Announcement at 4 pm re UAB Football reinstatement.

Are there any similarities between UAB and what SMU did in 1989? They left Texas Stadium (and the NCAA Death Penalty stench) behind, moved to an on-campus stadium and have been there since. I'm unsure what SMU's attendance has been for the past 15-20 years playing on-campus.

Looking at it, strictly, from a state comparison, Mississippi has Ole Miss, State and Southern Miss. At least USM is 160 miles away from Starkville and a bit more to Oxford.

UAB is in a tough spot, geographically and traditionally. So close in proximity to Tuscaloosa and, with Alabama and Auburn with deep fan bases, I just don't see how it happens.

There are just some places that are, by their location, in a bind. UAB, for football, is in a bind. Hawaii, for everything, is in a bind. Iowa State, once the Big XII finally collapses, will be in a bind.

 

Leaving C-USA means the loss of $2m a year in conference money. It means at best the MVC, which is probably a step up in basketball but bad for everything else, and would require a $400k entrance fee. Travel costs in the MVC would be markedly higher. Soccer and Softball are both respectable programs, top 25's, NCAAs. Baseball is decent. Golf is good, made the NCAA's and we had a guy in fifth place individual. The only UAB golfer to do better there was Grahame McDowell at 4th.

All those programs likely lose their coaches and athletes with a step down in conference.

C-USA is the best fit currently for a number of reasons. Frankly, if the facilities had been there UAB probably goes to the AAC. The only member of the AAC who is not a former conference mate in C-USA is UConn.

Look, shutting down football to save money has cost roughly $11m so far. This has been a huge clusterfuck. Watts completely botched this entire process from start to finish.

As to playing in a 70,000 seat stadium looking bad, of course it does. We tried to build a 30k expandable but that was denied by the Board of Trustees. Actually it looks even worse than you think, because Legion Field dates back to Calvin Coolidge. The TV camera spots are all fixed in place, and face what is now the visitor's side, so when we play Rice or UTEP the cameras show maybe as many as 1,500 people. It looks bad on the home side, but the visitor's side looks like someone died.

 

This feels like the young couple trying to talk themselves into a $350,000 mortgage when the numbers say they can only afford $160,000.

So you'll get to stay in the larger house (Legion Field in the Conference USA neighborhood) but you have three empty rooms because you can't afford furniture and furnishings.

Five years from now, the bank will be back to foreclose on the house (shut down the program) unless the couple brings home more money (get some fans).

 

There is no real comparison. UAB self-inflicted the death penalty, then came back six months later. I don't know of anything similar, it's bizaare.

There are 17 schools in Alabama who play football, why can't UAB? It's an SEC state, sure, and that's what most watch. The thing is that UAB does not really compete with UA and AU. We're not going to take recruits they want. I mean, really, is UAB going to take a player Saban wants? Really? We are unlikely to play AU and will never play UA. It's a niche and would be fine except for one thing: UAB's Athletic decisions are made by the boosters of another school. I don't know of any similar set up. There are states where a single Board oversees the entire state system, but anything UAB wants to do athletically has to be passed off on by the UA BoT. More than that, after Paul Bryant, Jr got on the BoT they established the athletic committee to do so, and that means that two or three votes can veto a proposal, it does not even go to the full board.

As to the stadium, again the BoT has worked it's magic. When Watts brought the program back, it was with this caveat - the schools subsidy to athletics would not go up, which is fine, it is a large and generous subsidy. The kicker is that UAB is not allowed to take on any long term debt to build facilities. So in essence, Watts said, "Ok, you can have your damn programs back, but if you want anything to support it we do not currently have, you have to raise the money and pay cash." Add that UAB has had *no* athletic debt for the last five years, and the two years before that $75k.

So how do you build that stadium? UAB has been set up to fail, slowly strangled for facilities, which has been the BoT's pattern for years.

UAB's puzzling approach to facility investment in its reborn football program | AL.com

 

BTW, if you click that link you get a good example. The UAB Football program is over 20 years old. The block building in the picture houses the locker and meeting rooms. The coach's offices are in a building that was a dentist office in the 1960's. The practice field behind it is a rough clay field with craters, built as an intramural field. The facilities approved as part of bringing football back are turf for that field and a field house. After twentysome years UAB will build its first field house.

 

Not to quibble but Temple was never in C-USA with UAB (MAC in football, A-10 in other sports) and Navy (also never a C-USA program) joins the AAC on July 1.

 

Either Temple wasn't on the link I pulled or I just missed it. My apologies.

 

I don't think I'd want to model my football program after SMU's.

 

Not only that, but SMU is a private school with generations of well-heeled alumni/Mustangs fans to fund an on-campus stadium. UAB has only been a SCHOOL since 1969, never mind its football program is less than 25 years old.

 

Well, I am going to root for the underdog and cheer UAB on. I still remember when the Blazers beat Ralph Sampson's UVa.

So, even after all of the ugliness of this, good for UAB. I hope they build back up and thrive at a higher level than they were at previously.

Realistically, I wouldn't ask for much beyond that at the moment. They've got to build up some momentum and sustain it, and then get a new stadium on/near the campus with a moderate seating limit.

 

This strikes me as an excellent analogy. UAB sounds like a textbook example of the type of school that the FCS Division was created for, and so many of these problems could've been avoided if they'd just admit their program isn't cut out for the FBS level. But because they tried to join big boy Division they feel like they must stay there.

Much like the the family that stays in the house it can't afford because, by god, we joined the fancy house club, we can't go back to some modest little crib we can actually afford.

 

Why? They were gonna drop football entirely, so what was gonna happen to their other sports then? Were they not gonna stay in C-USA?

If the conference was willing to take UAB without football anyways, then why would UAB playing a lower division in football (as opposed to no football at all) be a dealbreaker? Exact same impact on the conference either way.