2008 Bowl Season Louisiana Snubbed by Indi Bowl

[Bankruptcyman]

Just found this tidbit on the Independence Bowl website:

"Independence Bowl officials, headed by the efforts of former Executive Director Glen Krupica, reached an agreement in early 2000 with ESPN that keeps the game on the Total Sports Network through 2007. "

Glen Krupica is the current senior associate athletic director at Northern Illinois. These close ties got us screwed. How could the selection committee jeopardize the future of the Indy Bowl to repay a perceived old debt? Once again I ask: Does the Independence Bowl receive any financial assistance from the State of Louisiana?

[Parrott]

It's all about automatic bowl tie-ins.

The Sun Belt has one - the New Orleans Bowl.

The Mountain West has four - Las Vegas, Poinsettia, Armed Forces and New Mexico.

The Mid-American has three - Motor City, GMAC and International.

Western Athletic Conference has three - Hawaii, Humanitarian and New Mexico.

Conference USA has six (six!) - Liberty, GMAC, Armed Forces, New Orleans, Texas and St. Petersburg.

ACC and SEC have nine apiece. Big Ten has seven. Big 12 has eight. The Big East has six.

[CajunDreDog]

I was so elated when I read that post from Brad's dad. I just knew that was it.

Me too...I actually logged off of the site after that thinking we were in, since it came from him. I called my brother and brother-in-law both saying we were in....I did not find out until the ESPN show (hours later), while reading the ticker at the bottom! I wanted to cry...

[KAjunRaider]

Over on the MAC board, they are saying that they want to "take over" the New Orleans Bowl, to add another tie-in (yeah right). Five MAC teams bowling this year.

Each and every SBC team needs to schedule a lousy 1-aa school in the coming years, like the MAC does, to get more bowl eligible teams.

Prairie View, Savannah State, UT-Martin, etc.

Wouldn't it be something, though, if SBC lost the N'Awlins Bowl ?

_ It's all about automatic bowl tie-ins.

The Sun Belt has one - the New Orleans Bowl.

The Mountain West has four - Las Vegas, Poinsettia, Armed Forces and New Mexico.

The Mid-American has three - Motor City, GMAC and International.

Western Athletic Conference has three - Hawaii, Humanitarian and New Mexico.

Conference USA has six (six!) - Liberty, GMAC, Armed Forces, New Orleans, Texas and St. Petersburg.

ACC and SEC have nine apiece. Big Ten has seven. Big 12 has eight. The Big East has six. _

[KAjunRaider]

Any Cajuns going to write a letter to the editor of the Shreveport Times (and would they publish it) ?

_ I'm interested to see what the Conference has to say. After getting more bowl tie-ins and now none of us getting in. I'm not going to say they didn't do anything in the last 72 or 48 hours to lobby because I wasn't there and I don't know that they didn't do it. BUT if they were just sitting at home waiting to see who was picked like all of us were then there is a problem. Whats the point of being in a conference if you aren't going to have any representation.

Look I was optimistic but when taking off my vermilion glasses, a 6-6 sunbelt team isn't all that sexy. We all heard that South Arkansas Tech made the stipulation that if the I bowl picked a belt team they would back out. So what is the result? We are staying home while SA Tech tries to figure out how to market a bowl game that will not be watched by anyone on TV and maybe 15,000 in the stadium. As apose to a "rivalry" game with a 35-45K crowd with actual atmoshere in the stadium. I'm sure this bowl will be remembered for years to come. _

[SpreadEagle]

Glad we also dropped games against So Miss and UTEP we coulda/shoulda..

Coulda beat USM??? Do you need a reminder on the final score?

[RaginFan2]

_ Me too...I actually logged off of the site after that thinking we were in, since it came from him. I called my brother and brother-in-law both saying we were in....I did not find out until the ESPN show (hours later), while reading the ticker at the bottom! I wanted to cry...

_

I actually saw another post about 20 minutes later that linked the Houston Fox station website which had the bad news. I wanted to cry too.

[campo118]

I don't think thats what he was saying. However, since you brought it up, if the 2 teams played again 3 weeks later I would go out on a limb to say that the score would have been MUCH different. However they didn't play 3 weeks later... so theres your woulda/coulda/shoulda

[NewsCopy]

  The pieces for the national bowl picture finally fell into place on Sunday night.

Here's the good news: The Sun Belt got two bowl teams for the third time in five years.

Now the bad news: UL (6-6 overall) was one of four bowl-eligible teams that did not fit into the postseason puzzle.

As reported Sunday night at theadvertiser.com, the Cajuns were not among the 68 teams selected to play in the 34 available bowl games after losing three of their final four games. It marked the third time in four years the program was passed over when bowl eligible.

The rest of the story

Joshua Parrott • jparrott@theadvertiser.com • December 8, 2008

[Turbine]

I imagine the UL War Room to be like the War Room on Draft day for an NFL team. A draft day war room atmosphere except even more so, a bunch of hustling bustling, jockeying, maneuvering, offering, negotiating, compromising, debating trumping and not wavering and so much more.

How would you have liked to be in the UL Bowl War Room from Thursday thru Sunday?

I can see it now T-Joe banging the phones touting UL's assets to all who would listen.

I can picture David Walker in another corner of the room in virtual lockdown calling each member of every bowl committee espousing the virtues of picking the Ragin' Cajuns.

Scott Walker teaching everyone how to market the school like Troy did for their first bowl game.

Daryl Cetnar would be there calling every media outlet from Hawaii to Detroit and Houston to Birmingham and even Louisiana town in between, with a UL story of the day.

Of course Matt Hebert would be emailing the Tyrell Fenroy story to ever media outlet as well, and then following it up with the first of its kind ever Desormeaux-Fenroy story.

I can almost see Ricky Bustle in yet another corner of the room calling all his old contacts in that busy four day span...

Oh look Gerald Hebert making offers the bowl committees simply could not refuse.

Notice: This is all in my imagination folks. I have no idea how the events in the UL War Room transpired. I'm just saying I would like to have been there. I don't wish I was there so as to criticize the results. You can’t criticize effort. You can’t! I wish I was there just to see how everything was handled and how much communications there was between all the responsible parties.

I'll bet tensions were high and I hope cooler heads prevailed. It's just sad that when the powers that be put this much effort into an endeavor that they can't see more good for their hard work.

Someday I would like to see the UL War Room in action.

jmo