(04-08-2013 08:57 AM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  JMU will take as much time as they are given. They feel that they would be doing the SBC a favor by coming on board. If you keep that in mind you have a better chance of keeping your sanity. Or at least know who to blame.

The ball is completely in the Sun Belt's court. According to what's been "reported" they have other options, if the SBC doesn't think JMU's worth the wait - and at a certain point that will happen - they can move on.

I really hope JMU doesn't bother to make a lateral move to the MAC if they are already a member of the SBC, especially when App State and Ga Southern are in your conference. If and when we join the SBC, I no longer view the MAC as a viable upgrade option. It's CUSA or higher.

(04-07-2013 01:10 PM)runamuck Wrote:  

(04-07-2013 12:51 PM)GoApps70 Wrote:  We should really start a Texas football thread, JMU to the Sun Belt seems to have played out talk wise, just waiting for an announcement now.

Have heard it said many times, normally by Texans, how much they love football in Texas.
Then teams say they cannot draw crowds because they play in the FCS. Is that true?
Is every team in Texas helped by moving to the FBS?

the second tier schools like unt will get their own loyal core of fans to come out but there are not enough of those to build a big time operation on. you have to put out a product that is enticing to the typical sports fan to get them to buy tickets and drive across the metro area to Denton. and you have to have wide spread recognition before people in Peoria will tune in or go online and order that sweatshirt or cap..when unt or texas state plays an in state rival you have two core groups of fans and if there is enough hype about the game, then a few walk-ups will come. If unt or texas state schedules one of the top schools such as ut-austin or texas tech or tcu for a home game you would have a broader base of interest. I thought the belt was wise not to invite utsa for they have literally no facilities and have even been in existence that long..but I was wrong because they were able to get use of the alamo dome and without playing a down of football they were able to schedule home games with ok state and virginia and baylor and arizona and others and no sun belt school or c-usa school could pull that off. because of that they leapfrogged past many potential move-ups. they showed everybody that they werent going to dick around.

UTSA's scheduling had little to do with being selected by CUSA. UTSA is going to get trounced by those teams on their schedule.
Their chances were enhanced by the fact that no pro football team moved to San Antonio. CUSA had selected them purely on market because their facilities are subpar.

You are correct about Texas State scheduling Texas Tech last year which attendance exceeded our newly expanded stadium capacity. The capacity was 30,000 and 33,000 attended the game. We had to bring in temporary bleachers for that game. It is funny that Texas State's attendance for 2012 was on par with UNT in our first year.

(04-08-2013 09:15 AM)Cat79 Wrote:  

(04-07-2013 01:10 PM)runamuck Wrote:  

(04-07-2013 12:51 PM)GoApps70 Wrote:  We should really start a Texas football thread, JMU to the Sun Belt seems to have played out talk wise, just waiting for an announcement now.

Have heard it said many times, normally by Texans, how much they love football in Texas.
Then teams say they cannot draw crowds because they play in the FCS. Is that true?
Is every team in Texas helped by moving to the FBS?

the second tier schools like unt will get their own loyal core of fans to come out but there are not enough of those to build a big time operation on. you have to put out a product that is enticing to the typical sports fan to get them to buy tickets and drive across the metro area to Denton. and you have to have wide spread recognition before people in Peoria will tune in or go online and order that sweatshirt or cap..when unt or texas state plays an in state rival you have two core groups of fans and if there is enough hype about the game, then a few walk-ups will come. If unt or texas state schedules one of the top schools such as ut-austin or texas tech or tcu for a home game you would have a broader base of interest. I thought the belt was wise not to invite utsa for they have literally no facilities and have even been in existence that long..but I was wrong because they were able to get use of the alamo dome and without playing a down of football they were able to schedule home games with ok state and virginia and baylor and arizona and others and no sun belt school or c-usa school could pull that off. because of that they leapfrogged past many potential move-ups. they showed everybody that they werent going to dick around.

UTSA's scheduling had little to do with being selected by CUSA. UTSA is going to get trounced by those teams on their schedule.
Their chances were enhanced by the fact that no pro football team moved to San Antonio. CUSA had selected them purely on market because their facilities are subpar.

You are correct about Texas State scheduling Texas Tech last year which attendance exceeded our newly expanded stadium capacity. The capacity was 30,000 and 33,000 attended the game. We had to bring in temporary bleachers for that game. It is funny that Texas State's attendance for 2012 was on par with UNT in our first year.

Not if you take away the Tech game. After that it got ugly fast. Then we were just like our brothers to the north. Attendance will be intersting this year with no big team like Tech coming to San Marcos. The AD better get creative and proactive to market and sell games.

(04-08-2013 09:12 AM)JMUDukeDawg Wrote:  

(04-08-2013 08:57 AM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  JMU will take as much time as they are given. They feel that they would be doing the SBC a favor by coming on board. If you keep that in mind you have a better chance of keeping your sanity. Or at least know who to blame.

The ball is completely in the Sun Belt's court. According to what's been "reported" they have other options, if the SBC doesn't think JMU's worth the wait - and at a certain point that will happen - they can move on.

That's the point. JMU is not making a decision until they absolutely have to make one. Of course, you make a good point too. Apparently the powers that be in the SBC think JMU is doing them a favor too since they are waiting on JMU.

(04-08-2013 09:08 AM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  

(04-08-2013 09:03 AM)gostAte870 Wrote:  

(04-08-2013 08:57 AM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  JMU will take as much time as they are given. They feel that they would be doing the SBC a favor by coming on board. If you keep that in mind you have a better chance of keeping your sanity. Or at least know who to blame.

Only the programs that haven't played a down as an FBS member feel that James Madison would be during the SBC this huge favor by joining.

I would say ONLY JMU feels they would be doing the SBC a favor. Unless, you hate a certain school a tad south of Harrisonburg. Then you would think JMU was doing the SBC a favor by keeping them out!

We probably need to separate what JMU fans think from what the JMU admin actually thinks. There are JMU fans that think that if we don't get in the AAC (or ACC) we're selling ourselves short...

The admin knows that there are advantages and disadvantages to this move. From a football standpoint, I don't think there's much question that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages (travel being the main one). However, my guess is the SBC wants us all in, and I don't blame them unless there's a possibility of getting NMSU in for all sports and swapping us out.

I don't think that the admin has considered the SBC viable until the additions of ASU and GSU so I think that we need some time to think about it and I think the Sun Belt's respecting that. However, I don't think they'll wait as long as JMU needs and this will end up passing us by - not because we're too good for it, but because we weren't ready for it.

You would think that any school would be somewhat prepared and know what they want to do with everything that has been going on in FBS and FCS. These things affect every school.

(04-08-2013 09:40 AM)GoApps70 Wrote:  You would think that any school would be somewhat prepared and know what they want to do with everything that has been going on in FBS and FCS. These things affect every school.

I agree. From that standpoint it's completely on JMU. What we don't know is how much communication goes on between conferences and schools during the whole process. I would think that JMU should have known about ASU and GSU well before it happened, but who knows.

My guess is that without those two, the Sun Belt wasn't much of a possibility based on travel alone and we really only started looking at the Sun Belt after that, but again, your guess is as good as mine.

At this point, IMO, JMU is being treated as royalty by the SBC. And JMU is acting like it. What other school would be allowed this much leeway? I find it difficult to believe that the Administration didn't have a contingency plan for this.

JMU is being treated the same way Montana was with the WAC. But when JMU is by far the best option you give them a chance. Liberty is like Lamar was for the WAC. Super willing to do anyting to get in. The SBC can wait until the last possible second to ask Liberty and they will pull out the ballons and streamers from a closet they have waiting for an invite.

(04-08-2013 09:51 AM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  At this point, IMO, JMU is being treated as royalty by the SBC. And JMU is acting like it. What other school would be allowed this much leeway? I find it difficult to believe that the Administration didn't have a contingency plan for this.

Again, I think it depends on how this went down several months ago. Nobody really knows when JMU had their study done. If it was before we knew anything about ASU and GSU, it may not have included the Sun Belt as a possibility - which I will admit is short-sighted; I'm no great champion of our administration.

But, we also have to consider that there are a lot of moving parts in this whole discussion. Folks have speculated for a while that a MAC invite was contingent on UMass going all sports or getting out. We don't know if any ultimatums have been given or what promises/reassurances were given to JMU on that front. I think the MAC is preferable from a travel standpoint for JMU - IMO other advantages are negligible.

Some news sources are saying that ODU is lobbying for a CUSA invite for JMU. That travel is better than the SBC, but not as good as the MAC and comes with some known rivalries. Who knows what's going on behind those closed doors?

It's very easy for us to say "Man, how could they not know this and plan for it?" when they actually could've planned for it and either things fell through or unexpected changes occurred.

(04-08-2013 09:18 AM)slycat Wrote:  

(04-08-2013 09:15 AM)Cat79 Wrote:  

(04-07-2013 01:10 PM)runamuck Wrote:  

(04-07-2013 12:51 PM)GoApps70 Wrote:  We should really start a Texas football thread, JMU to the Sun Belt seems to have played out talk wise, just waiting for an announcement now.

Have heard it said many times, normally by Texans, how much they love football in Texas.
Then teams say they cannot draw crowds because they play in the FCS. Is that true?
Is every team in Texas helped by moving to the FBS?

the second tier schools like unt will get their own loyal core of fans to come out but there are not enough of those to build a big time operation on. you have to put out a product that is enticing to the typical sports fan to get them to buy tickets and drive across the metro area to Denton. and you have to have wide spread recognition before people in Peoria will tune in or go online and order that sweatshirt or cap..when unt or texas state plays an in state rival you have two core groups of fans and if there is enough hype about the game, then a few walk-ups will come. If unt or texas state schedules one of the top schools such as ut-austin or texas tech or tcu for a home game you would have a broader base of interest. I thought the belt was wise not to invite utsa for they have literally no facilities and have even been in existence that long..but I was wrong because they were able to get use of the alamo dome and without playing a down of football they were able to schedule home games with ok state and virginia and baylor and arizona and others and no sun belt school or c-usa school could pull that off. because of that they leapfrogged past many potential move-ups. they showed everybody that they werent going to dick around.

UTSA's scheduling had little to do with being selected by CUSA. UTSA is going to get trounced by those teams on their schedule.
Their chances were enhanced by the fact that no pro football team moved to San Antonio. CUSA had selected them purely on market because their facilities are subpar.

You are correct about Texas State scheduling Texas Tech last year which attendance exceeded our newly expanded stadium capacity. The capacity was 30,000 and 33,000 attended the game. We had to bring in temporary bleachers for that game. It is funny that Texas State's attendance for 2012 was on par with UNT in our first year.

Not if you take away the Tech game. After that it got ugly fast. Then we were just like our brothers to the north. Attendance will be intersting this year with no big team like Tech coming to San Marcos. The AD better get creative and proactive to market and sell games.

Even if you take the Tech game out the numbers Texas State has an average over the required 15,000. We have averaged over 15,000 two years in a row. You are forgetting about Wyoming this year. I think the attendance for that game is going to be over 20,000

(04-08-2013 09:54 AM)slycat Wrote:  JMU is being treated the same way Montana was with the WAC. But when JMU is by far the best option you give them a chance. Liberty is like Lamar was for the WAC. Super willing to do anyting to get in. The SBC can wait until the last possible second to ask Liberty and they will pull out the ballons and streamers from a closet they have waiting for an invite.

Are you saying that Liberty will be coming out of the closet for a SBC invite???

(04-08-2013 09:54 AM)slycat Wrote:  JMU is being treated the same way Montana was with the WAC. But when JMU is by far the best option you give them a chance. Liberty is like Lamar was for the WAC. Super willing to do anyting to get in. The SBC can wait until the last possible second to ask Liberty and they will pull out the ballons and streamers from a closet they have waiting for an invite.

What about Mo State? JSU? Etc. this is time they could get things set in motion. LU would join the day before the season! But there are other options than LU

James Madison would be an excellent addition for the east. I'm a little concerned about the western part of the SBC as the UL's, stAte, and Texas St start feeling left out on many levels. They want no part of Lamar, Sam Houston, McNeese, etc. It'd be nice if UT-A rebooted football and Mizz St made the move.

In the Eastern SBC footprint, there is still Chattanooga, Jax St and Richmond and William and Mary could move if they wanted, but I doubt they will.