)
Late 90's & Early 2000s: Southern Conference Power, Ocassional exposure nationally
Current: Middle of the Pack team in possibly the worst conference in America

And get this: One of the reasons I became such a rabid ETSU fan was that while I was living in South Florida in the late 80s (86-89), I got to see almost all of ETSU's bball games on television. One of the networks (not a southern, but national network) carried all of their home games and some of their away games.

Things have SERIOUSLY changes, and a lot of folks want to act like nothing has changed. We steadily declined. We've barely got any room to drop, except to become a poor ASun team. Then that's it.

Good old Keyster, still passionate as heck and still dead wrong but by golly he will continue to rant, rave and post and totally miss the point. As I posted in the other thread during the 4 year NCAA run of Robinson/Leforce we played 9 team not in Div I. Believe what you want, the facts are there in the media guide. Read the threads, I am not the only one who knows you are wrong, in fact the only person who doesn't know that yet is you.

Fred was never against football, he just doesn't want his money touched, which his fine. I don't have a problem with him trying to do his own thing, until it interferes with the betterment of the university. That's been the problem all along, the Warrens, Dave Walkers, Mullins, etc... doing their own private fundraising and then getting pissed off when ETSU tries to set up their athletic department like every successful department in the country.
You didn't get answer my question though Pitt, I'm disappointed. Seriously, look up the distances between the OVC vs. the A-Sun and tell us geographically which one is closer.
And on those public comments, Rich Rodriguez said he was never interested in the Alabama job, Franchione was never leaving for Texas aTm, Jim Mora, Jr. was just "kidding" when he said he would leave the Falcons for the Washington job if it ever came open, after he said he was dead serious. Marky you forget that ETSU people know who you are, and they aren't going to say anything to you that gives you an inkling of an idea that they don't like the job Mullins has done. Now I'm not saying that they do or don't admire his work, but the President wants football back, he needs a scapegoat to make himself look good. Wait and see if Dave isn't "re-assigned" to a different department or if he just doesn't retire altogether in the next year or two.

Quote:See, you're looking at a price tag on Dec. 20 coming out.

How much do you want to bet your wrong?

They might mention how much money we have to raise, but they have a plan to get it. They arent just going to say "OK, we need 5 mill a year, go raise it!". There is a specific plan, much would come from student fees.

If he says yes, we are bringing it back, he isnt going to give some deadline for raising funds.

I got a friend that said he would atleast bet the F he got in Sports Broadcasting class on it.
I'm with Fan1 here, Dec. 20th my gut feeling is some crazy stuff is going down.

The final meeting is the 20th...look for some kind of annoucement later next week.

VolLover- Again you show your head is in the sand.

I'm talking about statements Stanton has made in press conferences- not to me.

The thing that has me believing Mullins is the AD for life is-

A- Public comments made to other reporters.

Can you imagine an AD anywhere else who has so mismanaged the athletic department and then had the President say publicly not that he gives him a vote of confidence, but he's the best they've ever had?

B- The fact that Stanton or the school at large believes firing Mullins outright would be an act of disloyalty to a man who has been at ETSU for 20 years and that he gives stability to the position that an outside search would not provide.

C- That Johnson City Honda Commercial. When I heard that- I thought "ONLY IN JOHNSON CITY!"

Can you imagine an AD anywhere else who would muscle his way on to advertisements such as this for a public persona? Not to mention his prominent display on the ETSU website and such?

I can see coaches making an ad like this- after all- if I'm Lubbock Chevy do I want Bobby Knight endorsing my dealership or the AD at Texas Tech- whoever he is?

But an AD- and a poor one at that? You have to be kidding.

But that is just a way Mullins is saving his keester. Give him credit. He's stayed on for three years screwing everything up by making himself so visible- and visible in his profession equates with success.

D- The way Mullins has gotten away- disgracefully- with choosing his own media- so he goes unchallenged.

E- The fact I think enough smaller coaches- volleyball, golf, etc.- see Mullins as a guy who will protect their funding.

I hope you are right- VolLover. I really and truly do.

But I see evidence- overwhelming evidence- to the contrary, and you have yet to refute it with anything approaching concrete evidence.

I'm wrong, ETSU1?

Kindly read the following article from the Press this past week-

Football task force to finish study next week

By Kelly Hodge
Press Managing Sports Editor
khodge@johnsoncitypress.com

A co-chair of the task force studying the feasibility of resuming scholarship football at East Tennessee State says a final report should be presented to university president Dr. Paul Stanton next week.

Now that you've done that- read that last paragraph-

Quote:Then it has to go through the TBR.

Is that a slam dunk? I don't know.

But the fact is next week will be very telling, but it won't be very final.

I will agree with you on all of this...

So what was the deal with the previous post?

The TBR will have a hard time telling ETSU no when they allow yearly increases at Memphis and MTSU...
And that's just it Pitt, PUBLIC COMMENTS=Coachspeak! I mean yea, it would be nice to see Stanton come out publicly and say, Mullins is garbage, but he's not going to do that in a direct way. It's the same deal as App a few years ago when the chancellor "reassigned" the athletic director to the English department. He basically thanked him for his years of service by finding him a job in another deppartment so he would have his retirement with the state.

No- if Stanton was going to give Coachspeak- he would have said "Mullins has done a fine job under difficult times."

He said he was the best the school ever had. That isn't coachspeak. Lou Holtz would say in the nineties when Notre Dame would play Pitt "I have too much respect for a University of Pittsburgh program to overlook them" when the Panthers come in at 3-7.

He wouldn't say "3-7 Pitt is the finest machine I have ever seen."

There is a difference. One is coachspeak and really not that dishonest. Phil Fulmer says he has respect for the Vanderbilt program or the Commodores are playing well and better than their 2-8 record indicates. Okay- we can see that.

Calling Vanderbilt the greatest team of all time is something else entirely.


Anywhere else, Stanton would be laughed out the door, called a liar, and forced to stand up to his comments.

Here, we plead for him to change his mind and PLEASE PLEASE BRING BACK FOOTBALL!

Really? Where else Pitt? In Wheeling at the register? Is that what the fighting Jesuites do? Give me a break. It's called respect, though some of our media is a little spineless and weak at times they try to show a little class, it's called having social skills and building relationships. At the end of the day if you tell someone they are full of Sh!t publicly, they probably aren't going to give you the time of day in an interview later on, and if they do, it'll be very static, mundane responses that sound like the guy is reading off of an index card.