Considering how embarrassing that would have been for Smart to lose Austin-product Allen to UH and how close it almost happened; I truly believe that the story from UT insiders is that UH offered money. I also don’t believe UT insiders as their reasoning behind their struggles is always that someone else is cheating; has been for decades.
Smart got started late in recruiting after UT fired Barnes putting Smart behind the 8-ball. His style of offense at VCU also wasn’t supposed to be kind to big men. UH had an in with Allen through his AAU as they had multiple former players in the UH program (MiKhail McLean, Chicken Knowles, and Galen Robinson). Dad and son were supposedly fully on-board with him coming to UH where Allen would have easily made the Coogs a Top 25 team, but mom wanted him to be close to home in Austin.
In the end, Smart got him via whatever method he used to get him.
Email basically says that UT is paying off players in football/basketball and that they think UH is doing the same, at least in basketball. As I said in my previous post, UT thinks that no one can compete with them and anyone that does is cheating going back to the old SWC days. Why did everyone in the SWC get busted?
Goes from saying that UH has a lot invested already just to “hang on” to saying at the end that the relationships are there and that we have a lot going for us. From what I know of the situation, I have a feeling I know who wrote that email and I would tend to not put a lot of stock in it.
Seriously? We’re running a $17M athletic department deficit. And we’re trying to raise the final funds for Fertitta Center construction. That’s where the new premium seat money is going towards.
Are these the same UT contacts/boosters who said Tom Herman, and part of the staff was already house hunting in Austin a day before the Memphis game ??! Liessss. Nothing but gossip.
Nothing to see here. Since before UH’s SWC days UT’s arrogance has blinded them to reality. They really believe that the only way they ever lose either a recruit or a game is for the other guy to cheat. And, again, this goes back to the beginning of time. So you can imagine their utter shock when in 1976 UH marched into Austin and didn’t just defeat, but blew away the Mighty Longhorns 30 - zip. Ever wonder why Darrell Royal “retired” at the end of that season? Saint Darrell?
And rather than accord UH a modicrum of respect for their victory the general attitude among Longhorn faithful was utter disgust that the dregs from the wrong side of Houston managed the impossible.
After the game I sat next to a UT fan in a jump flight to Love Field. He was almost frothing at the mouth over the outcome. Typically, he was totally disgusted by the whole embarrassing, humiliating experience. I listened to this guy all the way to Dallas. Only after we landed did I tell him I was a UH alum. He almost threw up. Kid you not.
And UT backed this attitude up by having that arrogant ball of snot, J. Niels Thompson, as their faculty rep. I once heard him refer to “the 40 acres” as the last bastion of “Jeffersonian Democracy.” I’ll let readers figure that one out. Thompson ended up on the NCAA infractions committee where his personal mission was to persecute any who dared to threaten UT’s hegemony in sports. And of course he was very successful at this. Lots of history here.
I don’t know if the person who wrote the email that was posted and deleted is the same person I’m thinking of, but I remember an almost exact story, verbatim, coming from a UT “insider” the week prior to Allen committing. Most of you probably could guess where the info came from; quite prominent in the UT “news” world.
And @progs, the Herman and wife house-hunting rumor was from 2015 prior to UCONN and he was about to go to South Carolina. The rumor this year was that Herman and wife were meeting influential boosters in Austin after or about the same time as the SMU game (want to say the week of the Tulane game) and that Herman would end up being the coach. To be honest, these rumors were probably true with what we know now.
Would it shock anyone if we were paying players? I mean, I certainly don’t think that we’d be the only ones – as a matter of fact, I think it’s probably so commonplace that I’m not sure we’d see any different results if nobody was paying their players – but it would certainly make a lot of sense.
Considering how embarrassing that would have been for Smart to lose Austin-product Allen to UH and how close it almost happened; I truly believe that the story from UT insiders is that UH offered money. I also don’t believe UT insiders as their reasoning behind their struggles is always that someone else is cheating; has been for decades.
Smart got started late in recruiting after UT fired Barnes putting Smart behind the 8-ball. His style of offense at VCU also wasn’t supposed to be kind to big men. UH had an in with Allen through his AAU as they had multiple former players in the UH program (MiKhail McLean, Chicken Knowles, and Galen Robinson). Dad and son were supposedly fully on-board with him coming to UH where Allen would have easily made the Coogs a Top 25 team, but mom wanted him to be close to home in Austin.
In the end, Smart got him via whatever method he used to get him.
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