The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Both of these coaches have brought in players for their systems. That in itself is worth something. Anybody with any for of objectivity this off-season knew we were going to have long seasons in both sports. Both coaches have kept positive. Both coaches have made changes. Both coaches have said the right things. Will that win games? Absolutely not. But to me that is a marked improvement over what we had before the two coaches. Again, where has Mackin screwed things up in your opinion? I'm telling you what I think makes him a good AD, and you are saying my arguments are not good. Let's hear a counterpoint.

(01-07-2013 04:02 PM)blazers9911 Wrote:  Both of these coaches have brought in players for their systems. That in itself is worth something. Anybody with any for of objectivity this off-season knew we were going to have long seasons in both sports. Both coaches have kept positive. Both coaches have made changes. Both coaches have said the right things. Will that win games? Absolutely not. But to me that is a marked improvement over what we had before the two coaches. Again, where has Mackin screwed things up in your opinion? I'm telling you what I think makes him a good AD, and you are saying my arguments are not good. Let's hear a counterpoint.

(01-07-2013 02:30 PM)Matrix Wrote:  

(01-07-2013 12:14 PM)Smaug Wrote:  On shutting down UAB football, this is your e-slap.

Classic! A James Cagney "e-slap", however, may have had a more profound effect, when you've been slapped by Cagney, the imprint is indelible...Something to consider for the future...

It's Glenn Ford. Classic Cagney would be a grapefruit to Mae Clarke's face in The Public Enemy

I didn't say everything is great. It's just not as bad as it is being made out to be and when the dust settles we will have the same access to the playoffs as everyone else outside the big 5. What would be great is for UAB to be invited to the ACC. That isn't happening. I have no sheep. I hope that everyone looks at things objectively and thinks for themselves. I simply see no point in jumping off a bridge over this stuff.

FWIW what was happening at the time Mackin said he was committed to C-USA. You remember what prompted that?

bottom line...still going to UAB football games when I can make it, still going to UAB basketball games when I have the opportunity (Don't live in BHM). Going to watch UAB athletics over any other game or tv show when on TV. And if I happen to come across the game on a less than honest web-site....yea I will probably watch it, come arrest me!

Still drinking the Kool-Aid, still bleeding green and gold blood, I love my blazers regardless of whatever sports "writer" or gump or whatever the fuckin BOT says.

Kiss my ass...the right cheek is green and the left is gold!

GO BLAZERS!

Well all that we need to do is show up, do our best to support the program so that in the future, when things start moving again, because it can and will, then we need to be in the best position as possible.

Winning can and should solve all the "problems".

Wins put asses in seats. Birmingham is a walk-up town.

No, neither of the coaching hires guarantee a darn thing, but both are the kind of gamble that might pay off big. Anyone who wants to say that they are not distinct improvements over the coaches they replaced is welcome to attempt to debate it.

I look at scheduling under Haase, that the full recruiting class is signed, and it looks one helluva lot better to me.

(01-07-2013 07:26 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  Wins put asses in seats. Birmingham is a walk-up town.

No, neither of the coaching hires guarantee a darn thing, but both are the kind of gamble that might pay off big. Anyone who wants to say that they are not distinct improvements over the coaches they replaced is welcome to attempt to debate it.

I look at scheduling under Haase, that the full recruiting class is signed, and it looks one helluva lot better to me.

To use your "gamble" metaphor, what UAB faces is running out of "chips" a few rounds before the "hand" is called. No AD can operate out of his own personal resources, he is always dependent upon those who have a lot of money and will back the programs financially. Our AD had more to do with the hiring of our new FB and BB coaches than the much higher paid AD at Bama had to do with the million dollar hires there. Mal Moore just went where directed and negotiated according to the money supplied in huge amounts. Our AD did the same thing, but on a much more austere budget. I think Mackin did one heck of a good job in BOTH hires with the funding he had at his disposal. Now that we have the coaches we wanted, we must back them with the infrastructure "chips" to allow them to stay in the "hand" until it is "called".

(01-07-2013 11:44 AM)KevMo4UAB Wrote:  I love UAB basketball. I started following UAB basketball in the mid 90s, when teams like Louisville, Cincinnati, and Marquette would come to town. That was big-time basketball. Now we are staring at teams like FAU, FIU, UTSA, and North Texas coming to The Bart. That's the reality of free falling. That is not big-time basketball.

HYPOCRISY ALERT!!! HYPOCRISY ALERT!!!

You do realize that if we had not started football, you would have been following UAB basketball with teams like Jacksonville, Mercer, UCF, and Lipscomb (Atlantic Sun) OR Gardner-Webb, High Point, Liberty, and UNC-Asheville (Big South) coming to town, right? You keep spewing your BS when you've been confronted by this fact too many times to count. And now you're taking your act to the main CUSA board and the Conference Realignment board...not really sure what you mean to accomplish by that.

Listen: GENE BARTOW HIMSELF SAW THE WRITING ON THE WALL THAT WITHOUT FOOTBALL UAB, LOCATED IN THE DEEP SOUTH, WAS GOING TO BE RELEGATED TO 2ND CLASS STATUS, AND THE TEAMS FROM THE METRO AND GREAT MIDWEST THAT WE (I.E., GENE BARTOW) WANTED TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH - LOUISVILLE, CINCINNATI, MEMPHIS, TULANE - WOULD BE ON TO OTHER THINGS. THERE IS NO ATLANTIC 10, MISSOURI VALLEY, HORIZON, OR WCC IN THE DEEP SOUTH. WITHOUT FOOTBALL, YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE HAD THE DESIRE, OR LIKELY THE OPPORTUNITY, TO HAVE BECOME A UAB BASKETBALL FAN!!

Now that I think about it, maybe adding football did have a negative consequence...

(01-07-2013 02:51 PM)KevMo4UAB Wrote:  

(01-07-2013 02:00 PM)BlazerGreen Wrote:  The reason UAB moved to the Great Midwest and then C-USA was to try to elevate our programs, to break out of the Sun Belt and associate with stronger programs. At the end of this realignment, if UAB is the sole surviving founding member of C-USA left*, all of that work will have been for nothing. After twenty years of striving UAB will be right back where they started. Football will have accomplished none of the goals for UAB that were intended.

The great leap ahead that Gene engineered for UAB in the early 90's will have finally been completely squandered.

That's the way I see it.

Except that, as I pointed out above, we would have been dumped when the Great Midwest & Metro became CUSA. That is a fact. Even having made that effort, Louisville nearly black-balled us anyway. With no A-10 or league of similar basketball stature in the Deep South, we would have been in Deep Something else...with the only difference being Gene would have been able to watch it happen.

I don't buy Kev's end of the world scenario, but I also don't buy Blazr's and Attalla's A-sun scenario either. Bartow would have got us in the A-10 or something comparable. And you can't prove otherwise. He always moved UAB into something better. That that is all in the past. Football drives the boat, now and you can't undo the past. Now we need a leader to put us in the best position. Publicly committing to a troubled conference is not the best thing to do.

(01-07-2013 09:19 PM)blazr Wrote:  

(01-07-2013 11:44 AM)KevMo4UAB Wrote:  I love UAB basketball. I started following UAB basketball in the mid 90s, when teams like Louisville, Cincinnati, and Marquette would come to town. That was big-time basketball. Now we are staring at teams like FAU, FIU, UTSA, and North Texas coming to The Bart. That's the reality of free falling. That is not big-time basketball.

HYPOCRISY ALERT!!! HYPOCRISY ALERT!!!

You do realize that if we had not started football, you would have been following UAB basketball with teams like Jacksonville, Mercer, UCF, and Lipscomb (Atlantic Sun) OR Gardner-Webb, High Point, Liberty, and UNC-Asheville (Big South) coming to town, right? You keep spewing your BS when you've been confronted by this fact too many times to count. And now you're taking your act to the main CUSA board and the Conference Realignment board...not really sure what you mean to accomplish by that.

Listen: GENE BARTOW HIMSELF SAW THE WRITING ON THE WALL THAT WITHOUT FOOTBALL UAB, LOCATED IN THE DEEP SOUTH, WAS GOING TO BE RELEGATED TO 2ND CLASS STATUS, AND THE TEAMS FROM THE METRO AND GREAT MIDWEST THAT WE (I.E., GENE BARTOW) WANTED TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH - LOUISVILLE, CINCINNATI, MEMPHIS, TULANE - WOULD BE ON TO OTHER THINGS. THERE IS NO ATLANTIC 10, MISSOURI VALLEY, HORIZON, OR WCC IN THE DEEP SOUTH. WITHOUT FOOTBALL, YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE HAD THE DESIRE, OR LIKELY THE OPPORTUNITY, TO HAVE BECOME A UAB BASKETBALL FAN!!

Now that I think about it, maybe adding football did have a negative consequence...

Okay, I stand corrected. I was only a basketball fan back then. I didn't follow UAB football at that time. I didn't even know UAB was playing LSU in football in 2000, when UAB won 13-10.

I too see the writing on the wall, and it's not pretty.

Football drives the bus anymore. Without football, you're not in a conference worth a damn, you don't get any money, and your various Olympic sports have nowhere to go.

Sure, our football has reeked. The BoT has helped a lot with that.

(01-07-2013 09:30 PM)KevMo4UAB Wrote:  Okay, I stand corrected. I was only a basketball fan back then. I didn't follow UAB football at that time. I didn't even know UAB was playing LSU in football in 2000, when UAB won 13-10.

I too see the writing on the wall, and it's not pretty.

Fair play to you, Sir. But take the writing on the wall in context. First, and again, NO ONE (and particularly not Andy Katz who laughed at the thought as "silliness") thought the basketball schools were bolting, so consider the sources when projecting the future state of MWC/CUSA/defectors. Second, compare your worst-case scenario (hosting basketball games against MTSU, WKU, Marshall, La. Tech, FAU, et. al.) to the very likely scenario had we never started football (the schools I mentioned above in the A-Sun or Big South...maybe OVC). We still wind up MUCH to the better...especially when you consider the dropoff in revenue from the poorest FBS programs - who get something from TV every season for football games that are picked up - and the richest non-FBS (i.e., basketball) conferences.

(01-07-2013 09:19 PM)blazr Wrote:  HYPOCRISY ALERT!!! HYPOCRISY ALERT!!!

You do realize that if we had not started football, you would have been following UAB basketball with teams like Jacksonville, Mercer, UCF, and Lipscomb (Atlantic Sun) OR Gardner-Webb, High Point, Liberty, and UNC-Asheville (Big South) coming to town, right? You keep spewing your BS when you've been confronted by this fact too many times to count. And now you're taking your act to the main CUSA board and the Conference Realignment board...not really sure what you mean to accomplish by that.

Listen: GENE BARTOW HIMSELF SAW THE WRITING ON THE WALL THAT WITHOUT FOOTBALL UAB, LOCATED IN THE DEEP SOUTH, WAS GOING TO BE RELEGATED TO 2ND CLASS STATUS, AND THE TEAMS FROM THE METRO AND GREAT MIDWEST THAT WE (I.E., GENE BARTOW) WANTED TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH - LOUISVILLE, CINCINNATI, MEMPHIS, TULANE - WOULD BE ON TO OTHER THINGS. THERE IS NO ATLANTIC 10, MISSOURI VALLEY, HORIZON, OR WCC IN THE DEEP SOUTH. WITHOUT FOOTBALL, YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE HAD THE DESIRE, OR LIKELY THE OPPORTUNITY, TO HAVE BECOME A UAB BASKETBALL FAN!!

Now that I think about it, maybe adding football did have a negative consequence...

Even with football, moving on to other things is exactly what those schools you listed (our conference mates of the last 20 years) have done. Going to the nBe wouldn't be moving up, it would be maintaining the position Gene carved out for us. Our association with those schools was one of his biggest legacies at UAB and I hate to see it go away.

(01-07-2013 10:29 AM)KevMo4UAB Wrote:  Here is the latest from Andy Katz.

3. The remaining Big East athletic directors will meet in Dallas on Jan. 11 to discuss their latest moves, including the update on the television negotiations. Tulsa and UMass have been discussed as possible additions if the Big East decides to expand, according to multiple sources. Rice and Southern Miss were also tossed around. Meanwhile, the Mountain West expects to move on San Diego State by the end of this week, according to a league source. The MWC has to decide if it will go to 12 or 14. The MWC has interest in SMU and Houston, but SMU has let it be known to the MWC it has no interest as the Mustangs and Cougars are set to go to the Big East. UTEP desperately wants to be in the MWC, according to a source, and is on the MWC list. BYU is the first choice for the MWC but at this juncture the Cougars want to remain independent in football, WCC in other sports.

The common denominator in all of this realignment talk is UAB is never, ever mentioned. UAB's football program has become the butt end of all C-USA jokes. We had our chance and failed, and some of that failure lies with the UA BOT hiring our previous coach. UAB's football program is leading UAB athletics right down the toilet. There are several other schools, new to football, that will quickly rise above UAB, such as UTSA and Charlotte.

Again, UAB football is the albatross around the neck of UAB's athletic department. We are drowning!

Please keep your "NEGATIVE ATTITUDE TO YOURSELF" Thankfully there are not many people so disposed as you and so short sighted for the future of UAB Football. When they do start to win and that will be very soon please don't jump on the bandwagon as there will be no seat for you!

Go find some hope for yourself!!!

(01-07-2013 09:29 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  I don't buy Kev's end of the world scenario, but I also don't buy Blazr's and Attalla's A-sun scenario either. Bartow would have got us in the A-10 or something comparable. And you can't prove otherwise. He always moved UAB into something better. That that is all in the past. Football drives the boat, now and you can't undo the past. Now we need a leader to put us in the best position. Publicly committing to a troubled conference is not the best thing to do.

A-freaking-men. Brian Mackin is a Blazer and should be applauded for his hard work on UAB's behalf, but I think he's done about as much as he can do in that job.

(01-07-2013 10:43 PM)GaBlazer Wrote:  

(01-07-2013 10:29 AM)KevMo4UAB Wrote:  Here is the latest from Andy Katz.

3. The remaining Big East athletic directors will meet in Dallas on Jan. 11 to discuss their latest moves, including the update on the television negotiations. Tulsa and UMass have been discussed as possible additions if the Big East decides to expand, according to multiple sources. Rice and Southern Miss were also tossed around. Meanwhile, the Mountain West expects to move on San Diego State by the end of this week, according to a league source. The MWC has to decide if it will go to 12 or 14. The MWC has interest in SMU and Houston, but SMU has let it be known to the MWC it has no interest as the Mustangs and Cougars are set to go to the Big East. UTEP desperately wants to be in the MWC, according to a source, and is on the MWC list. BYU is the first choice for the MWC but at this juncture the Cougars want to remain independent in football, WCC in other sports.

The common denominator in all of this realignment talk is UAB is never, ever mentioned. UAB's football program has become the butt end of all C-USA jokes. We had our chance and failed, and some of that failure lies with the UA BOT hiring our previous coach. UAB's football program is leading UAB athletics right down the toilet. There are several other schools, new to football, that will quickly rise above UAB, such as UTSA and Charlotte.

Again, UAB football is the albatross around the neck of UAB's athletic department. We are drowning!

Please keep your "NEGATIVE ATTITUDE TO YOURSELF" Thankfully there are not many people so disposed as you and so short sighted for the future of UAB Football. When they do start to win and that will be very soon please don't jump on the bandwagon as there will be no seat for you!

Go find some hope for yourself!!!

No seat! Have you been to Legion Field lately?

(01-07-2013 10:55 PM)KevMo4UAB Wrote:  

(01-07-2013 10:43 PM)GaBlazer Wrote:  

(01-07-2013 10:29 AM)KevMo4UAB Wrote:  Here is the latest from Andy Katz.

3. The remaining Big East athletic directors will meet in Dallas on Jan. 11 to discuss their latest moves, including the update on the television negotiations. Tulsa and UMass have been discussed as possible additions if the Big East decides to expand, according to multiple sources. Rice and Southern Miss were also tossed around. Meanwhile, the Mountain West expects to move on San Diego State by the end of this week, according to a league source. The MWC has to decide if it will go to 12 or 14. The MWC has interest in SMU and Houston, but SMU has let it be known to the MWC it has no interest as the Mustangs and Cougars are set to go to the Big East. UTEP desperately wants to be in the MWC, according to a source, and is on the MWC list. BYU is the first choice for the MWC but at this juncture the Cougars want to remain independent in football, WCC in other sports.

The common denominator in all of this realignment talk is UAB is never, ever mentioned. UAB's football program has become the butt end of all C-USA jokes. We had our chance and failed, and some of that failure lies with the UA BOT hiring our previous coach. UAB's football program is leading UAB athletics right down the toilet. There are several other schools, new to football, that will quickly rise above UAB, such as UTSA and Charlotte.

Again, UAB football is the albatross around the neck of UAB's athletic department. We are drowning!

Please keep your "NEGATIVE ATTITUDE TO YOURSELF" Thankfully there are not many people so disposed as you and so short sighted for the future of UAB Football. When they do start to win and that will be very soon please don't jump on the bandwagon as there will be no seat for you!

Go find some hope for yourself!!!

No seat! Have you been to Legion Field lately?

If UAB made a commitment to football like Louisville did, we're in the ACC right now. UAB is a better choice academically for the North Carolina schools, and Birmingham is a better city for the FSU/Clemson/Miami/Ga Tech group.

We didn't, so it did become an albatross. Unfortunate circumstances of life we didn't have much control over. Time to move on with what we got.