Re: For all those who hate RayJay remember this...

[Knight_Light]

That must of killed them in recruiting not having the OCS atmosphere you mention for recruiting. I bet Alabama had no success back then.

Thanks Joe for making my point that a huge OCS is not necessary to recruit a good team

Alabama wasn't good because they played many of their games at Legion Field...Alabama was GREAT because they were able to give everyone and their Mother a scholarship to Alabama (i.e. ZERO scholarship limits back in the day), and Bama kept great players on their bench...vs starting against them from Tennessee, Georgia, Ole Miss, Georgia, etc....

Also...Bama decided to spend tons of $$$$$$ on their ON-CAMPUS stadiums vs spending any of their $$$$$ on Legion Field...and now Bryant-Denny holds over 92,000 plus folks...and its one of the nicest on-campus stadium anywhere in the country.

If Bama thought they would get more bang from their buck...they could of easily spent $$$$ at Legion Field (State would of loved it of course), but they didn't.

Bama spent the $$$$ at HOME!

[Triple B]

Bama kept great players on their bench...vs starting against them from Tennessee, Georgia, Ole Miss, Georgia, etc....

Link?

[Joe]

Its true Trip.

But I love how he ignored how I mentioned it above. K_L, why do you do this to yourself...

[nukebull]

That must of killed them in recruiting not having the OCS atmosphere you mention for recruiting. I bet Alabama had no success back then.

Thanks Joe for making my point that a huge OCS is not necessary to recruit a good team

Alabama wasn't good because they played many of their games at Legion Field...Alabama was GREAT because they were able to give everyone and their Mother a scholarship to Alabama (i.e. ZERO scholarship limits back in the day), and Bama kept great players on their bench...vs starting against them from Tennessee, Georgia, Ole Miss, Georgia, etc....

Also...Bama decided to spend tons of $$$$$$ on their ON-CAMPUS stadiums vs spending any of their $$$$$ on Legion Field...and now Bryant-Denny holds over 92,000 plus folks...and its one of the nicest on-campus stadium anywhere in the country.

If Bama thought they would get more bang from their buck...they could of easily spent $$$$ at Legion Field (State would of loved it of course), but they didn't.

Bama spent the $$$$ at HOME!

This is too time consuming and starting to bore me but here goes KL

Alabama has a home stadium and it was built in 1929, they played some games up to 3 a year at Legions field, they played Auburn there either as a home or away game for a few years. They also played in Birmingham when their stadium was being expanded in  1950, 61, 66, 88 these are facts and you can look them up on the alabama website.

The scholarship limit went ino effect in 1977, also a fact, and Alabam did pretty well after that happened.

Another cool fact is that the last game Alabama played at Legions filed was against USF, we lost but still cool.

[nukebull]

They did not expand the Orange Bowl to its current configuration until the Dolphins started play in 1966, they went through further expansion in the mid 70's and the dolphins were fine there. They wanted to move in the 80's as most of their fan base left to move up to the northern counties. The point here is they play in multi use off campus stadiums owned by someone else.

The expansion in the 60s was done for the Orange Bowl game, not the Dolphins. The Dolphins only averaged a lil over 20,000 in 1966.

That must of killed them in recruiting not having the OCS atmosphere you mention for recruiting. I bet Alabama had no success back then.

Thanks Joe for making my point that a huge OCS is not necessary to recruit a good team

First, you cannot compare an era where a school (Alabama) would have 160 guys on scholarship to today's scholarship restricted NCAA.

I agree you don't need an on campus stadium for success, Miami has proven that. So I agree there.

However, I just am not so sure that some of the bigger recruits see RJS as this spectacular monument that many hope they do. They will see 4-5 stadiums in person via visits, maybe even more on unofficials.

And yes, while they might not be an Auburn fan, walking onto that field is pretty darn impressive. I'm just saying it how it is, RJS will neither help us, nor hurt us with these bigger recruits. It's really not that big of a deal to them.

This is going in a circle, the point I am trying to make is that the great talent you speak of will not consider the stadium as the key reason IMO. We are not at great talent getting level yet, we can get there with RayJay as a home field. This has been proven by other teams. A recruit made get a warm fuzzy walking out onto the field at Alabama but most of the great ones want to play on Sundays and they do not play ball in Alabama on Sundays.

I played football growing up in Miami and when in Pop Warner I got the opportunity to play a scrimmage at the Orange Bowl. I grew up going to see the Canes play ball there but what made it special is that that is where the guys who play in the NFL played and that is where they played the Super Bowl 5 times.

I am sure there may be some who will go to a school based on a great stadium on campus, there are a ton of those stadiums out there. Army was and is the nicest campus I have been to and Notre Dame ranks up there also along with Duke IMO but they still do not get all the ones they want. (I know Army is special with the whole military commitment). I do not think USF will ever be a huge ocs stadium with 100,000 plus type of team. So the type of players we go after now seem to enjoy the stadium and find it to be a plus that is great. Not all recruits care so we will get some for family reasons, that is our strength, getting the great local talent to stay close to home. the locals know that RJ stadium is the real deal and where they play Super Bowls and on Sunday and I think that helps a little bit as opposed to lets say the citrus bowl or an ocs with no history.

As far as the college stadiums being NFL stadiums, most stadiums in the early days of NFL and AFL were multi use as there was no need to build for a sport that did not sell very well. The Dolphins and the city of Miami planned to increase the stadium for what was an inevitable merger with NFL as the 1st Super Bowl was played in 67. The Hurricanes never put many in the seats and were not that good until the 80's

I think we both agree in the end on this issue and out of my laziness some of this post is intended for someone else.

[Knight_Light]

Bama kept great players on their bench...vs starting against them from Tennessee, Georgia, Ole Miss, Georgia, etc....

Link?

It's called historical knowledge.

Read any book written about Bama and/or the Bear.

Also...talk to any old-timer from Bama as well.

A bunch live in FLA too.

[CyberBull]

Look at what BYU was able to do when the could win and put guys in the pros, I mean have you been to their campus, not my cup of tea and then you have a huge pressure to convert to another religion but they still got talent to go there.

That's false.

All students at BYU have to follow the Honor Code...but they are not acquired to attend regular The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Church services. (About 2% of BYU's student popular follows 20 other religions other than LDS.)

http://honorcode.byu.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3585&Itemid=4643

Religion specific schools are otherwise falling by the wayside in regards to pushing admissions to those that follow a particular faith:

Southern Methodist University: Only about 1 in 5 students there are actually Methodist...which is about the same number as Roman Catholics that attend SMU.

Notre Dame: Has a good contingent of JEWISH students (especially ND Law).

Maybe a huge pressure is overstated but I know a couple of guys who went there and they said there was pressure to join the church. I never they had to. 2% is nothing but a token blip and is probably mostly the football team and a good chunk of the rest of the athletes.

As far as SMU know the program well my Uncle was team pastor during the heyday and he travelled with team and tried to convert all he could.

[highlight]Thanks for sharing and remember not every discussion of our stadium involves you[/highlight].

Good luck with that one...

Don't you know that KL is Mr College Football?:nope

:wahhing

[Triple B]

Bama kept great players on their bench...vs starting against them from Tennessee, Georgia, Ole Miss, Georgia, etc....

Link?

It's called historical knowledge.

Read any book written about Bama and/or the Bear.

Also...talk to any old-timer from Bama as well.

A bunch live in FLA too.

So, basically, you're just corroborating what Joe and nuke have said, that where a team plays doesn't play that big a role, one way or the other, in recruiting ... I think most of us have said that already. Having a problem keeping up?

[nukebull]

Bama kept great players on their bench...vs starting against them from Tennessee, Georgia, Ole Miss, Georgia, etc....

Link?

It's called historical knowledge.

Read any book written about Bama and/or the Bear.

Also...talk to any old-timer from Bama as well.

A bunch live in FLA too.

So, basically, you're just corroborating what Joe and nuke have said, that where a team plays doesn't play that big a role, one way or the other, in recruiting ... I think most of us have said that already. Having a problem keeping up?

Trip

You have to understand how difficult it is to search the Internet for every written word about USF, spin what is written into a negative, go on all the message boards of USF opponents and non football BE schools and continue to keep a archive of every post on every board associated with USF and read every blog and newspaper that covers USF and comb the police blotter of 3 counties in the Bay area and drive by the USF campus 2 times a day looking for any change or something negative and start a blog using the name Ryan Hamilton and post using the name Knight_fan. With all of this on his plate you have to give KL a chance to catch up- he is a little busy,  you insensitive Meany.

[USFPDiddy]

alittle off topic but looks like Miami is moving into the Fin's stadium so whe wont be the only D-I school to play in a Pro stadium

Just off hand, I'm pretty sure that Pitt and Arizona State already play in pro stadiums.  There might be others too (in addition to us), but I can' think of them off hand and don't want to look it up.

I don't think a lot of people HATE RayJay per se', it's just that if we could afford an OCS, it would be better.  Generally the school will do what is best for it and as the football team continues to improve there will be some more leverage towards an OCS.  I agree with the OP in that it doesn't hurt our recruiting, nor does it help it spectacularly.  It's just a good stadium.

Another thing is if we do get an OCS, it needs to have enough potential for future capacity to support a growing fan base.  Making a projection of that nature is somewhat of a risk on its own, which is yet another reason to stick with RayJay for now.