Californians commonly call people from Oklahoma “Okies” and it is not a complement.
I thought everyone called people from Oklahoma “Okies.”
Read The Grapes of Wrath…and you’ll understand.
Many poor illiterate people from Oklahoma flooded into California to escape the dust bowl. They usually took low paying low desirable type of jobs so I guess the stereotypes still resonate with Californians.
I am a UH fan but I am not a sunshine pumper and I generally have a pretty realistic perspective on where we are and what our prospects are.
But I do have to say… the Big 12 blundered when they invited TCU instead of us. They just did. I can make an argument that they shouldn’t have gone with a Texas school at all, but having made the choice of going with a Texas school they should have gone with us.
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Deloss Dodds said he could think of 20+ schools besides UH. I knew we were doomed then and TCU would get invited. He had something personal against us…
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A combination of passing him up for the ad job, and bleachergate, doomed us for 10-15 years.
Whether he actually applied to be our athletics director, I don’t recall for sure, though. But if we passed on him then that was our mistake.
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Bleachergate! DeLoss was famous for having a massive ego. UH refused to honor his request to move the game and that was enough. Maybe UH management of the time could have handled it better, like saying no in an inoffensive manner, who knows. Del Conte on the other hand stoked that ego and that was all it took to get TCU in.
The question will Del Conte support UH? Of course that would be a moot point if UH had invites from multiple P5’s.
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I think they were looking at it differently. They needed a warm body with adequate athletics and, most importantly, minimal political clout in the event that the league disbands in the coming years. A small, private school like TCU fits that mold pretty well.
TCU won a Rose Bowl and another BCS bowl at the right time, right when the B12 needed non-BCS teams for survival. I’ve said it on another thread, it is winning AND timing. UCF had a great run recently and their phone hasn’t rung because the timing is wrong, no one is expanding currently.
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And this is why it is imperative that the BB team continues on its upward trajectory and we go regain a little bit of the lost momentum the last two years in the FB program.
If in 2 years we are final 4 and NY6 participants to go along with great strides towards AAU inclusion, we could be hard to ignore.
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In terms of performance on the field it’s hard to argue that TCU didn’t deserve it. They certainly had a better claim than we did in that regard. But that was pretty much all they had. They had interest from Big East schools, so they weren’t even stuck with non-BCS.
It was the conservative, quick-fix pick. One that backfired almost immediately when they had to go to the east anyway… and one that didn’t help them in Houston where they could have used it (and instead helped them in DFW where they were already solid).
It should have been three Big East schools (Louisville, WVU, and Pitt had all been mentioned) or it should have been us or some combination. Instead it was the reactive conference in reactive mode instead of being proactive.
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The sizzle from the Tourney still lingers today. If we keep going deep in the tourney we’ll stay relevant. The Tourney is the gift that keeps on giving.
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Basketball does not drive the bus. Football does.
90-95% of the time you’re right on that. However, there a few programs that would get picked up for basketball and not football as their revenue drivers. The only one in play though at all is Kansas. Everyone else is spoken for with no intention of moving.
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NO - it was a pick dictated by the Great Satan in Austin!
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Rutgers, Maryland? Maryland and major bowls? Two of them 2002 and 1977 against? Someone here help me, who was that 1977 bowl against? Rutgers? Never.
Football driven? To an extent, but it’s TV sets driven now. Football sits up near the front of the bus, basketball in most cases is farther back, but TV drives the bus now.
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If that is the new name for Deloss Dodds…Quick, Naw…It was between us and TCU…Dodds didnt want us so it went to…(the team in Fort Worth)…FWIW.
Kansas was a breath away from being relegated to the Mountain West in 2010 despite being a top 5 all-time basketball program.
Football is the primary reason the ACC picked apart the old Big East.
The only way Kansas was going to the MWC was if UT, TT, OU and OSU were going to the PAC-12/16 which would have gutted the BIG 12-2 and forced dissolution, most likely, or raiding C-USA. To this day, the same would probably be true except they would probably go for the American Schools (UH, UC, UCF, USF.)
If KU comes in play, with the above scenario,I would expect a hard look from the B1G as they have all of the check marks except TV sets. But the B1G might figure KU-MSU, KU-UM (Maryland and Michigan,) KU-IU, KU-Purdue might draw a few sets in basketball.
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Baylor Bears begging help that mess from happening…Behold, the deal that wasn’t:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.statesman.com/article/20120901/NEWS/309011832%3Ftemplate=ampart