(04-16-2014 07:29 PM)BRtransplant Wrote: (04-15-2014 06:52 PM)AndreWhere Wrote: (04-15-2014 10:29 AM)NTTHOR Wrote: before CUSA invited north texas to join, what was your perception of north texas? has it changed?
i know this can turn into a school bashing, not totally looking for that, but would like honest thoughts...please don't include stupid hatred like some schools may. i'm generally curious as to the perception before we were announced as joining this conference.
When you went I-A, my reaction was "ugh... here we go, diluting the top classification." I saw the whole AQ split coming and I still blame all the schools that moved up after 1990. (Tech was either the last legit move up or the first bogus one... I tend towards the second option).
That said, I've read so much UNT propaganda lately that it's probably starting to work on me. I'll never be impressed by the fact that you're near Dallas, though (you're barking up the wrong tree with that crap), and you don't do more research than Southern Miss (despite the fact that some of your posters just assume that).
Much to your dismay, Tech was the last legit move up. Right after we busted our tails to meet the criteria to move up to D-IA, the NCAA changed the rules and pretty much let anyone that wanted to move to DI-A do it.
That doesn't cause me any dismay whatsoever. Back then, there were maybe 95-100 teams in the top tier, and Tech, USM, and USL were all included in that number. I have no problem with these institutions being in FBS or CUSA.
NTSU, NLU, USA, Troy State, UTSA, ODU, FIU, FAU (etc. ad nauseam) were not in the top classification back then. And because (I would argue) there was enough pie for everyone to have a piece back then, no one was talking about AQ, or paying players, or unionizing, or "Division IV", or any of the other bull**** that's put USM where USM is right now.
It really was so much better back then. Each conference had its bowl tie in, and the best independents in any given year scrambled for bids. Auto-bids were set up by prosperity. The SEC had the Sugar Bowl, the WAC had the Holiday Bowl, and so on. There weren't these hard lines drawn between BCS and non-BCS that there are now. SEC fans didn't talk down to us as much back then because their superiority was much more subjective. There were years when USM went to the Sun Bowl, the Independence Bowl, the Citrus Bowl, and all sorts of other bowls that won't give us the time of day now.
What happened? Well, first, ESPN manufactured a bunch of drama about how I-A football didn't have a real champion. That was always horse ****... I can remember one or two years where there was a split national championship, but it's not like anyone dropped dead as a result. There was some relatively good-natured back-and-forth.
Second, the foundation of the Sun Belt really killed any notion of I-A as a cohesive top tier. Southern Miss was tolerable to an extent that Troy State et al. were not. The pie's big... but it ain't that big.
If I could turn back time to 1990, right after Tech moved up, I would erase a whole lot of things that seemed good for USM at the time, but on balance what's happened since 1990 has really been awful for us.