Big XII to announce 13-year, $2.6 billion media deal with ABC/ESPN, Fox on Friday

[PawDawg]

In the four years before the Big 12 started, Houston was 4-7, 4-7, 1-9-1, and 1-10.

They were great for 3 years in 1988, 1989, and 1990.

The three years before that they were 4-7, 1-10, and 4-6-1.

The others I listed?

[inudesu]

The others I listed?

http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/index.php

Kansas, Iowa State, and K-State were already in the Big 8. They weren't going to kick anyone out.

There is always this idea (based on what happened afterwards as Baylor got stuck in a brutal division and TCU and Houston built their programs up) that Baylor was no more worthy to get into the Big 12 than the other SWC schools. Sure, they used their political muscle to push through the idea of a Big 12 instead of just Texas and A&M joining the Big 8. But once you start looking for two more SWC schools to get to 12, Baylor was the best fit.

[KSDAWG]

TCU was the best fit. Baylor just had a governor in office at the time.

[inudesu]

TCU was the best fit. Baylor just had a governor in office at the time.

Baylor was better on the field at that time. And had been for years. And it isn't even close.

Baylor had a better record every year from 1985-93. In 1994 they had the same overall record (Baylor won 42-18 in Fort Worth). In '95 Baylor had a better record (and won head-to-head). If you go back to 1980 (which is as far as I looked) TCU had a better record just once (in 1984). Going back to 1974 (through 1995), Baylor won the head-to-head match-up 17/22 times.

If you were looking at the private SWC schools (plus Houston if you want) for one more team to take with you to a better conference in around 1993-95, Baylor was the easy choice (on the field). I guess you could argue that all the rest are in bigger cities, but in football terms Baylor was the best of the rest.

[parialex]

Houston hit the skids at the wrong time. The only way we were getting an invite was a full-on merger. My understanding is that the next teams on the list were TCU and then Rice (for academic reasons, obviously). Governor Richards (Baylor) and Lt. Governor Bullock (Baylor/TTU) were important, but not because they let Baylor cut in line. Rather, they prevented UT and A&M from going alone and leaving the SWC with six.

There were three options on the table: Just UT and A&M, UT/A&M/TTU/BU, and full merger (the last was going to have additional terms of the remaining four to "prove" their worthiness in terms of facilities/attendance/etc.). Richards and Bullock prevented the first from happening. There are arguments from UH fans that they should have lobbied for the third, but that never carried much weight with me. It's hard to see how we would have met whatever metrics required, given the state of our program at the time. Pardee had proven that we could still win, but the program was unable to capitalize on that. Before him, we'd held on to Yeoman for too long because he was the godfather of our program. After him, we hired the wrong guy internally (a good coach and a great Coog, but a bad *head* coach).

So, all things considered, the Big 12 made the right choice for it at the time. On the whole, I think Tech added more than Baylor subtracted and they were better off with 12 than 10. Unless the 10 would have kept Nebraska from leaving, which is possible. It's fun to ponder what things might have looked like if there had been six remaining teams in the SWC instead of four. Probably still the WAC-16, except with Houston and without some of the western teams. Maybe a rebuilt SWC with LaTech and others. Maybe the WAC would have gone with only three but the three being TTU, TCU, and Baylor, and we would have gone to Conference USA with SMU and Rice to begin with.