University of Louisiana Snubbed

[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

[AstroCajun]

Delete this please.

[AstroCajun]

_ _

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!

THE IBOWL takes their FOURTH choice?

WHY didn't they take WMU if that was their third pick?

Having Grandpa Simpson coaching the retarded Jim McMahon in their second consecutive bowl game is not, in my opinion, "good news".

[KACajun]

So what this article says is that our university has zero national appeal and the Sunbelt has zero stroke with bowl committees. Josh, please go into the press conference and get answers.

[CajunZ1]

_ So what this article says is that our university has zero national appeal and the Sunbelt has zero stroke with bowl committees. Josh, please go into the press conference and get answers.

I have a feeling however angry people are now, it's only going to get worse after hearing these "answers."

Epic Failure.

[HoustonCajun]

_ So what this article says is that our university has zero national appeal and the Sunbelt has zero stroke with bowl committees. Josh, please go into the press conference and get answers. _

Unfortunately, we are a hyphenated school in the worse conference in the country and Louisiana-Lafayette, UL Lafayette, U LA LA, LA-Lafayette, etc. etc. is not attractive outside of Lafayette. Until this university gets serious about marketing itself and serious about capturing the Louisiana and UL name, this will continue to be a problem.

LA Tech did not want us in the I Bowl. I would bet that Rice with a 9-3 record did not want to play a 6-6 team from the SBC.

Look at what the other non-BCS conferences did with bowl invites this year:

WAC - Boise State, Fresno State, LA Tech, Nevada, Hawaii
MAC - Ball State, Buffalo, W. Michigan, C. Michigan, NIU
CUSA - Rice, Houston, Memphis, E. Carolina, S. Miss, Tulsa
MWC - TCU, Brigham Young, Utah, Colorado State
SBC - Troy, FAU

I am so disappointed that UL did not get in a bowl. Even worse, an FAU team that finished 3rd in conference was picked ahead of us. UL needs to seriously rethink how it is marketing itself and needs to rethink its membership in the SBC who did nothing to help UL's bowl cause. Right now, I would rather be an independent than a member of this bush league conference. But then again, we haven't even been that competitive in the major sports in the SBC. That is a sad statement for the current state of UL athletics. Our new President needs to make a statement about where this university is going. It certainly needs leadership now.

[CajunZ1]

_Our new President needs to make a statement about where this university is going. It certainly needs leadership now. _

If this isn't a wake up call for our administration, I don't know what it will take.

Then again, I thought losing to McNeese would be a "wake up call"



It will be interesting to see how the university reacts to this debacle. Will we let it slide under the rug with time? Or face the problems head on? Do we have any reason to believe that the latter is possible?

This negative day could be boosted into a HUGE positive if T-Joe decided to say something meaningful.
Don't fire the coach. Not yet. Publically say you support him. However to keep the job, 7 wins is a must (you don't announce this of course). Introduce the RCAF and read all of that "TillmansNumber1" guy's posts for marketing tips. Have the DA do a front page sports story on the "transformation of UL athletics" which would obviously include some massive facility announcements, as well as some near term goals for success, and how we plan to implement them.

PLEASE. We're dyin here...

[rcarte3]

_ Unfortunately, we are a hyphenated school in the worse conference in the country and Louisiana-Lafayette, UL Lafayette, U LA LA, LA-Lafayette, etc. etc. is not attractive outside of Lafayette. Until this university gets serious about marketing itself and serious about capturing the Louisiana and UL name, this will continue to be a problem.

LA Tech did not want us in the I Bowl. I would bet that Rice with a 9-3 record did not want to play a 6-6 team from the SBC.

Look at what the other non-BCS conferences did with bowl invites this year:

WAC - Boise State, Fresno State, LA Tech, Nevada, Hawaii
MAC - Ball State, Buffalo, W. Michigan, C. Michigan, NIU
CUSA - Rice, Houston, Memphis, E. Carolina, S. Miss, Tulsa
MWC - TCU, Brigham Young, Utah, Colorado State
SBC - Troy, FAU

I am so disappointed that UL did not get in a bowl. Even worse, an FAU team that finished 3rd in conference was picked ahead of us. UL needs to seriously rethink how it is marketing itself and needs to rethink its membership in the SBC who did nothing to help UL's bowl cause. Right now, I would rather be an independent than a member of this bush league conference. But then again, we haven't even been that competitive in the major sports in the SBC. That is a sad statement for the current state of UL athletics. Our new President needs to make a statement about where this university is going. It certainly needs leadership now. _

You say that ULL needs to get rid of the hypenated name to help their prestige. That is not the problem. You say the hypennated name hurts well did you know that USC represents the University of Southern California that sounds directional or regional to me. UCLA is the University of California at Los Angeles sounds just like the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The University of Geogria's offical name is University of Geogria at Athens. In fact I have a friend who is a graduate of Geogria and he has worn school shirts that say UGA and that doesn't stand for the bulldogs name. If you look at scores on ESPN's bottom line a lot of times they will have UGA to represent Geogria instead of UG. In fact you negate your own agreement by the list above. Western Michigan, Northern Illinois, East Carolina, and Southern Mississippi are all directional/regional names but look where they are in a bowl game. At least the SBC got 2 teams in granted one of them wasn't ULL but at least you got in more than one so that is some progress. ULL needed 7 wins and/or a quality win over a BCS team which you almost got over Illinois. Stop the nit picking over the name its not going to change win games and it won't matter about the name. Its what you make out of the name not how you are named that counts.

[Cajun90]

The one thing out of all this is that 7-wins would have assured us a bowl berth. If the status quo remains with the NCAA and the bowls it might be wise for us to suck it up and play only one money game a year then play a AA team down in the bottom of the pool.

Do anything you have to in order to try and secure 7-wins. It looks like in most seasons this is going to get you in a bowl.

[MetryCajun]

_ The one thing out of all this is that 7-wins would have assured us a bowl berth. If the status quo remains with the NCAA and the bowls it might be wise for us to suck it up and play only one money game a year then play a AA team down in the bottom of the pool.

Do anything you have to in order to try and secure 7-wins. It looks like in most seasons this is going to get you in a bowl. _

How much easier does our schedule need to get? We already have one of the easiest.

[Damon]

Wright Waters is public enemy #1 right now. His statement about not knowing the bowl agreement verbiage is garbage.

[MakoMaker]

then play a AA team down in the bottom of the pool.
_

we did. and we lost. it was called mcneese