Telling It Like It Is!

[50's PONY]

Dec. 1, 2003, 11:48PM


TCU, C-USA sure didn't help
By FRAN BLINEBURY
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

THE Houston Cougars were told they had to win.

So they did.

The Cougars were told they could celebrate going to the school's first bowl in seven years.

So they did.

Joyously. Triumphantly. Deliriously.

Where or when didn't matter. Not to the Coogs. All they wanted was what they deserved, their just reward for having turned around an 0-11 sinkhole from two years ago into a happy 7-5 resurrection in just one season under coach Art Briles.

You know how kids are. So trusting. So naive.

Is it any wonder some of them grow up to be disillusioned?

Imagine how the Cougars felt when they woke up Monday and read the jarring headline in the morning paper that said they might be left to sit at home.

In the end, it all worked out. Houston will play Hawaii in Honolulu on Christmas Day.

Mele kalikimaka.

"This one is much more for our players than anybody else," said University of Houston athletic director Dave Maggard. "They're the ones who got us this far."

It took more fancy footwork and determination than this to walk out to the end of a long board at the Banzai Pipeline, and still the Cougars nearly wiped out.

How?

At the hands of the hypocrisy college athletics continues to wear like a custom-made suit.

Suddenly somebody at TCU -- the Harvard of the Southwest -- remembered that the GMAC Bowl in Mobile, Ala., on Dec. 18 conflicted with final exams.

How noble. How lofty. How committed to the academic endeavors upon which colleges and universities were founded in the first place.

How pompous. How arrogant. How incredibly full of it for TCU to pass off what is nothing more than a transparent scheme to play a home game in the Fort Worth Bowl as the pursuit of high ideals.

How weak-willed and lacking in leadership Conference USA was to allow such maneuvering to occur. It could have set up a fall of dominoes that landed squarely on the paws of the Cougars.

Barely two weeks ago, TCU was an undefeated darling of a team playing below the radar of the big boys' fraternity, clamoring for justice and a slot in one of the huge-payout BCS games.

Of course, Southern Mississippi took care of that problem by hammering the Horned Frogs, and just like that, what was a nice little Cinderella story began to turn more plotting and devious than a wicked stepsister.

So the Frogs didn't want to visit Mobile again, having played there in 1999 and 2000. That is their right.

What is not right is TCU's getting to pick its place in the Conference USA pecking order, particularly when it means the Frogs would essentially be tying up two spots.

Where has Conference USA commissioner Britton Banowsky been while all of this plotting and scheming and -- OK, we'll say it -- lying has been going on?

Does anyone swallow the line that if the calendar-challenged gang at TCU had at the last minute discovered a conflict between final exams and a $14 million to $17 million payout from a BCS bowl that the Frogs would be sitting at home on New Year's weekend studying textbooks instead of playbooks?

Where does any of this sound legitimate? Or even make sense in terms of loyalty?

In recent months, while conference affiliations have been changed faster than underwear, University of Houston athletic director Dave Maggard worked tirelessly behind the scenes to help Conference USA continue to exist with a new look. He helped greatly to broker the deal that will bring Rice, SMU, Marshall, Tulsa and Central Florida into the fold in 2005.

What's more, the ink on the contracts for the new additions was hardly dry when the word began to circulate that TCU is looking to bail out for the Mountain West Conference.

Never mind what an illogical choice that might be for the Frogs. Just ask why Conference USA would pander to a school that is clearly looking for a reason to leave.

It is inconceivable that the deserving Cougars could have been left with the short end of the stick. Not with their play this season. Not with the highly entertaining style of offense Briles has installed.

Could there be a more watchable four or five hours of TV during the bowl season than Kevin Kolb and the Cougars hooking up with Timmy Chang and Hawaii? The touchdown passes will be washing in like the waves at Waikiki.

It could be a picture postcard of national exposure for Briles' nascent program at UH. It is the only game on TV on Christmas Day; thus, it is guaranteed a good audience. And Hawaii just beat Alabama, which validates the opponent.

"It's the kind of team we wanted to play and in a perfect setting," Maggard said.

This is already his victory, with Maggard having spent all of Sunday and Monday working the phones, working the political angles. It was a win that counters that ingrained, everything-goes-against-us UH mentality of victimhood.

"I kept telling everybody we were going to a bowl game, because we earned it," Maggard said.

Finally, after twisting in the wind, the kids could believe.

Aloha, for once, to the hypocrisy.


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Fantastic Hot Air Balloon Rides

[Dement-ed]

GREAT column!