Austin AS: Houston billionaire pushing for UH to join B12

[footballdad]

Out of the 8 responses (6 twitter & 2 comments), 2 specifically mention attendance (only 30,000) as a reason to exclude. Can only imagine the ridicule for SMU's 10-15K.

My home insurance is up can I get a policy through you

Let's all just add him to our foe list and ignore him, that way his inane drivel will be visible to no one

Come on Herman, no response to this well thought out ponyfan post from Grey Hair:

"As much as I hate to say it, this latest blow up in basketball with the NCAA is likely to seal our fate of ever moving up to a P5 Conference. Obviously, the NCAA will never take its foot off of our neck and no conference wants the NCAA looking over their shoulder all the time. We are such woosies when it comes to the NCAA; we have tried to play nice and turn in any violation and take any punishment, we have let our image be defined by the NCAA. Funny thing is , we have played nice and still have been on probation about 4 times since DP and still are ranked one of the worst football programs in the FBS after 30 yrs; while TCU as only aspired to do what it takes to be in a P5 conference and has no NCAA probations since the SWC split and is the in school for students who used to go to SMU. Our problem has been one thing- lack of leadership and vision at the top as it relates to athletics. We will be similar to Austin College, Trinity, and Emory in a few years when we could have been Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Duke, Wake Forest or USC."

[StallionsModelT]

Neither Houston or SMU is going anywhere anytime soon.

Embrace the AAC. The conference is getting stronger each year top to bottom. If we can get our program back on solid ground then you've got some really intriguing programs b/w Memphis, UH, SMU, Temple, ECU, and Navy. Also hard to imagine that UCF stays down for long. Tulsa is trending up too. UConn looks to be improving.

Ten years ago we would've killed to have the exposure and potential of the AAC.

And anyone who thinks we will be Austin College is beyond stupid. TCU/Baylor are not catching us on the academic front. We are much closer to them in football success than they are to us in student quality/academic standing.

[East Coast Mustang]

I still think Texas and OU are Pac-12 bound in the next 10 years, blowing apart the Big 12. It will be interesting to see if any ACC schools defect to the Big 10 or SEC. Our best case scenario is probably getting into a best of the rest conference with whoever is left in the Big 12 and/or ACC lifeboats. Let's start winning in football and keep winning in basketball...the postseason ban sucks but plenty of other programs have had them in the past and weathered through. Not to get all hoops chatty on the football board, but assuming no one transfers we'll still have a solid squad that will be in tournament contention in 16-17 with Semi, Shake, Sterling, and Ben Moore leading the way. Just need to sign some bigs

[PerunasHoof]

I still think Texas and OU are Pac-12 bound in the next 10 years, blowing apart the Big 12. It will be interesting to see if any ACC schools defect to the Big 10 or SEC. Our best case scenario is probably getting into a best of the rest conference with whoever is left in the Big 12 and/or ACC lifeboats. Let's start winning in football and keep winning in basketball...the postseason ban sucks but plenty of other programs have had them in the past and weathered through. Not to get all hoops chatty on the football board, but assuming no one transfers we'll still have a solid squad that will be in tournament contention in 16-17 with Semi, Shake, Sterling, and Ben Moore leading the way. Just need to sign some bigs

I see a few issues with that (just discussing). Texas and OU aren't going to want to fly their softball, baseball, tennis, track, etc, teams all the way to Pullman and Eugene. Also, who knows if the per team payout would be incrementally that much better. But who knows.

And yeah, we just need to take care of business in the AAC. I think our best bet is when we get to renegotiate our TV rights. When is that?

[Pony Grey Hair]

Baylor and TCU will catch us academically by plowing those extra dollars from being a P5 school into their academic programs. This is what our leadership didn't see coming 5-10 years ago. They didn't have a clue about the marketplace for sports that was developing and it will only continue to grow for the high profile schools.

[PerunasHoof]

Baylor and TCU will catch us academically by plowing those extra dollars from being a P5 school into their academic programs. This is what our leadership didn't see coming 5-10 years ago. They didn't have a clue about the marketplace for sports that was developing and it will only continue to grow for the high profile schools.

Judging from their new stadiums, that's where I would say that money is going to.

[Pony Grey Hair]

Once they get the athletic facilities up to conference standards, the money will begin to flow big time into academics.

[StallionsModelT]

Once they get the athletic facilities up to conference standards, the money will begin to flow big time into academics.

Wrong. If that was the case Florida State and Alabama would be Harvard.

Prospective students pick schools for a myriad of reasons. SMU is in a totally different class in terms of who we admit to the university as compared to TCU and Baylor. Try having just a shred of perspective.

[Hoofbeat83]

Once they get the athletic facilities up to conference standards, the money will begin to flow big time into academics.

that's a joke, right?

[Charleston Pony]

Most schools I'm aware of use their football profits to subsidize the overall athletics budget, which does free up University spending elsewhere, so ultimately the huge football earnings CAN benefit a schools' academics.

[StallionsModelT]

Once they get the athletic facilities up to conference standards, the money will begin to flow big time into academics.

that's a joke, right?

No I think he actually believes this.

A&M has seen a meteoric rise in applications post SEC/Johnny Football mania. What has that resulted in? Still being behind SMU and Texas in the eyes of prospective students.

We could go 0-12 for twenty years and Baylor and TCU would still not be ahead of us academically. Get real.

[sbsmith]

First its all about TV sets. Big Ten has its own network. If adding a team the Big Ten added 10 Million cable must carry's for the Big Ten Network, they would jump in a second (see Maryland and Rutgers).

Maryland and Rutgers are AAU state flagships (like most of the conference) not academic lightweights.

[sbsmith]

that's a joke, right?

That's typical Ponyfans alarmist bs.

[Pony Boss]

The American is that "best of the rest" type conference. Improve the football product and we will be fine. The American gives SMU as much exposure as being in a p5 from being on tv standpoint. Now it's SMU's job to grow the fanbase with a better football product. No other way.

[leopold]

Academics don't mean squat in realignment. Anybody who beleives this is wrong.

The SEC let in Arkansas when they had a 10% graduation rate for their ENTIRE SCHOOL. So the SEC doesn't care (as if they ever did).

The Big 10 chose Nebraska over schools like Missouri and Maryland, who are still in the AAU. In fact, Michigan and Wisconsin voted against Nebraska for membership when they got voted out, leading many to wonder if the Big 10 ever really cared about their membership in that vaunted organization at all.

The ACC let Louisville in. Enough said.

The Pac 12 was seriously considering taking Texas Tech. Again, enough said. Just the fact that they were serious candidates is enough to believe the Pac 12 didn't care.

And,well, the Big XII let in the Raiders to begin with. So to hell with learnin'.

All this, and schools like Rice, Tulane, and Tulsa, despite being excellent schools in major media markets exploding with talent, have been passed over time and again.

Each and every school that has been a part of conference realignment over the past 40 years has been let in over football and media markets - period. Their academic merits have been discussed only in passing. If Notre Dame up and decided to become an unacredited junior college tomorrow and still somehow play NCAA football the B1G and ACC would still fight tooth and nail for them.

Conference membership is about athletics and media markets, and that's all. Nothing about this is going to change in the foreseeable future.