Mingjai

Maybe I need to post this in the News forum, otherwise it won't get the views.

For the record, I don't like that we're now making a distinction between News and General Discussion. Most of the posts in the News topics would qualify as general discussion. If we had a vote, I would say recombine the two forums. Also, if there is already a topic for this, please point me in the right direction so I can make my opinion known there.

Probably applies to all schools, not just the small ones, because even big schools may skimp and have someone in the athletic department take a stab at the added variants.

As I posted in the other thread, I wish Pitt had returned to the actual mustard yellow.

I thought these wouldn’t age well, but looking back, I still like the simplicity of WLAF’s Orlando Thunder:

Independence rumors have been floating around BYU since the rumors of Utah to the Pac 10 started. I was always skeptical of both the rumors and BYU's ability to be independent. I'm still on the fence on the issue, but I thought I'd add a bit of perspective (bear with me). From the beginning, BYU never really expected to join the Pac 10 because of issues at the institutional level (i.e., politics), despite the fact that many of the Pac 10 schools are more than happy to schedule BYU because they can fill the stadium. Since 1985, every Pac 10 school has played at least one home-home series with BYU. BYU's biggest hope to switch conferences was always the Big 12, which supposedly was forced to take Baylor over BYU back in the 1990s. With a cloud still surrounding the Big 12, BYU has decided to be proactive. The biggest issue currently for BYU is publicity and TV revenue. When I was at BYU early in the 2000s, I worked at BYU-TV as a cameraman at football, basketball, volleyball, soccer, lacrosse, and rugby games. Many times, the play-by-play at the events was handled by Holly Rowe, who, despite being a Utah grad, has a long history of working for BYU-TV and KBYU. Whenever ESPN came through, they would use BYU's extensive broadcasting facilities and local production personnel, allowing ESPN to save the costs of bringing their own truck and staff to the game. All ESPN needed to provide was on-air talent. In return, ESPN allowed BYU-TV to rebroadcast games as early as 5 hours after the game ended--even now, BYU-TV still re-airs ESPN games. While working at BYU-TV, many of my co-workers with close ties to ESPN commented that ESPN was primarily interested in broadcasting BYU games, but that the ESPN-MWC broadcasting deal was negotiated at a time when BYU was struggling, so ESPN was able to make demands like Wednesday night games. Because of that, the MWC switched to its current Mtn/CBS College deal, which BYU was on board with to try to make work. Unfortunately, the Mtn deal was not favorable to BYU Broadcasting, as the Mtn got exclusive rights to all home games of MWC members, meaning that even if the Mtn or its broadcast partners opted not to broadcast a football or men's basketball game, BYU-TV faced significant hurdles to step in to fill the gap. That's why the only recent football game broadcast by BYU-TV was BYU at Utah State in 2008 (ESPN opted not to air the game either on its networks or through its ESPN+ affiliates). Recently, BYU men's basketball played Fresno State in Provo, with former BYU coach Steve Cleveland helming Fresno State. Even though the Mtn passed on broadcasting the game, the network exercised its exclusivity clause to prevent BYU-TV from broadcasting it. I think people are underestimating the importance of broadcasting and overplay the Notre Dame analogy. BYU knows it can't demand or even request Notre Dame treatment. But BYU will be happy with a modest TV contract with ESPN, increased broadcasting rights, and continued at-large treatment from the BCS. Right now, BYU only makes $1.5 million annually from the MWC TV deal and it gets a share from MWC bowl earnings. The rumor is that ESPN is willing to pay BYU about $4 million to broadcast 4 home games a year, and BYU would get to pocket its own bowl earnings, meaning it could double possibly double its annual football earnings. BYU will continue to sell out its 60,000+ seat stadium, and it should be able to draw some decent teams to Provo (and ESPN should help since it would be in ESPN's interest to create good matchups). Without a modest ESPN deal in place, independence is not viable. I know one thing--should BYU go independent, you can bet the eyes of Texas will be on BYU for the next few years.

I predict the PAC 10 title games could be at the Rose Bowl, Jerry World aka Cowboys Stadium (if the texas schools decide to join), Qwest Field, the new Santa Clara Stadium the Niners will build. As for the Big 10, Lucas Oil (durr), Soldier Field, The Horseshoe, Ford Field, Lambeau.... haha I'm just throwing wild guesses but wouldn't be surprised if they were selected. I would add University of Phoenix Stadium with the Pacific 16 as well as the rest This is what I thought you wrote there for a second:

I wonder where Baylor, ISU, Kansas, and Kansas State would do next if that happens? The most logical option would be that the Mountain West adds those 4 plus Boise State to hit 14 teams and becom the de facto replacement in the BCS for the Big XII Speaking as a BYU fan, it would be nice to see the MWC pick up Boise State, Mizzou, Kansas, K-State, and Baylor--definitely better than having those schools go to the Big East. But who knows what will happen before the dust settles. During the whole process, the nightmare scenario for me would have been CU and Utah to the Pac 10, and someone besides BYU added to the Big XII, but it looks like the Big XII is imploding, so what's likely to happen now is not looking so bad.

It's probably been covered in one of the many pages of this topic, but again, from a uniforms standpoint, it's sure going to be nice having Nebraska and Wisconsin in the same conference. It's the spring game!

Looking for some help on the number font used by circa 1996 BYU: Thanks.