thatskablamo

Essentially Rice will be the Vanderbilt/Northwestern of its new conference.

The Rice paradox is that while it is located in the fourth largest city in the country, it is the smallest non-service academy affiliated D-1 football program in terms of enrollment. I just don’t see Rice bringing anything to the table except for it’s baseball program. Some people give a hoot about that.

People in the P12, so worried about the health and vitality of the student-athlete, are voicing their concerns over the two time zone change to play in Texas. Ok, well, you already have one time zone change when you go to Boulder. And if it wasn’t for Arizona being so weird, you’d have had one time zone change in place for the last 30 years anyway. The Time Zone Warriors at the U of Hawaii are laughing out of their leis (LOL) at this.

This will eventually force the hand of the Irish to the ACC in all sports. I’m sure Swarbrick is wringing his hands this morning. They’ll keep Navy on the schedule, but this may put the USC rivalry game on life support. I just don’t imagine seeing potentially back-to-back road games at Miami then to Los Angeles. Hey, at least some of the kids with NIL money from NetJets will be ok. I also wonder what the Catholic schools with FCS football programs will do. Duquesne opens their season with a money game at TCU…

I don’t think Texas did anything personally to the SWC. Sure, they flirted with the California girls of the Pac10, while the Aggies did the same with the southern belles. If anything, the public schools of the SWC looked at private schools as charity cases. Switzer said it best: “too many little sisters of the poor.” But you will hear different stories on 6th Street in Austin or at the Dixie Chicken in College Station or at Campisi’s in Dallas about what “really” happened to the SWC.

The money TCU alums are making in the Barnett Shale to keep Gary Patterson happy in Fort Worth is worth every penny. It’s a black gold Brinks truck.

Again, another Texas campfire tale, but there are people who don’t wear burnt Orange that will tell you Texas AD DeLoss Dodd turned in SMU so that the NCAA wouldn’t move its office (or lynch mob) from Kansas City to Austin. Now, obviously we know that SMU itself killed SMU football, but as George Costanza said “it’s not a lie if you believe it.” Financially speaking, there was almost a “luxury tax” that Texas, A&M and Arkansas were paying - basically subsidizing the rest of the league via gate profits. Look at Rice, look at SMU’s Ford Stadium and Baylor’s old field - then look at Royal in Austin and Kyle in College Station - shrines to the game - and almost always sold out on Saturday. I think Dodd had enough of making sure the coffers were full in Lubbock and Fort Worth, etc, especially after the glory days of SMU, when they’d play their home games at Texas Stadium in Irving.

As early as ‘93, Texas had flirted with the Pac10. As soon as Aggie AD John David Crow caught wind, he started to flirt with the SEC, just like Arkansas had a year prior. However, then-Gov Ann Richards (a Baylor alum) said that Texas and Texas A&M weren’t going anywhere unless they brought Baylor, and for some reason, Texas Tech with them. So that ended Pac10 and SEC flirtation for a couple of decades. The writing was on the wall for the SWC with the SMU death penalty; Arkansas got out, but that was Jerry Jones money talking. They wanted media money, even at the sake of continuous mediocrity.

LSU will also be a no, as they’ve settled in nicely as A&M’s thanksgiving weekend rivalry game. If Texas comes to the SEC, it will more than likely slot that Longhorn/Aggie Game back to its traditional Friday-after-Thanksgiving date. It’s been 10 years since the two teams have played. I was at the last game in College Station and it was bitter.

So would two original SWC schools (UH being the one you mentioned) SMU and Rice. I know this would NEVER happen, but for God’s sake, Arkansas should just go back to lesser conference. I could see Tulsa also coming aboard. Rivalry games essentially are at the crux of this decision - one is Bedlam - what does Okie State do if the Sooners leave? There is the one-sided asswhooping Texas has handed A&M over the years. The move keeps the Red River game alive, but at what cost? Does the Third Saturday in October game between Bama and Tennessee go away? Does the Georgia-Auburn annual slip away? Lots to think about…

Old enough to remember when Texas had a Valley team… you may know it as West Texas A&M… we remember it as West Texas State and Mo Cheeks…and Billiken connection Ron Ekker, who guided the basketball Buffs from 73-77 before arriving in Midtown.

Not only that, the 3-point line wasn’t even a thing. Can you imagine the final tally with the 3-ball in play for Oscar? You could arguably make him 1c to Kareem 1b and Jordan being 1a. Oscar won, scored and thrived at every level - from high school, college and pros. Got to the Final Four in 58 & 59. Won a gold medal for Christ sake at the 60 Rome games, 71 champs in Milwaukee. The man did it all.

And Dennis & Kevin Johnson, Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Allen Iverson, Gary Payton. These guys wouldn’t let Chris Paul carry their jockstrap.

I see two sides to the argument here - one being that we have our own thing on-campus. You are absolutely right - but the environment for Marquette and the Bucks in Milwaukee is second-to-none. Tailgating in the parking lot when it’s 10 below or bar hopping before games in their little “ballpark village” around the new arena is awesome. If it would help the city, as it has Milwaukee, the Bucks and Marquette, we could take a page out of their playbook. Maybe even host (like Villanova used to do) a few games with bigger name programs at the larger arena and have lesser games back at Chaifetz.

I think this game would have to be in KC; it gives MU two distinct advantages - one, being that it makes SLU travel the width of the state and they would have the larger fan base. Second, it wouldn’t be locally exposing them to STL-based recruits to potentially two losses in the same city (one to Illinois, the other to us). If I’m the warden, I’d schedule this game as the Norm Stewart Classic or something and rotate SLU, SEMO, SMS, UMKC, etc.