Does anyone realize how bad Arkansas State is? They are in the same conference as ULM & ULL, and the pre-season magazines actually predict Arkansas State to finish BELOW them in the standings. Unbelievable--two of the worst teams in Division I-A are predicted to have better seasons than Ark. State.

http://preseason.stassen.com/consensus/2004.html#sun-belt

I would like to see JRuss & MFlynn get some heavy playing time the week after Oregon State.

Actually, ULM and ULL are supposed to have decent seasons next year, as far as the Sun Belt goes. ULL vs. North Texas will actually be on ESPN2...

Lindy's actually predicts ULL to finish 2nd in the conference...maybe these teams will not show up on ESPN's bottom 10 as routine as previosu years

Who cares anyway? SOS ain't in the formula anymore.

Yeah, I saw that. I believe ULL is predicted to finish 3rd (at least in the publications that I've read), but has also mentioned that they can finish a bit higher should a few things get ironed out.

In all honesty, I wish other LA teams well ('cept for Tulane....I get that from my yonger days when LSU and Tulane always played--albeit LSU always won and it wasn't really that much of a rivalry but still...) But as far as ULM, ULL and La Tech, they're in different conferences and no matter how good a season any one of them have, they don't compete for the same recruits that we do--and I don't mean that as an assanine comment. ...but they just don't sustain bowl-participating teams in multiple, consecutive seasons.

Sure, there's the occassional recruit or two that we could lose to any one of them--but those cases are primarily due to depth and playing time issues. To my knowledge, I don't recall us ever losing a player to any of the state schools that made me say, "Oh NO!!! Now we're doomed!!" Generally, if there's a common recruit, and they chose ULL, ULM or La Tech, we land someone else that works out just as good.

The more Louisiana teams that do well, the more recognition we all get for being a "football hot bed", and the more respect nationally, for recruiting top 5 classes year-in and year-out.