(12-16-2011 01:08 PM)Vobserver Wrote: That is an issue for me, but not THE issue.. THE issue is that Middle stayed home at 8-3 one year.... ASU or UL SHOULD have been in the Indy Bowl in 2008 .... and then there is the MOU screw up... where at least two SBC teams stayed home because he was too f'ing lazy or stupid to know what those MOUs actually said and correct it.
I didn't say the grudge was THE issue, but I do think the grudge has tainted the view of most Cajuns fans and they unfairly evaluate the job Waters has done.
Let me first address Middle staying at home at 8-3 in 2001. I really don't see how this is Waters fault. It was the first season of Sun Belt football, we were in just our third season of playing FBS football, we had only one bowl tie as a conference and that was the brand new New Orleans Bowl, there weren't as many bowls in general, there was no rule disallowing schools with losing records going bowling, and we didn't have our top notch athletic director at the time.
The biggest keys to that was us not having an aggressive an active AD in place, the newness of both the conference as well as our FBS affiliation and lastly the lack of a rule banning losing record teams from bowling. Had that rule already been in place, we would have gone to NOLA at 8-3, UNT would have sat at home at 5-6 and there would be no controversy.
As far as the MOU goes, the ball was dropped, but calling him lazy or stupid because it fell through I think is a bit much. If you think his eyes were the only ones on that contract, you're crazy. The conference must have some form of legal counsel that reviews all the contracts we sign with anyone regarding membership, television, bowls etc. and a minor detail slipped through the cracks that allowed these bowls to not take us. I think what is commonly overlooked in the MOU debate, is that those bowls
clearly didn't want us in the first place, or they would have taken us regardless of the loophole that got them out. For all the blame many people want to place on Waters, they're unwilling to look in the mirror and realize that he's out there trying to sell a product that not a whole lot of people are interested in buying. Not many out of our own fanbases want to watch us on television, when is the last time you saw a opposing fanbase, especially going into a bowl game, getting pumped up to take on one of the top Sun Belt teams? Our actual product has improved under Waters watch and our perception is improving as well, though at a more gradual rate, but our product definitely exceeds our perception. It's not Waters fault that CUSA has more people who want to watch and more bowls that want to be associated with them. That's like Hyundai putting a dealership next to a Honda dealership and then getting mad at the guy running the dealership that more people want to drive Hondas. Yeah, there are certainly things he can do to improve things on a small level as far as directly competing with the Honda dealership next door, but if Hyundai wants him to sell more cars, they need to make better cars to make the job of selling them that much easier. If we want to get better guaranteed bowls and better television contracts, we need to put a better product on the field. Not to pat myself on the back, but I think the analogy is pretty apropo as in the last few years Hyundai has actually started making better cars like the Genesis and the Equus, and we as a conference have started putting better teams on the field. If Hyundai put a new guy in a dealership right as those new cars were launching, are the sales going up because the new guy, or because the product has improved? I think it's probably both, the new guy is excited about the new job, but he also has a better product to work with. I think we'll see the same thing with our new commissioner, he'll be walking into a much better situation than the one Waters walked into. Hopefully our next conference commissioner will be a guy who can pick up where Waters left off, learn from some of his shortcomings and take advantage of the better product he has at his disposal than the one his predecessor had.