The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

This weekend Virginia Tech played AT Old Dominion, North Carolina played AT App State, and NC State played AT East Carolina. All three were exciting, fan worthy games.

Mississippi State has future games scheduled at Troy and at Southern Miss. Missouri has future games scheduled at multiple G5 locations. Vanderbilt played at Hawaiii this season and has future games scheduled at Georgia State and at SMU. There are many other examples. Point being there are P5 schools who will play at G5 locations.

Mark Ingram has completely fumbled this opportunity. He needs to start bringing P5 teams to Protective Stadium as soon as possible.

Yes there are, if there is a self-interested reason. Va Tech wanted to play at ODU because they have a big alumni presence in that area and it is their prime recruiting area. Vanderbilt wanted a trip to Hawaii. Those are examples.

I agree — I can see why no one would want to come to Legion Field but Protective is a great venue for recruiting exposure in Alabama. Hopefully the move to the American will make it easier because hosting a P5 in rhe AMerican probably gets the game on one of the ESPNs rather than cbs sports network.

...back in the WB days, we had MissSt, VaTech, Kansas, Pitt - all pay a visit to LF...

I think the 'strength of conference' will aide in that endeavor - I would think MissSt, for example, would be good with a H&H, as I'm pretty sure there's a decent MSU alumni base here (seems like I know a lot of folks and/or their kids who are MSU grads).

The new digs help out a LOT... Better network/media deal helps out a LOT... Strong TEAM helps out a LOT...

So, I wouldn't be surprised to to see it in a few more years - with all the conference shuffling currently going on / pending, might be hard to pin a team down, so... will be a few more years, but... should be able to accomplish 'stronger' OOC games at home...

Lot changed on the conference tv deals from those early days and we were bad and Legion Field was worse. Once it became clear that attendance was gonna suck even when a p5 game to Legion (the last MSU game was pretty dreadful as I recall), the finances of it didn’t make sense on the p5 side. I understand.,They don’t want to play in a dump in front of thousands of empty seats any more than we did. Whether we tried to schedule or not is I guess another issue.

You guys talk about how impossibly difficult it is to get a reasonable team into Bartow.(not even p5). Now we expect home games against teams we can beat in football?

I’m pretty sure the UNC system is a big reason for a lot of the games that take place in that state. I seem to recall reading that on the main board, but I could be confusing something.

Yeah it’s probably not a coincidence 3 of those games alone took place in the state of NC. Houston is an instate team for UTSA also. We know the politics and games behind the P5s in our state.

I want our schedule to be:
One FCS team, as local as possible. HBCU if possible.
H&H with a G5 program that will bring fans and we can travel to for the return game. No crap teams. I am still upset we are playing C-Conn without getting a HH in basketball out of it. I'd cancel that one tomorrow.
One P5 program that is a buy game that is not a "Body Bag" game.
One H&H with a crappy P5 program or a high level G5 program. (Or a AHA with a P5)

For us to play less body bag games we need to increase revenue.

IMHO DD is dead spot on in his assessments.

As long as the program is not generating more attendance, I would imagine money games will be required. Just do the math. Two sec road games are likely worth $2 million. A home and home removes one payday. And the home game isn’t going to generate $2 million based on current attendance.

Since the return, we haven’t had 28,000 folks in attendance for a home game that wasn’t a home opener (at least according to my quick review)

My hope is that we curb stomp Liberty, Georgia Southern wins at Nebraska, and there’s enough buzz around both 2-0 teams that we could put 30k in the stands

Have you guys ever played Samford, they would bring 4-5k people into Protective. Also, now that JxSt will be FBS, there are plenty of instate FBS teams that should be willing to do H&H, I know we had one with y’all, we lost both.

Hopefully we can rotate you guys back on to our schedule. I would also think GaSt would be a good H&H with you. I do think that the AAC schedule should help with attendance, with name like Memphis, SMU and ECU coming on to the schedule should help.

Hopefully our attendance can get better as we seem to finally have a coach that is capable of winning games and looking good while doing it. USM, Marshall and Troy on our schedule should help for us as well.

UAB has upcoming series with USA, Troy, Louisiana and Georgia State rotating in. UAB has two other kinda head scratching home and homes with Louisiana-Monroe and UConn.

The FCS opponent is almost always going to be an HBCU with A&M and State getting first preference. There are also scheduled games with FAMU and NC A&T. I don’t see those ever being replaced by Samford. They draw much better than the 4-5k Samford would bring.

UAB could potentially roll JAX State, USM back into the mix but I doubt we see others from C-USA in football.

(09-04-2022 03:25 PM)Usajags Wrote:  Have you guys ever played Samford, they would bring 4-5k people into Protective. Also, now that JxSt will be FBS, there are plenty of instate FBS teams that should be willing to do H&H, I know we had one with y’all, we lost both.

Hopefully we can rotate you guys back on to our schedule. I would also think GaSt would be a good H&H with you. I do think that the AAC schedule should help with attendance, with name like Memphis, SMU and ECU coming on to the schedule should help.

Hopefully our attendance can get better as we seem to finally have a coach that is capable of winning games and looking good while doing it. USM, Marshall and Troy on our schedule should help for us as well.

They barely averaged 3K at home last year. They won't bring any more than that over the mountain.

I don't see where conference affiliation will help bring P5 teams to Birmingham. UAB got P5 teams to come to Legion Field. Sun Belt and CUSA programs have gotten P5 teams to come to their stadium.

App St stadium seats 30,000, ODU 22,4000. I just think this is the current regime scheduling philosophy pure and simple.

(09-04-2022 05:28 PM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  I don't see where conference affiliation will help bring P5 teams to Birmingham. UAB got P5 teams to come to Legion Field. Sun Belt and CUSA programs have gotten P5 teams to come to their stadium.

App St stadium seats 30,000, ODU 22,4000. I just think this is the current regime scheduling philosophy pure and simple.

#FireRayWatts & #FireFumbles

Samford averages 3-4K and a lot of them go to our games already and some of ours go to theirs. I would rather play Samford HH in basketball and have a home crowd advantage in their building and get the road credit.

(09-04-2022 05:28 PM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  I don't see where conference affiliation will help bring P5 teams to Birmingham. UAB got P5 teams to come to Legion Field. Sun Belt and CUSA programs have gotten P5 teams to come to their stadium.

App St stadium seats 30,000, ODU 22,4000. I just think this is the current regime scheduling philosophy pure and simple.

ESPN matters. P5 weren’t going to come to a dumpy legion field and then be on a bad network. Their fans would riot. A few cusa teams did get some of these opportunities but there were other reasons the p5 schools wanted to do those games.

And I think you are right the main reason was a UAB thing.

(09-04-2022 06:16 PM)DuelingDragon Wrote:  

(09-04-2022 05:28 PM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  I don't see where conference affiliation will help bring P5 teams to Birmingham. UAB got P5 teams to come to Legion Field. Sun Belt and CUSA programs have gotten P5 teams to come to their stadium.

App St stadium seats 30,000, ODU 22,4000. I just think this is the current regime scheduling philosophy pure and simple.

ESPN matters. P5 weren’t going to come to a dumpy legion field and then be on a bad network. Their fans would riot. A few cusa teams did get some of these opportunities but there were other reasons the p5 schools wanted to do those games.

And I think you are right the main reason was a UAB thing.

And yet the SEC/ESPN has a bowl game they televised from Legion Field until last year. I don't think ESPN or P5 schools cared about playing at Legion Field, UAB just wasn't interested. Didn't Miss St play UAB at Legion Field in 2011?

(09-04-2022 06:16 PM)DuelingDragon Wrote:  

(09-04-2022 05:28 PM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  I don't see where conference affiliation will help bring P5 teams to Birmingham. UAB got P5 teams to come to Legion Field. Sun Belt and CUSA programs have gotten P5 teams to come to their stadium.

App St stadium seats 30,000, ODU 22,4000. I just think this is the current regime scheduling philosophy pure and simple.

ESPN matters. P5 weren’t going to come to a dumpy legion field and then be on a bad network. Their fans would riot. A few cusa teams did get some of these opportunities but there were other reasons the p5 schools wanted to do those games.

And I think you are right the main reason was a UAB thing.

Dead spot on. Sure we receive an occasional game in the past but lately the TV contract and stadium became a bigger deal. Our company dealt with many of the issues.

(09-04-2022 06:47 PM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  

(09-04-2022 06:16 PM)DuelingDragon Wrote:  

(09-04-2022 05:28 PM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  I don't see where conference affiliation will help bring P5 teams to Birmingham. UAB got P5 teams to come to Legion Field. Sun Belt and CUSA programs have gotten P5 teams to come to their stadium.

App St stadium seats 30,000, ODU 22,4000. I just think this is the current regime scheduling philosophy pure and simple.

ESPN matters. P5 weren’t going to come to a dumpy legion field and then be on a bad network. Their fans would riot. A few cusa teams did get some of these opportunities but there were other reasons the p5 schools wanted to do those games.

And I think you are right the main reason was a UAB thing.

And yet the SEC/ESPN has a bowl game they televised from Legion Field until last year. I don't think ESPN or P5 schools cared about playing at Legion Field, UAB just wasn't interested. Didn't Miss St play UAB at Legion Field in 2011?

ESPN is negotiating with the SEC headquartered in Bham not individual schools. Schools go to bowls where they are told. Even then a lot of them felt like the got the short straw if they had to go to Legion.

Individual schools answer to their fans. Few P5 fan bases would be cool sending their teams to a trash can stadium, in front of thousands of empty seats, to be broadcast on a non major network. It definitely made an impact.

But I agree these last few years the institutional decision is not to pursue.

So if it is a UAB thing then ESPN isn't the issue.