(04-29-2014 01:08 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(04-29-2014 12:31 PM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  I think some people are making a mountain out of a molehill on this one. If I were a coach of a team in an affiliated conference, I'd mention this during recruitment. "Hey, when you decide to come play for me, you might want to think about having your passport already, doesn't a bowl game in the Bahamas sound nice?" If that gets 2 or 3 kids every year who wouldn't have already had their passports to get one that could save 10-15, then I'd mention it again during spring practice and fall camp, I'm sure the coaches talk about bowl games being the goal so go ahead and throw it out there again, "hey guys, remember that one of the bowls we could play in this year is in the Bahamas(insert slide of bikini clad women on the beach) you might want to think about getting your passport now..." and then I'd mention it again after we got our fifth win as again I'm sure after a team gets five wins coaches are already talking about how close they are to bowl eligibility and then I'd really start hammering it home after we got our sixth win. All of that added to the fact that while there are certainly a lot of kids who play college football that have never left their home state until taking college visits, let alone left the country, there are a fair number of college athletes who come from fairly affluent families who will already have their passports.

I can't imagine that if these coaches and administrators are even remotely proactive on this that you're ever going to run into the nightmare scenario some of you are describing having to expedite 100+ passports. The coaches who stay on top of it may end up with only two or three dozen to deal with.

Sure, but you already have the Hawai'i Bowl for that. Why go with another bowl that every team in the conference will lose a mint with?

This was stupid on CUSA's part. They should have tried to put together a bowl closer to some of their schools.

Here's where CUSA stands.

FIU/FAU - close to Boca and Beef O' Brady's. I used to live in Fort Lauderdale. Its easier to fly across the country than it is to go to Nassau.

UAB/USM/La Tech - Close to New Orleans Bowl

UTSA/Rice/UNT/La Tech - Close to Heart of Dallas

UTEP/MTSU/WKU/Marshall/ODU/Charlotte - Close to....nothing.

It seems to me that a better choice for a bowl versus the MAC would have been in Indianapolis or Raleigh, or Richmond, or Baltimore.

So imagine this scenario. Marshall wins CUSA and the Heart of Dallas Bowl bid and FIU/FAU don't qualify for a bowl. What will your bowls look like?

UTEP is close enough to HofD and has a good number of alums in that part of Texas. We always have a good following when the Miners play in the DFW area. And UTEP is quite close to Albuquerque and the New Mexico Bowl which is lined up with C-USA for the next 6 years. And UTEP is closer than any other C-USA team to the Hawaii Bowl vs MWC which means nothing. Actually, our team hasn't been bowl eligible since 2010 when we were whipped by BYU in the New Mexico Bowl and even then the Miners were just 6-6. No G5 conference is awash with titanic bowls. We will hopefully line up against one of your teams any year now in a bowl and I for one will be happy to be there.

The positive in owning, if C-USA really does own it now, is that it could be moved once any lease is up. Maybe to Norfolk or to San Antonio. We'll see what the future holds.