I keep seeing certain posters claim that UTA would have stayed in the Sun Belt if they aspired to add football...

(06-11-2022 06:42 PM)runamuck Wrote:  well obviously UTA wont be adding football or they would have stayed in the SBC. heck, right now they dont have a baseball or softball coach. sports at the 4th largest university in Texas seems to be cratering.

But, is that really a good assumption? Every institution has a conception of what their "sweet spot" is (to use a term that the West Texas A&M admin used).

UTA just hired a new AD. I'm sure he's going to be approached with the same question that every other UTA AD has been asked. "Is UTA adding football?"

My opinion is that DFW is congested with FBS teams (SMU, UNT, Baylor, TCU) and the "sweet spot" for UTA could easily be FCS football. The state simply has such an enormous football identity and an FCS season would be a big help toward curbing the school's commuter identity. Many students have argued in the past that UTA having football would be very additive to their campus experience. It would be interesting to see if the new AD would see it that way.

With UTRGV adding football, an FCS football program at UTA would be a natural fit in the WAC (to go with Tarleton, SFA, UIW, ACU as well). Competing in FBS would be an entirely different proposition if UTA had to basically travel to Norfolk and all of those far off rural locations. The WAC has a perfect statewide community of rivals for UTA and its fans to travel to.

That's why I think it will be interesting to see how the new AD addresses these calls he will someday get. An FCS program is perfect at a school like UTA.

I hate posts like these. The issue is money. FCS generates a much smaller amount than at FBS. Period.

Also, is there not a congestion in men's basketball? Women's? Volleyball? Track? Etc.? Yet somehow the only sport UTA can't compete in due to the congestion is football.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to an FCS team. I'd like any team. I think we'd compete well in the sub-division. However, the ancillary money isn't there to support it, so likely that will hinder things. As I age, it seems apparent more and more that UTA likely will never field a team in my ifetime.

Thanks to DavidSTroyTBoy for another useless post on a topic he has no expertise or real interest in.

It’s always a good idea to suggest schools that don’t excel at basketball to add football. Works every time!

He clearly has no idea how much interest FCS ball generates in the state with the "enormous football identity". He also put Baylor in DFW lol.

These discussions are wearying to long-term UTA fans. If/when we get football (hopefully while Fo is still living) it's obvious that in the beginning, UTA will be competing at a lower level. It makes sense to transition from club to fbs, as South Alabama did, or from zero to FCS, as UIW, Lamar and SLU did. One new wrinkle in the process is the transfer portal. We have seen some schools make remarkable changes very quickly. That was supposedly the plan when the former LSU coach Les Miles was planning to help UTA restart football. Of course that movement collapsed when Miles went to Kansas, where he flopped. I wonder if his plan at Kansas included a large influx of "portal" players.

Still, one must remain hopeful, if not optimistic. Our newly hired President, Provost and Athletic Director all are coming from universities that have football. They must have awareness of how important FB can be to a healthy and supportive alumni base. UTA still has never mounted a concerted capital campaign, and a future with football would be the perfect carrot to dangle in front of potential donors and raise significant startup funds.

Fourth (or Third) Largest university in Texas. Tier One academics. As for athletics, a sleeping giant.

Sleeping giant my ass. Went 27-9 and made the NIT quarters in 2016-17. Won 10 of 11 going into their final home game and drew 3,100. Winning team and new facility doesn’t bring out the crowds, not sure what else will.

(06-16-2022 02:54 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  Sleeping giant my ass. Went 27-9 and made the NIT quarters in 2016-17. Won 10 of 11 going into their final home game and drew 3,100. Winning team and new facility doesn’t bring out the crowds, not sure what else will.

You're on campus "arena" doesn't seat 1,000. Sit down.

That 3,100 was against Troy, a team with no real interest (then). There was interest from fans for the Sun Belt West teams. Aside from Georgia St., little interest in the east.

Our attendance increased year-over-year from 2009/10 to 11/12 and again from 13/14 to 16/17. Slight decrease the following year but still respectable. The problem is you don't build a winner overnight and you don't increase attendance without building a winner. We packed CPC twice in the two NIT games it hosted (you conveniently left that part out), so there's not a lack of ability. We made a bone-headed coaching decision that halted all progress and has taken five years for even a spark to come back to campus.

I can guarantee you, all things being equal, more recruits would pick UTA over Seattle, and that kind of advantage is all I really care about.

(06-17-2022 01:11 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(06-16-2022 02:54 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  Sleeping giant my ass. Went 27-9 and made the NIT quarters in 2016-17. Won 10 of 11 going into their final home game and drew 3,100. Winning team and new facility doesn’t bring out the crowds, not sure what else will.

You're on campus "arena" doesn't seat 1,000. Sit down.

That 3,100 was against Troy, a team with no real interest (then). There was interest from fans for the Sun Belt West teams. Aside from Georgia St., little interest in the east.

Our attendance increased year-over-year from 2009/10 to 11/12 and again from 13/14 to 16/17. Slight decrease the following year but still respectable. The problem is you don't build a winner overnight and you don't increase attendance without building a winner. We packed CPC twice in the two NIT games it hosted (you conveniently left that part out), so there's not a lack of ability. We made a bone-headed coaching decision that halted all progress and has taken five years for even a spark to come back to campus.

I can guarantee you, all things being equal, more recruits would pick UTA over Seattle, and that kind of advantage is all I really care about.

Nobody here is calling Seattle a “sleeping giant”, including myself. You can compare to Seattle all you want. UTA can’t even get 1/10 of its students to attend games, let alone casual fans in the Arlington area. Nobody cares about UTA. They are no “sleeping giant”; more like “napping midget”.

Go ahead and bring up volleyball and whatever else you want for your 45,000 student public school and compare it to a 7,000 student private school.

(06-17-2022 08:56 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(06-17-2022 01:11 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(06-16-2022 02:54 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  Sleeping giant my ass. Went 27-9 and made the NIT quarters in 2016-17. Won 10 of 11 going into their final home game and drew 3,100. Winning team and new facility doesn’t bring out the crowds, not sure what else will.

You're on campus "arena" doesn't seat 1,000. Sit down.

That 3,100 was against Troy, a team with no real interest (then). There was interest from fans for the Sun Belt West teams. Aside from Georgia St., little interest in the east.

Our attendance increased year-over-year from 2009/10 to 11/12 and again from 13/14 to 16/17. Slight decrease the following year but still respectable. The problem is you don't build a winner overnight and you don't increase attendance without building a winner. We packed CPC twice in the two NIT games it hosted (you conveniently left that part out), so there's not a lack of ability. We made a bone-headed coaching decision that halted all progress and has taken five years for even a spark to come back to campus.

I can guarantee you, all things being equal, more recruits would pick UTA over Seattle, and that kind of advantage is all I really care about.

Nobody here is calling Seattle a “sleeping giant”, including myself. You can compare to Seattle all you want. UTA can’t even get 1/10 of its students to attend games, let alone casual fans in the Arlington area. Nobody cares about UTA. They are no “sleeping giant”; more like “napping midget”.

Go ahead and bring up volleyball and whatever else you want for your 45,000 student public school and compare it to a 7,000 student private school.

Unfortunately you are correct. We have a lot of commuting students and working students , so there has never been a lot of interest in UTA athletics, and there will not be much support for football either. The area is saturated with sports. I went to the rally to save football back when we cut it and there were only 700 people there.

No offense but Arlington is just NOT a good college town. There is too much other stuff to do there that takes away from any home town support. Six Flags Pro Football and Baseball to name a few. It is what it is a commuter college where the average age is not anywhere near the 18-24 range and older folks have different goals than the average college kid.

If and only if there was another push for football FCS should be the only route. No sense in beating your head against wall trying to compete where the deck is stacked against you.

(06-18-2022 02:40 PM)BlueDragon Wrote:  No offense but Arlington is just NOT a good college town. There is too much other stuff to do there that takes away from any home town support. Six Flags Pro Football and Baseball to name a few. It is what it is a commuter college where the average age is not anywhere near the 18-24 range and older folks have different goals than the average college kid.

If and only if there was another push for football FCS should be the only route. No sense in beating your head against wall trying to compete where the deck is stacked against you.

If you cannot excel at basketball, why would you think a FCS program would be “successful” at UTA?

(06-18-2022 02:47 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(06-18-2022 02:40 PM)BlueDragon Wrote:  No offense but Arlington is just NOT a good college town. There is too much other stuff to do there that takes away from any home town support. Six Flags Pro Football and Baseball to name a few. It is what it is a commuter college where the average age is not anywhere near the 18-24 range and older folks have different goals than the average college kid.

If and only if there was another push for football FCS should be the only route. No sense in beating your head against wall trying to compete where the deck is stacked against you.

If you cannot excel at basketball, why would you think a FCS program would be “successful” at UTA?

Because Texas is a football first state. Basketball is a second tier sport in Texas.

(06-18-2022 03:52 PM)BlueDragon Wrote:  

(06-18-2022 02:47 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(06-18-2022 02:40 PM)BlueDragon Wrote:  No offense but Arlington is just NOT a good college town. There is too much other stuff to do there that takes away from any home town support. Six Flags Pro Football and Baseball to name a few. It is what it is a commuter college where the average age is not anywhere near the 18-24 range and older folks have different goals than the average college kid.

If and only if there was another push for football FCS should be the only route. No sense in beating your head against wall trying to compete where the deck is stacked against you.

If you cannot excel at basketball, why would you think a FCS program would be “successful” at UTA?

Because Texas is a football first state. Basketball is a second tier sport in Texas.

When is Texas Tech and Baylor making the CFP? Both teams made the National Championship in basketball recently.

(06-17-2022 08:56 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(06-17-2022 01:11 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(06-16-2022 02:54 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  Sleeping giant my ass. Went 27-9 and made the NIT quarters in 2016-17. Won 10 of 11 going into their final home game and drew 3,100. Winning team and new facility doesn’t bring out the crowds, not sure what else will.

You're on campus "arena" doesn't seat 1,000. Sit down.

That 3,100 was against Troy, a team with no real interest (then). There was interest from fans for the Sun Belt West teams. Aside from Georgia St., little interest in the east.

Our attendance increased year-over-year from 2009/10 to 11/12 and again from 13/14 to 16/17. Slight decrease the following year but still respectable. The problem is you don't build a winner overnight and you don't increase attendance without building a winner. We packed CPC twice in the two NIT games it hosted (you conveniently left that part out), so there's not a lack of ability. We made a bone-headed coaching decision that halted all progress and has taken five years for even a spark to come back to campus.

I can guarantee you, all things being equal, more recruits would pick UTA over Seattle, and that kind of advantage is all I really care about.

Nobody here is calling Seattle a “sleeping giant”, including myself. You can compare to Seattle all you want. UTA can’t even get 1/10 of its students to attend games, let alone casual fans in the Arlington area. Nobody cares about UTA. They are no “sleeping giant”; more like “napping midget”.

Go ahead and bring up volleyball and whatever else you want for your 45,000 student public school and compare it to a 7,000 student private school.

We have more postgraduate students than Seattle’s total. Hardly a source of fans for any college. However, we do have an apathetic undergraduate student body. Three conference championships in 57 attempts leads to that. We dropped the most popular sport and what we excel at doesn’t attract fans at most schools anyway.

That said, you still didn’t address my main point. Winning cures all. In the best years, our mens basketball attendance began to steadily increase. We went from 812 in 2010/11 to 2,888 in 15/16. And over 2,300 in 16/17. Then we made a boneheaded coaching change that angered fans and attendance dropped over a quarter over night, despite a second place conference championship and an appearance in the conference tournament final. That said we are still more than double where we were a decade ago.

But let me give you the general definition of sleep giant. Via collinsdictionary.com, “an organization that has unrealized potential.”

-One of the fastest growing regions in the country - check.
-A quality academic institution - check.
-Best college basketball arena in Texas - check. (UT-Austin is about to equal UTA with a higher capacity and Baylor has one in the works modeled after UTA’s home.
-Institutional support - check.
-Core fan base - check. Make for if the 2,000 that attend volleyball, but that’s 500 more than see Seattle MBB. Those fans attend other sports. We don’t attract the fickle fan.
- On-campus living - check (over 4,000 units on and near campus).
-Coaching - unknown, but general feeling is that we are going back to a Scott Cross type feeling with our program, when we beat Texas, Ohio St, Memphis, a ranked St. Mary’s and BYU.

All that seems like a sleeping giant to me. Will we achieve “giant” status, who knows, and using our history, prolly not. That said, potential is there.

(06-18-2022 06:43 PM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(06-17-2022 08:56 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(06-17-2022 01:11 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(06-16-2022 02:54 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  Sleeping giant my ass. Went 27-9 and made the NIT quarters in 2016-17. Won 10 of 11 going into their final home game and drew 3,100. Winning team and new facility doesn’t bring out the crowds, not sure what else will.

You're on campus "arena" doesn't seat 1,000. Sit down.

That 3,100 was against Troy, a team with no real interest (then). There was interest from fans for the Sun Belt West teams. Aside from Georgia St., little interest in the east.

Our attendance increased year-over-year from 2009/10 to 11/12 and again from 13/14 to 16/17. Slight decrease the following year but still respectable. The problem is you don't build a winner overnight and you don't increase attendance without building a winner. We packed CPC twice in the two NIT games it hosted (you conveniently left that part out), so there's not a lack of ability. We made a bone-headed coaching decision that halted all progress and has taken five years for even a spark to come back to campus.

I can guarantee you, all things being equal, more recruits would pick UTA over Seattle, and that kind of advantage is all I really care about.

Nobody here is calling Seattle a “sleeping giant”, including myself. You can compare to Seattle all you want. UTA can’t even get 1/10 of its students to attend games, let alone casual fans in the Arlington area. Nobody cares about UTA. They are no “sleeping giant”; more like “napping midget”.

Go ahead and bring up volleyball and whatever else you want for your 45,000 student public school and compare it to a 7,000 student private school.

We have more postgraduate students than Seattle’s total. Hardly a source of fans for any college. However, we do have an apathetic undergraduate student body. Three conference championships in 57 attempts leads to that. We dropped the most popular sport and what we excel at doesn’t attract fans at most schools anyway.

That said, you still didn’t address my main point. Winning cures all. In the best years, our mens basketball attendance began to steadily increase. We went from 812 in 2010/11 to 2,888 in 15/16. And over 2,300 in 16/17. Then we made a boneheaded coaching change that angered fans and attendance dropped over a quarter over night, despite a second place conference championship and an appearance in the conference tournament final. That said we are still more than double where we were a decade ago.

But let me give you the general definition of sleep giant. Via collinsdictionary.com, “an organization that has unrealized potential.”

-One of the fastest growing regions in the country - check.
-A quality academic institution - check.
-Best college basketball arena in Texas - check. (UT-Austin is about to equal UTA with a higher capacity and Baylor has one in the works modeled after UTA’s home.
-Institutional support - check.
-Core fan base - check. Make for if the 2,000 that attend volleyball, but that’s 500 more than see Seattle MBB. Those fans attend other sports. We don’t attract the fickle fan.
- On-campus living - check (over 4,000 units on and near campus).
-Coaching - unknown, but general feeling is that we are going back to a Scott Cross type feeling with our program, when we beat Texas, Ohio St, Memphis, a ranked St. Mary’s and BYU.

All that seems like a sleeping giant to me. Will we achieve “giant” status, who knows, and using our history, prolly not. That said, potential is there.

By whose opinion is UTA’s arena, the “best in Texas”? Give me a break. TCU, SMU, and Houston all recently upgraded their facilities after the College Park Center opened. Who has said the CPC is better than what Tech and A&M have?

Haha, you obviously have no idea what you are comparing when you say ignorant things like SMU, TCU and Houston remodels could equal College Park Center. No remodel could ever equal CPC. The P5’s are starting g from scratch because we passed them and a remodel would even cut it.

We have a professional sports organization that plays at CPC (Dallas Wings of the WNBA). They compared ours to the Dallas Mavericks.

UT Austin said they were competing with UTA when they made the decision to vacate the Frank Erwin Center for their new digs.

Baylor said they modeled their approach to a new arena after UTA’s.

But what do I know. I just live here and follow local sports.

(06-18-2022 08:45 PM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  Haha, you obviously have no idea what you are comparing when you say ignorant things like SMU, TCU and Houston remodels could equal College Park Center. No remodel could ever equal CPC. The P5’s are starting g from scratch because we passed them and a remodel would even cut it.

We have a professional sports organization that plays at CPC (Dallas Wings of the WNBA). They compared ours to the Dallas Mavericks.

UT Austin said they were competing with UTA when they made the decision to vacate the Frank Erwin Center for their new digs.

Baylor said they modeled their approach to a new arena after UTA’s.

But what do I know. I just live here and follow local sports.

Again, whose opinion said it was the best in Texas?

Yeah, the Dallas Wings play there because the rent is cheaper than the AA Center. The WNBA also has 2 arenas that hold less than 5,000 fans and 2 arenas located on casino properties that are over 20 years old. So the WNBA surely only deals with “first class facilities” then… LOL

Can you link the articles where UT and Baylor were “competing” and “modeling” their arenas with UTA?

Still need whose opinion said it was number 1 too.

(06-18-2022 08:51 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(06-18-2022 08:45 PM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  Haha, you obviously have no idea what you are comparing when you say ignorant things like SMU, TCU and Houston remodels could equal College Park Center. No remodel could ever equal CPC. The P5’s are starting g from scratch because we passed them and a remodel would even cut it.

We have a professional sports organization that plays at CPC (Dallas Wings of the WNBA). They compared ours to the Dallas Mavericks.

UT Austin said they were competing with UTA when they made the decision to vacate the Frank Erwin Center for their new digs.

Baylor said they modeled their approach to a new arena after UTA’s.

But what do I know. I just live here and follow local sports.

Again, whose opinion said it was the best in Texas?

Yeah, the Dallas Wings play there because the rent is cheaper than the AA Center. The WNBA also has 2 arenas that hold less than 5,000 fans and 2 arenas located on casino properties that are over 20 years old. So the WNBA surely only deals with “first class facilities” then… LOL

Can you link the articles where UT and Baylor were “competing” and “modeling” their arenas with UTA?

Still need whose opinion said it was number 1 too.

I would think claims like that would have been widely reported across the state. Shouldn’t be hard too find. I distinctly remember Baylor comparing their arena to other Big 12 schools though. I googled it and Big 12 arenas that were a model was the first thing I saw.

https://baylorlariat.com/2018/11/05/bayl...all-arena/

I can tell you’re gonna be a peach. I’m pretty much done with you and your super cheerful demeanor.

You can easily find the answers yourself. Which by its nature isn't the issue, but then say bat S crazy things like SMU’s Moody Coliseum had a renovation so it’s on par with CPC. You literally are a pessimistic, obstinate, hair-trigger hypocrite .

I hope you are an outlier for all Seattle fans, but since you are the only one here, we’ll never know.