HEY maybe they're getting ready for the day when they no longer play "non AQ" schools and want to have someone to beat up on.
HEY maybe they're getting ready for the day when they no longer play "non AQ" schools and want to have someone to beat up on.
HD,
I didn't post any of my personal views of Tulane. Like you and many others, I don't think very highly of Tulane either, but it doesn't matter what I think of Tulane. I am trying to look at conference realignment from the perspectives of the various decision makers based upon credible information.
Back in 2011, Tulane was one of the five schools that the Big 12 expansion committee contacted about potential membership along with BYU, TCU, Louisville, and West Virginia. The Big 12 eventually invited TCU and West Virginia. If the Big 12 had decided to get back to 12 members and if BYU would have turned them down to stay indedpendent, then Louisville and likely Tulane would have received Big 12 invitations. But the Big 12 decided to remain at 10 members. Louisville was later invited to the ACC. Tulane's consideration by the Big 12 was not BS. It happened.
I didn't claim that New Orleans was an important market. UCF's president and the Big East commissioner stated that New Orleans is an important market. The authoritative opinion rests with what the decision makers think.
Tulane was not picked for sentimental reasons. Come on. You know that's not true. That's what U-La-La fans said about LaTech getting picked by C-USA. That's either delusion, denial, or ignorance.
And yes, I do know Cowen is retiring, but he just announced it a couple weeks ago, well after Tulane was already invited to the Big East.
I agree with Dawg06's analysis of events up to now.
But going forward Tulane will be in the AAC or stuck with AAC leftovers unless it can consistently get to 25K+ football ACTUAL attendance and better than 50% of capacity (or 5K+ for games at New Orleans Arena) for basketball.
Dawg'06....my comment about you claiming that New Orleans is an "important market" came from your writings in post #29 (see copied above). If you are stating that the UCF President and Big East Commissioner said this instead of you, then I'm fine with that position...but it wasn't real clear. Likewise though, you are also saying the same people gave "Powerful President" as another reason for picking Tulame (because that's in the same talking points you outlined!). I don't think that really happened. But if it did, that REALLY IS a stupid reason to pick any school for membership, especially when a school prez can announce his departure at any time --which is exactly what Cowen ultimately did .)
Anyway, just because Tulame was picked to join the AAC, it doesn't mean it was a good choice, or even a smart choice. I think there's a ton of evidence to support the contrary viewpoint. College football leaders and administrators make mistakes EVERY DAY, so simply stating "they were picked and we weren't" (paraphrasing, of course) doesn't end the discussion or even mean that Tulame was a worthy choice.
Tulame WAS INDEED picked for "sentimental" reasons. They were picked because they have a close -and longstanding-- "relationship" with most of the schools they are re-joining in the AAC. It's as simple as that. The AAC knew what they were getting with Tulame. Better the devil you know than the ones you don't know.
HD,
Those three points I posted below the quote were a summary of the Big East Commissioner's text message to UCF's president about Tulane. Those were claims that the decision makers made in what they thought was a private conversation that was later made public thanks to the FOIA.
Again, I'm not trying to tell anybody that Tulane was a good/worthy/smart pick. I'm simply relaying why Tulane was picked, and it was not for sentimental reasons. Don't shoot the messenger.
The Big 8 just needed 4 from the SWC.
Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech were givens. Baylor was the logical choice over Rice, SMU, and TCU from the private group, particularly with the political pull it had compared to the other privates. Houston was a "no way, Jose".
I guess is the Staub got a raise too.
The Big 8 could either add 2 (the obvious ones) or 4. They were pushed to add 4. Baylor was the obvious choice after Texas Tech at the time. Did you happen to look at the 10 seasons before the Big 12 formed for the other SWC schools? I'll give you a hint, it won't be pretty.
If memory serves the last year of the SWC had a five way tie for first place and one of those was Rice (they beat Texas that year in the rain I believe).
I was there too! We spanked them bad. We were forced to play with linemen's legs tied together like in a three legged race and we still beat them. I still have the Dallas paper from that game. That was so long ago that my youngest son (who graduated from Tech a year ago) was still in diapers.