(08-25-2020 03:08 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(08-25-2020 12:44 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(08-20-2020 07:57 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(08-20-2020 07:32 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  This is one of the unfortunate things about college sports.

Actually, the LAT - ULM situation is the spice of life of college sports. The situation is, Tech looks down its nose at ULM. It thinks it is a better institution and so doesn't want to rub elbows with ULM.

Given that Tech and ULM are about of equal academic stature (both way down the USNWR rankings) and athletic rankings (both G5) is this Tech stance rational to anyone outside northern Louisiana? Of course not.

But it is such irrational beliefs and feelings that college athletics are built on. So I have no beef with Tech's silly attitude. It gives Tech a reason to feel superior, and ULM a reason to burn up about it, both of which feed the fire, LOL, so that when they do play, the sparks will fly.

I don't know that I'd consider LaTech and ULM of equal stature on the football field just because they are both in G5 conferences. Would you say that Central Florida and Charlotte are of equal athletic stature?

Over the past ten years, Tech's football performance would rank them #73 in the FBS, while Monroe is #114. That's a pretty big gap. What they do have in common is that neither of them have any chance of escaping the G5 (or whatever the lower tier of the FBS will be called in the future post-realignment) for reasons that have nothing to do with football.

But other long standing rivalries have survived performance gaps of that magnitude. That can't be the main reason for these two not playing each other.

I'll take the blame for casually saying "both are G5" in passing, thus allowing that opening for you to critique my position on that ground. I would say the difference is that while most football fans are aware that UCF has clearly out-performed Charlotte, and also that Boise has clearly outperformed say Texas State, thus proving that fans do sometimes categorize G5 schools at different levels of performance, absolutely nobody in the known universe was aware that LA-Tech had out-performed ULM by a 73 to 114 margin** in recent years until you just told us that.

Heck, I would argue that most CFB fans are unaware of the existence of the LA-Tech and ULM football teams, much less can distinguish between them. And perception is the core of this issue.




** FWIW, I'm not sure 73 to 114, though a large gap in numbers in a field of 132, is in practice really a large difference. There's a lot of diminishing returns once you get down that far, it's splitting some tangled hairs. A good verbal description might be "a bad team vs a badder team" or something similar. But both are in the same craptastic ballpark.

Blatantly false. Anyone that knows anything about college sports knows about Louisiana Tech: Terry Bradshaw, our time in the WAC playing teams across the U.S. also strengthened our brand. When I was in the Marines if I told someone that I was from Ruston they would also say that's where Louisiana Tech is located. I've never actually met a sports fan that didn't know about Louisiana Tech. Just the other day Big Cat for Barstool Sports was wearing a Louisiana Tech hat. He has 1 million twitter followers.



Barstool Big Cat on Twitter

(08-25-2020 05:27 PM)deb025 Wrote:  

(08-25-2020 03:08 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(08-25-2020 12:44 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(08-20-2020 07:57 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(08-20-2020 07:32 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  This is one of the unfortunate things about college sports.

Actually, the LAT - ULM situation is the spice of life of college sports. The situation is, Tech looks down its nose at ULM. It thinks it is a better institution and so doesn't want to rub elbows with ULM.

Given that Tech and ULM are about of equal academic stature (both way down the USNWR rankings) and athletic rankings (both G5) is this Tech stance rational to anyone outside northern Louisiana? Of course not.

But it is such irrational beliefs and feelings that college athletics are built on. So I have no beef with Tech's silly attitude. It gives Tech a reason to feel superior, and ULM a reason to burn up about it, both of which feed the fire, LOL, so that when they do play, the sparks will fly.

I don't know that I'd consider LaTech and ULM of equal stature on the football field just because they are both in G5 conferences. Would you say that Central Florida and Charlotte are of equal athletic stature?

Over the past ten years, Tech's football performance would rank them #73 in the FBS, while Monroe is #114. That's a pretty big gap. What they do have in common is that neither of them have any chance of escaping the G5 (or whatever the lower tier of the FBS will be called in the future post-realignment) for reasons that have nothing to do with football.

But other long standing rivalries have survived performance gaps of that magnitude. That can't be the main reason for these two not playing each other.

I'll take the blame for casually saying "both are G5" in passing, thus allowing that opening for you to critique my position on that ground. I would say the difference is that while most football fans are aware that UCF has clearly out-performed Charlotte, and also that Boise has clearly outperformed say Texas State, thus proving that fans do sometimes categorize G5 schools at different levels of performance, absolutely nobody in the known universe was aware that LA-Tech had out-performed ULM by a 73 to 114 margin** in recent years until you just told us that.

Heck, I would argue that most CFB fans are unaware of the existence of the LA-Tech and ULM football teams, much less can distinguish between them. And perception is the core of this issue.




** FWIW, I'm not sure 73 to 114, though a large gap in numbers in a field of 132, is in practice really a large difference. There's a lot of diminishing returns once you get down that far, it's splitting some tangled hairs. A good verbal description might be "a bad team vs a badder team" or something similar. But both are in the same craptastic ballpark.

Blatantly false. Anyone that knows anything about college sports knows about Louisiana Tech: Terry Bradshaw, our time in the WAC playing teams across the U.S. also strengthened our brand. When I was in the Marines if I told someone that I was from Ruston they would also say that's where Louisiana Tech is located. I've never actually met a sports fan that didn't know about Louisiana Tech. Just the other day Big Cat for Barstool Sports was wearing a Louisiana Tech hat. He has 1 million twitter followers.

Yes, everyone knows Terry Bradshaw, but where he went to school is a barroom trivia question par excellence that maybe 1 in 20 football fans can guess.

Athletically, Louisiana Tech is probably better known for Karl Malone and the 1980s Lady Techsters basketball teams. Sports fans of a certain age, namely in their 50s like me, remember hearing about those Lady Techsters as kind of a novelty item. And those aren't very well known either.

But Tech football and ULM football? OMG.