that NIU and Toledo can't get teams like this to come to our stadiums?


UCF recently signed a 2 for 1 deal with Texas. The first will be at UCF's new on-campus stadium in 2007 and the last two at Texas.


And now the shocker, UTEP signed a home and home with Texas. That's right, one game at UTEP and one game at Texas. UTEP has a really nice stadium, but wow!

Yeah that is one of the most frustrating things about being a good mid-major. If you are good at all the big teams will not even consider coming to your place to play you. That is the reason that we can never get any respect, we can't get good teams to play us anywhere where the playing field is even so we end up losing by a decent margain to these teams and outsiders think nothing of it. The only people that know how good you are, are you and the team that you just played. When we were in Michigan I can't think of how many Michigan fans came up to me and said that they were impressed with how hard we played, and how good of a team we had. So yeah, i'm feelin the frustration.

It's frustrating but understandable. UCF plays their home games in a large stadium, so Texas doesn't give up a ton of gate receipts when playing a non BCS team on the road, like they would if they or any other BCS team played at a MAC stadium.

The Citrus Bowl holds 65K fans.

Field Turf Wrote:It's frustrating but understandable. UCF plays their home games in a large stadium, so Texas doesn't give up a ton of gate receipts when playing a non BCS team on the road, like they would if they or any other BCS team played at a MAC stadium.

The Citrus Bowl holds 65K fans.

True but he said it would be the first game in UCF's new on campus stadium(they will probably lose money on the but it is a great way to ring in a new stadium and increase fan support). I don't know how many that will hold but I guess about 40,000. That is still about 10,000 more than ours though. My guess is we could get an Oklahoma or Nebraska to SF but not HS. I doubt it would be very easy for us to get a southern team like a Texas or LSU up here because they don't need the market for recruiting. If they do get recruits from the North, the recruits go to them rather than those teams going after the recruits.

UCF fans are saying that ESPN was involved in getting Texas to come to UCF and it will be the first ever game in their new on-campus stadium and will be televised on ESPN.

The new stadium will seat 45K and will cost $51 million to construct. The stadium will have a 30 year debt service that will cost about $4 million annually. They expect to generate about $8.5 million in revenue annually from the stadium, so they would have about $4.5 million left over after paying the annual cost. No public funds or tuition will be used to pay for the stadium.

rocketfootball Wrote:UCF fans are saying that ESPN was involved in getting Texas to come to UCF and it will be the first ever game in their new on-campus stadium and will be televised on ESPN.

The new stadium will seat 45K and will cost $51 million to construct. The stadium will have a 30 year debt service that will cost about $4 million annually. They expect to generate about $8.5 million in revenue annually from the stadium, so they would have about $4.5 million left over after paying the annual cost. No public funds or tuition will be used to pay for the stadium.

Oh, that makes sense. Afterall, I would assume Di$ney probably helped make this a go since ESPN=Di$ney. I am just surprised they didn't get on ABC.

UTEP has the SUN BOWL and UCF has a new stadium.... Those are nice facilities... Texas seems to be awfully generous in these arranagements, highly unusal for a SUPER POWER. Re: UTEP there "may" be some politics involved... I don't know if they have ever played in that part of Texas. They will sell out both places.

Huskies fans we can sell out SF w/ Nortre Dame and we will with IOWA, or WISC if given the chance, but I don't think OSU or MICH would sell out. OSU/MICH about 45-50k.

SF and the HUSKIES will be a major PIA for UI.

HuskiesRule73 Wrote:UTEP has the SUN BOWL and UCF has a new stadium.... Those are nice facilities... Texas seems to be awfully generous in these arranagements, highly unusal for a SUPER POWER. Re: UTEP there "may" be some politics involved... I don't know if they have ever played in that part of Texas. They will sell out both places.

Huskies fans we can sell out SF w/ Nortre Dame and we will with IOWA, or WISC if given the chance, but I don't think OSU or MICH would sell out. OSU/MICH about 45-50k.

SF and the HUSKIES will be a major PIA for UI.

There is no way we would not sell out a Michigan game at SF. I would highly doubt OSU wouldn't sell out(unless you were talking about Ok.State, then I agree) theywould bring so many fans to just get out of Ohio and to a real city that they could definately fill up at least half of the 61,000.

It doesn't really piss me off as much as frustrates me.

It simply reninforces what most college football fans are aware of - it's big business first and money talks LOUD and CLEAR.

Those colleges in smaller markets with limited resources are simply participants on the fringes --- kinda like the Pittsburg Pirates have become in majors.

It's not about fairness or anything else.

Give UCF credit. Not long ago its detractors were easy to find and hear.

There is no disneyworld or fairygodmother in DeKalb or Toledo to get things like this done on a shoestring budget.

All we can do is beat UCF on the field.

hey, we got the dog bowl. thats not enticing enough?

HuskiesRule73 Wrote:UTEP has the SUN BOWL and UCF has a new stadium.... Those are nice facilities... Texas seems to be awfully generous in these arranagements, highly unusal for a SUPER POWER. Re: UTEP there "may" be some politics involved... I don't know if they have ever played in that part of Texas. They will sell out both places.

Huskies fans we can sell out SF w/ Nortre Dame and we will with IOWA, or WISC if given the chance, but I don't think OSU or MICH would sell out. OSU/MICH about 45-50k.

SF and the HUSKIES will be a major PIA for UI.

I think that Mike Price would have had soemthing to to with this. WSU signed at 2 for 1 with OSU many years ago...with OSU coming to Pullman (of course, since then WSU plays one game a year in Seattle...guess wehre that OSU game will be ).

Good for both schools. I still hate UCF......UTEP I could care less about. Pretty cool to see them turn the corner so quickly.

HuskiesRule73 Wrote:Re: UTEP there "may" be some politics involved... I don't know if they have ever played in that part of Texas. They will sell out both places.

I guess this will be the first meeting between UTEP and Texas in over 70 years.

In addition to BCS teams not wanting to come to DeKalb; it sucks when BCS teams from out of the region(and nonBCS teams) recruit Illinois and offer Chicago area HS players. Do a search of Scout or any other recruiting database for 07, there are 36 BCS out of region programs (from a nonMAC or nonBig10 state) that are recruiting or have offered an Illinois HS player.

USC, UCLA,Hawaii, Texas, Mississippi, WVA, Miss St, OK St, Rutgers, AZ, Colorado, Stanford, Vandy, TN , MD, Louisville etc. As if USC, Texas and Stanford need to recruit Chicago!


Joe Novak and the recruiting staff are going to have to work nonstop this year and sign some talent from MO, MN & WI to make up for the boatload that is going to be leaving Illinois.

Many MAC schools recruit the states of Florida, Georgia, and Texas even though it is out of our footprint. That's just the way it is. Recruiting is a national "business" these days.

onlinepole Wrote:In addition to BCS teams not wanting to come to DeKalb; it sucks when BCS teams from out of the region(and nonBCS teams) recruit Illinois and offer Chicago area HS players. Do a search of Scout or any other recruiting database for 07, there are 36 BCS out of region programs (from a nonMAC or nonBig10 state) that are recruiting or have offered an Illinois HS player.

USC, UCLA,Hawaii, Texas, Mississippi, WVA, Miss St, OK St, Rutgers, AZ, Colorado, Stanford, Vandy, TN , MD, Louisville etc. As if USC, Texas and Stanford need to recruit Chicago!


Joe Novak and the recruiting staff are going to have to work nonstop this year and sign some talent from MO, MN & WI to make up for the boatload that is going to be leaving Illinois.

Hawaii? Interesting. My guess is they figure they have a decent shot because where would students most want to live? Cold snowy Chicago or sunny tropical beautiful Hawaii. The only downside is you don't exactly get great press coverage. However, if you are more worried about an education than the NFL(though it isn't impossible from there), I would guess Hawaii is a good choice.

Making matters worse, Lemming and other lemmings have reported how thin the next recruiting class is in Illinois.

cyberdawg Wrote:Making matters worse, Lemming and other lemmings have reported how thin the next recruiting class is in Illinois.

So we then go to Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota and Indiana. Hopefully pick up some kick @ss players from Lakeland! I don't think that it is a very big of a deal if we cut back in Illinois for 1 year. We have don't it before and will do it again. We just can't completely ignore Illinois(especially if it occurs year after year).

cyberdawg Wrote:Making matters worse, Lemming and other lemmings have reported how thin the next recruiting class is in Illinois.

I think most of the pundents(sp?) said 06 was a down year, but 07 may be much better. This is an opportunity due to the large class the Illness signed in a weak year last year. They do not have room to take that many this year. Creates an opening for NIU and others.

HuskieJ Wrote:

cyberdawg Wrote:Making matters worse, Lemming and other lemmings have reported how thin the next recruiting class is in Illinois.

I think most of the pundents(sp?) said 06 was a down year, but 07 may be much better. This is an opportunity due to the large class the Illness signed in a weak year last year. They do not have room to take that many this year. Creates an opening for NIU and others.

Lemming and others have stated that 2006 was the worse in 20 years in IL, and that 2007 looks even worse than 2006.

HuskieJ Wrote:

cyberdawg Wrote:Making matters worse, Lemming and other lemmings have reported how thin the next recruiting class is in Illinois.

I think most of the pundents(sp?) said 06 was a down year, but 07 may be much better. This is an opportunity due to the large class the Illness signed in a weak year last year. They do not have room to take that many this year. Creates an opening for NIU and others.

Yep the talent base is better for IHSA football in 07 than 06 from what I've seen on ESPN, Scout and Rivals, however all that needs to happen is all the programs I've listed to sign one player (no doubt programs like ND will sign more than that) to really screw us up instate. MN & especially WI are thin this year so the Huskies are going to have to hit MO hard to make up for the instate players they might lose.

In the future I want to see the Huskies start working Colorado. The Denver area is about the same distance to DeKalb as it is to Salt Lake City; Colorado's population has grown by 1.5M in 15 years and it has only 2 Division 1A football programs ( I don't count service academies)