How many MT fans genuinely know anything about Tarleton State short of using Google? I barely knew about them; primarily from a colleague I worked with 15 years ago who lived near Stephensville, Texas. He later received a masters degree from Abilene Christian. As I recall, Tarleton was a recent D-2, and just moved up to WAC not long ago. Tarleton MIGHT help Judy get New Mexico State as a travel partner to UTEP, but that’s all the value is stabilize three teams fate and open the FBS door to an aspiring university.
Folks, MT needs a miracle. Basically, our athletics program has become homeless. Thanks to collective failures in university leadership, coaches, and conference commissioner who let the proverbial farm get essentially foreclosed and repossessed out from under us. And, it’s going to require many charity acts made on our behalf to get a tolerable conference home again. The problem is MT’s proverbial FBS credit score and optics profile is now bad…help doesn’t appear on the way.
MT is attempting to hitch a proverbial boxcar ride. Although multiple dismissals and resignations are in order, it really won’t help in the immediate term. The story now is about triage to stay FBS viable. Forget Bowl Eligible promotions: the way this conference is trending, bowl slots vanish and be awarded to AAC, Sun Belt, or even MAC. Actually, the OVC might actually be better overall than this C-USA version 4.0 (or whatever this now is if we count from the 1980s Metro Conference). (Hint—Beth DeBauche is a good contact to start conversations, Chris Massaro even though it would likely sacrifice FBS 🏈). Athletics Department is far more reaching beyond FBS 🏈 —it’s all sports MT sponsors for scholarship that is being affected. Think twice, think clearly, and be decisive!!
Rough times ahead for Blue Raider fans. Maybe MT prevails again as a leader in my lifetime. However, hope is dim and many other things in life are worthy of my support as I age. Let’s certainly hope the dim light seen is not a second train ending all dreams Doctor James E. Walker had for a fine, world-class university and athletics program that was overwhelmingly assured 23-27 years ago.
Some sad words: “What might have been!” That’s the MT Blue Raiders story circa October 2021. What a story to greet alumni back to campus homecoming week! But, many will ignore background noise because we are “little middle” in many media’s and public’s mind.
Tennessee State University—Murfreesboro?
Sounding more plausible by the day as merger may be a longer term agenda in play since Nashville (690,000) and Murfreesboro (156,000) are effectively a unified urban area in the larger MSA and synergies could be developed towards that line of thought.