I've seen a lot of WKU fans complaining about Waters and while he's no visionary, this is not the great bowl debacle of '08.
I'm not saying this to be a jerk, because for the SBC to reach its potential, it needs a strong WKU.
But the truth of the matter is that WKU went from having one of the best ADs in the league (Selig) to one that is completely un-plugged in and just a puppet for the president.
How do you think MT has gotten all the TV games we have gotten recently? Not the conference office, but our AD.
WKU fans, have you noticed a drop off in scheduling and TV games across all sports? (Especially Bball?)) It's because Selig took Ransdell's fall on Elson and now you have a bad, Icelandic pop singer running the show (or at least being told how to run the show.)
All things being equal, Selig would have pulled the strings and gotten you in a bowl. i think most of you know that.
Can't say I disagree with you. Our president wants to be the end all be all. Sad days.
Having a strong AD is incredibly important. I think AD Garcia has done a great job at FIU. He had been working the St. Pete bowl for a while....
FIU fans jumped on the Beef O’Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl bandwagon over the past week, flooding the bowl’s Twitter and Facebook sites with pleas, promises and arguments for the bowl taking the Panthers. FIU athletic director Pete Garcia has been doing that since October.
Back then, FIU remained one of the favorites for the Sun Belt title. The Sun Belt has bowl affiliations with the New Orleans Bowl and the GoDaddy.com Bowl, although neither is required to take the conference champion. In fact, this year, the New Orleans Bowl took Louisiana-Lafayette, while the latter game took Sun Belt champion Arkansas State.
Still, it’s not hard to see why Garcia would begin romancing the Beef O’Brady’s folks. The game is a three-to-four-hour drive for the vast majority of FIU’s 46,000 students, who would be on holiday break and could still spend Christmas and New Year’s at home (the game will be played on the first night of Hanukkah); there is the lower costs for FIU’s traveling party; and a spot in a game owned by ESPN Regional Television, which guarantees broad-based exposure across the ESPN empire.
“There are so many moving parts, to say things were changing by the day [this week] is an understatement,” Garcia said. “They were changing by the hour.”
Read more:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/04/25...z1fhVM6aZI
Although there's no doubt Selig was more seasoned and capable than our current AD, I don't know how anyone can say the result would have been different. Bjork was working the Compass Bowl hard, as well as a few other Bowls, and as the Compass Bowl even stated, had Houston won their game against against Southern Miss, WKU was an excellent candidate. WKU's lack of a Bowl bid was about contractual agreements and not about attendance, a certain loss, or AD skill, etc. this year. The dominos did not fall our way. Had Southern Miss lost and either Vandy or Miss St, I think WKU would have gotten a regional Bowl. What WKU fans are upset about is that the Sun Belt's 2nd Bowl tie-in is not required to take the 2nd place team. In essence, Louisiana got our only Bowl opportunity. Nothing against Lousiana, but it is what it is. I wish them luck in New Orleans. It's not Louisiana's fault. Those who mention previous Sun Belt teams who got left out, fail to mention that they didnt get passed over by a fellow Sun Belt team in a Sun Belt Bowl tie-in. Therein lies the crux of my frustration. And before you all jump in and tell me why Louisiana was chosen, I'm not arguing that the Bowl would not make more money with Louisiana. That much is obvious. No other conference has this issue. As I stated a couple weeks ago, this will happen to WKU every year we don't win the conference outright and Troy, USA, ULM or UL are Bowl eligible. Those 4 schools have a geographic advantage to the 2 current Bowl tie-ins and is unfair to the other conference teams.
Massaro had the Mobile Bowl locked down for us 10 minutes after we beat FIU in the regular season finale last year, per my sources.
All it took was a quick phone call to verify..... he had already done all of the legwork.
I think a lot of it is that WKU is the "new kid on the block". WKU hasn't paid its dues. To go to a bowl after only the 2nd year of playing D1 is probably too much to overcome from a perception point of view. It sucks, really. But I think it is also insulting to the conference that the number 2 team in the SBC is left out.
I can't blame the conference or the AD for this BS. In fact, it would appear the conference is getting stronger every year.
WKU AD's work on bowls
Please MT fans, don't flatter yourself. If MT had the exact same circumstance this year (ASU to GoDaddy, ULL to NO bowl, FIU to St. Pete), they don't get in. SBC doesn't get 4 teams in this year.
Massaro was working with 71 teams for 70 spots last year. He got on the phone last year and said we can take more fans than FIU and send them to Detroit. If SBC doesn't have Pizza Bowl tie-in last year, MT would have been working as an at-large and FIU would've gone to GoDaddy. Chances are better when only 1 team gets left out and SBC has 3 tie-ins with 3 bowl eligible.
(12-05-2011 07:09 PM)WKUApollo Wrote: [ -> ]Although there's no doubt Selig was more seasoned and capable than our current AD, I don't know how anyone can say the result would have been different. Bjork was working the Compass Bowl hard, as well as a few other Bowls, and as the Compass Bowl even stated, had Houston won their game against against Southern Miss, WKU was an excellent candidate. WKU's lack of a Bowl bid was about contractual agreements and not about attendance, a certain loss, or AD skill, etc. this year. The dominos did not fall our way. Had Southern Miss lost and either Vandy or Miss St, I think WKU would have gotten a regional Bowl. What WKU fans are upset about is that the Sun Belt's 2nd Bowl tie-in is not required to take the 2nd place team. In essence, Louisiana got our only Bowl opportunity. Nothing against Lousiana, but it is what it is. I wish them luck in New Orleans. It's not Louisiana's fault. Those who mention previous Sun Belt teams who got left out, fail to mention that they didnt get passed over by a fellow Sun Belt team in a Sun Belt Bowl tie-in. Therein lies the crux of my frustration. And before you all jump in and tell me why Louisiana was chosen, I'm not arguing that the Bowl would not make more money with Louisiana. That much is obvious. No other conference has this issue. As I stated a couple weeks ago, this will happen to WKU every year we don't win the conference outright and Troy, USA, ULM or UL are Bowl eligible. Those 4 schools have a geographic advantage to the 2 current Bowl tie-ins and is unfair to the other conference teams.
Yep, shame on Louisiana! They actually led the Sun Belt in attendance and went 2-2 in their out of conference schedule. Nothing against WKU.
Where a team places in sunbelt or any other conference is for pride and books only. Money talks and bull$%*t walks. While I do think WKU was the 2nd best team in the sunbelt ( and we proved that) having the late start in palying good is haunting us. I think most of us WKU fans are not upset at fiu,ark st or ull but the system itself. We know we are good enough to play in these games and could have preformed great and probably better than many teams playing in bowl games this season. WKU fans will be pulling for its sunbelt foes
WKU: Biggest Travesty
Quote:So what happened? Looks like WKU wasn't old-boy enough for the old-boy network. It's only the school's third year at the Division I-A level. "[The Sun Belt] only had two bowl tie-ins," says Stewart. "That’s what put us behind the eight-ball. The MAC has three tie-ins and four backups. They have relationships that we didn’t."
The SBC had 3 tie-ins / backups last year with the Pizza Bowl.
(12-05-2011 10:42 PM)wkuhilltopperfan Wrote: [ -> ]Where a team places in sunbelt or any other conference is for pride and books only. Money talks and bull$%*t walks. While I do think WKU was the 2nd best team in the sunbelt ( and we proved that) having the late start in palying good is haunting us. I think most of us WKU fans are not upset at fiu,ark st or ull but the system itself. We know we are good enough to play in these games and could have preformed great and probably better than many teams playing in bowl games this season. WKU fans will be pulling for its sunbelt foes
What is needed is more bowl tie-ins and a Commissioner that cares. Case in point looking forward. The WAC will have only one bowl tie-in for next year. Where do you think the previous bowl tie ins are going? A good Commissioner would be campaigning ASAP to make that possible.
Do not hold your breath on this one. WKU this year. Who next year?
The commish isn't the one that sets the number of bowls we can get or even the number of back ups. That is something that gets done every 4 years by some sort of formula. Unfortunately, the SBC's history showed only 2 bowl eligible teams with a 3rd team a possibility, it is what it is but to blame WW for the number of bowls the SBC has is unfair. The only thing they do control is the bowls that the league is affiliated with.
(12-06-2011 01:22 PM)FIU Panther Fan Wrote: [ -> ]The commish isn't the one that sets the number of bowls we can get or even the number of back ups. Thast is something that gets done every 4 years by some sort of formula. Unfortunately, the SBC's history showed only 2 bowl eligible teams with a 3rd team a possibility, it is what it is but to blame WW for the number of bowls the SBC has is unfair. The only thing they do control is the bowls that the league is affiliated with.
PantherFan, I am not sure I agree. Show me the formula that you are talking about. I made a case going forward. However, no answer!
(12-06-2011 01:22 PM)FIU Panther Fan Wrote: [ -> ]The commish isn't the one that sets the number of bowls we can get or even the number of back ups. Thast is something that gets done every 4 years by some sort of formula. Unfortunately, the SBC's history showed only 2 bowl eligible teams with a 3rd team a possibility, it is what it is but to blame WW for the number of bowls the SBC has is unfair. The only thing they do control is the bowls that the league is affiliated with.
I read that too, but its odd that I hear that when the same conferences are usually the same ones not able to fill bowl spots every year. Big Ten and SEC rarely fill their last bowl slot or 2, although big 10 did this year,
With that said, from 2008-2011 (this 4 year span) we've had 4, 4, 3, and 4 bowl eligible teams so that makes me optimistic that we will/should get another bowl tie in very soon, possibly/hopefully this offseason. While I'm happy that the Cajuns are a great regional fit for the 2 bowl games they have already, I hope that we get either a more northern one (maybe Birmingham) to help allow for WKU/MT in years they are bowl eligible, or maybe the St Pete bowl for FIU/FAU in years they are bowl eligible, which if no one noticed, one of those 2 has been bowl eligible 4 of the last 6 years. I think with UCF out of CUSA, I think the SBC is a better fit for that bowl, but I think that's also why we need FIU to show up big with a good crowd at that game to show their bowl that we are a better fit for them than CUSA.
Article on 2010 Certification
Also, if you read Pg. 12 of the following handbook, you will see the following (it is from the perspective of the Bowls):
Quote:Historical data will be used to determine if the primary conference agreements are feasable. If the licensing subcommittee determines a conference commitment is not historically supported, then a secondary agreement or agreeements are required to be submitted to ensure the bowl will have eligible participating teams.
NCAA Bowl Handbook
(12-06-2011 02:34 PM)FIU Panther Fan Wrote: [ -> ]Article on 2010 Certification
Also, if you read Pg. 12 of the following handbook, you will see the following (it is from the perspective of the Bowls):
Quote:Historical data will be used to determine if the primary conference agreements are feasable. If the licensing subcommittee determines a conference commitment is not historically supported, then a secondary agreement or agreeements are required to be submitted to ensure the bowl will have eligible participating teams.
NCAA Bowl Handbook
I will take time to read it. Good job!!
Interesting.
When is that four year period up? Who is going to replace WW?
Will the "Alliance" of the MWC and CUSA suffer in being combined?
Just asking, if you don't know, don't worry about it.
(12-06-2011 01:08 PM)Lafitte the Pirate Wrote: [ -> ] (12-05-2011 10:42 PM)wkuhilltopperfan Wrote: [ -> ]Where a team places in sunbelt or any other conference is for pride and books only. Money talks and bull$%*t walks. While I do think WKU was the 2nd best team in the sunbelt ( and we proved that) having the late start in palying good is haunting us. I think most of us WKU fans are not upset at fiu,ark st or ull but the system itself. We know we are good enough to play in these games and could have preformed great and probably better than many teams playing in bowl games this season. WKU fans will be pulling for its sunbelt foes
What is needed is more bowl tie-ins and a Commissioner that cares. Case in point looking forward. The WAC will have only one bowl tie-in for next year. Where do you think the previous bowl tie ins are going? A good Commissioner would be campaigning ASAP to make that possible.
Do not hold your breath on this one. WKU this year. Who next year?
More uneducated bashing of the outgoing commissioner.
Man if only he had cared enough to create bowl ties out of thin air...
(12-09-2011 01:19 PM)MTPiKapp Wrote: [ -> ] (12-06-2011 01:08 PM)Lafitte the Pirate Wrote: [ -> ] (12-05-2011 10:42 PM)wkuhilltopperfan Wrote: [ -> ]Where a team places in sunbelt or any other conference is for pride and books only. Money talks and bull$%*t walks. While I do think WKU was the 2nd best team in the sunbelt ( and we proved that) having the late start in palying good is haunting us. I think most of us WKU fans are not upset at fiu,ark st or ull but the system itself. We know we are good enough to play in these games and could have preformed great and probably better than many teams playing in bowl games this season. WKU fans will be pulling for its sunbelt foes
What is needed is more bowl tie-ins and a Commissioner that cares. Case in point looking forward. The WAC will have only one bowl tie-in for next year. Where do you think the previous bowl tie ins are going? A good Commissioner would be campaigning ASAP to make that possible.
Do not hold your breath on this one. WKU this year. Who next year?
More uneducated bashing of the outgoing commissioner.
Man if only he had cared enough to create bowl ties out of thin air...
He clearly didn't know that the commissioner didn't set the bowl tie-ins. But be very careful of whom you label uneducated, this guy owns his own company in Houston and is hardly uneducated. You always seem to toss around these terms when people either disagree with you or don't have all the information. I doubt very seriously that you were aware of this as well.
(12-09-2011 01:46 PM)CajunT Wrote: [ -> ] (12-09-2011 01:19 PM)MTPiKapp Wrote: [ -> ] (12-06-2011 01:08 PM)Lafitte the Pirate Wrote: [ -> ] (12-05-2011 10:42 PM)wkuhilltopperfan Wrote: [ -> ]Where a team places in sunbelt or any other conference is for pride and books only. Money talks and bull$%*t walks. While I do think WKU was the 2nd best team in the sunbelt ( and we proved that) having the late start in palying good is haunting us. I think most of us WKU fans are not upset at fiu,ark st or ull but the system itself. We know we are good enough to play in these games and could have preformed great and probably better than many teams playing in bowl games this season. WKU fans will be pulling for its sunbelt foes
What is needed is more bowl tie-ins and a Commissioner that cares. Case in point looking forward. The WAC will have only one bowl tie-in for next year. Where do you think the previous bowl tie ins are going? A good Commissioner would be campaigning ASAP to make that possible.
Do not hold your breath on this one. WKU this year. Who next year?
More uneducated bashing of the outgoing commissioner.
Man if only he had cared enough to create bowl ties out of thin air...
You always seem to toss around these terms when people either disagree with you or don't have all the information. I doubt very seriously that you were aware of this as well.
There's that mirror image I was talking about, again. You really have no idea how unselfaware you are, do you? Its uncanny how that exact statement reflects the majority of your posts and you are completely and utterly unaware of it. You never sease to amaze me, T.