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Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
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esayem Offline
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Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
I found this cool resource: https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/ttusw...00023.html

It has a ton of info on the Southwest Conference. Simple searches provided some interesting tidbits:

"Conference Expansion
East Carolina University General Information, 1993-1994
University of Southwestern Louisiana General Information, 1994"

"Tulane Proposal to Join the SWC, 1991"

"Conference Expansion, 1990"

"Conference Expansion, 1992"


I knew about the second one when Tulane was narrowly denied admission, but the ECU and USL bit is particularly interesting. They must have been some of the few independents after C-USA was formed. I know the SWC only considered inviting independents.
02-02-2018 12:58 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-02-2018 12:58 PM)esayem Wrote:  I found this cool resource: https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/ttusw...00023.html

It has a ton of info on the Southwest Conference. Simple searches provided some interesting tidbits:

"Conference Expansion
East Carolina University General Information, 1993-1994
University of Southwestern Louisiana General Information, 1994"

"Tulane Proposal to Join the SWC, 1991"

"Conference Expansion, 1990"

"Conference Expansion, 1992"


I knew about the second one when Tulane was narrowly denied admission, but the ECU and USL bit is particularly interesting. They must have been some of the few independents after C-USA was formed. I know the SWC only considered inviting independents.

Two of the latter expansion files (1994) were likely related to the left behinds looking at possible options for rebuilding the conference. Interest in doing so was fairly low with the UH administration (which I always thought was a mistake) and the 4 remaining teams couldnt reach a consensus on who to invite. In the end, they went their separate ways a let the conference die.
(This post was last modified: 02-02-2018 01:38 PM by Attackcoog.)
02-02-2018 01:37 PM
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Wedge Offline
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-02-2018 01:37 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-02-2018 12:58 PM)esayem Wrote:  I found this cool resource: https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/ttusw...00023.html

It has a ton of info on the Southwest Conference. Simple searches provided some interesting tidbits:

"Conference Expansion
East Carolina University General Information, 1993-1994
University of Southwestern Louisiana General Information, 1994"

"Tulane Proposal to Join the SWC, 1991"

"Conference Expansion, 1990"

"Conference Expansion, 1992"


I knew about the second one when Tulane was narrowly denied admission, but the ECU and USL bit is particularly interesting. They must have been some of the few independents after C-USA was formed. I know the SWC only considered inviting independents.

Two of the latter expansion files (1994) were likely related to the left behinds looking at possible options for rebuilding the conference. Interest in doing so was fairly low with the UH administration (which I always thought was a mistake) and the 4 remaining teams couldnt reach a consensus on who to invite. In the end, they went their separate ways a let the conference die.

That makes sense; the four schools that joined the Big 8 were invited in February 1994.

Quote:Four Southwest Conference members - Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor - have been invited to join the Big Eight Conference beginning with the 1996-97 school year, the Houston Chronicle, the Houston Post and the Dallas Morning News reported in their editions today.

The Chronicle quoted three SWC school presidents and the Post and the Morning News cited sources in both leagues. The Post said the schools have until Friday to give the Big Eight a decision.

The remaining four teams in the 79-year-old SWC - Southern Methodist, Texas Christian, Rice and Houston - have been told they were not invited to join the Big Eight, the newspapers said.
02-02-2018 01:43 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
I always thought the SWC could and should have rebuilt. Tulane and Tulsa would have been logical adds. Maybe UTEP might have taken an interest in playing other Texas schools.

They might have even been able to make a run at some of the other Metro and Great Midwest schools that formed the Metro--USM, Memphis, Louisville, and Cincinnati.
02-02-2018 04:08 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-02-2018 04:08 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I always thought the SWC could and should have rebuilt. Tulane and Tulsa would have been logical adds. Maybe UTEP might have taken an interest in playing other Texas schools.

They might have even been able to make a run at some of the other Metro and Great Midwest schools that formed the Metro--USM, Memphis, Louisville, and Cincinnati.
Probably would have made more sense, and if Tulane and jumped on the wagon that could have altered the path of CUSA, maybe derailed it.
02-02-2018 04:21 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-02-2018 04:21 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  
(02-02-2018 04:08 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I always thought the SWC could and should have rebuilt. Tulane and Tulsa would have been logical adds. Maybe UTEP might have taken an interest in playing other Texas schools.

They might have even been able to make a run at some of the other Metro and Great Midwest schools that formed the Metro--USM, Memphis, Louisville, and Cincinnati.
Probably would have made more sense, and if Tulane and jumped on the wagon that could have altered the path of CUSA, maybe derailed it.

If Tulane made that move and pulled just one other C-USA founder with them the whole merger might have derailed. Let's say it's USM. that leaves the Metro with:

Louisville
Charlotte (no FB)
USF (no FB yet)
VCU (no FB)
VT (Big East FB)

L'ville, Memphis, and Cincy would be the only founders who played football from day 1 left. Maybe some or all jump on board as full members or football affiliates. Memphis and Cincy would be in an untouched Great Midwest so they would not have felt the pressure to join as full members.
02-02-2018 04:42 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
Back then, my preferred path forward was to rebuild the SWC around the core of remaining schools. I think we only needed 2 more under the existing rules. My second favorite option was to move as a group to a new conference. We could have moved to the WAC doing just that--but UH passed on that opportunity as well.

From what I understand, the UH administration at the time thought that the remaining private schools would not be good partners going forward and that we would be better off aligning with other large public schools. The fact UH passed on options 1 and 2 above in favor of a spread out conference where our fans had zero connection to anyone we played would seem to support what ive heard. Personally, as a college football fan above all else, I absolutely hated the idea of CUSA. It seemed to be much more of a basketball first conference that I didnt think would be a very good fit for the vast majority of UH fans (or the casual college football fans in the city).
(This post was last modified: 02-02-2018 06:46 PM by Attackcoog.)
02-02-2018 05:18 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-02-2018 05:18 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Back then, my preferred path forward was to rebuild the SWC around the core of remaining schools. I think we only needed 2 more under the existing rules. My second favorite option was to move as a group to a new conference. We could have moved to the WAC doing just that--but UH passed on that opportunity as well.

From what I understand, the UH administration at the time thought that the remaining private schools would not be good partners going forward and that we would be better off aligning with other large public schools. The fact UH passed on options 1 and 2 above in favor of a spread out conference where our fans had zero connection to anyone we played would seem to support what ive heard. Personally, as a college football above all else, I absolutely hated the idea of CUSA. It seemed to be much more of a basketball first conference that I didnt think would be a very good fit for the vast majority of UH fans (or the casual college football fans in the city).
On the other hand, I was very much in favor of UH moving to the new CUSA at that time. It seemed like a massive upgrade in basketball, which was my primary interest at the time. Maybe I was just too stuck in my UH memories of the 60s-80s.

And as for adding Tulsa and Tulane in a reformed SWC, that would be five small private schools with Rice, SMU, and TCU. Not much of a nucleus for TV rights. maybe trade UH to the B12 for Baylor and we could have had an FBS all-private conference.
02-02-2018 05:28 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
If the SWC had survived and rebuilt around the remaining 4 schools, not only could it have preempted the formation of CUSA but also could have inadvertently saved the WAC by preventing it from overexpanding (and by extension possibly saved Big West football too, though that's debatable). Maybe you'd eventually end up with something like this:

SWC
East: Cincinnati, East Carolina, Louisville, Memphis, Southern Miss, UAB
West: Houston, Rice, SMU, TCU, Tulsa, Tulane

WAC
Mountain: Air Force, Colorado State, New Mexico, UNLV, UTEP, Wyoming
Pacific: BYU, Fresno State, Hawaii, San Diego State, San Jose State, Utah

Although the SWC wouldn't be very "southwest" at that point.
(This post was last modified: 02-02-2018 06:17 PM by Nerdlinger.)
02-02-2018 05:52 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
It's unfortunate for the SWC schools that they couldn't have worked out a deal to bring them all into C-USA in 1995 at the expense of some of the basketball schools but Cincy, Memphis, and Louisville were the power brokers and Cincy was not going to come on board without the 4 Midwestern Catholic schools.
02-02-2018 05:53 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-02-2018 05:18 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Back then, my preferred path forward was to rebuild the SWC around the core of remaining schools. I think we only needed 2 more under the existing rules. My second favorite option was to move as a group to a new conference. We could have moved to the WAC doing just that--but UH passed on that opportunity as well.

From what I understand, the UH administration at the time thought that the remaining private schools would not be good partners going forward and that we would be better off aligning with other large public schools. The fact UH passed on options 1 and 2 above in favor of a spread out conference where our fans had zero connection to anyone we played would seem to support what ive heard. Personally, as a college football fan above all else, I absolutely hated the idea of CUSA. It seemed to be much more of a basketball first conference that I didnt think would be a very good fit for the vast majority of UH fans (or the casual college football fans in the city).

UH had too high an opinion of its value and too low an opinion of TCU, SMU and Rice. It would have been better off rebuilding the SWC instead of abandoning it. Add the same football schools-Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, Tulane, Southern Miss. Maybe Tulsa to get to 10. Putting back together a lot of the football schools from the MVC of the 60s/70s.
02-02-2018 07:37 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-02-2018 07:37 PM)bullet Wrote:  
(02-02-2018 05:18 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Back then, my preferred path forward was to rebuild the SWC around the core of remaining schools. I think we only needed 2 more under the existing rules. My second favorite option was to move as a group to a new conference. We could have moved to the WAC doing just that--but UH passed on that opportunity as well.

From what I understand, the UH administration at the time thought that the remaining private schools would not be good partners going forward and that we would be better off aligning with other large public schools. The fact UH passed on options 1 and 2 above in favor of a spread out conference where our fans had zero connection to anyone we played would seem to support what ive heard. Personally, as a college football fan above all else, I absolutely hated the idea of CUSA. It seemed to be much more of a basketball first conference that I didnt think would be a very good fit for the vast majority of UH fans (or the casual college football fans in the city).

UH had too high an opinion of its value and too low an opinion of TCU, SMU and Rice. It would have been better off rebuilding the SWC instead of abandoning it. Add the same football schools-Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, Tulane, Southern Miss. Maybe Tulsa to get to 10. Putting back together a lot of the football schools from the MVC of the 60s/70s.

UH had poor leadership in that period. While the privates werent much at that time, they were the only available ties to the SWC available to us in 1994. Sure, they were not huge rivalry games for UH---still , they were more interesting to locals than teams from across the nation. Tulane and S Miss gets you to 6. If you add Memphis, Cinci, and Louisville to that group you'd have had a decent conference that was reasonably regional--yet still would have some decent football and basketball.
(This post was last modified: 02-02-2018 07:57 PM by Attackcoog.)
02-02-2018 07:55 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
Houston, USM, Memphis, Louisville, Cincy

Tulsa, TCU, SMU, Rice, Tulane

That would have made a nice public/private split. That is if you could separate the last 3 public schools from the basketball schools they built around them in the Great Midwest and Metro.
02-03-2018 08:21 AM
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megadrone Offline
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
Still, somewhat sad that the Metro 16 plan didn't go through. I think it was a little ahead of its time but with the Eastern independents and the football schools already in the Metro it would have been a great conference. Houston would have been a fit there if there was room, if there wasn't room Houston probably would have gone to the WAC with the SWC private schools.
02-03-2018 10:21 AM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-03-2018 10:21 AM)megadrone Wrote:  Still, somewhat sad that the Metro 16 plan didn't go through. I think it was a little ahead of its time but with the Eastern independents and the football schools already in the Metro it would have been a great conference. Houston would have been a fit there if there was room, if there wasn't room Houston probably would have gone to the WAC with the SWC private schools.

The Metro 16 was an interesting plan but I still think it would be vulnerable as its best schools would still have had better options elsewhere.

South Carolina, Penn St, and the schools who jumped from the Big East to the ACC would all still probably end up bailing.

I don't know that Pitt, Syracuse, and BC would have ever been more than football affiliates. The convenience and allure of the Big East basketball set up that had was simply too good to abandon.
02-03-2018 10:30 AM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
Doesn’t really matter anymore, in 2025 there will major reductions in tv money, no more big fat tv contracts for any college conferences, I predict a conference like the big-10 or the SEC will get less than half to what they are getting now, as a result there will be some more realignment taking place, college football will be in total disarray with huge legal battles, multiple fake championships, dogs sleeping with cats and the swamp will be full and deep again for all hopefulness to disappear never to be seen again...
Just say’n...
(This post was last modified: 02-03-2018 10:52 AM by JHS55.)
02-03-2018 10:50 AM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-03-2018 10:30 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  
(02-03-2018 10:21 AM)megadrone Wrote:  Still, somewhat sad that the Metro 16 plan didn't go through. I think it was a little ahead of its time but with the Eastern independents and the football schools already in the Metro it would have been a great conference. Houston would have been a fit there if there was room, if there wasn't room Houston probably would have gone to the WAC with the SWC private schools.

The Metro 16 was an interesting plan but I still think it would be vulnerable as its best schools would still have had better options elsewhere.

South Carolina, Penn St, and the schools who jumped from the Big East to the ACC would all still probably end up bailing.

I don't know that Pitt, Syracuse, and BC would have ever been more than football affiliates. The convenience and allure of the Big East basketball set up that had was simply too good to abandon.

The Big East swiped the Metro idea anyway. The original Big East football lineup was the "North Division" of the Metro proposal with the Big East including Miami instead of Cincinnati.
02-03-2018 12:11 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-03-2018 12:11 PM)Wedge Wrote:  
(02-03-2018 10:30 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  
(02-03-2018 10:21 AM)megadrone Wrote:  Still, somewhat sad that the Metro 16 plan didn't go through. I think it was a little ahead of its time but with the Eastern independents and the football schools already in the Metro it would have been a great conference. Houston would have been a fit there if there was room, if there wasn't room Houston probably would have gone to the WAC with the SWC private schools.

The Metro 16 was an interesting plan but I still think it would be vulnerable as its best schools would still have had better options elsewhere.

South Carolina, Penn St, and the schools who jumped from the Big East to the ACC would all still probably end up bailing.

I don't know that Pitt, Syracuse, and BC would have ever been more than football affiliates. The convenience and allure of the Big East basketball set up that had was simply too good to abandon.

The Big East swiped the Metro idea anyway. The original Big East football lineup was the "North Division" of the Metro proposal with the Big East including Miami instead of Cincinnati.

Very true. In the original proposal the 3 best teams in the South were FSU, Miami, and South Carolina. By the time Big East football got off the ground 2 of the 3 were already spoken for and they simply swapped Miami into the North at Cincy's expense and eliminated 6 mouths to feed--mouths that ended up founding C-USA football.

It's too bad for many of the schools involved that the SWC fell apart as it did. Had they held on to the Oklahoma schools in the very early years I think things would have turned out much different.
02-03-2018 12:26 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-02-2018 05:18 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Back then, my preferred path forward was to rebuild the SWC around the core of remaining schools. I think we only needed 2 more under the existing rules. My second favorite option was to move as a group to a new conference. We could have moved to the WAC doing just that--but UH passed on that opportunity as well.

From what I understand, the UH administration at the time thought that the remaining private schools would not be good partners going forward and that we would be better off aligning with other large public schools. The fact UH passed on options 1 and 2 above in favor of a spread out conference where our fans had zero connection to anyone we played would seem to support what ive heard. Personally, as a college football fan above all else, I absolutely hated the idea of CUSA. It seemed to be much more of a basketball first conference that I didnt think would be a very good fit for the vast majority of UH fans (or the casual college football fans in the city).

But original C-USA was the best fit for UH. It was full of urban, mostly public schools with rich basketball history. Unfortunately, it developed just a little too late and the BCS system excluded it.

And you act like the WAC would have been better. Houston kept playing Rice, so they didn't have to be in the same conference as them to accomplish that. There were two more regional opponents but they didn't make UH fans jump out of their chairs and Tulane is only slightly farther away than SMU and TCU. The WAC had far flung opponents that were even farther away and worse yet in different time zones. One is 4 time zones and an ocean away.

And whether you like it or not, UH nationally got more acclaim for it's basketball history than its football history. Yeah, football is king in Texas but Houston had a better reputation in basketball and a much better chance to be nationally relevant in that sport, at least as of the mid-90's. The school let the program rot on the vine, so it's done.
02-03-2018 01:11 PM
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RE: Interesting Info on Southwest Conference
(02-03-2018 10:30 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  
(02-03-2018 10:21 AM)megadrone Wrote:  Still, somewhat sad that the Metro 16 plan didn't go through. I think it was a little ahead of its time but with the Eastern independents and the football schools already in the Metro it would have been a great conference. Houston would have been a fit there if there was room, if there wasn't room Houston probably would have gone to the WAC with the SWC private schools.

The Metro 16 was an interesting plan but I still think it would be vulnerable as its best schools would still have had better options elsewhere.

South Carolina, Penn St, and the schools who jumped from the Big East to the ACC would all still probably end up bailing.

I don't know that Pitt, Syracuse, and BC would have ever been more than football affiliates. The convenience and allure of the Big East basketball set up that had was simply too good to abandon.

I think the Metro 16 plan was ahead of its time. ESPN didn't have its 20 networks then and the conference was built around football. Still, the basketball would have been good if WVU, Rutgers and Temple left the A10 and joined as full members, leaving Miami, Syracuse, Pitt and BC in the Big East with football in the Metro 16. Had that conference developed it could still be together in some form as a P conference (instead of it and the Big East devolving to their current configurations).

But South Carolina wouldn't have ignored the SEC, and the Big East needed to hold on to Syracuse, Pitt and BC. So the timeline went as it did.

Metro 16 just came along too late.
02-03-2018 03:26 PM
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