TexGator

Well, let's be honest. Their ability to play games is 2-3 months shorter than it is down there. Their schedule has to end by October 1st and doesn't get to start until mid-March. So the players are easily a fully puberty year behind Southern and West Coast players by the time they hit college. Then, they get to college and have to spend most, if not all, their non-conference schedule down here... with the school spending money on travel and not getting revenue from: - Home games - Your internal game broadcast (yeah, Disney will pay to air it on ESPN+, but you don't get revenue from "Hometown Ford" sponsoring "Your Drive of the Game" or the local ADT installer with the "Home Defense POTG") ... and instead spending about $200/day per player on room, meals, travel, etc. Amazing to say about the "Mighty Big 10" but we probably can offer the guy more money and he already has relationships with players.

This just further reinforces that the Big 10 is not a serious baseball conference. It's conceivable that the 4 schools being added from the Pac-12 finish 1-4 in the conference and are the only ones that qualify for the NCAAs. But this is a really good hire.

They are at the top. If you win the Commissioner's Cup, you're at the top. I think O'Malley's leadership is different. He has bigger plans but isn't going to go for hollow moves like the WAC departure where there were grand pronouncements to create an 11th FBS conference, but not actual plans. I trust his plans and that he's not going to vastly expand the budget w/o it being able to pay off.

The snubs for postseason play in Men's Basketball and Baseball reinforce that Lamar and other the power players of the Southland need to start throwing their weight around and start trimming the fat. We have a lot of dead weight in the conference that doesn't care about their Athletic Department as a whole. - Thinking 1000 fans + tickets for basketball = a good turnout - Football crowds that a lot of 4A high schools would be ashamed of - Facilities that are multiple tiers below the top of the conference We've achieved Step-1: Creating the Assistant AD for Corporate Sponsorships position. Let's hope some partnerships develop that can open up more opportunities for student-athletes. Step 2, though, is tougher: Showing up to make Provost-Umphrey, Neches FCU, Vincent-Beck, and the other facilities a HCA that no one wants to deal with. We have good coaches. We can draw some great talent. All we're missing are the results. Winning the Commissioner's Cup shows we can get to that next level- the place that Texas was in the Big 12 last year. We don't have to have a $200M budget like they did; we just have to be a tier above everyone in the Southland... for now.

This reinforces that Lamar and other the power players of the Southland need to start throwing their weight around and start trimming the fat. Far too many Southland teams think small: - 1000 fans + tickets for basketball = a good turnout - football crowds that a lot of 4A high schools would be ashamed of - facilities that are multiple tiers below where the top of the conference are But the Cardinals also need to start getting their fans to turn out where we're the universal envy of the whole conference. Creating the Assistant AD for Corporate Sponsorships position is a good step to raising the funds to make sure we can play the game in this new world of college sports.

So glad to see the page is back!!! WooHoo!!!!!!!!!!