University of Louisiana Snubbed

[rcarte3]

_ I don't believe many cajun fans would have attended the game and bolted back to Lafayette. Its not about the money, the independence bowl lost money last year with 2 BCS teams. You can't tell me that NIU would have more fans staying in Shreveport than the Cajuns. _

I am not saying that Tim Brando did. What I am gathering from that is the NIU fans would need to stay longer than ULL fans. You would probably have some ULL fans staying one night but some NIU fans would need 2 nights. What is it from Lafayette a 3 hour at most drive to Shreveport? I bet up to half the ULL fans would drive back home after the game. Granted 2 BCS teams don't promise a profit but that is the perception of the bowl committees. At least one team away means more fans in hotels. I am not saying they are correct just that is the perception. It is about money not for the bowl but for the hotels, shops, and resturants. I relative of mine works in government in New Orleans and he has told me deep down the hotels don't like it much when LSU is in the Sugar Bowl because their fans don't rent many rooms because LSU is so close by.

[rcarte3]

_ I think I'll throw my 2 cents in today!

I heard the above mentioned Brando conversation. He is correct. One of the great lies about most bowl games is that they are a "reward" for a good season. No. Bowl games are for bringing tourists into a city and making money for the Chamber of Commerce. That's the real reason they exist. Therefore, the object is to bring in the 2 teams that will bring in 1. the most people for the longest period of time. And 2. the highest ratings in the largest market possible. A Tech/UL game would do neither one of those things for Shreveport. Why did FAU make it? Market size. Howard Shnellenbrger(sp?). It is considered an up and coming program. Sure, the Cajuns had 2 exciting players on offense. but, that was known only to Cajun fans and around the SBC. The bowl committees and TV people have to consider "how will this play in Peoria. or Boise. or Los Angeles and New York. This is all about money. Nothing more. The only promise of a bowl is winning the conference championship. Now, 7-5 helps a lot. A couple of those wins against schools that are known in those above mentioned cities will get notice. beating North Texas, or Ark State won't. Beating Southern Miss, or a BCS school will. It would have to be done consistantly. And, of course, once that starts happening, they won't play you anymore! The "name" problem is meaningless outside of Acadiana. As someone mentioned earlier, if you win, they will know you by your real name. It might be Louisiana. If the program wins, who gives a crap whether it's Louisiana, Louisiana-Lafayette, or UL. Which, by the way, it should be, ULL. Because of Louisville, it will NEVER be UL on a national stage. NEVER. That's just a reality. USL was original. No other one in the country. Should have become South Louisiana as opposed to Southwestern Louisiana. (see South Florida.) But, the name is not as important as winning.
I know this will draw many nasty replies. Hey, that's part of the deal on these boards. I do not have a dog in this fight either. I enjoy the conversation. These are just observations from a sportsfan outside of Acadiana. I mean no disrespect toward anyone here or at your school. And, I don't expect to change anyone's mind. That's not my purpose. Just wanted to throw in my thoughts. The thoughts of someone not emotionally invested in Louisiana. _

At last someone who sees the real world for what it is NOT FAIR!!!!!! You made some great points!!

[rcarte3]

_ The University of South Louisiana would have been good. USL. Still unique. No question who you are talking about.

I do believe more fans from south Louisiana would make the trip to Shreveport. But, I also believe NIU fans would stay longer and spend more money. Yes, it is all about money. It may be that the Independance Bowl has gotten tired of losing money. _

How about doing something similar to Memphis State did several years ago. Their MSU was perceived as being confused with Miss. State and Mich. State. They changed to the University of Memphis. Why not go with the University of Lafayette? I know, I know some will say that could be confused with the University of Louisville ie, UL, but it makes you more unique.

[rbilleaud]

Before we get all angry, let's look at this objectively. The bottom line is that the Cajuns just didn't get it done this year, and we don't deserve to be in a bowl. Wins over UTEP and Florida Atlantic - both game we SHOULD have won - would have locked it up, and the team blew it. Who's responsible? I have no clue. I actually watched the UTEP game here in Atlanta, GA and it was like I was watching a totally different team. I understand, we had some injuries, but a good team learns to overcome those and win tough games. Frankly, I don't know whether to hold Bustle to account or not - he's an adequate coach, I suppose - but who are we going to get who'd be better? Coach shopping hasn't worked out that great for us. Look what we did to our once nationally recognized basketball team when we hired that loser Robert Lee, what rock did we find him under, and why is he still here? We should have kept the other guy even if his resume was a little fishy, he couldn't have been any worse than what we have now.

There is some truth in what one of the other posters was saying about marketing the athletic department. A lot of it comes down to how we present ourselves to the rest of the country. That ties into the issue about being able to hire better coaches. Look, we have some fantastic facilities, but we fail to capitalize on those. Perhaps the money would have been better spent coming up with a more attractive compensation package for coaching prospects - but it's a moot point now. This goes back to the previous administration and its inability to prioritize. Authement, for all of his acheivements, was in charge way too long and was more concerned with his legacy toward the end than about doing what was right and he over-reached. He wanted to do everything and do it now. Unquestionably, he improved the educational value of ULL (which is what the institution is supposed to be about anyway) and its facilities - but you can't do everything at once, you have to do it in steps, and the one step that got missed was the one where you clean out the deadwood in the athletic department. The mentality (and some of the personnel) is unchanged since the 1970's. Until that changes, we will remain mired in mediocrity. Admittedly, the Sun Belt conference was ill conceived and will never rise to the level of mid-major, but we're stuck with it. That said, our mission should be to dominate the conference the way that Florida State dominated the ACC in the 1990's or USC dominates the PAC-10. Along with purging the athletic department of its old attitudes, that would go a long way to improving our image nationally.

[HoustonCajun]

_ I'll buy that. But don't you think the Texas Bowl would want to sell more tickets rather than placate Rice? I dunno... _

The Texas Bowl website indicates 50,000 tickets are already sold. I would think the I Bowl would have preferred a 9-3 WMU to a 6-6 NIU opening up the door for UL to go to the Texas Bowl. However, it would not surprise me if Rice killed it. Rice is 9-3 and would not likely want to play a 6-6 SBC team. Remember how the SBC is viewed around the country. It brings nothing to the table. And, a 6-6 Louisiana-Lafayette is not a marquee matchup.

[MetryCajun]

_ How about doing something similar to Memphis State did several years ago. Their MSU was perceived as being confused with Miss. State and Mich. State. They changed to the University of Memphis. Why not go with the University of Lafayette? I know, I know some will say that could be confused with the University of Louisville ie, UL, but it makes you more unique. _

There is already a Lafayette University.

[MetryCajun]

_ The Texas Bowl website indicates 50,000 tickets are already sold. I would think the I Bowl would have preferred a 9-3 WMU to a 6-6 NIU opening up the door for UL to go to the Texas Bowl. However, it would not surprise me if Rice killed it. Rice is 9-3 and would not likely want to play a 6-6 SBC team. Remember how the SBC is viewed around the country. It brings nothing to the table. And, a 6-6 Louisiana-Lafayette is not a marquee matchup. _

Also remember Rice got smoked last time they played a SBC school in a Bowl game.

[HoustonCajun]

_ You say that UL 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 UL 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. _

First of all, I would take ULA like Georgia (UGA) and Virginia (UVA) use. Secondly, almost every major university has the city tag, but doesn't use it athletically, e.g. Texas at Austin, Nebraska Lincoln, North Carolina Chapel Hill, California Berkeley, Wisconsin Madison, Minnesota Twin Cities, Nevada Reno, etc. I don't care that we are the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Just call us Louisiana, athletically. Thirdly, all of the other schools you mentioned have directional names, not hyphenated names. I would rather have been the University of South Louisiana (USL) than continue to fight the U LA LA and Louisiana-Lafayette image. The only hyphenated schools that have a positive image are the ones that have great acronyms and are in good conferences, like UCLA, UNLV, UTEP and UAB. NOBODY calls UCLA California-Los Angeles. And, as for as another post that we can't be UL because Louisville is UL, that is preposterous. There are 3 OSUs, Ohio State, Oregon State and Oklahoma State. There are 2 UTs, Texas and Tennessee, there are several UMs, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Montana, Maryland. So, why are we the only team that can't be called UL, just because only one other schools uses that? And, in fact, they don't use UL, they use U of L or just L.

I agree, we win 7 and we are in no matter what our name is. But, we didn't win 7 and could have been selected with a 6-6 record. We weren't and I believe our name had something to do with it as did our conference affiliation and worthless commissioner.

[TheRaginCajun06]

We snubbed ourselves. We can be as ____ed off as we want, but we played one of the easiest schedules in the country. The teams we beat had a combined losing record of 20 something wins.

I was ready to make my reservations, but sit back and think about it. We buried ourselves by not winning 7 games. We would have been guaranteed a spot! There are four teams that did not get a bowl bid. The other 3 have to be feeling the same as us today. What I do know is that and I don't have to go into detail, but it's all about the money. Those bowls attract schools that can bring the fans and money! Our perception is a whole other topic.

We finished the season 1-3.

We weren't snubbed. We didn't finish what we started AT 5-3.

[rcarte3]

_ The is already a Lafayette University. _

Yes I know. V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y FOR YOU I said change the name to THE UNIVERSITY OF LAFAYETTE.

[DestinCajun]

_ First of all, I would take ULA like Georgia (UGA) and Virginia (UVA) use. Secondly, almost every major university has the city tag, but doesn't use it athletically, e.g. Texas at Austin, Nebraska Lincoln, North Carolina Chapel Hill, California Berkeley, Wisconsin Madison, Minnesota Twin Cities, Nevada Reno, etc. I don't care that we are the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Just call us Louisiana, athletically. Thirdly, all of the other schools you mentioned have directional names, not hyphenated names. I would rather have been the University of South Louisiana (USL) than continue to fight the U LA LA and Louisiana-Lafayette image. The only hyphenated schools that have a positive image are the ones that have great acronyms and are in good conferences, like UCLA, UNLV, UTEP and UAB. NOBODY calls UCLA California-Los Angeles. And, as for as another post that we can't be UL because Louisville is UL, that is preposterous. There are 3 OSUs, Ohio State, Oregon State and Oklahoma State. There are 2 UTs, Texas and Tennessee, there are several UMs, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Montana, Maryland. So, why are we the only team that can't be called UL, just because only one other schools uses that? And, in fact, they don't use UL, they use U of L or just L.

I agree, we win 7 and we are in no matter what our name is. But, we didn't win 7 and could have been selected with a 6-6 record. We weren't and I believe our name had something to do with it as did our conference affiliation and worthless commissioner. _

The name got us. I've been waiting for someone to blame "Baton Rouge".

[SportsFan]

HOUSTONCAJUN...

Good points on the name issue. One other reason the acronyms you noted work for them is because they have been in use for many, many years. Perhaps if Louisiana-Lafayette had begun using ULL from day one, that acronym would be more familiar around the country. Remember, most people know a university from the ESPN bottom line scoreboard. I know that sounds stupid, but really, when you watch the scores roll by, do you ever question who's playing who? Rarely, because you are used to the lettering you see. And, they use UL for Louisville. ULL could only be one school. And, keeping USL (dropping "western") would have put the university way ahead in national recognition by the average fan. And the average fan knows UL as Louisville. Adding a third letter, whether L or A would greatly help. Using ULL doesn't mean you can't still use Louisiana. And, I understand the next question coming along..."why don't they just call us Louisiana?" Don't know. But i"ll bet it would be easier to get "them" to say ULL. or even ULA. Monroe doesn't fight the battle. They want to be called ULM.