The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

I want football to come back strong, with on OCS announced when it comes back.

I'd rather have no football than football stuck in DII or FCS for eternity. So when it comes back I want the plan for it to be back, in a group of 5 conference, with an on campus stadium, even if it take longer to get back that way.

(03-22-2015 07:00 PM)BamaScorpio69 Wrote:  I am so sick of people telling us something is a pipe dream when they have no f'n clue as to what the **** they are talking about. I'm sorry for the expletives but this is just ridiculous. The same person saying the MVC is a pipe dream also said UAB would never lose football. I'm not listening to you anymore. I am done with you and these f'n scare tactics posts.

1. Our football team is gone.
2. We can't stay in CUSA without football.
3. I want UAB Basketball in the best conference available when #2 officially happens.

So if you think the basketball supporters is the minority on this board, what you're spewing Cajun is only pushing that minority further away. You need to ease up with the rhetoric and stop with the "I know all mentality!"

Fight the fight but don't alienated those who want to fight but may not share the same deep passion for football as some of us have for basketball. We're not dummies.

1. I certainly don't recall ever saying or writing that we would not lose football, but if you want to pull up that post, please do. Otherwise we will have to assume you imagined it.

2. I was a basketball fan as a kid long before I was football fan. I was a UAB basketball fan, season ticket holder, and Green and Gold member long before Gene ever considered starting a football team. I suspect that I have been supporting UAB basketball far longer than most people on this board. Since basketball has brought far more national recognition to UAB than football, if I were forced to chose between the two, I would chose basketball.

3. We can and will stay in C-USA without football through the 2015-16 school year unless Watts sets out to personally offend each and every President in the conference. C-USA has every reason in the world to allow UAB the time to sort through the football issue before they make any decision. The fact that UAB's basketball team has the potential to bring even more tournament money at $1.6 million a game next year, The C-USA Presidents would be fools to prematurely show us the door when they have nothing to lose by waiting.

4. If it becomes obvious that we will never get our football program back, I would be more than happy for UAB to land in the MVC; it's a fine basketball conference. I just don't think that it is feasible, and until Scarbinski mentioned the possibility, I don't believe many other people gave it much of a shot.

5. Since money rules, conferences usually consider expansion only if they believe that bringing in additional members will increase their annual per member net revenue. Most MVC member schools can bus their athletes to in-conference competitions. Flying their teams to Birmingham is not going help their bottom lines. Even if the MVC decides to expand, and there has been absolutely no indication that they will, there are plenty of good basketball schools within their geographical footprint from which to pick. Also splitting conference money eleven or twelve ways instead of ten is not usually conducive to increasing members' bottom lines.

6. Watts can not be trusted to even try to ensure that UAB ends up in the best possible conference. In addition I cannot believe that Watts is respected by any of his peers and they have no reason to trust anything that he says. We no longer have Gene Bartow working to get us into the best possible conference, we have Ray Watts. If that doesn't scare the hell out of you, nothing will.

7. Even if you don't give a rip about the football program, we had all better fight like hell to keep it so we can stay in C-USA, because if we are kicked out that can't be considered a good thing. There are only a finite number of other possible options and most of them are not good ones. I believe that Coach Haas can indeed build our program into winner which has the potential to do some real damage in the tournament every year and our best chance of keeping him at UAB is remaining in C-USA. As others have pointed out he is not likely to leave except for an elite position if everything remains the same. If we have to move to another conference I think that all bets or off unless we are lucky.

8. Even if everything goes incredibly well and we end up in conference at least as good as the MVC, that doesn't bode well for UAB because that will mean that we won't have a football program. And if we can't get our football team back, that will mean that Watts and the BOT will still have UAB in a headlock. We are not just fighting to get our football program back, though that may be the main incentive for some. I recently heard from a very reliable source that every Dean in UAB's administration strongly believes that the ultimate target of Watts and the BOT is the entire UAB undergraduate program. We are fighting for the very existence of UAB as we know it. In that context the football and basketball issues pale in comparison because there may be no need for an athletic program if they remain in control.

Far from trying to drive people apart, I started this tread to try ensure that we are all on the same page, fighting like hell for the same cause. If I was clumsy in that attempt, please forgive me. I am passionate because while this is by far the worst situation we have ever faced at UAB, our opponents have also handed us the best opportunity we will ever have to rid our University of vice grip of the BOT. Let's not let our petty differences distract us from the task at hand.

That was a much better post. Your first post was not clumsy. It was meant to attack and antagonize.

And you still don't get it Cajun. First, our differences aren't petty. Second, having differences of opinions doesn't change the objective. You need to stop berating the basketball supporters and stay on topic. And that goes for several of you. The basketball supporters aren't your enemies.

Having a contingency plan (ie plan for where to put athletics if football isn't restored through legislation) is not giving up or suggesting that we won't get football back. It simply means that through our planning and strategy, we need to have a backup plan in case our current objectives are not immediately realized.

I'm still optimistic we will see some benefit from the legislation. But let's say that they decide to restructure the board. That will take some time and still would likely be a while before we would get the football thing overturned and get a football team out on the field.

In the mean time, we need to recognize that CUSA may not continue to stand for the delays. In that case, we need to seek a conference that allows for success and higher profile in the remaining major sport at UAB- men's basketball. WHEN, not if, football is restored we would obviously have to look at a new conference if we land in a non football league. But I would rather that than to be relegated to OVC or something where there is FCS football.

+1 on Cajun's post. It has been said a 1000 times that this fight is about way more than sports. It's all about Montgomery for the next few weeks.

(03-22-2015 10:45 PM)BlazeNBham Wrote:  Watts pr firm threw some bait and some of you bit. There is no money in the MVC, we don't have money to waste on traveling expenses. CUSA has just went though realignment, so of course it's going to struggle.

Can't understand why y'all would believe watts is actually in negotiations to get UAB into another conference. He doesn't care about UAB athletics.

We have lots of extra money to spend on travel. Remember all that football money is going to be reallocated to make our other sports compete at the highest levels? I mean look at the raises all our coaches received a few months back.

(03-23-2015 07:16 AM)UABGrad Wrote:  +1 on Cajun's post. It has been said a 1000 times that this fight is about way more than sports. It's all about Montgomery for the next few weeks.

Then he should stay on topic about that. Whether or not the MVC is a pipe dream is irrelevant to this conversation and doesn't stop the fight.

(03-23-2015 07:35 AM)BamaScorpio69 Wrote:  

(03-23-2015 07:16 AM)UABGrad Wrote:  +1 on Cajun's post. It has been said a 1000 times that this fight is about way more than sports. It's all about Montgomery for the next few weeks.

Then he should stay on topic about that. Whether or not the MVC is a pipe dream is irrelevant to this conversation and doesn't stop the fight.

Gee, I thought I knew what the topic was since I started it, but obviously I stand corrected.

But to directly address your main concern, perhaps the use of term "pipe dream" was a bit strong, so I apologize. However, I think I adequately addressed the reasons why the MVC might not consider UAB a good fit.

However, getting back to what I thought that I was the main point of this topic, I was concerned that some were becoming fixated on the first partial solution which suddenly popped up and appeared to be thinking that if this solution actually materialized we would survive quite nicely. (Sorry if I misinterpreted they way people like you were thinking; I have only what has been written to go on.)

I was pointing out that I my opinion if we somehow managed to land in the MVC we would be far from "okay", that it would actually mean that we had fought the good fight and we had lost. It would mean, again in my humble opinion, that despite all of our hard work our university would still be in the grip of those appear to be intent on marginalizing undergraduate studies and undoing all of the progress made under past UAB Presidents to establish a true college campus atmosphere at UAB.

In short I was trying to insure that we didn't relax and give into to what some obviously consider the inevitable at the first glimmer of hope that we might possibly end up in a decent basketball conference. As many leaders of the FreeUAB movement have said time and time again, the disbanding of the football program might be what got peoples' blood boiling and ready to fight, but this is about far more than just football.

Until UaB can control itself and therefore it's own destiny; it doesn't matter what we have. If what we have is shiny, pretty, new, or better than theirs, then our big brother will try to take it or kill it.