Memphis, Cincy to Big 12?

[1983 Cotton Bowl]

I still have no idea why Iowa State is in the Big12. They are terrible and in a terrible market and are very far away. If you are gonna have a school that's terrible why not have them right down the road? For all the reasons that people say SMU doesn't make any sense, there are far more reasons that Iowa State doesn't make any sense.

On the merits, you are absolutely correct. But Iowa State is where it is because its a legacy program from the old Big-8, so it got to come along for the ride when they merged with parts of the SWC. And no current P-5 conference has ever kicked out an existing member since the start of the BCS era (that I can think of).

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

- William Shakespeare

I think that pretty much sums up the P-5 schools today.

When did Temple get kicked out of the Big East?

Haha. . .I knew someone would throw Temple out there. Hence my hedge that no "current" P-5 conference has kicked out an existing member since the start of the BCS era.

[StallionsModelT]

Tulane just built a stadium that seats less than 30K and average attendance about the same as ours in the inaugural year of the stadium in a new conference. Basketball is atrocious.

They are not an option for the Big 12.

[gostangs]

every conference has baggage they would drop if they could. Wake adds nothing to the ACC for example.

At least we have a huge TV market - that is our only shot. We could pair with Houston some day to deliver some portion of the Texas market - but there will have to be more shuffling for that to happen.

Memphis does nothing for the big 12. If they had it to do over again I wonder if they would have even added WV. doesn't really do much for them either.

[03Mustang]

Absolutely. This was the best possible outcome for UT/OU.

IMO, and I know I'm biased, the Big 12 should expand to 14 with the following:

Cincinnati
Central Florida
Houston
SMU

You lock up the top two programs in the AAC in relatively large markets with Cincy and UCF and you also lock down the state of Texas by adding SMU and Houston. They need to move Texas and OU into different divisions anyway. You could still keep it as a crossover game like the SEC does.

I suspect that they would rather have Tulane, Memphis, or New Mexico than SMU in that group. All new teams would at least add a new market. We provide nothing new, unfortunately.

Absolutely zero chance of New Mexico or Tulane. Please. We have virtually no shot but there is absolutely no way they roll with those two schools over SMU.

The only shot we have at the Big 12 is if Texas and Oklahoma are no longer in it. Unlikely as it may be that those schools make it in, they would have a better shot than us as at least they bring something (very slightly) more valuable to the table.

[03Mustang]

Tulane just built a stadium that seats less than 30K and average attendance about the same as ours in the inaugural year of the stadium in a new conference. Basketball is atrocious.

They are not an option for the Big 12.

No one would have thought the AAC would want them either, and yet here we are. It doesn't matter what makes sense to us, we aren't the ones controlling the money or making the decisions.

From the outside looking in, what is the difference between SMU and Tulane? Given that the Big 12 already has TCU in the DFW area, how do we add more than them? And how are you going to give them grief about having a 30k seat stadium on campus, when we have 32k and can't fill that? Remove the last 2 years from the equation and we really can't say much about basketball, either....

[Comet]

If the playoffs expand to 8 teams and then 16 teams, I think regionalism in a conference will become a much bigger factor going forwards. If that's the case suddenly SMU, Houston, and Tulane become decent viable options for the Big XII. Until that happens though, I fully expect the Big XII to go for Cinci, Memphis, maaaybe BYU. But I doubt we're on their radar. If we stand a chance anywhere it might be the ACC if they want to expand into Texas, but I don't see that being a reality right now. We really would blend in well with Duke, Clemson, Wake, etc.

[PonyKai]

No one would have thought the AAC would want them either, and yet here we are.

Duh, we already concluded that they're here in the AAC because RGT is bffles with the Tulane President, hates athletics, and wants to bring them along because they're academics first and then second athletics. It also got all the hoops schools to breakaway from the AAC which helped further Turner's goal of weakening/killing the Big East. And everybody knows that even though it required a super majority (at least) to add Tulane, RGT obviously hoodwinked the entire conference into taking them.

[SMU1523]

Forgive my lack of history, but has Tulane ever been good at either football or basketball?

[MustangStealth]

Forgive my lack of history, but has Tulane ever been good at either football or basketball?

Youngster. Tulane had an undefeated season in the last 15 years or so.

[Stallion]

Tulane had a pretty good football program and regularly beat SMU until the Hurricane washed it away. Had a recent streak of beating SMU 7 out of 8 years

[Mustangs35SMU]

Forgive my lack of history, but has Tulane ever been good at either football or basketball?

1998 says hello.

[03Mustang]

I think they've been to the NCAA tournament in basketball more recently than us as well.

They don't have a stellar history at all...the point is that it's not any worse than ours.

[MustangStealth]

I think they've been to the NCAA tournament in basketball more recently than us as well.

They don't have a stellar history at all...the point is that it's not any worse than ours.

They made it to the second round 3 times in 4 years during the 90s

[SMU2007]

Tulane had a pretty good football program and regularly beat SMU until the Hurricane washed it away. Had a recent streak of beating SMU 7 out of 8 years

yea i seem to remember a recent loss we had against tulane...

[ponyinNC]

bearcat blog says B12 and Cincy have already had meetings...