Many programs have down periods for one reason or another. I’m sure Alabama has had it and even Texas. I don’t think Tech has ever done anything significant in football and with all their resources, A&M continues to come up short. Heck, even the Yankees had a stretch where they weren’t so good. It happens. Those football programs even have the benefit of being a p5. UH has had to fight and scrap and do more with less.
Yes, many programs have down years. Not sure of the point. UH had a down period WHILE the conferences were deciding their merger. But, as I mentioned, it is only one of many factors. It probably didn’t hurt that Tech and Baylor and some prominent alums in important govt positions. I have not looked up attendance ratings during those years, but that may also have been a factor (nothing to do but football in Lubbock on a Saturday).
True, though, that Tech has never done anything significant in football. They have generally played above average ball on a consistent basis over the years.
Alabama has around 69% winning record in the SEC.
Ours is roughly 52% in the SWC
Tech was in the SWC since 1960 and I don’t feel like doing math.
The point is, UH held our own in the SWC half the time we were in it.
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And? So what? Should we cry and be depressed?
Or smu or Temple…
Before Nick Saban years, Alabama was up and down. They had some good years and not so good. They became very dominant with Saban.
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And before that, with Bear Bryant, whom they stole from atm!
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You’re both leaving out Gene Stallings.
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The last time that Texas Tech won an outright championship in football was 1955. (They were the champions of the Border Conference.)
UH’s success or lack of success in football or any other sport had nothing to do with UH’s exclusion from the Big12. The only reason why Texas Tech and Baylor were “invited” was state level politics. That is some sort of excuse or conspiracy theory; several major Texas newspapers have investigated the events involved and all have come to the same conclusion: Bob Bullock, the Texas lieutenant governor who was an alum of both Tech and Baylor, and David Sibley, a powerful state senator from Waco and a Baylor alum, held A&M and UT hostage by threatening state appropriations limitations unless those two big state schools agreed to take Tech and Baylor along with them to the Big 8, which thereby became the Big 12. In A&M’s case, the threat also included withholding permission to build Reed Arena on state land (i.e. the A&M campus).
Just FYI: The decision by A&M and UT to leave the SWC happened in early 1994. In 1993, A&M was 10-2 in football, while UH was 1-9-1 in Helton’s ugly first year. However, for that same1993 season Baylor was 5-6 and UT was 5-5-1. Just 3 seasons before that UH was 10-1; and 4 seasons before that, in 1989, a UH player won the Heisman Trophy while UT finished 5-6. - For the 1980s A&M averaged about 7 wins a season, while UH averaged about 6. Don’t ever buy the revisionist BS that UH was excluded from the Big 12 due to its lack of competitiveness in football.
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What? A coach was stolen from aTm by another power team? I thought that only happened to G5 teams. Oh yeah, there were no P5 & G5 back then.
As for stealing a coach from aTm, I imagine it was more like Bear realized what he had gotten himself into and was looking for a way out. Flexible thought is not in high supply at aTm.
A&M tried to “Return the Favor”…but Dennis Franchoni was a joke…sure Alabama loved that one!
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You’re forgetting that Bear Bryant was an Alabama alum.
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Didn’t Bear Bryant go to UH? I think grad school?
Football P5 status ties with NY6 Bowls tie-in contracts. AAC doesn’t have 1 and definitely needs one. Peach and Fiesta currently don’t have any. AAC need names that help to facilitate contracts with any these 2 bowls. PAC12 with Fiesta and ACC with Peach, it would be ideal.
I wasn’t forgetting he was an Alabama alumnus — I was unaware he was. I just never thought about where he went to school. Thanks for enlightening me.
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The break up of the SWC was tragic, it was due to politics and attendance.
UT hated being beaten by a small “city” school that could not draw flies even
with a Heisman trophy winner. They decided to take their rival and go with B8
but needed two more, politics threw in BU and TT.
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It was due to the pursuit of larger television contracts.
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About leaving aTm and returning to his alma mater, Bear Bryant said
“I left Texas A&M because my school called me. Mama called,
and when Mama calls, then you just have to come running.”
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They didn’t need two. UT and aTm only wanted themselves.
Politics forced them to take two specific schools with them.
All because our political power was non existent.
We couldn’t even get the city council of our own city to allow us to put up street signs with UH on them.
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Not quite sure why so many are riled up over the comment that UH wasn’t great the last 5 years of the SWC. It was only in relation to comments earlier about how great UH was, while they have had great years but also down years. It was not some political commentary on everything that happened in the early 90’s.
Quite familiar with all posted by SeenItAllCougar. As I posted there were many factors involved, Had UH kept winning 10+ per season, it may have not been different, but it could have been more interesting, we have no way of knowing everything unless you were sitting in a political office at that time. I’ve followed SWC football and watched the break up. The conference had many problems the last many years of it. Now if only the cheating would be brought out in the SEC all would be right.
As to the future, winning is also only one small part of the equation, but it is one that must be consistent. I doubt UH gets an invite to the SEC, Big 12, B1G or ACC anytime soon. I more likely see an expansion of the CFI to 8 teams thus giving a slightly better chance at title inclusion. The biggest problem is money and the SEC and B1G are currently running away until TV funding changes or people not from those conferences stop watching them.