Interesting Tweets from Greg Flugaur

From a competitiveness standpoint, you couldn’t draw up a more favorable division alignment for UH than this.

We’d be no worse than the third-best team in this setup, today, right now. And when Baylor falls off next year, it’d be between us and TCU.

Really like those divisions. Yeah, it would be better for fan interest to be with UT, OU, and Tech, but we’d probably get at least one of them most every year plus Baylor, TCU, West Virginia, and Cincinnati. Really, all the conferences have their marquee football programs in the same division–Ohio State and Michigan, Florida State and Clemson, USC and UCLA (even though Oregon and Stanford are now better programs) . . . Maybe not the SEC. I’d say Alabama and Georgia would probably be the two, but clearly the West is by far the stronger division. Fingers crossed.

I get the $30 million payday funday, but having a home schedule of texas state, then home conference games of baylor, iowa st, cinci and wv would truly not be more exciting than our current home schedule. Every other year/third year we would get OU or UT. Everybody was talking about how great the regional rivalries would be, but these seem boring. Bring on the PAC12.

1 Like

I guess I’m just trying to not get too excited.

Yeah, let’s see it materialize first. But I can remember how big it was to get Oklahoma State here in 2006. They’d be about 4th on our cross-divisional rival list now, and while we may have an occasional year where we got, say, Kansas State and BYU, good chance at least one of Texas, OU, or Tech would be on the schedule most every season along with Baylor, TCU (how much would we have given to get BU or TCU at TDECU the past couple of years?) and WVU. That is far better, IMO, than an AAC schedule. We would also be much better positioned to get other P5 programs to play us home and home. Kansas State recently played Auburn, TCU played LSU, West Virginia played Alabama, etc.

So Baylor, ISU, Cincy and WVU is not as good as Memphis, Tulsa, Tulane and Temple?

I respectfully disagree. Another way to look at it is P5, P5, New P5 and P5 compared to G5, G5, G5 and G5.

Sam, i think the Big 12 will want to do 3 crossover games every year, so Big 12 schools can have stronger schedule strength shooting for that playoff spot. We always play TCU, Baylor, West Virginia, Cincy, Iowa State, UCONN, plus say, Texas, Okie State, and Kansas…pretty darn strong and pretty darn good…Think its great for us…

I just said it wasn’t MORE exciting. Not in reference to whether they are P5 or not. I honestly see no difference in last couple years Memphis squad and West Virginia. Cinci we already play. Baylor does not excite me in any way; I want nothing to do with that school. TCU every other year would be awesome, ditto OU/OSU/UT and TT because they are mostly arrogant idiots. OK you’re right, adding those guys and we will have a couple really fun games each year. Had to talk myself into it.

3 Likes

Here’s a thought – what if the Big XII had BYU pull a Navy and play in the East division? If they’re going to be flying everywhere anyway it’s not like it would substantially hamper travel for them. Likewise, it would solve the ISU-on-an-Island issue by putting ISU in the West division and letting them keep playing the rivals they’ve had for decades. Similarly, the prevalence of major airports in DFW, Houston, Cincinnati, and New York would almost certainly make travel easier for BYU, and the Mormon population is much more dense in the Northeast than it is in the southern Midwest. I genuinely don’t think that deal would have any losers.

The divisions would look something like this:

East:
Houston
BYU
Cincinnati
WVU
TCU
Baylor
4th Expansion Team To Be Named Later

West:
Texas
OU
OSU
Texas Tech
Kansas
K-State
ISU

Honestly, there are several directions they can go with division alignment, and any and all will be great for us…it does seem clear that most teams above are going to be in the division with us,We have seen earlier Iowa state rather than BYU in our division. Main reason for that may be TCU saying they do NOT want to play in same division with them.Vote YES, OK, with a grumble, but NOT in same division. Time will tell, and we dont care one way or the other, of course…

I think the Big 12 will likely do something like this. It means the “legacy” members of the Big 12 will play 6 games against each other and only have to play two games against all the expansion members and Baylor. Then they are free to schedule 4 other games. The Texas, for example, could schedule an annual Thanksgiving game against Aggy.

Note that this puts all four expansion teams in the East. It seems that every scenario has something screwy with it. That said, I would kind of like this scenario. Provo is a beautiful place. But best of all, the annual CCG would be UH vs. OU.

The difference is IF we beat OU in the conference championship game, we’re in the playoffs; as opposed to beating Temple and playing the 11:00 AM New Years 6 game.

It actually puts every expansion team since the Big XII formed in the East division, including TCU and WVU. I don’t necessarily see why that’s a problem, though – if you want to preserve historic matchups, you gotta keep the teams together.

It’s also interesting to note that 4, probably 5 of the teams in the East were slated to be together in the Big East Conference at one point.

I like how you frame that. Big 12 vs. Big East. I’m already becoming loyal to the East division. Your divisional breakdown is the best I’ve seen so far.

  • Note: My loyalty to the East division would not extend to Baylor, but it would extend to BYU.
1 Like

I think BYU would end up in the West Division, simply because of their geographic location. ISU would probably be sent to the East because they would then be the northern “island.”

With Iowa St. being in the East Division they would have the chance of doing something they seldom ever do. Win and go to a bowl each year.
Baylor will be weakened, UCONN, Cincinnati, and W. Virginia are all beatable.
(After all last year they beat UT 24-0)

Add a crossover game against Kansas and Texas Tech and have 2 weak OOC games to go along with their annual Iowa game. Iowa St. could see 8 win seasons every now and them and many 6 win seasons.

Playing in a division with BYU, UT, Oklahoma St, Oklahoma, Kansas St is not as favorable for Iowa St., Add crossover games against UH, and TCU and they would have a tough time winning 6 games.

I could see Iowa St. accepting being in this proposed division.