It's a package of Texas. Plain and simple. OU and Ok St are a bonus. It was always assumed that Texas Tech would be the 4th team. I'm not sure why? In that scenario it might make sense to take UH. I would rather take TCU because I assume that Texas has more pull in Houston than Dallas but I have no idea if that is the case. I think Texas is more likely to go independent than to the Pac 12 though.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A long look at the Big 12's future. Will they expand? Will they have a title game? Who would they add? <a href="https://t.co/OscVSZEhBz">https://t.co/OscVSZEhBz</a></p>— Pete Thamel (@SIPeteThamel) <a href="https://twitter.com/SIPeteThamel/status/681242185057071104">December 27, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
http://www.campusrush.com/big-12-conference-questions-future-expansion-1528668401.html That is from Sports Illustrated senior writer and it echoes what many of us have continued to say. Is he wrong as well? I think the problem here is the interpreted valued of having a few UH games in the top 20 of the highest watched games of the year in the city of Houston. If UH had half of those games then it would be a valuable pickup but that much interest does not exist in Houston. They can't even sell out their stadium on a 10 win season. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_American_Athletic_Conference_football_season#Attendance They sold out 1 out of 7 games and averaged %81 total capacity in the (as you guys keep reminding us) the 4th most populated city in the country. They finished 4th in the AAC in % of Stadium Capacity behind Annapolis Maryland (pop, 38,000), Cincinnati Ohio (pop, 296,943) and Greenville, North Carolina (pop, 90,000). They finished 5th in average attendance behind Temple, Memphis, East Carolina, and Cincinnati. I don't hate the school. I'm just floored of the intensity of these arguments which usually end up with the other big 12 schools "just being scared of UH." It is what it is.
Solid article from Thamel as always, but not much new here. Texas programs blocking the way as the Big 12 continues its downward slide in the Houston TV ratings. There's a significant chance something gives way in the next two Summers.
I don't think UH is worried about the Big 12, if they don't offer them a bid, another conference will. They are already starting to steal recruits from Big 12 schools in the ACC, it'll only get worse from here.
I can see the ACC expanding west to compete with the SEC. I think the pac 12 will wait out until 2025 to see if they can get OU/Texas/Ok St again. Worth a listen: <iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/239438233&color=ff5500"></iframe>
UH is focusing on itself. They are in a Position to keep recruiting well, and keep winning. After all, winning is a big deal, no matter what the bottom dwellers of the power conferences might say. Money is good, but respect is better. UH is establishing its brand again. After they joined the SWC, they almost became irrelevant. It has taken them a long time to be top notch. No begging to join conferences. If UH keeps winning, those conferences will be competing to get UH on board. UH just needs to keep scheduling tougher out of conference opponents to match their improved recruiting classes.
No one discounts winning. That's a big part of how TCU was the team that the big 12 went after. If UH turns in 9,10 win season in and out then that would be huge and conferences will come. However, they need to be selling out that stadium. I'm sure they'll make an aggressive push for season tickets and a good year next year can hopefully boost those numbers.
These were the top 20 most watched CFB games in Houston this year. 3 Houston games 3 A&M games 2 Texas games 5 Non-A&M SEC games 4 non-Texas Big 12 games 1 Big 10 game 1 ACC game 1 Big 10 vs Pac 12 game Houston-Memphis on ESPN2 outdrew all but six Big 12 telecasts this year. Granted, this is facing non-local AAC teams. I think it's safe to assume that when facing former Big 12 South teams, those telecasts would almost universally make this list year in and year out. So, if you're setting the bar at "10 of the top 20 telecasts need to be UH before we invite them" then you're never going to let us in. That's simply not a realistic standard. [*](Hell, I'm not even sure we could do that if we were actually IN the Big 12.) This is misleading for a number of reasons, most of which I'm pretty sure you're already aware of. A sudden "10 win season" isn't typically going to result in bang-up attendance until near the latter part of the year for most programs. If you follow the trend, of course, you'll see just that. By the end of the year UH was selling out TDECU. Attendance at Memphis and Temple were extremely inflated by home games against enormous opponents like Penn State, Notre Dame, and Ole Miss. If you look more closely at those numbers, particularly Temple, you'll notice their true average is below ours. As for Memphis, they won 10 games and the conference last year (their first successful season in a long while). What was their attendance then? 33.8K (note: basically the same as UH this year). We can expect a similar bump for UH next year. Cincinnati and East Carolina have always typically led the conference in attendance, East Carolina in particular, as they're basically the Texas Tech of the Carolinas (located in BFE in a place where the entire town revolves around the college). I don't find any shame in being behind them in attendance. Hell, Cincinnati is the program I *want* the Big 12 to take along with UH. At the end of the day UH will always have attendance problems relative to its peers, just like every other metro area school does. The key figure that is being looked at is not attendance though, it's TV ratings and TV markets, which UH has a significant advantage in over most other G5 programs. It should also be noted that one of the only ways left to increase the value of the LHN currently is to add UH to the Big 12. That's a move that would increase carriage fees in Houston and probably move the network onto major providers like Comcast. This is a fact probably not lost on ESPN, who has lost money hand over fist on the deal. Edit: All this being said, the situation for the foreseeable future is that no G5 program is going to increase the monetary value of the Big 12. However, programs like Cinci, UH, BYU, etc would likely increase the competitiveness (as they're all good enough to routinely finish in the top half of the league). We all know that the Big 12 is going to resist expansion until it becomes absolutely necessary, whether that comes from external forces (deregulation vote, P5 conferences showing interest in UH, etc) or internal forces (David Boren going ape, etc) remains to be seen... as does the date when this inevitable shift happens (could be as soon as this Summer or as long as 10 years from now). What we do know is that UH is on a very short list (3-4 max) of viable candidates, not at the bottom of a pool of a dozen or more, like some here want to believe.
Donny is the new me, lulz, putting his team on his back and attempting to carry them across the goal line to a new conference against impossible odds.
No, it isn't impossible odds. I have been extremely skeptical of UH for over a decade. I did not think they deserved a P5 invite and one would never come. However, I have become close to some of the administrators over the last few seasons and the belief is that they will get a P5 invite in the next few seasons.
Oh, I know it's not literally impossible. Just hyperbole. I like the passion though! I've been there!
I've been banging the UH-to-Big 12 drum for the entire 12 years I've been here, and when I started, holy crap it definitely did seem like an impossibility. Lot has changed since then, fortunately. I, too, have got to know some of the admin recently and I am blown away by how different they are from years past.
This is the core problem. You are placing a vastly different value evaluation over the ratings that UH gets in Houston. Top 3 of 20 in the 4th largest media market is not value in my (and it seems others') opinion. To be frank, it's nothing to brag about. If the team was pulling half or even %40 of the eyeballs then that's too good to pass up. You should not be setting the standard by what is possible for the team to achieve. The standard is independent and based on value for the conference. I was not trying to misrepresent anything. I'm sorry that UH's weak non-conference schedule (which they booked) meant they had less television appeal of other teams. The numbers are what they are and all you're doing is mounting excuses for why the team is not even the best value in the conference looking at the numbers. You are also wrong about the attendance trend. UH sold out 2 out of their last 5 games. One of those non-sellouts was the conference championship. Your own coach called out the fans about bad attendance after a game earlier in the season when it was %62 full. "“To me,” he said, "we’re not selling out every home game. I would ask why? What more do you need to see? You need a better product on field or more exciting game? I’m confused when I ask Cougar Nation why are you not at every home game? I get some blank stares sometimes because the answer is ‘Coach, I don’t have a reason.’ There isn’t a good reason.” The next game saw the attendance go up 5k to just 30,000. The went on to sellout 2 out of those next 5 games. In general, keep winning and fix this stuff. No one is going to be excited about bringing in the school when it comes with all these excuses including, "if you let us in and it'll be better." They built a really nice stadium which seems like the hard part. I would bet money that it's the ACC that comes calling with how well the SEC has done in Texas by bringing in A&M.
I'd argue that neither one of us is a TV executive, and so for us to "value" these things is stupid. All I can tell you is that UH's presence in the market over the last 10 years has gone up, and the Big 12's has gone down (especially over the last 5 years). The ratings and data support this. What is the tipping point for value? I have no idea, but if the current trend continues, we're going to find out. Then you're being lazy and ignorant. I gave you a more in-depth look at these numbers, what they mean, why they are what they are, and what we can expect them to be in the near future. You dismiss that as excuse making. Really lame. None of it's excuses. It's just facts with slight projection. Why do I get the feeling that if UH had hosted UT and A&M this year, you would be completely dismissive of the attendance numbers from those games, while you're more than happy to use similar circumstances at other schools to comparatively make UH look bad? More misrepresentation (or, you know, lazy ignorance). The conference championship game is a game that is thrown together with 6 days notice at an undetermined location. On top of that, the conference is in charge of the pricing, ticket distribution, and advertisement of the game. Wanna know how other conferences fare that follow this format? When judged against peers, it tells a different story. One that probably isn't to your liking. Also, I'm well aware of Tom Herman's comments, and he was 100% correct. I already admitted, numerous times, that the attendance thing is going to persist forever. That's the life of an urban school. It won't make or break our Big 12 admission, but you certainly love beating this drum (with significant indifference to the facts that surround the situation). So, in conclusion, nothing that you've said has been false. You just paint a very biased picture. You claim you don't do this out of malice, but with this being a pattern of yours going on a decade now, I find that hard to believe. You've dug into your "UH is never going to get into the Big 12" opinion so deep that virtually no positive changes for UH will convince you otherwise. That just seems silly. If Tom Herman hopped on a helicopter for Columbia this offseason and we went 0-11 next year, I'd be able to admit that Big 12 admission is drifting further away. Not sure why you can't seem to do the same.
So all of the posts you write about how UH would be good for the big 12 because of their performance is stupid? This is pretty rude but if that's how you want to carry yourself. My point was that the numbers for each game paint a picture and in simple terms, "it is what it is." I was not disjoining your point by point analysis. I was saying that it is just an attempt and blaming everyone else for problems that ultimately rest on fans and viewers in the city. I am pretty flared that you have somehow justified the attendance numbers for a conference championship that was in your own city. Every other team in the country would call you lucky. If you want to say that it's not great that you didn't sell out the game but you feel better because you did better than East Carolina, Boise and Fresno State then go ahead. I'm not sure putting yourself ahead of any of those programs. Can you clarify your point about Stanford? They sold out their last two home games and their 3rd to last was at %96 percent. Their championship game was not at their home stadium so they didn't have access to all of the seats. Levi Stadium still had 5,000 more people attend the game than the total capacity of Cardinal's Stadium. The game at 13,000 more people at it then the previous year's Pac 12 game. The Pac 12 championship game doesn't fare as well than the other conferences. It might be 50 miles away from nearest city as oppose to games in Miami, Atlanta and Indy. I think you missed my point. This quote was in response to your statement that, "If you follow the trend, of course, you'll see just that. By the end of the year UH was selling out TDECU." You are very clearly misinterpreting the data. UH only sold out the 2 of the last 5 games. If selling out the last 2 out of 8 games (if we don't count the championship game which was a home game) is a trend to you then we'll just disagree on this point. I have a right to my opinion and just because I disagree with you and haven't said, "you're right. I was wrong about everything," does not mean it's personal. I'm sorry that you can't convince everyone. All it does is attempt to undermine the points I'm trying to make by suggesting that there is an ulterior motive to twist everything to satisfy a personal grudge. If you don't want to discuss this stuff without being insulting and rude then stay in your UH thread.
First..... it doesn't have to the the Big XII, the University of Houston is going to get a P5 invite in the next 2 years. Indeed, they very well could get more than one. I know for a fact that there is sincere interest from the PAC 12 and there have been close communications with the BIG XII and ACC. I have no dog in the fight, just a series of fairly close relationships with those that have sway in the university. I don't think that they are taking anything for granted, but the reality of joining an elite conference is very close and the administration has been given certain goals to meet and they have met a majority, if not all of those benchmarks.
Deregulation passes, kinda. Big 12 will now be allowed to stage a CCG with its top 2 teams. Criteria for determining "top 2" is yet to be determined (you'd think they would have figured that out already). <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Bowlsby: "We had 7 of 9 affirmative votes." The ACC and American voted no. SEC and Big Ten were in.</p>— Brian Davis (@BDavisAAS) <a href="https://twitter.com/BDavisAAS/status/687386331433967616">January 13, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> So Big 12 (UT mostly) got what it wanted, the B1G and SEC got what they wanted, and the ACC got boned.
