2012 New Orleans Bowl

[Just1More]

So you're saying 2.5 million for this past year isn't good enough? Because for a new program at a Sun Belt school I think 2.5 million is a big accomplishment. You don't raise that much money without a plan.

Ironically, you blame being an SBC school for us not raising even more money. Is that what UL is? We aren't UL the academic institution. We're UL the SBC program. I wonder how we grew our academic endowment while being an SBC program?

[CajunRebel]

What is our plan?

And, if your peers are moving up an you're not than no, I guess it's not good enough.

Your peers moving up or down has nothing to do with fundraising. As far as fundraising is concerned I'm not worried about getting a plan from Farmer. He is getting good results as is and I don't see any reason why donations won't continue to increase. And no I don't expect him to lay out his fundraising plan for the general public to see for obvious reasons.

BTW, you didn't answer my question. How much more are you expecting Farmer to increase donations every year? 1.5 million/year is about what he's been averaging but that isn't enough for you. $2 million? $5 million? $10 million?

[CajunRebel]

He is not casual fan, he is a diehard. He has supported UL probably before your were born. There are a number of people that come to this board that have supported this program 35 or 40 years and they have every right to say enough is enough when UL's leadership doesn't offer them much hope beyond a Sun Belt Conference filled with FCS programs like GSU, APP. State, Sam Houston and others. After many years of sticking with the program from the SLC, Big West, Independent and now the Sun Belt, God forbid they would expect something better from this athletic program then what is coming in the Sun Belt. Everyone has their breaking point, and until they are shown something better is coming down the road. Communication is key and they haven't been forthcoming on much.

I don't doubt his prior loyalties. I'm not disrespecting him. I'm just taking him at his word.

[SlappyCajun]

Your peers moving up or down has nothing to do with fundraising. As far as fundraising is concerned I'm not worried about getting a plan from Farmer. He is getting good results as is and I don't see any reason why donations won't continue to increase. And no I don't expect him to lay out his fundraising plan for the general public to see for obvious reasons.

BTW, you didn't answer my question. How much more are you expecting Farmer to increase donations every year? 1.5 million/year is about what he's been averaging but that isn't enough for you. $2 million? $5 million? $10 million?

Actually, that's exactly why Louisiana Tech is moving up.

Also, it seems all the money being collected from the RCAF is being added to the budget. In other words, we aren't using much of the RCAF funds for capital improvements. Our inability to collect large donations already led to the delay of the Tigue renovation.

But with our fan base and with Hudspeth. I would expect significantly more than 2.5 million dollars per year. Why have we not capitalized on Hud with a season ticket or RCAF push? Farmer himself has said we need to do better in collecting revenue. So, these aren't randomness ideas, he has said so.

To think a 1.5 million increase after our football success is good is laughable. Also, I would imagine that some portion of that increase is related to our money games in football paying more.

[Turbine]

Your peers moving up or down has nothing to do with fundraising. As far as fundraising is concerned I'm not worried about getting a plan from Farmer.

I agree, I also think Scott Farmer's problem ( besides his choice of words sometimes) is that he doesn't have enough autonomy. . . .

[CharlieK]

I'm here and there are more people than the New Orleans bowl. Not by much but still more. Louisville has more by a long shot. Both are loud but Louisville is bringing it. If I had to guess I'd say about 55,000 actual butts in seats

Edit: also, my ears were ringing a few weekends ago...not so much tonight.

Good guess! 54,178. 6k more than the NO bowl.

[Zeebart21]

Good guess! 54,178. 6k more than the NO bowl.

Not impressive at all for the Sugar Bowl..

The commentators mentioned early on that they wondered if Florida just wasn't excited to be in this game. I remember a game last week where it was mentioned that a certain SEC team was in a bowl that they considered to be beneath them...

Must be nice to be so spoiled.

Z

[Zeebart21]

Not abandoning the program, the program is abandoning me.

Z

[CharlieK]

Not impressive at all for the Sugar Bowl..

The commentators mentioned early on that they wondered if Florida just wasn't excited to be in this game. I remember a game last week where it was mentioned that a certain SEC team was in a bowl that they considered to be beneath them...

Must be nice to be so spoiled.

Z

Considering 30,000 of those could have been casual sugar bowl fans, it's ____ poor.

[cajunhawk]

Actually, that's exactly why Louisiana Tech is moving up.

Also, it seems all the money being collected from the RCAF is being added to the budget. In other words, we aren't using much of the RCAF funds for capital improvements. Our inability to collect large donations already led to the delay of the Tigue renovation.

But with our fan base and with Hudspeth. I would expect significantly more than 2.5 million dollars per year. Why have we not capitalized on Hud with a season ticket or RCAF push? Farmer himself has said we need to do better in collecting revenue. So, these aren't randomness ideas, he has said so.

To think a 1.5 million increase after our football success is good is laughable. Also, I would imagine that some portion of that increase is related to our money games in football paying more.

Tech is moving up because of the promise of fundraising...not actually fundraising itself. The promise was to bring their budget to 20 million and beyond. That has yet to happen. Has Tech gotten in on lies? Yes. Should we brandish our own lies to move our program forward? Sauce for the goose.

Every one of our peers, excluding Tech, that has moved up has had a bigger budget than us. Fundraising has nothing to do with them moving up. Let's take a gander at North Texas. The bulk of their support comes from the state. FAU, FIU...bulk...state. MTSU...they get more from the state than we do and they have a student fee. The Texas twins? State and student fees. So...what does fundraising have to do with moving up in the world conference wise? The majority of teams that have moved up from the SBC have done so with the majority of their budgets (which are significantly higher than ours) coming from non-fundraising sources...state appropriations, student fees, etc.

So that begs the question? Is fundraising that important in conference realignment? Seems to me it's mostly markets and budgets that are propped up by state funding. It's no wonder Tech had to spin a yarn. And it's no massive bombshell that the remaining teams in the SBC (Arkansas State, Troy, UL) are all just sitting here wondering why we got passed over. WKU is on deck...because they have a bigger budget, that didn't come from fundraising. Until we figure out a way to get more money from the state or get a student fee passed that is solely for the athletic department, no amount of fundraising (I'm guessing we have no billionaire just lying around to buoy our budget) is going to get us into CUSA or beyond.

Let's look at it from our administrations point of view. We have one of the lowest budgets in FBS. Newcomers who just decided what seemed like a week ago to play FBS football, come in with budgets that make our budget look diminutive. We have a state that likes to keep state money away from athletics, because doing it that way keeps the top dog...well...the top dog. So what are these men supposed to do to satisfy your wanton desires? What in god's name are these men supposed to accomplish with such constraints? What overnight miracle are you guys waiting for? What hail mary pass are you waiting to be completed?

2.5 million...that is a 20% increase over the year before. Go ahead and ask any other school out there what a 20% increase in their athletic budget would take to make a reality? They would say...student fee dedicated to improving the athletic budget...or get more money from the state. Show me one of our peers that can raise the same amount of money we did without the big home run hitter like Tech has in Davison? Show me. I dare you. Show me another peer program that can pull a 20% budget increase from pure groundswell. I will be waiting on pins and needles.

[VObserver]

I don't see any reason why donations won't continue to increase.

If you don't see the discontent among current long time donors, you are not paying attention. We are tired of the veil of secrecy, we are tired of low expectations by our administration, we are tired of being kept in the dark about plans for the future. We are most especially tired of our administration consistently failing to take advantage of the HUGE marketing bonanza available as a result of our football success over the past two years.

Farmer has NOT done a good job handling success. He has pretty much just watched while natural inertia added to the coffers. T Joe is even worse. He has used our football success to actually cut funding substantially from university funds.

[VObserver]

what are these men supposed to do to satisfy your wanton desires? What in god's name are these men supposed to accomplish with such constraints? What overnight miracle are you guys waiting for? What hail mary pass are you waiting to be completed?

They are supposed to get off their collective asses and give us a PLAN; with timelines and financial requirements for facilities improvements. They are supposed to actually pay attention to what the fans want. They are supposed to PROMOTE funding activities, not just watch in amazement when people give money.

I could give you a very long, very detailed list of specific things they should have done and did not do at the two bowl games that would have cost very little and brought tremendous returns, but you have seen all that before. I could also tell you that I [among others] told them what all those things were well in advance, and they did nothing.

But if you want a one sentence answer it is this: We want our leadership in the University, the Athletic Department and the RCAF to care as much as we do, and to DARE as much as we do.

[ULvictory]

Ik there was about 40k+ wearing red in the dome, but does anybody know exactly how many tickets were sold through the university?

23,500 tics sold

[basinbear]

2011 budget figures: Florida Atlantic 16.7 million (West Palm Beach)
North Texas 18.9 million (Dallas)
UTSA 16.0 million (San Antonio)
UNCC 17.5 million (Charlotte)

These Universities got invites to CUSA strictly because of location in major media markets. CUSA lost Orlando(UCF), Dallas(SMU) and their best University located in Houston, U of H. CUSA was out to rebuild their media market presence. Hence the first 4 schools invited from the Sun Belt were FIU(Miami), FAU(West Palm Beach), UNT(Dallas) and MTSU(Nashville). No other University in the Sun Belt was going to be invited before those 4 schools. Now, WKU MAY be the next invites because of budget size(over 20 million) and possible travel partner for MTSU. But if Arkansas St. gets in CUSA before Louisiana......There is absolutely no excuse to not be completely ready now....none.....and the supporters of this University wil not accept any.

[Just1More]

Tech is moving up because of the promise of fundraising...not actually fundraising itself. The promise was to bring their budget to 20 million and beyond. That has yet to happen. Has Tech gotten in on lies? Yes. Should we brandish our own lies to move our program forward? Sauce for the goose.

1) Tech has not been proven to have lied. When they fail to raise their budget as promised, you can call them a liar. 2) Getting a student athletic fee passed is fundraising. Getting the Cajun Field plans out in front of the public is fundraising. Opening a bank account titled RCAF is not fundraising. Hud's success... single handedly... caused this "groundswell". So, when you ask, "what do we expect of these men with such enormous constraints?" Stop counting their meager chips and play the damn game.

In reality... Hud is a double edged sword for RCAF. Instead of UL's administration seeing the reality of what you have to do to build a private funding system... they've sat back and collected membership cards while Hud did every single bit of the heavy lifting. He not only pulled the program... by sheer will... out of the dumpster... almost instantly (a feat that the likes of you would have also said "impossible - what do you want these men to do under such constraints?") but he became the single face and voice for the entire rally of the Cajun Nation.

That has a very dangerous downside. T-Joe and Scott need to be the face and voice of the Cajun Nation. What do you ask these men do? Get out in front of the wave and take advantage of it. The wave will dissipate... I promise you. We aren't in "hail mary pass" mode. Those are done in desperation before time runs out. Time will never "run out". Only a fanbase's interest runs out.

You and Rebel come back at the end of 2013 and tell us how much more this guy Scott grew our budget. I think we're about to hear, "this is all we're getting... these checks we were getting just stopped coming in at the pace we saw last year... we're not sure why... we're talking about talking about getting a study put together to produce a plan that we might reveal about how to determine what caused the checks to slow down." BS

It is called laziness, fear, apathy, lack of commitment, ignorance, coasting, not wanting more responsibility, happy where they are... and more. And the Cajun Nation isn't going to stand for it anymore. T-Joe and Scott had better start talking to us and telling us what massive measures they are undertaking to keep the momentum. We are way, way behind and most of us are no longer going to blame it all on Ray.

Oh... and show me one of our peers that has Lafayette and Acadiana... the oil industry at their disposal for 50 years... and sat on it? Show me one of our peers that wouldn't take exactly what we had... "massive potential"... and couldn't raise $2.5 million in a year. Interestly, Mosing of Frank's Casing Crew donated $2.5 million a few months ago. He didn't care if UL used it purely for academics or mixed it with academics and athletics. Do you think a single dime of it went into RCAF? You are wrong about the potential for RCAF and this university with athletics. The majority of our "constraints" are self-made.