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4pm(C) Press Conference in Birmingham...

Aug 22, 2013
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Word down here is that UAB football is coming back. We shall see.. I sure hope so because it's great to be able to see the Herd play here in Birmingham when they come to town. They say there has been huge amounts of pressure put on UAB President Watts and the Board at bama (bear bryant jr) that everyone feels was behind the decision to pull the plug in the first place. Should be interesting. The City of Birmingham has pledged money to put into Legion Field if this is a go....

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/06/uab_schedules_4_pm_press_confe.html#incart_river

GO HERD!
 
Clearly they cannot play in 15. Schedule is out. According to one site, 32 players decided not to transfer (or nobody wanted). Some may stick around for 16, some may just need a year (or less) to graduate and are just being regular students and move on with their lives. There is no incoming 15 freshman class.

32 guys (max) coming off a year off, the 16 true freshman class, and whatever JUCOs and transfers they can round up is like dangerous bad. If I were a coach or and AD and standing came down to my team not playing UAB and yours did, I would be upset.
 
Even before UABs football program was shut down they hadnt had a winning season in 10 years. If they do bring the program back they will be in worse shape. And all this support people are pledging now where were these people the last 20 years? I dont think there is going to be any difference this time around. They will probably see an increase in support and attendance the first couple of years or so but they will eventually end up going back to the same ole UAB program playing in front of an empty stadium.
 
Money well wasted.

I think they should have kept the football program to begin with and just moved down a level to FCS. That might have helped them start to win some, pick up some support and maybe eventually a chance for a new smaller stadium while at the FCS level. Bringing back their program like they are currently doing does seem like a waste of money.
 
I think they should have kept the football program to begin with and just moved down a level to FCS. That might have helped them start to win some, pick up some support and maybe eventually a chance for a new smaller stadium while at the FCS level. Bringing back their program like they are currently doing does seem like a waste of money.
I agree completely. It has the feeling of being afraid of looking weak or small time if they were to be smart and go FCS.
 
There will be a pouring in of support for the next 2-3 years and after 5 years when they havent had anything in the vicinity of a successful season people will be shocked when Bear Jr. shuts them down again - For good.

The best way to "fix" college football disparity between the haves and have-nots is to simply allow the have-nots to wither away. I was hoping that UAB dropping their program would lead to other schools having the cajones to do the same or move back to FCS (I'm looking at you Sun Belt, bottom half of MAC and bottom half of CUSA) so that FBS could evolve into eight 12-team leagues that make money and play competitive football with regional rivalries restored.

Oh well, here's to rolling UAB by 50 points the next five or more years in front of 800 fans!
 
Maybe not a fair comparison, but I remember the days of going to Fairfield Stadium and there would be very low attendance. If UAB could get an on campus stadium, I think it would benefit them tremendously. Had the funds not been secured for the Herd's stadium, our program could have very easily been shut down. Heck, they wanted to shut it down after the crash.

One of the biggest problems for UAB and attendance is bama & Auburn. If those three play at the same time on a Saturday, it will crush UAB's attendance. Hopefully they will work on scheduling to avoid this situation. From UAB's campus, you can be in tuscaloosa in one hour and Auburn's campus in one hour 15 minutes.
 
There will be a pouring in of support for the next 2-3 years and after 5 years when they havent had anything in the vicinity of a successful season people will be shocked when Bear Jr. shuts them down again - For good.

The best way to "fix" college football disparity between the haves and have-nots is to simply allow the have-nots to wither away. I was hoping that UAB dropping their program would lead to other schools having the cajones to do the same or move back to FCS (I'm looking at you Sun Belt, bottom half of MAC and bottom half of CUSA) so that FBS could evolve into eight 12-team leagues that make money and play competitive football with regional rivalries restored.

Oh well, here's to rolling UAB by 50 points the next five or more years in front of 800 fans!


You do realize it took the Herd a goal line stand to beat UAB this past November..right?
 
You do realize it took the Herd a goal line stand to beat UAB this past November..right?
And that makes UAB a worthwhile program to keep putting on the field? In front of all 1300 of the fans they pull in? Or with the huge sum of money they are drain on in state funding?
 
And that makes UAB a worthwhile program to keep putting on the field? In front of all 1300 of the fans they pull in? Or with the huge sum of money they are drain on in state funding?


Huge drain? You don't think bama can afford it? 1300 fans? Were you at the UAB v Herd game? You are not interested in arguing with facts so I'll just let you think what ya want to...
 
If the program wasn't a drain, why was it shut down?

And of course the 1300 number was sarcasm. But it doesn't change the fact that their attendance numbers are bad.
 
I did not mean to sound like a jerk, but it came off that way. Apologies.... The program was shut down because bear bryant jr wanted it shut down and has for years. This goes all the way back to the days of Gene Bartow when he was the basketball coach at UAB. Here is an article about it from last fall and a paragraph or two that is in it: (if you really want a good idea of what happened at UAB, come down to Birmingham and talk to some of the money people associated with the program. No love for bear bryant jr.....

Bartow accused Bear Bryant of cheating in a letter to the NCAA in 1991.

"Gene Bartow, out of his mouth, told me on many, many occasions that the aim of the board of trustees was to kill UAB football in the last 8-10 years," said Jimmy Filler, UAB's biggest booster and the creator of the UAB Football Foundation. "They're going to get the recommendation from [UAB President Ray Watts], and they'll accept what he brings to them."

Alabama state Rep. Jack Williams, a longtime supporter of UAB, said the board has always been opposed to UAB football.

"It's been a thorn in their flesh since day one," Williams said. "I think they've done everything to kill it. I'll be honest: I think the program's success this year may be what leads to its demise if the board goes through with this because people are excited."


Link to the entire article:

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo...f-trustees-finally-ready-to-kill-uab-football
 
It's pretty well established that the program was shut down because of Bear Bryant Jr.'s pettiness and a patsy president.

UAB has average to above average support for our conference so there wouldn't be much of a C-USA left if you hold everyone else to the same standard.

And as pointed out, their support would likely increase significantly if they're allowed to build an on-campus stadium.
 
I hate Bear Bryant Jr for his crap in all of this but the truth is...

UAB has never really been a solid football program...ever. While people want to fish for pity points regarding their being overshadowed by Bama and Auburn..
Just remember...Southern Miss, ucf, and ECU have managed to have more successful seasons than their power conference siblings...USM is probably more prominent than either MSU or Ole Miss in terms of mere winning seasons and bowl appearances.

So what does that say about UAB? Nobody ever really cared about the program. They inherited an aging and run down Iron Bowl...they have had no real direction...and their students consider them an afterthought.

All this has done is revitalized a few thousand people...who will be excited their school plays football again...only to be so far behind everyone else...they might as well call themselves SMU.
A few losing seasons and we are back to trashing their program for being so weak and they just existing. Its annoying.

On campus stadium? That costs money....and support...something they do not have.

Oh and quit comparing this to 1970...Marshall had a tragedy happen...not some spoiled idiot name dropping to get his way and using political pull to do so...hell, wvu even supported Marshall at the time.

Kick them down to FCS along with FIU or send them to the Sunbelt.

About the only interesting thing that could come of this is a game against Bama...should UAB even gain enough firepower to even score...but the dirt on Bear Jr would be epic...however the game would look nore like the opening kickoff of The Longest Yard than anything else.

As I said...put them in FCS...if they have support...they can move up...if they dont...keep them there...nobody cares.
 
Bossman.... UAB did play MU well this year, and this year is the best their program has been in a long long time - And they still got canned.

For the next 5 plus years they will be unwatchably bad (much like some other CUSA, Sun Belt, MAC teams). Heck, they are behind Charlotte right now in terms of a program and Charlotte has never played a DI game.

In 5 years, after 5 years of getting their brains beaten in, they will be on the chopping block again. Only next time it will be done with some more political savy and PR savy so that it wont be revived by the few people who do actually give a rats rear end about UAB football.
 
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It was always a miserable program. They should have allowed it to die in peace. Now they're just prolonging the agony. It will take them 15 seasons to reach 6-6 if they last that long. Birmingham itself is a run down, crime ridden shit hole and nobody would be worse off if the whole place burned to the ground.
 
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Huge drain? You don't think bama can afford it? 1300 fans? Were you at the UAB v Herd game? You are not interested in arguing with facts so I'll just let you think what ya want to...


That was not a representation of their fam base. I talked to people that were there. A lot of those "fans" were Auburn fans and some Bama fans there to show support like a charity cause. Also read where Auburn fans were donating money just to spurn Bama.

Bottom line is these UAB "fans" poured in and became outraged during the 11th and 13th hours. Had they been doing this all along they never would have lost their team and probably field a bowl team.

Alos would people please stop comparing thinga to 1970. That was a tragic plane crash that killed nearly every single member of our team and staff. We didn't lose our team because we had no fan support and sucked.

The two situations are nothing alike. UAB losing their team was not tragic. It was business. UAB football was a product no one was buying. Now they're back and will be worse than ever.

These newly won over UAB fans will fade away if they can't start winning within the next 3-5 seaons.

They shouldn't have dropped the team they should have dropped football down to FCS where they might be competitive.
 
UAB called around to find a conference for their other sports, and by the end of their search, they changed their minds about football and leaving C-USA. That's what happened. Nothing that was broken has been fixed.
 
Well you all might be right and you might be wrong and only time will tell. They did just say on ABC 33/40 B'ham TV news that the UAB Football Foundation raised 27 million in the last 4 weeks so someone is wanting to keep the program alive. Could we pull that off at Marshall?

Give UAB a nice small on campus stadium and keep Bill Clark as the head coach and they will compete with anyone at their level. Like I said earlier, the Herd did beat them last year here (I was at the game) and it was one of the best Herd teams ever yet it took a goal line stance to do it at the end of the game.

The comparison to the crash was only made to show that even our school flirted with shutting down the program. I get the crash.. I was 11 yrs old when it happened and lived 2 blocks from campus. I get it.

Birmingham has it's issues but I like living here although it's not for everyone. You just have to know where to go and where to avoid. It has a super live music scene and is doing some things to improve itself and image. Like most larger cities the downtown area is a little run down but the outskirts are really nice and have great places to live and raise a family.

I'm not poopooing the Herd, heck I graduated from there. Living outside of Huntington has just opened my eyes to a lot of things and sometimes Herd fans get a little.. not sure how to say this. "high and mighty" when we are closer to the situation other schools often experience like a UAB has. I was guilty of this in the 90's and I wonder if we will ever get back to that level of winning against great teams.

Go Herd!
 
Still they'll be better than Charlotte. Never should have let that school in the league. At least UAB brings more to the table in other sports and academics - mostly medicine. I don't care for it either but there was no other viable alternative unless the league would have booted Charlotte or FIU and gone to 12 teams.
If any other school out there was a good fit, they would have been in the league by now. No more SB teams or start up programs - thats bush league.
 
we may have a wager there in 2016 Twolf. if they play in charlotte, I may just take that bet.
 
All programs are just sports. Remember when some uwv folks were wanting to kill our program? Who deserves to have a team? Only those rich schools? Talk to the old Herd players from the days of losing and they will talk of how great it was to get to play. Don't be so smug now that we can compete. WELCOME UAB!
 
we may have a wager there in 2016 Twolf. if they play in charlotte, I may just take that bet.


That would be a good bet, LOL. Two juggernauts going at it. As much as I want Brad and Phil to succeed, that will be tall order.
 
We shouldn't be so quick to judge UAB. I mean, it's not like Marshall's never gone an extended period of time without success (2 winning seasons in the 20 years between Cam and the plane crash?) and look where we've been (minus Snyder) since the mid 80's.

I'm glad they're bringing football back, and I'd really like to see UAB turn out to be one of the really good teams of the conference, much like they are in basketball.
 
We shouldn't be so quick to judge UAB. I mean, it's not like Marshall's never gone an extended period of time without success (2 winning seasons in the 20 years between Cam and the plane crash?) and look where we've been (minus Snyder) since the mid 80's.

I'm glad they're bringing football back, and I'd really like to see UAB turn out to be one of the really good teams of the conference, much like they are in basketball.


Not gonna happen. Back then you could afford 20 years of losing. Now, with the collegiate arms race going on...a losing season can break your bank.

Not knly is UAB coming back a travesty, but it is going to be quite possibly THE most embarrassing time for them when they take the field.
I also, hope, uab doesnt get a damn penny of the conference revenue for this mismanaged BS they did for the 2015 season.
Uab is undeserving of another chance because they had zero support to begin with and will have zero support moving forward...they wont have enough money to build a stadium...theyll blame it on the Bama board of governors...when, if they had true support, would begin fundraising themselves for a majority of it.
 
I think it's a great thing that UAB is coming back. They were finally getting fan support this past season, which will likely be greater than ever when they come back. They raised $28M in four weeks, and while that isn't sustainable, it's been proven that there are donors in Birmingham, and a number of the recent donors have made multi-year pledges. They bring good basketball, baseball, and softball teams to the table. This prevents our conference from being at that weird 13 teams (also likely preventing us from letting in another school nobody's heard of in the future). They're one of two remaining founding members of CUSA. This entire situation brings more national exposure to the conference. The true travesty was having UAB shut down football in the first place, using flimsy reasons based on a faulty study.

And honestly, how will this negatively affect us? With Charlotte joining, they'll be moving to the west anyway, so we'll play them every three years or so.
 
I'd rather have dropped FIU along with uab...let those two go to the Sunbelt or FCS and see if they can regain their footing, if so, then maybe, they're back in.
 
I'd rather have dropped FIU along with uab...let those two go to the Sunbelt or FCS and see if they can regain their footing, if so, then maybe, they're back in.

I think you need to get off your high horse. That's just my opinion.
 
I wouldnt consider myself on a high horse...but rather...uab's level is so far below PAR....that it may seem like it.

Then again..if you want to support a sinking ship, go for it. I could care less about uab...if theyre back...another win for Marshall...if they get dropped again...it shows they couldnt stay afloat...in a group of 5 that includes Western Michigan, Ball State, Troy, and others...who may have more abysmal attendance and support than anyone...and UAB can't hang with them??
 
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