Papa Lou BSU Wrote:Quote:That's the excuse NIU's AD probably gives and that is the excuse that NIU fans want to believe. It's a shame that you guys want to believe that BS though.
In reality that has nothing to do with it. Of all the OOC teams you guys have played in the last 8-10 years, only Maryland, Wake Forest, and Iowa State came to NIU. Illinois, Northwestern, Auburn, Vanderbilt, and Iowa are all teams that you have played that I would think you should have got some kind of return trip to your stadium. Maybe not Auburn, but the rest for sure.
You were able to get Iowa State to come to Dekalb, but Iowa won't........so don't say it is a location thing as Ames is only about 90 minutes or so further than Iowa City is from the Chicago area.
Or you could continue to yammer on about something you clearly know nothing about and make an arse of yourself...
Iowa's game at Miami in 2002 was scheduled in the late 90s, when Iowa was at the bottom of the Big Ten, when their home attendance was slumping and when they had far less leverage to refuse 2-for-1s. Well, guess what, since Ferentz arrived, the team has had a few Top Ten finishes, and every home game is sold out at 71,000 fans. To top it off, they just finished a $70 million renovation of Kinnick Stadium a year ago.
Put simply, Iowa's not giving a non-conference home game to any non-BCS team in the near future, much less a team that plays in a 31,000-seat stadium. That's not excuse-making. That's not b.s. That's reality. Cold, economic reality.
And the fact that you think Auburn (or Alabama, for that matter) would be willing to travel north of the Mason-Dixon line to play *anyone*, much less a MAC school, giving up an 86,000-fan gate at home, shows how disconnected from the real world you are.
Oh, and Vandy *did* play at NIU, which you'd know if you did a little research before spouting off.
In the past ten years, NIU has had home games against Louisville, Kansas State, Vandy, USF, Wake Forest, Maryland and Iowa State. I think they're doing okay, especially compared to most other teams in the MAC.
(And you really run off the rails when you try to compare Iowa and Iowa State's Chicago fan bases. Iowa State barely exists here, but there are a ton of Iowa grads roaming around...)
Papa Lou - I did end up saying maybe not Auburn and it was exactly because of what you said. Did you read my whole post before ripping on it?
Now, you do mention that Iowa is not going to any non-bcs stadium in the near future and that is true. But it is more because they are only playing a couple of DI-A non-bcs schools in the next 5 years. In 2006 the only non-bcs teams on their schedule is Northern Illinois and DI-AA Montana. Even the MAC will not play at a DI-AA school so you really can't count that one. In 2007 they play NIU at Soldier Field and host Western Michigan. In 2008 they host Florida International. And I-AA Northern Iowa is on the schedule in 2009.
So, they play against three DI-A non-bcs schools in the next five years.......NIU, WMU, and Florida International. That's not very many opportunities to get Iowa to come to your stadium. Having a few I-AA's on the schedule may also show that either they are afraid to play a mid-major on the road, the other mid-majors have told Iowa to F themselves if they won't play in their home stadium, or a combination of both.
The lack of mid-majors on their future schedules could really hurt Iowa. They are not a Top 15 team right now. They went 7-5 last year, and that was with beating DI-AA Northern Iowa and Ball State for two of those wins. They also got to play and beat bad teams in Illinois, Purdue, and Indiana. That's five wins against easier competition. The future doesn't have such easy schedules.
In 2002 they played three mid-majors in Akron, Miami University, and Utah State. During those years of winning 9-11 games they were playing at least two mid-majors per year.
Now, I originally said that one of the realities is that NIU does not have the tradition in football that Miami University has and therefore you should be able to see the difference in leverage. Below I have re-posted my original message for you to read. I stand by that message 100%. You can say I know nothing of what I am talking about, and that is your opinion, but I stand by it.
You attack my mentioning of Vanderbilt and not even mention I later said the home game for NIU happened earlier than I researched back. That is bound to happen sometimes. The only way to keep something like that from happening is to research all the way back to when NIU started playing football.
You mention home games against Louisville and Kansas State and say that is better than most MAC teams. The problem is that NIU wasn't a MAC team back when those games were scheduled, nor played. Louisville was in a transition from the Metro to Conference USA then too, and hardly considered a top football team. And the Vanderbilt series was even scheduled before NIU was back in the MAC. You know, that was during their "we're going bigger" phase. So Papa Lou, maybe you should get your facts straight before trying to twist them the way you want.