(11-20-2019 11:16 PM)Ourland Wrote: Very interesting. If this is true, Rice dropped the ball. It had no idea of the movement that was to follow. It believed the SWC was strong. Too bad. No one had forsight to see what was to come. To be asked to spend $150 million is too much. I don't blame Rice for saying " no" under such circumstances, particularly given that no one saw the end of the SWC coming..
Rice and TCU were also invited to join the WAC the year that Fred's team played at Air Force. I remember Fred saying, "Well, at least it's nice to know we have a place to go." I am trying to recall the details, but both TexasU and aTm supported it because they figured that it would hasten the demise of the SWC, and they both wanted out. I was told, but have no confirmation, that in order to facilitate it financially, TexasU agreed to a 50-year commitment to play Rice (they had DFW exposure with the OU game, and wanted a Houston presence), and aTm committed the same to TCU (they felt they were close enough to Houston, but wanted a DFW presence that they would lose without the SWC). Had we gone this way, the Super WAC probably would not have happened, we might have been spared the Denver Airport debacle, and we would probably be in the Mountain West (or maybe it would still be called the WAC) today.
I don't know if money was a consideration with that deal, but I do know that when the Super WAC was formed, we got a visit from then-commissioner Kurt Benson, and he pretty much insisted that we make significant facility upgrades (not as extensive as the SEC wanted, but I recall Bobby was a bit taken aback by it).
I still think the breakup of the Super WAC started the first year, when Texas upset Nebraska in the XII championship game. BYU was undefeated, and would have gone to one of what are now called the New Years 6 bowls. But when Texas got the XII automatic slot, that meant that highly ranked Nebraska muscled into the at-large slot that would have gone to BYU. BYU still got a New Years Day bowl, but it was the Cotton Bowl, that had been downgraded until Jerry Jones got involved a few years later. I think BYU came away thinking that they would never make it to a big bowl as long as they associated with the likes of some of the Super WAC's lesser teams, and that ultimately led to the breakup.