Marshall is playing for an unbeaten season. UAB is playing for its life.

In the 20-20 hindsight department, Legion Field, I believe, has been pretty much a disaster for several decades now, so it certainly could be argued UAB made a huge mistake by launching an FBS-level program without some kind of plan to replace it.

 

That's the problem though, UAB is not allowed it's own BoT. It's the system cash cow, bringing in 70% of the cash flow. The only way to get out from under would require a constitutional amendment, vote in the state lege (which is full of UA Law grads) and winning a popular vote. That will never, ever happen. Proportional representation on the board, and that the board be accountable to someone besides the board itself? That would go a long way toward fixing things.

UAB has a $2.4b operating budget. It's not a question of money.

 

UAB is not ALLOWED to replace it. We went to the board, hat in hand, with a design, financials, the land, all the luxury suites pre-sold, at a time when interest rates and construction costs were near all time lows. The Stadium vote was on the board agenda. Paul Bryant, Jr., in his role as president pro tem, removed it from the agenda and said "there is not enough support on the board to go forward with a UAB stadium at this time." This is a state with open meeting laws (Ha!). How do you come to that position without breaking them? And more to the point if there was not enough support, why not have a vote, vote it down, done?

The BoT told UAB, "Get your act together, improve interest and attendance, and we'll revisit this." Instead we start winning and attendance is soaring and they move behind the scenes to try to close the program.

Basically they say, get better and you'll get what you want, then they saddle us with horrible coaches. We have poor to nonexistent facilities, which makes recruiting very difficult, but we're supposed to win to get what we want reviewed, and you know how competitive recruiting is better than most. They tell us to improve attendance, and stick us in a stadium that was obsolete 24 years ago when they abandoned it as inadequate, a stadium where you literally cannot depend on there being hot water, toilet paper, or paper towels. They say get your financials in order and leave us to play in a stadium we have to rent to play in where we don't get the parking or the concession money.

It's really rolling the rock uphill, and when we do it anyhow they want to shut it down? Run off the best coach in our football history?

It ain't right guys.

Yeah, I know that the P5 are going to eat all the dollars and that the little guys are going to suck hind tit. This program could be self sufficient if it were managed with an eye to success. I see no effort spared to make the UAT program a success, and no effort made to make UAB's a success, and it is unjust.

I'm out. It's a beautiful football day, and I'm going down to Lesion Field and pull for my team. It's senior day for 18 young men who are on their third head coach and stuck it out in the face of more obstacles than I can count, and I'm going to cheer them on.

Later.

 

Bad enough that the people are trying to kill the program, but the stadium now has lesions.

 

Methinks there's not much neutral about Neutral Corner.

 

Read post one. I have been neutral as hell on this board. No one knew a darn thing about who I pulled for until this thread, and I outed myself full disclosure when I started it.

But no, not on this subject. It's not UA or the Alabama fans. Its a few corrupt old men on the Board. Shrug. We'll win or lose, should know within ten days if we have a program left. Maybe less. Today helped, we drew a solid crowd. All we can do is keep shining a light and hope the cockroaches run back under the baseboards.

The team played hard. Couldn't make it on 4th down at the ten with a minute left. We were down five so it was first down, touchdown, or lose. Got stuffed. Coach made a couple of bad calls, but he played to win, aggressively. We might have won if he'd played it safe, but he had a lot on the line and he went for it, bless him.

I'm so proud of those kids. They had about as good a senior day as you can if you don't win.

 

If an honest building inspector walked it, they'd shut it down. They work for the city, so that's not going to happen.

If we keep the program alive, I expect the city and UAB to go in on a new stadium. There is no decent facility in town, Legion Field is it.

 

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/11/free_uab_and_scaring_unbeaten.html

 

I get that no college "deserves" a football program, but what the UA trustees are doing to UAB just ain't right. If the program isn't viable, that's one thing, but that program has never been given a chance, so we don't know whether it can truly be viable or not.

Believe me, I feel your pain. I'm a Southern Miss grad, and we get it from two directions, the Ole Miss and MSU side. Fortunately, Southern has enough history behind it that it can, to a certain extent, overcome the obstacles that have been placed in its path. And it also helps that governor now is a USM grad. But it's still tough.

 

University of Alabama-Birmingham has no business playing in a big-assed stadium like Legion Field.
And the program knew from the get-go that it would have problems being relevant in that city and that state.
It could exist with a presence in smaller sports, beginning with men's and women's basketball.
But, football's not gonna maintain any relevance at UAB.
Only about 25,000-30,000 people annually will give a flip what that program does.
Many of them are alums. But, my wife is an alum for her Masters there and she couldn't care less about UAB.
This issue's pretty clear-cut.

 

Tulane built a high school stadium and moved up to the AAC, yet UAB is on life support. Where's the justice?

 

Tulane has money and can do whatever it wants. Smart move to do this, similar to SMU moving back on campus after the death penalty.

The most similar parallel I see for UAB is what happened in Nebraska. Three years ago, Nebraska-Omaha dropped football and wrestling. The state loves college football, much like Alabama, but not enough to support UNO.

If people already have "the best" within reach, they'll support it. They won't support a mediocre product if something perceived as "the best" is also available. While Nebraska isn't Top 5 anymore, it was far superior to a UNO program.

Also, the rather short distance between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa hurts UAB, like Omaha to Lincoln also killed UNO football.

I wonder if, for Southern Miss, the fact that they're on the opposite side of the state as Ole Miss and State doesn't hurt.