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Bowl Destination is a Gragg Fail

W

wildcatcoaster

Well-Known Member
Oct 27, 2003
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Some positives great stadium etc.

But a hard matchup. Dec. 23 so hard to do pre Christmas. And we were definitely "junped" by MD. Rutgers and Wisconsin. Trash Wisky to Reliaquest (Outback) is ridiculous. Yes I live two hours from Tampa so I'm being selfish but really frustrating.

Gragg did NOTHING to advocate for his team. Probably the only downside to our impressive success in Football and hoops is that incompetent will take credit... when it's clear the teams had these accomplishments DESPITE administration and certainly not because of it.

Will make it harder to fire this guy sadly.
 
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Technically, Pinstripe is a lower pick than Vegas, so I'm not sure that you can make a case that Rutgers jumped us. Wisky had exactly the same record that we did.

Maryland ... I'll bet my lunch money right now that Maryland will have worse attendance than we did in Nashville in 2017. The committee probably wasn't wild about a rematch of a bowl we played 3 years ago, when a team that has never played in Nashville, and hadn't played Auburn in 40 years, was available.
 
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Our well documented and particularly poor attendance this year and the fact we are still scandal tainted in the eyes of the national media provably didn’t help.
 
NUFan0207 said:
Our well documented and particularly poor attendance this year and the fact we are still scandal tainted in the eyes of the national media provably didn’t help.
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I don't think the scandal played any part. In fact Braun and the team's success are now quite the feelgood story.

Blame our own fans who pouted and stayed home from games.
 
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Was really hoping for Nashville for personal reasons (calendar, drivable, brother in Nashvegas) and I cannot make Vegas happen, but I think Vegas will work well for NU. It's an easy flight for local fans, and I know a lot of CA fans who say they will go. The game is at 6pm on a Saturday, which is a very good exposure for us. Utah is tough, but winnable. It is a great new facility that I think holds some inspiration for our new facility.
 
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The scandal is older news and the story about how NU had a resilient year and winning team will be the story. The team has the Hat and a bowl bid. At least that story, which true will entice Utah fans to attend. This is a high quality opponent in a great location. The timing is what is available in Vegas. I much preferred Nashville which is driveable but that we are still playing football in December is great. Now go grab some Grad Transfers.
 
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kaTNap said:
Technically, Pinstripe is a lower pick than Vegas, so I'm not sure that you can make a case that Rutgers jumped us. Wisky had exactly the same record that we did.
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I’ve always considered the pre-Christmas week to be the opening act; your MAC-Sunbelt matchups in “how’d [Albuquerque] get a bowl” cities. But I guess Vegas is the highlight of the warmup week, with the Saturday night timing and the marquee location and conferences.
The amuse-bouche for the post-Christmas grownup games.

Tough for Central/Eastern time zoners to plan for redeye or Christmas Eve travel, but I trust the West Coast Cats contingent will show up as strongly as they did in Sacramento.
 
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This destination was last on my preferred list, as it required wholesale changes to travel. But I got it figured out thanks to original vacation tickets being booked with miles. Took me all day to figure it out.

Staying at Mandalay Bay to simplify getting to the stadium. Very reasonable for a Friday to Sunday stay. Price reduced if you sign up for MGM Rewards or already are a member.
 
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SimpsonElmwood said:
This destination was last on my preferred list, as it required wholesale changes to travel. But I got it figured out thanks to original vacation tickets being booked with miles. Took me all day to figure it out.

Staying at Mandalay Bay to simplify getting to the stadium. Very reasonable for a Friday to Sunday stay. Price reduced if you sign up for MGM Rewards or already are a member.
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Booked Bellagio. Heading out a bit early for some golf and then the game with my son. Taking a red-eye back to make Christmas Eve events. Go Cats!
 
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wildcatcoaster said:
Some positives great stadium etc.

But a hard matchup. Dec. 23 so hard to do pre Christmas. And we were definitely "junped" by MD. Rutgers and Wisconsin. Trash Wisky to Reliaquest (Outback) is ridiculous. Yes I live two hours from Tampa so I'm being selfish but really frustrating.

Gragg did NOTHING to advocate for his team. Probably the only downside to our impressive success in Football and hoops is that incompetent will take credit... when it's clear the teams had these accomplishments DESPITE administration and certainly not because of it.

Will make it harder to fire this guy sadly.
Click to expand...
How did Rutgers jump us when Vegas picks before Pinstripe? Wisconsin almost always jumps us, they're one of the biggest brands in the conference below the Big 3; that's always been the case, and they have a giant fanbase and travel well and are a good TV draw.

Maryland I get in that they haven't been there and we already played Auburn 3 years ago in the Citrus Bowl.

Plenty of blame to go around for how things were handled this past season.

Bowl selection today isn't one of them. Vegas is a solid destination for this team and we got a good matchup in a quality bowl.

That's about all you can ask for given the attendance circumstances (with multiple thousand season tickets cancelled before the season).

Best case is Braun has success these next few years and we rebuild the ticket base as we head to the rebuilt RF. Will be hard to be a bowl draw with the current attendance woes.

At least Braun and the team has turned this into a feel-good story out of a crap situation. That's a big plus right now.
 
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I’m absolutely not a Gragg fan but I don’t think anyone screwed up here. Vegas is a good bowl. Negatives are the pre Christmas date when casual football fans are not yet into the bowl watching mode, and would rather have played Kansas as we haven’t played them in a long time and seems like a better matchup, though who knows since they were also 8-4 and beat Oklahoma.
 
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SDakaGordie said:
Booked Bellagio. Heading out a bit early for some golf and then the game with my son. Taking a red-eye back to make Christmas Eve events. Go Cats!
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I've got one of those red-eye return flights as well. Let us hope the game doesn't go into quadruple overtime. :)
 
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wildcatcoaster said:
Some positives great stadium etc.

But a hard matchup. Dec. 23 so hard to do pre Christmas. And we were definitely "junped" by MD. Rutgers and Wisconsin. Trash Wisky to Reliaquest (Outback) is ridiculous. Yes I live two hours from Tampa so I'm being selfish but really frustrating.

Gragg did NOTHING to advocate for his team. Probably the only downside to our impressive success in Football and hoops is that incompetent will take credit... when it's clear the teams had these accomplishments DESPITE administration and certainly not because of it.

Will make it harder to fire this guy sadly.
Click to expand...

I promise you that there was nothing Gragg or anyone else on Earth could have done or said to get any bowl committee to take us over Wisconsin when we both had the same record.
 
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montana_cat said:
You may be right. But I'll be selfish, too. Vegas, to this Montanan, is a lot easier destination to reach and more attractive than Tampa. And though we'll be underdogs against Utah, remember they were favored in 2018 at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego and you know what happened there.
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Maybe we should send PF out with the team as a consultant to Braun.
 
zeek55 said:
How did Rutgers jump us when Vegas picks before Pinstripe? Wisconsin almost always jumps us, they're one of the biggest brands in the conference below the Big 3; that's always been the case, and they have a giant fanbase and travel well and are a good TV draw.

Maryland I get in that they haven't been there and we already played Auburn 3 years ago in the Citrus Bowl.

Plenty of blame to go around for how things were handled this past season.

Bowl selection today isn't one of them. Vegas is a solid destination for this team and we got a good matchup in a quality bowl.

That's about all you can ask for given the attendance circumstances (with multiple thousand season tickets cancelled before the season).

Best case is Braun has success these next few years and we rebuild the ticket base as we head to the rebuilt RF. Will be hard to be a bowl draw with the current attendance woes.

At least Braun and the team has turned this into a feel-good story out of a crap situation. That's a big plus right now.
Click to expand...
We always have had attendance woes!
 
Purple Pile Driver said:
We always have had attendance woes!
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Yes but I don't think those have affected bowl selection quite as much as for other schools since we do have a solid track record of buying out our bowl allotment and sending solid numbers to bowl games.

It's just that home attendance is at 40 year lows so there's going to be reasonable questions about what our bowl attendance will look like.

Get us back in RF post-rebuild with 30k+ crowds at most games and we'll be fine. That's a reasonable ask though the next 2 years will be rough.
 
Purple Pile Driver said:
We always have had attendance woes!
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I proved rather easily on another thread that we can make a strong case that we're a better bowl draw than Maryland, which really doesn't travel well at all. I don't know how to compare TV ratings (how do you control for different timeslots, different competing watches in the same timeslot, etc.?), but I wouldn't be surprised if we're at least as strong as the Terps are.
 
I would have loved to go to Vegas. Nice weather, cheep flights and hotels. But I have too many personal responsibilities on the 24th to be out of town on the 23rd.
 
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kaTNap said:
I proved rather easily on another thread that we can make a strong case that we're a better bowl draw than Maryland, which really doesn't travel well at all. I don't know how to compare TV ratings (how do you control for different timeslots, different competing watches in the same timeslot, etc.?), but I wouldn't be surprised if we're at least as strong as the Terps are.
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Wisconsin is terrible this year. I mean really bad, but they will always be selected ahead of NU when presented the option.
 
NUFan0207 said:
Our well documented and particularly poor attendance this year and the fact we are still scandal tainted in the eyes of the national media provably didn’t help.
Click to expand...
Bowls as are all other aspects of CFB are all about the money, nothing more, nothing less. NU has what, 14,000-16,000 kids? And not too many attend games. Still, the matchup is a good one and will be a great way to end the season with a real quality win. One that will help with recruiting!!!!
 
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Jaguar 88 said:
Bowls as are all other aspects of CFB are all about the money, nothing more, nothing less. NU has what, 14,000-16,000 kids? And not too many attend games. Still, the matchup is a good one and will be a great way to end the season with a real quality win. One that will help with recruiting!!!!
Click to expand...

Undergrad population is under 9000.
 
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Jaguar 88 said:
It went that low? Not good. Hard to stay relevant in the new CFB world if you really can't generate a lot of $$$$$$.
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It grew pretty rapidly for 20-25 years until 2010-2015, but not much growth in anybody's undergrad populations the past 10-15 years except for a couple of "young" state schools in the sun belt (UCF and the like).

8-9k is about where it's going to stay to keep the numbers elite in terms of acceptance rate, test scores, HS GPA, and the rest.
 
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its_the_sauce said:
I don't think the scandal played any part. In fact Braun and the team's success are now quite the feelgood story.

Blame our own fans who pouted and stayed home from games.
Click to expand...
But our home attendance probably did and that was part of the scandal
 
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wildcatcoaster said:
Some positives great stadium etc.

But a hard matchup. Dec. 23 so hard to do pre Christmas. And we were definitely "junped" by MD. Rutgers and Wisconsin. Trash Wisky to Reliaquest (Outback) is ridiculous. Yes I live two hours from Tampa so I'm being selfish but really frustrating.

Gragg did NOTHING to advocate for his team. Probably the only downside to our impressive success in Football and hoops is that incompetent will take credit... when it's clear the teams had these accomplishments DESPITE administration and certainly not because of it.

Will make it harder to fire this guy sadly.
Click to expand...
An issue is that with it being so early hard to get all 15 extra practices in
 
hdhntr1 said:
An issue is that with it being so early hard to get all 15 extra practices in
Click to expand...

I know the media and coaches make a big deal about the extra practices but I bet the players are delighted to have the time off between Christmas and New Year.
 
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Jaguar 88 said:
Bowls as are all other aspects of CFB are all about the money, nothing more, nothing less. NU has what, 14,000-16,000 kids? And not too many attend games. Still, the matchup is a good one and will be a great way to end the season with a real quality win. One that will help with recruiting!!!!
Click to expand...
As of Fall 2022 NU's undergraduate population was 8,659. It has never been higher. One of the many reasons we have a tough time filling up the stadium. But we have always traveled well to bowl games. I will never forget seeing about 50,000 'Cat fans in the Rose Bowl.
 
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Deeringfish said:
I would have loved to go to Vegas. Nice weather, cheep flights and hotels. But I have too many personal responsibilities on the 24th to be out of town on the 23rd.
Click to expand...
Just getting back home on 17 so can't really do it
 
Jaguar 88 said:
It went that low? Not good. Hard to stay relevant in the new CFB world if you really can't generate a lot of $$$$$$.
Click to expand...
Never was higher than now for undergrad. Was 6000 when I attended. And it is not just the students but what that means as far as an alumni base that we have, Basically 10-15% of what many state schools have coupled with many being spread to the four winds. Plus they don't have the draw of representing the state that brings in many more fans
 
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