ESPN: Sources: Tulsa to Big East

[SMU2007]

Listen, I hesitate to continue to bag on Tulsa, but I'd like an explanation as to which of these statements is ridiculous:

*Tulsa has no football history on a national consciousness level and spent its formative years in the Missouri Valley Conference

I'm not saying they have some great history, but at least in recent years:
2006: Tulsa earned its first ranking in the BCS since 1991, breaking in at No. 25.

2008: The team reached as high as 18th in both the BCS rankings and USA Today/Coaches poll, and 19th in the Associated Press poll.

2010: finished the season ranked 24th in the AP poll a

2012: finished the season ranked 25th in the USA Today/Coaches poll.

Appeared in 4 of the 8 CUSA championship games, winning two.

It's at least good competition. They don't seem to have a very interested fan base, but I mostly want to watch good football games. There are worse options out there.

PS. That mascot is pretty ridiculous looking.

[MustangStealth]

Listen, I hesitate to continue to bag on Tulsa, but I'd like an explanation as to which of these statements is ridiculous:

*Tulsa has no football history on a national consciousness level and spent its formative years in the Missouri Valley Conference

I'm not saying they have some great history, but at least in recent years:
2006: Tulsa earned its first ranking in the BCS since 1991, breaking in at No. 25.

2008: The team reached as high as 18th in both the BCS rankings and USA Today/Coaches poll, and 19th in the Associated Press poll.

2010: finished the season ranked 24th in the AP poll a

2012: finished the season ranked 25th in the USA Today/Coaches poll.

Appeared in 4 of the 8 CUSA championship games, winning two.

It's at least good competition. They don't seem to have a very interested fan base, but I mostly want to watch good football games. There are worse options out there.

PS. That mascot is pretty ridiculous looking.

Tulsa has also played 3 times in what are now the BCS bowls, and has (I believe) 3 NFL hall of famers.

[Stallion]

Tulsa eight 8+ win seasons in 11 years including 4- double digit winning seasons. Rice attendance even worse. They had 11,000 see SMU fight for their first Bowl Game in 45 years

[ponyboy]

Rice's home attendance was nearly identical to Tulsa's last year.

Let me be clear: I'm not advocating we drop Tulsa and add Rice, even if we could. I don't like either.

[Cougar King]

Tulsa's problem is their small student body and alumni base and being less than an hour away from oSu.


Rice also has a similar problem to Tulsa with their smalls tudent body and alumni base in combination of another and much much larger FBS school ( ) a mere 4-5 miles away. Also, many cities do not feel any sort of connection with a private school due to the snobby, elitist perception among other things. (USC, BYU and TCU are the exceptions of course)

I don't really care for the Tulsa add since their ceiling is pretty low and I think they have already reached that point.

[SMU2007]

USC is a huge school. Basically the same size as the other game in town, UCLA. BYU has the backing of the mormons. TCU has done a good job of being "fort worth's team", long before they were good.

I don't think the "snobby, elitist" thing applies to most private schools. SMU, yes. But not most. I think it's just a matter of people being more interested in higher level football (Big 12 instead of CUSA) and bigger schools being more popular.

[Maine Mustang]

USC is a huge school. Basically the same size as the other game in town, UCLA. BYU has the backing of the mormons. TCU has done a good job of being "fort worth's team", long before they were good.

I don't think the "snobby, elitist" thing applies to most private schools. SMU, yes. But not most. I think it's just a matter of people being more interested in higher level football (Big 12 instead of CUSA) and bigger schools being more popular.

There are plenty of success stories of private universities increasing attendance and interest from the community, but it's not easy. I was reading a few articles on Northwestern's success in boosting attendance and they seem to have a good take on how to do it. Here's a quote that sums up their approach:

"We're OK being your second-favorite team," Mr. Polisky says. "We're not going to fill our stadium organically," he says of 47,130-seat Ryan Field. "So we have to have our arms open to everybody."

We need to do a better job of opening our arms to 'everyone', including visiting fans.

[SMU2007]

Northwestern is probably a better comparison for us. Still 1/3 bigger overall, but more comparable.

[Maine Mustang]

BC is another good example. Roughly 14k total students, and in 2012 attendance was up to an avg of just under 40k despite a very very weak team and lots of professional sports options. There is no reason that SMU can't produce similar results.

[ponyboy]

Amen.

[PonySnob]

BC is another good example. Roughly 14k total students, and in 2012 attendance was up to an avg of just under 40k despite a very very weak team and lots of professional sports options. There is no reason that SMU can't produce similar results.

BC also gets to play more "name" programs and the allure of going to Boston could possibly drive some alumni of those schools to go to road games.