I live in PAC 12 country. Tucson.
Nothing is mentioned by media here regarding how poorly are the conference’s finances, revolts from member schools about whatever.
The travel costs for UH to go to Seattle, etc. would be very high. Our fans would attend very few road games.
I do not see joining this Conference.
I agree and I didn’t believe our ex AD who kept blowing smoke up people’s butts and even lied about our chances to join the pac.
That being said, except for the big 12 and sec, travel costs will be high to any other conference.
Should we take rice with us to the big 10?
Stop with the PAC talk…we should make a serious push for the ACC RIGHT NOW!
We are ready…we are proven top 25 in the 3 major sports…football, basketball, and baseball…even top 10! With a little run here, would could become a Blue Blood in basketball which is the premiere sport in the ACC. Our facilities are in place, we have proven we are committed, we represent a HUGE market for the ACC, we give them access to the state of Texas, we fit in with the other city schools, and its WAY easier to travel to ACC schools than the PAC.
They are sitting at 14+ Notre Dame in everything but football. We would be 15+ Notre Dame.
If they really want to force NDs hand they could ask them to becone a full member or add UH +UC to get to 16. Thats a pretty strong big picture commitment…they would gain TWO new states and markets. Both schools are ready… we are ready!
The PAC without a bridge expansion plan would be a bad move and im just not seeing any bridge builders.
How’s this for a scenario? Pac12 weakens and those schools want to jump ship.
UCLA, USC, Cal & Stanford to Big 12
Then Pac12 (remember the BigEast?) backfills with some WAC/AAC.
Will never happen… no conference wants to break the magic 14 number and rock the boat.
I dont know about that—not sure that would matter if it makes the conference more money per member…and thats the rub. You see, with the huge money the CFP now spins off, the P5 actually get much of their total pay out from sources that have nothing to do with their media contract. For instance, each Big12 team received about $34.3 million in 2017. Only about 20 million of that is from the FOX/ESPN TV deals. So, even if each of the new teams is paid exactly what the other Big12 teams are getting in the media deal (20 million), the pool of other money that provides the remaining 14 million per team in the Big12 payout (CFP income, basketball credits, bowl income, sponsorships, etc) isnt going to increase enough to provide 14 million for 2 extra teams. Thus, everyone’s cut actually gets smaller.
The ony way to avoid that fate is if the two teams the league expands with have a media value that is equal (or greater) than the full share of the total conference payout (34 million each). It gets worse—thats just to break even on payout. At “break even” there is really no incentive to expand. For each current conference member to get just one million more—each new member must have a media value (cuz the media value side of the equation is the only place revenue will significantly immediately increase due to expansion) be worth the full current payout plus 12 million (1 extra million per team). There are not many G5’s (if any) that are worth 46 million per team.
The Pac12 might be the only one it would work for because they are desperate and the cable revenue from 12 million TV boxes in Houston and Dallas at $1 per month for the Pac12 network might actually cover it. .
The assumption here is that UH has a large enough following in Houston to justify cable providers carrying the PacN and charging each customer $1 per month. I think UH may be able get PacN into Houston but I don’t think it can command anywhere near $1 per subscriber. It’ll probably be significantly lower.
You are right. There is a reality we ignore at our peril. However 4x4-team pods with 2 Coastal and 2,more eastern will resolve most of that. As for “who” UH for sure because of our success and our market. The rest is a crap shoot at this time and will continue to be. But don’t overlook Colorado State and Air Force. Colorado could come to see them in a more positive light under the right circumstances. Boise would never fit. Maybe Nevada. Maybe. But, for example, UH, Arizona, Arizona State and Nevada in one pod. Just an example.
Just as an example of a pod system, 2 divisions, West and Pacific. Most games are played in your pod (first) and your division (second). This minimizes the really long distance (hardship) trips to one per season at most.
WEST DIVISION
POD 1
POD 2
PACIFIC DIVISION
POD 3
POD 4
Essentially you have a super conference made up of what was once 2 traditional 8-team conferences. UH would basically shift its focus West and become a West/Southwest team. Because of the pods there really wouldn’t be any more travel challenges than we face now playing 4 East Coast teams. And, before anyone gets their hair on fire, this is just an example of how a PAC alignment would work. Something similar could be done with the ACC.
Scheduling with PODs is pretty simple. You play the teams in your POD every year. You play 3 teams in your divisional POD. That’s 7 games. Then you rotate one game a year through each POD in the other division, playing one at home and one away each year if possible to minimize travel. That’s 9 conference games, leaving room for 3 non-conference games. Pretty simple, whether PAC or ACC.
The ACC is a bit more of a challenge. They already have 15 teams. If they wanted Houston we would want a travel partner. My preference is Memphis but SMU might work. That leaves one team, with UCF being the odds on fav. THAT will stir up one hell of a pissing match with USF that the ACC might want to avoid. Any way you slice it there’s going to be razors flying through the air. Plus UH will likely not have any close rivalries. That can get old after a while.
Makes you wonder … How in the heck did UH manage to get into the
old SWC and why did they let us in … back in the day.
We had a stranglehold on the african-american athlete. Texas wanted to integrate so they felt like they needed to play us.
Plus Rice made a very clear signal that they were going academic and the SWC wanted a good team in Houston.
That is basically it. They ended up regretting it and no longer want anything to do with us.
Oh so much more than that. It went like this. And I can speak from experience since I was at UH long before we joined the SWC.
To begin with our fan base had an almost fanatical obsession with wanting to play UT. When I say obsession put an exclamation behind it because it literally blinded us to any other considerations. There were several opportunities to work with and possibly join the SEC. They wanted into Texas and especially into Houston, which in those days touted itself as “The largest city in the South.” You don’t hear that much any more but it was a big deal in the 50s and 60s. Some of you might even remember when Gulfgate Shopping Center opened. It was the first major shopping center in Houston and was touted as “The Largest Shopping Center in the South.”
Now, all that is important. My family is from Mobile and Mobile often thought of itself as a smaller version of Houston. Not Atlanta or New Orleans, but Houston. So the cultural and emotional ties between Houston and the rest of the South were there. Plus there was strong immigration into Houston and Beaumont, particularly from Louisiana and the lower South. Many today have no idea what I’m talking about but most weren’t around here in those days.
Especially through the 60s UH went out of It’s way to schedule SEC teams. It was just a natural tie in. So when conference talk began to gain traction it was natural to think about the SEC, right? Nope.
Remember, too many in our fan base had that obsession with UT. And there was no freaking way they were going to let this program fall into SEC hands. So that’s background.
Then when Yeoman came up with the Veer UH began to really win and win big. Suddenly we were the hottest of a group of independent programs that had emerged following WWII. As we got stronger the demand to join the SWC (translated: play UT) got louder. It just became harder and harder to ignore us. Then we blew up Auburn (another SEC school) in the Bluebonnet Bowl. They had Pat Sullivan, he of the Heisman Trophy. That gave us serious cred along with a real ass kicking of Mighty Michigan State.
Bottom line the noise grew to a crescendo. But there was a serious “problem”. As noted above, UH had broken ground in the Civil Rights movement and had begun to admit African American athletes and students. Both the SEC and the SWC looked upon this as disgusting, low life, dirty, and otherwise repulsive. My apologies to any who might take offense but please direct your ire to the SEC and the SWC. It was vile.
And yes, some at UT, particularly in the athletic department, wanted to integrate and needed UH to ease the process. Make no mistake though. This did not reflect the attitudes of most of the fan base. I can still hear many of them referring to “the Forty Acres” as “The last bastion of Jeffersonian Democracy.” I’ll let the reader translate that.
The rise of professional football in Houston was also going to pose a threat to SWC’s dominance and Rice, by itself, was just too small to stem the tide of pro sports.
Eventually the support for UH grew strong enough the SWC relented. But have no misunderstanding. This was not the hand of friendship. Nor of sportsmanship. It was a movement led by UT to shut us down by bringing UH under SWC and therefore UT control. The racial slurs flowed like water over this school and ironically it’s mostly white student body.
And when UH returned the favor by winning 4 championships in 5 years UT brought out its secret weapon. The infractions committee at the NCAA, chaired by no less than J. Niels Thompson, UT faculty rep. Under Thompson’s guidance the Infractions Committee was weaponized and UH found itself on a seemingly unending string of violations, suspensions and probations. This had the desired effect of wiping out our football and basketball programs - and much of our burgeoning fan base - and running off both Yeoman and Lewis.
Believe me when I say I could go on from here but I will stop. Bottom line, even though the question of UH’s admission to the SWC appears to be simple enough, truth is it is embedded in a far more complex set of issues that have not played out till this day.
Mike I agree with you that racial issues were much more complex. The long and short of it was we were on the right side of history and we were on the right side of athletic competitiveness and UT felt forced to include us.
Coogroes equals Cougar High and has morphed into G5.
The fact that we continue to succeed makes folks in Austin and Brazos county very unhappy.
Oh I remember well the vile racial slurs that just flowed over the school and it’s students. It was unbelievable. It started to go more underground when UT recruited Donny Little as QB.
UA and ASU are the problems. They don’t want us in and would not want to be excluded from playing USC/UCLA. Since the California tax meltdown the California exodus toward Arizona keeps getting bigger and bigger. You can now see stickers that say:
“Don’t california my Arizona” or “Don’t Californicate my Arizona”
Wow Excellent info Coog51 and Mike … I Thank both of you for such a detailed and thoughtful response to my inquiry. I’ve always believed historical perspective is so important for guidance into the future. Especially when you can get it first hand from folks that were there at the time. Thanks again guys!
Just using them as examples. Any example you use will be shot down. Guaranteed.
Just a follow-up thought there. Got family in Phoenix area. Moved there from Hollister. Still pretty much consider themselves Californians. Other connections in Southern California. Point is, as much as the “Arizonas” want that connection with California, for the most part they are looked on as step children. They’ve been taken in and fed so shut the f up. No way are UCLA and USC ever going to separate from Stanford and Cal. Ain’t gonna happen no matter how the Arizonas feel about it. Just a thought.
Read Mike’s explanation two posts down from your original; and then go to my post on the same subject in the section of Coogfans entitled, “Classic Stories and UH History” - particularly my post that is entiled “University of Houston and the SWC.”
Believe me, the hatred of our school is still rampant among our former “friends” from the SWC days! You might also like to read my other posts among those other “Classic Stories.” I have been around for a very long time, and I pay attention!
I personally look forward to reading your accounts. Having spent 30+ years as a therapist I was always interested in how different people remembered the same events.
One of the things we had to get past was the differences in the perspectives. Four people observe a car wreck and each describes it differently. Each is telling his or her truth.
The fact is we all see things from our unique perspectives. I think it’s important for those of us who were around for that history of UH to tell our stories. Life is multidimensional. It adds to the richness of the narrative.
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