At the time of the SWC breakup, the conference had been hit hard by cheating through all the schools (except maybe Rice), the conference had become very regional and lost any national appeal. All of which was going to be a problem with TV contracts and public perception. UT/A&M wanted out for a chance at a more lucrative future and weren’t allowed to leave alone.
Now I find it funny that OU is the biggest whiner in the Big 12 because of things like money (they don’t get as much as the SEC or B1G or UT), when it all started because of them. Karma.
If rampant cheating was a reason to disband a conference, the SEC would have ceased to exist a long time ago. And, if no one wanted to be in a conference with big time cheaters, then the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma would be the only members of a conference called “A League of Their Own”.
About Baylor: Baylor is not known for “cheating” per se, the Bears’ thing is lawlessness, which is a bit different.
Texas Tech may cheat, but they are so isolated and generally irrelevant that few would even know or care.
A&M doesn’t consider it to be cheating unless they get caught. Then, they feign ignorance. Which always works well for Aggies.
Tulsa and Tulane games have been very competitive the last several years and I enjoy them a lot. One of the most exciting games we’ve ever played was against Tulsa in 2009 when we won on Matt Hogan’s 51 yard FG as time expired.
30 years ago Baylor cheated just like everyone else. Today they are associated with lawlessness, and yes cheating is less for many schools. Two different time eras.
Cheating is not the only reason the end of the SWC - as with all the other comments it is one of several contributing factors.
The SEC does cheat, but they are not being punished or having it flashed about as much. It is hidden so most people just ignore it, thus it is not blatantly advertised and shown as they are bad schools. Their media supports them better by keeping quite.
The SWC developed toxic institutional relationships due mostly to politicians getting involved in the infighting over cheating. Not to mention the DMN doing its level best to tear the conference apart. I’ve always thought we’d see that paper dredge up something on us or SMU again.
The Dallas Morning News (DMN) is now - and has been for a very long time - the main mouthpiece of the Great Satan over in Austin! They were not alone; there were others in major cities other than Dallas - Houston, for example.
If it was all about TV contracts, Houston was by far the biggest media market at the time of the break up,
yet they chose to not invite the largest market. UT and A&M thought they had the Houston market and were tired of being beaten by a small school with no attendance. We could draw 50K for UT or A&M but Rice, SMU, Baylor and TCU drew flies. I know, because I was in the dome when 15,000 were there.
You talk about the city of Houston as if it’s exclusively UH fans. Far from it. And as for the tired of being beaten comment, consider that UH was 7-12-1 and 7-13 against UT and A&M respectively during UH’s tenure in the SWC.
The move out of the SWC was to pursue bigger tv contracts since the Big 8 had a lot more of what the SWC was lacking: large state flagship universities.
The 80s and 90s fans and admin screwed UH. Averaging 10-15k in the Astrodome screwed UH from getting into a major conference. Not having the right political pull at the time screwed UH.
It was actually the lack of 80s and 90s fans that screwed UH. Those of us that were at the games were the 80s and 90s fans. The bandwagon riders were missing.
The comment on bigger media markets, Houston was the biggest, and a 35% winning percentage
against UT and A&M is something they think should never happen, like if we got beat by Rice 35% of the time, we would think it is a dissaster.
Of course, just taking the best 75% of the years wont skew the records.
The best way to improve is to look at the good and the bad to learn from it.
There is a good point about the win loss records. I do find it interesting in how many people (not here with UH fans) think a 32 team super conference would be a good idea. taking the “best” 32, but then what happens when those schools start losing over 50% of their games. Would love to see their fans start to justify that. …… but but but we make more money