They’ve Given Up

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Originally Posted by CajunNation

I am not as plugged in as MAT to the daily happenings in Martin Hall. So, in no way am I going to criticize him for his posts. We have all heard stories through the years of how Martin Hall USLed it again and again.

Having said all that, I will say that in no way is T-Joe anywhere near as bad as DOC A was in strangling athletics. We have come a LONG way from 1-11 and Toothpick, but I think we have hit a bit of a wall recently.

Fracking bottoming out, COVID pandemic and NIL/Portal were 3 athletic department gut punches in the span of around 5 years. I can understand if they are a little shell shocked in Martin Hall. Even so, we have got to do a better job at not being so tone deaf with things like not celebrating the SBC championship and offering virtually no community outreach to build a fan base. These are things that are required to do if you are serious about athletics.

I'm 100% certain we are have weathered the worst of the storm. WE are about to go on another upswing in the program again. We NEED Martin Hall to step it up. It's time.

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Our peers are doing just fine though. App St just hosted game day. App St just sold out their season for the third consecutive year, after missing qualifying for a bowl game. USM is back in full force, setting baseball and basketball attendance records. Troy and USA have invested heavily in getting their football programs on track. Marshall has a robust fanbase and have stepped up fundraising dramatically the last 2 years. And that’s in West Virginia.

It all comes back to leadership. Something is dangerously wrong with how we conduct our business.

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Originally Posted by ULvictory

Our best season for average attendance was in 2011 with just under 30k...

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We live in a different world in 2023 than we did in 2011.

https://www.godaddy.com/domainsearch...aginReview.com

GoDaddy says RaginReview.com is worth over $800

Many posters on here give up as well, if the idea to move forward was not their's, they oppose it.

Meanwhile though the alumni house sent out some good info about an event AND included a good parking diagram

Why is it the last episode?

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Originally Posted by Duckster

...plus ULM beat us.

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Not gonna lie. That one still hurts.

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Originally Posted by cajunjayhawk

We live in a different world in 2023 than we did in 2011.

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We also tripled our attendance average as well

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Originally Posted by ULvictory

We also tripled our attendance average as well

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In 2011?
We're 12 years removed.

I do agree, Coach Hud was out and about in Lafayette. One of my fondest memories of him was when he stopped by Lafayette High and spoke to classes in the school's auditorium, inviting us all to come to the games and support the team.
There's a difference between telling people they should come or even promoting that a game is happening, and a meaningful, personal invitation... "I want you here. Will you come?"

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Originally Posted by cajunjayhawk

We live in a different world in 2023 than we did in 2011.

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A tier 1 world

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Originally Posted by 60swerethebest

I think the funniest post of the year is Covid and NI research center got us R1. Funny
Rest of post pretty accurate.

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I don’t think you quite understand how much research money came in to the Primate Center during Covid. It was close to 40% of our research budget. Likely closer to 75% of the total increase.

If you don’t think that played into R1 status which is solely based off of research and PHD programs/graduates then I don’t know what to tell you.

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Originally Posted by cajunjayhawk

In 2011?
We're 12 years removed.

I do agree, Coach Hud was out and about in Lafayette. One of my fondest memories of him was when he stopped by Lafayette High and spoke to classes in the school's auditorium, inviting us all to come to the games and support the team.
There's a difference between telling people they should come or even promoting that a game is happening, and a meaningful, personal invitation... "I want you here. Will you come?"

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Yeah, but.....*insert excuse dejour.

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Originally Posted by cajunjayhawk

....Coach Hud was out and about in Lafayette. One of my fondest memories of him was when he stopped by Lafayette High and spoke to classes in the school's auditorium, inviting us all to come to the games and support the team.
There's a difference between telling people they should come or even promoting that a game is happening, and a meaningful, personal invitation... "I want you here. Will you come?"

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This, a million times this. I don't know what we have to do, but CMD needs a personality transplant. I would give thousands of dollars right now if it meant we could get HUD back in some capacity with the athletic department. That energy was priceless.

If that is never gonna happen, then, we need somebody like Wingerter to pick up the Mic and do a Tour.

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Originally Posted by JamesTheJeweler

You're right! We can't do better. Let's stand pat and keep up the status quo. I mean, we are killing it out there. *hard eye roll. It sucks that Martin Hall shares your sentiment...." we cant"

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Where did I say we cannot do better. I don't think you read my post completely. I did say we have challenges but I concluded with a favorite phrase of mine; with great challenge comes great opportunity. Also said, we should not give up. Easy way to start is to welcome students back and insure them they will not be overpoliced. Of course you have to have some control but let's be reasonable.

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Originally Posted by Cajunsmike

Easy way to start is to welcome students back and insure them they will not be overpoliced. Of course you have to have some control but let's be reasonable.

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Were the students ever out of control? Were they ever a problem?

I don’t recall them every being one.

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Originally Posted by cajunjayhawk

In 2011?
We're 12 years removed.

I do agree, Coach Hud was out and about in Lafayette. One of my fondest memories of him was when he stopped by Lafayette High and spoke to classes in the school's auditorium, inviting us all to come to the games and support the team.
There's a difference between telling people they should come or even promoting that a game is happening, and a meaningful, personal invitation... "I want you here. Will you come?"

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And before 2011, we had never been ranked in the top 25, had a nationally respected program, won 13 games or won an outright league title on our home field. Times have certainly changed and we’ve done nothing with that change. We went Almost two full years without RCAF, marketing or sales staff. We’ve done nothing but hodge-podge midwestern “solutions” for Ragin Cajun challenges.

We just had a winning basketball team playing largely in front of no one until they dragged the Cajun Chicken out of retirement. Tigue didn’t sell out this year. Football attendance worst since the toothpick days. (And then they promoted everyone involved with game day management lol)

There’s always an excuse. It all comes back to leadership. Again, our peers seem to be doing just fine.

Having said that, I’m much more concerned about the future than the past. When what’s planned gets rolled out, I’ll be interested to see how many of you optimists will be much less optimistic.

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Originally Posted by ManAboutTown

When what’s planned gets rolled out, I’ll be interested to see how many of you optimists will be much less optimistic.

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You talking about the final stadium renovations?

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Originally Posted by fanof71

The failure to recognize the 2021 Championship, not recognizing the Swamps 50th anniversary, not acknowledging bowl wins inside CF= Apathy in the athletic Dept...time for the the corner office guys to go...

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The trifecta screw up…failed the capitalize on the FB championship, failed to search for Napier’s replacement outside the parish line, and the biggest, failure to deliver the stadium as advertised on national tv in interviews during Napier’s last season.

Fans involved needed that championship celebrated, not even a banner. Coaching search, like CMD or not, want to know what USL’ing it is? The way it went down, followed with the “we’re broke” mantra, that’s USL’ing it. The feel of this decision was made by Martin Hall long, long before Napier and Florida was ever in the same sentence.

And the built expectations of the stadium start when the pre construction inspections and engineering surveys not even done yet announcing a start. That is not on Covid or supply chain. The project was not close to even starting this past fall…as announced to the upper deck ticket holders.

And I see zero to be excited about this FB season. I just don’t sense any energy out in public, other than 2 people walked up and asked where I got my Louisiana shirt Sunday. Hint, not on campus.

Been attending different games in multiple sports since high school days in early 70’s. This is the first season I can honestly say I don’t GAF.

There is another “W” word USL hates…winning. It brings expectations.

And I fear by mid October CF will be basically empty.

It could be worse we could be Louisiana Tech or ULM fans. The big money grab NIL and transfer portal have really soured everything. I remember saying to myself the Napier years were the apex for football. I think he saw what was coming and it was time for him to jump ship. He bought low and sold high.

You’ll be back

Agree it played role. All research does. So you think since monkey Covid money is reduced we’re back to R2? Our research in other areas is actually growing faster. Number of PhDs will exceed 100 this coming year. No Covid there. And more importantly our research infrastructure is keeping pace. That is number one in retaining status.
You are correct that at one time the primate center was a large part of our research money. It will remain important and will increase in a few years, significantly. But Engineering and Technology will expand faster as will Nursing.
Hang on to what’s about to happen.

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Originally Posted by HelmutVII

It could be worse we could be Louisiana Tech or ULM fans. The big money grab NIL and transfer portal have really soured everything. I remember saying to myself the Napier years were the apex for football. I think he saw what was coming and it was time for him to jump ship. He bought low and sold high.

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Watch, in 2 years CBN will be at a SBC program kicking our butt.

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Originally Posted by Datt Meggs

You’ll be back

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. . . the Bird says . . . look at baseball the last two years . . . we are at a crossroads . . . the strong will bring us forward, the weak will bail . . . look for and trust the strong . . .

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Originally Posted by ManAboutTown

And before 2011, we had never been ranked in the top 25, had a nationally respected program, won 13 games or won an outright league title on our home field. Times have certainly changed and we’ve done nothing with that change. We went Almost two full years without RCAF, marketing or sales staff. We’ve done nothing but hodge-podge midwestern “solutions” for Ragin Cajun challenges.

We just had a winning basketball team playing largely in front of no one until they dragged the Cajun Chicken out of retirement. Tigue didn’t sell out this year. Football attendance worst since the toothpick days. (And then they promoted everyone involved with game day management lol)

There’s always an excuse. It all comes back to leadership. Again, our peers seem to be doing just fine.

Having said that, I’m much more concerned about the future than the past. When what’s planned gets rolled out, I’ll be interested to see how many of you optimists will be much less optimistic.

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MAT I tend to agree with you on many things, but giving up isn’t one… Can you explain what you mean by they are giving up, as apparently something just happened that really ____ed you off…. Also are you saying the new stadium will not be that good?

I wouldn't say I've given up, but I share the frustration. For me, the biggest thing is not the football stadium, or the baseball stadium, or attendance, or anything like that.

When I graduated from college 17 years ago, if you had told me that in 2023 there would be a conference shakeup of monumental proportions, I would say that my hope beyond wildest hope that we'd be in the mix to make a move to a power conference.

And yet here we are, still in the same position. A power conference is nothing more than a notional future plan. However, if we'd done the right thing all these years...we'd be the UCF or Houston right now. We would.

That's not a knock on the Sunbelt. The Belt is our best option at the moment. But the fact that all this shakeup is happening and we are still just in the Belt...that's disappointing.

And I'm not the only person that feels that way, I'm sure.

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Originally Posted by Big Buds

You talking about the final stadium renovations?

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Hell, only a few people know anything about that. If it even happens..

I’m talking about more reseating, more price hikes, more changing of RCAF benefit structures, etc. I expect continued alienation of older fans with the coming changes of tickets, parking, etc and more apathy in the younger fans, mostly due to lack of cultivation.