(02-07-2018 08:56 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(02-07-2018 05:56 PM)LRTrojan Wrote:  Other than being a winner almost every year in the TAAC, those years were the most exciting years in my 30 plus years as a fan. We had good crowds, I remember one time we took about four charter buses to Centenary. Since then, we've been lucky to fill up one bus to take to ASU.

Many of our games were televised either live or tape delayed. We began to see big crowds toward the end of Coach Beards one season, with several sell outs. So in my book, even if we were in a lesser conference, that's the only time we saw that kind of excitement since we left the TAAC. Had Coach Beard stayed, I believe we might have seen the second coming of the excitement that Mike Newell brought here.

You are right that in this town winning, even in a piss pour league, would get us more attention and bigger crowds. However, we aren't dropping down leagues at this point regardless. The only league that would be a drop down option is the Southland, and I'm not sure we'd do a whole lot better there.

I think the subject of this thread is missing one important calculation. Unless your program is spending a lot more, or less, than other programs in whatever league you're in, or has significantly better or worse facilities, etc., you are going to get players that for the most part belong at that level. Therefore, it is a false assumption in my opinion that it is a given that LR would win more in a lesser league. We won more in the TAAC because we played under two of the best coaches in the program's history- Kestenbaum and Newell. We have had many more coaches and many more years in the SBC which makes our experience in the two leagues very different for comparison purposes.