Has UCA passed UALR? By what measure?

UCA spends a million more per year on athletics and that’s with LR not offering football and not fully funding all the athletic scholarships they could. Men’s and women’s hoops LR is well ahead. LR better of late in baseball.

(01-24-2021 01:41 AM)ah59396 Wrote:  

(01-23-2021 10:23 PM)Gemofthehills Wrote:  

(01-23-2021 12:20 PM)ah59396 Wrote:  

(01-23-2021 11:03 AM)Usajags Wrote:  

(01-23-2021 10:43 AM)SENOREIDA Wrote:  I’m sorry you are stuck in the FCS. But the G5 doesn’t need to be more watered down. The SBC is making waves, we are not giving out lifeboats because schools feel bad. Call the CUSA, and tell them that you live in a market. They will take anybody regardless of talent.

Careful Coastal fan, I know you had a great year and that’s good and all. But JxSt could come into FBS without needing to add onto there already 24,000 seat stadium, that they averaged 16,827 in 2019 with a 6-6 record. That’s better then quite a few of us oh so powerful G5 schools. They also opened a brand new baseball stadium in 2019, as well as a complete renovation of their basketball arena in 2015.

JSU has had FCS success, there current problem is location, because much like those schools that are to far west to join the SBC, JxSt is to close for some people to feel comfortable. They feel like adding 22 more scholarship football players into this state will be the tipping point.

I’m open to adding any university to FBS that can guarantee AT MINIMUM 15,000 fans in seats on game day. Though that’s an incredibly low bar in my opinion.
I’m open to adding any university to FBS that can guarantee they spend AT MINIMUM $30,000,000 on their Athletics program. Though in reality you probably need to be spending $40m+ to be consistently competitive.

If Jacksonville State and its 7500 undergrads can find $15m-$25m per season in funds, they are free to join.

As it stands they spend as much as Nebraska-Omaha and UNC-Greensboro. They do under $1m annually in ticket sales and average under $1m in donations. App was doing $2m+ in ticket sales while an FCS school and we still did a full scale economic study to determine if it was financially viable to move up.

So GaSO, Southern Miss, La Tech, ULM, Bowling Green, N Mex State, Ball St, NIU sure there are more should move down? You dont spend your way to success.
Dont believe any of these schools should move down either

I think half of the G5 should be FCS. The G5 is riddled with underperforming programs.

Which isn’t a bad thing IMO. FCS has some fantastic football and it’s a great place to build a dedicated fanbase and tradition of winning. Two common prerequisites to financial stability.

I agree. IMO when 1-A / 1-AA was created the NCAA set the bar way too low. If a school can't average 20K+ per game should they really be classified as a major program?

(01-29-2021 03:11 PM)TOPSTRAIGHT Wrote:  Here is a question for Arkansas State and Little Rock fans. Has UCA passed Little Rock?? Because of today's moves and their AD Teague they seem to be headed in the right direction. Thought an opinion from some Arkansas folks would be most reliable/interesting.

No. LR has a strong history in basketball for both men and women, and a fantastic facility. Their baseball is good, but their baseball facilities are poor.

UCA's basketball programs and facilities don't even compare. They have good football and a nice baseball facility, but that doesn't outweigh the success of UALR in basketball. Not really necessary to touch on the other sports.

The sad thing for UALR is they are experiencing declining enrollment due to online options and they don't have a traditional on-campus student population. It will be interesting to see the positive and negatives for colleges if/when we come out of this pandemic. I'm afraid it will increase the decline of enrollment for schools like UALR and we all know that very few university athletic programs can survive solely based on revenue without student fees. I am afraid that UALR will eventually have to leave the SBC due to finances or continue to cut programs.

(01-30-2021 08:09 AM)Rik Flair Wrote:  

(01-29-2021 03:11 PM)TOPSTRAIGHT Wrote:  Here is a question for Arkansas State and Little Rock fans. Has UCA passed Little Rock?? Because of today's moves and their AD Teague they seem to be headed in the right direction. Thought an opinion from some Arkansas folks would be most reliable/interesting.

No. LR has a strong history in basketball for both men and women, and a fantastic facility. Their baseball is good, but their baseball facilities are poor.

UCA's basketball programs and facilities don't even compare. They have good football and a nice baseball facility, but that doesn't outweigh the success of UALR in basketball. Not really necessary to touch on the other sports.

The sad thing for UALR is they are experiencing declining enrollment due to online options and they don't have a traditional on-campus student population. It will be interesting to see the positive and negatives for colleges if/when we come out of this pandemic. I'm afraid it will increase the decline of enrollment for schools like UALR and we all know that very few university athletic programs can survive solely based on revenue without student fees. I am afraid that UALR will eventually have to leave the SBC due to finances or continue to cut programs.

UCA will probably flip LR at some point as they have a traditional campus and growing support. LR doesnt seem to be very sports minded and as a metro/urban school probably should just focus on basketball and join one of those leagues..uca can move up and take their place. altho a small school, not much smaller than schools like Tulsa..smu..baylor..tcu.. big difference is availability of cash and willingness to spend it on sports.