What hurts is UTSA. Last year was there inaugural season playing an independent FCS schedule. So C-USA takes (2) teams from Texas but only (1) from Florida. I little disappointing to say the least.

I'm with Delt for the majority of this argument, it's wins and how you win over facilities EVERY day of the week.  You need look no further than 100 or so miles south to UM.  No on campus stadium, the OB had been falling apart since the 80's and the weight room used to be quite small, yet they won everywhere they went and still own the longest home winning streak in major college football.  None of the facilities crap mattered when they moved from IND to BE to ACC.

Now, TeamBeer makes a great point about the AD.  Ours has sucked baloney for years, Pete Garcia was an INTEGRAL part in Miami coming back from probation and rebuilding the program under Butch and he is doing a fine job at FIU.  FIU's recruiting approach the last few years has been better than ours and they are the hot name.

There is probably NO chance we get a CUSA invite now, why have two teams in the same market?  That waters down the product, this isn't a pharmacy or home goods store where it makes sense to cannibalize locations.

Pelini needs to show out and win quickly and regularly and the AD hire needs to be solid.  Unfortunately, I don't think either will be what we want.

Everyone has very good points. Winning helps us get recognized. Winning fills the stands, and brings in money for the department. Hopefully the new AD will be able to market the school and our facilities to raise money for upgrades, newer facilities, and renovations. Everything is integrated. 

Several crappy seasons did not help our cause for sure.  The way the Athletic Department was run for the last several years was probably the biggest factor IMO. The football administrative community is small and they do a lot of talking.  Here a couple of quick examples:

Coach Jarvis has the best season in FAU history and his contract remains in limbo for over a year?  Does a successful up and coming program pull crap like that?  In fact, does that crap happen anywhere ?

One of the greatest days in FAU history, and a great day for the city of Boca Raton - the opening of FAU stadium. Only 5000 season tickets sold and the inaugural game fell 5000 people short of selling out– on a day that should have easily been a sell out.

I can go on and on and I'm sure the forum can come up with more circus stories that made us look unattractive as a C-USA candidate.

This is horrible news for us. I agree with many on here. Unfortunately it came down to what have you done for us lately due to the fact that they probably only want 1 team from the south Florida area. I hope coach P does a great job and we get an invite to another conference in the near future.

USMCOWL said

Everyone has very good points. Winning helps us get recognized. Winning fills the stands, and brings in money for the department. Hopefully the new AD will be able to market the school and our facilities to raise money for upgrades, newer facilities, and renovations. Everything is integrated.

At this point what does it matter now what does three 9-3 seasons get where do we go we are stuck in a Sun-Belt conference that will always be a up and coming.

BeastOwl said

Several crappy seasons did not help our cause for sure.   The way the Athletic Department was run for the last several years was probably the biggest factor IMO. The football administrative community is small and they do a lot of talking.  Here a couple of quick examples:

Coach Jarvis has the best season in FAU history and his contract remains in limbo for over a year?  Does a successful up and coming program pull crap like that?  In fact, does that crap happen anywhere ?

One of the greatest days in FAU history, and a great day for the city of Boca Raton - the opening of FAU stadium. Only 5000 season tickets sold and the inaugural game fell 5000 people short of selling out– on a day that should have easily been a sell out.

I can go on and on and I'm sure the forum can come up with more circus stories that made us look unattractive as a C-USA candidate.

I agree with all of this. The really issue is how the athletic department has been run for the past couple of years in all sports.

owlcountry40 said

USMCOWL said

Everyone has very good points. Winning helps us get recognized. Winning fills the stands, and brings in money for the department. Hopefully the new AD will be able to market the school and our facilities to raise money for upgrades, newer facilities, and renovations. Everything is integrated.

At this point what does it matter now what does three 9-3 seasons get where do we go we are stuck in a Sun-Belt conference that will always be a up and coming.

The problem is the like BeastOwl mention, the Athletic Department screwed the pooch a lot of the times. I think President Saunders recognized that with Angelos, and she made the right move to get rid of Angelos. Interim AD Melissa Dawson is doing a good job at the moment. I hope she put in her resume for the permanent position. But I hope who ever the university hires, makes changes to the marketing, gets better with the fundraising, and such. Yet to owlcountry40's point, we didn't have the football stadium, or the renovated burrow at that time. No major conference would have invited us with the team playing in Lockhart, or with the burrow in the shape it was in back then. The reason FIU is getting asked to join the CUSA because they are willing to spend money on upgrading their facilites. Craig didn't want to do that.

If Coach P does turn the program around, starts piling on wins, the fans will come along with fans money will come. If Coach Jarvis makes a NCAA tournament appearance, money will come too. Lets hope in administration to make the right decisions.

USMCOWL said

owlcountry40 said

USMCOWL said

Everyone has very good points. Winning helps us get recognized. Winning fills the stands, and brings in money for the department. Hopefully the new AD will be able to market the school and our facilities to raise money for upgrades, newer facilities, and renovations. Everything is integrated.

At this point what does it matter now what does three 9-3 seasons get where do we go we are stuck in a Sun-Belt conference that will always be a up and coming.

The problem is the like BeastOwl mention, the Athletic Department screwed the pooch a lot of the times. I think President Saunders recognized that with Angelos, and she made the right move to get rid of Angelos. Interim AD Melissa Dawson is doing a good job at the moment. I hope she put in her resume for the permanent position. But I hope who ever the university hires, makes changes to the marketing, gets better with the fundraising, and such. Yet to owlcountry40's point, we didn't have the football stadium, or the renovated burrow at that time. No major conference would have invited us with the team playing in Lockhart, or with the burrow in the shape it was in back then. The reason FIU is getting asked to join the CUSA because they are willing to spend money on upgrading their facilites. Craig didn't want to do that.

If Coach P does turn the program around, starts piling on wins, the fans will come along with fans money will come. If Coach Jarvis makes a NCAA tournament appearance, money will come too. Lets hope in administration to make the right decisions.

 I do not think it was Craig not wanting to spend the money i think it was more of we just didn't have it if we had 60 Mil. im 2005 we would of had a stadium. I think keeping Howard around set the program back a couples years which in most cases would not of hurt us. But now when it came to ask the girl to the prom we had a big zit on our face in our 5-19 record over the last couple years. The worst part is none of this has anything to do with others sports FIU just fired a basketball coach and a lot of players were really upset. Face it FIU has a hot young coach in a hot area of recruiting and has already played some big home games. I have talked to Craig many times and when i asked him about realignment he said the longer it takes the better for us if we had played Duke and UCF at home last year it would have looked a lot better we just did not have chance to get our feet dug into the ground after we got our stadium. This should have been thought out three ago though.
Does anyone remember when FIU AD was in the broadcast both for a game with us a couple years ago i think it was the last time we beat them down there. Well he said that FIU did not really view us as the main rival and thought UM as their main competition well that crazy attitude got them into a bigger conference.  

Very good points were made by everyone. I want the University to move to a better conference, but until we win, get updated facilities such as basketball, baseball, etc, we aint moving anywhere. Hopefully the new AD will do that for us.