(01-03-2021 04:15 AM)Foreverandever Wrote:  

(01-02-2021 06:56 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-02-2021 06:12 PM)Foreverandever Wrote:  

(01-02-2021 05:11 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-02-2021 11:25 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Truthfully, I don’t think UNT would have changed the SWC calculus much. Houston wanted separation from the private SWC schools and C-USA offered them out. I think the only difference would have been that UNT would have gone to the WAC-16 in place of Tulsa.

Tulsa’s fate from 1996-2004 would be hard to pinpoint in this scenario.

Maybe they get hooked up with C-USA as a football affiliate.

There’s also a possibility that Tulsa comes to the WAC in 2000 or 2001 to help fill in the gaps left by the MWC spin-off (at the expense of LA Tech).

Where I ultimately see this heading is that in 2005, C-USA is:

West: Tulsa, UNT, SMU, Rice, Houston, Tulane
East: Memphis, USM, UAB, ECU, Marshall, UCF

WAC: UTEP, NMSU, Utah St, Boise, Idaho, Nevada, SJSU, Fresno St, Hawaii

SBC: Ark St, LA Tech, ULM, ULL, Troy, MTSU, FAU, FIU non-fb: WKU, USA, UALR, UNO, Denver (ULM had to be admitted as a full member to meet the requirement that the conference have 8 full members who sponsor fb)

I think the only difference is the eastward sprawl would have been minimized. I doubt a Texas based conference would have looked to add Marshall for instance.

So, the original SWC rebuild would be something like---

Houston
Rice
SMU
TCU
Louisville
Cinci
Tulane
S Miss

They might have been imaginative enough to add a couple of non-football schools to super-charge basketball.

When Cinci and Louisville get nabbed by the Big East---Im guessing Tulsa and LaTech probably come aboard. ArkSt would be an option (rebuilds the old SWC footprint). UAB had some basketball credentials back then---they might have been in the mix as well. In the end---its not an earthshattering difference one way or another. The only way a Southwest Conference rebuild creates a really different long term path is if the SWC leftovers are able to convince BYU and some WAC front range schools to shift east and rebuild the SWC. That might be a conference that had some heft.

Houston
Rice
SMU
TCU
Tulane
Tulsa

BYU
New Mexico
Wyoming
Colorado St
Air Force
Utah
Tulane
Tulsa

That might could have gained some real traction long term.

This isn't what happened.

I mean that would have been interesting but when Arkansas left for the SEC Tulsa started to consider a conference and by 1994 we were pretty active. Tulsa had its choice of CUSA and the WAC. As I pointed out earlier the Tulsa administration at that time wanted to be with the Texas private schools so unless they split up (they were acting cohesively at the time) we were going where ever they were. The WAC 16 with the core of the original WAC conference and then adding three of the SWC schools and a dedicated tag along seemed more stable than CUSA which was just starting, which is is why the privates went west in my opinion.

Well--of course that isnt what happened. That said, all 4 SWC leftovers were invited to the WAC. Three accepted. UH opted throw in with the Great Midwest/Metro mash-up that was hoping to be a big market Big East/basketball first type conference. To be fair, if Tulsa had a choice between the WAC and CUSA, its because Houston turned down the WAC invite.

FWIW---I absolutely hated that decision by the UH administration. My first preference was to rebuild the SWC around the remaining core with some WAC schools. My second preference was to go to the WAC with the other SWC schools in order to preserve some of the our familiar SWC opponents--plus the WAC seemed like a fun solid football league with BYU--and schools like Fresno making some noise. As a football first guy---I absolutely hated the idea of going to a basketball first conference that had a football league tacked on just for convenience.

Ummmm, what? I don't believe you were given a choice. You had little in common with the private schools that were left, and despite Houston's desire, you were reluctantly added to the SWC.to start with. You hadn't been good in basketball in a decade and your football had just been caught cheating twice, was in the middle of like a four or five year run of terrible that stretched until the early 2000s.

But good job trying to rewrite that history, I'll take any source for you turning down the WAC.

Houston basically abandoned the idea of joining the private schools effort to rebuild the SWC and (I believe) focused their efforts towards joining the Great Midwest/Metro merger. Why? I’m not sure, but every article written back then has them being vague with their actual intentions. The private schools joined the WAC when it became apparent there just weren’t enough potential members for a rebuilt SWC.

(01-02-2021 10:36 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(12-31-2020 02:48 AM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  

(12-31-2020 01:03 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(12-31-2020 12:47 AM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  

(12-30-2020 10:45 PM)Foreverandever Wrote:  I don't think UTEP for that series of moves, they were pretty locked in with the WAC back then.

Southern Miss would have been more likely as they would have fit nicely with Memphis and Tulane. UAB maybe instead of Southern Miss if basketball was more important. Would have been a solid conference. I was just thinking earlier today with all the Boise talk about what a different world it would have been if the three Texas schools and Tulsa had gone east instead of west.

I know Tulsa was looking at what would become CUSA and the Super WAC at the same time roughly and we favored going with the private Texas schools which ever way they went.

That would have been a good hoops league too.

At least half of the programs I named in my original post have some history with each other, including the four real SWC schools left from the Big 12 merger. Either they've shared a league with the SWC 4 or played them quite a few times before the mid-90s. And even then, schools like UTEP, New Mexico, and NMSU have history together as well.

Here's an example of what I mean: The last conference Houston was in before going Independent (and ultimately joining the SWC) was the Missouri Valley Conference back when it was an all-sports conference. (Currently, the MVFC is a separate entity from the MVC as a whole, though some all-sports MVC members are football members of the football MVC.) From 1957 to 1959, Houston, Cincinnati, North Texas, and Tulsa were in the MVC. (Houston's tenure was from 1951-1959.)

Sure---but you actually want to be in a quality conference. You want teams that you actually WANT to be in a conference with. I mean, when UT/Aggie/Baylor/Tech made their announcement to leave for the Big-12, North Texas was playing D1-AA football. I think LaTech had only been D1-A for a few years in 94. Point is, those types of schools would not likely have been considered acceptable options for the SWC leftovers who were long time D1 members---and had been competing in a top level power conference just a few months before. If it was me, I have at least tried to strip away BYU and front ridge schools from the WAC to join the SWC 4. Failing that---the group posted by someone earlier is probably your best outcome. Those are all schools that have been around a while at the top level of football. Respectable academics. Not a bad basketball conference either.



Rice
TCU
SMU
Houston
Tulane
Memphis
Louisville
Cincinnati
Tulsa or S Miss to get to 9. Nine was a good number for a 8 game full round robin conference.

Of course. And it's a shame, too. North Texas was a good program before they spent a hell of a lot of money trying to get into the SWC in the '70s. That made them go I-AA for about twenty years. (Which brings me to this, but only as a reminder: In my original scenario, the Mean Green are invited to join the SWC.)

But once again, this is all hypothetical. I'm going back to the early '70s, fellow Coog.

If we were to go off of what actually happened up until the announcement of the Big 12, of course, we'd have to go in a different direction. Therefore, your league is a good league, too. In fact, why not make it even better and invite both Southern Miss and Tulsa? It would be a good 9-game round robin league. (And a decent hoops league, too.) This is probably what should've happened. But what would we call it? Conference USA? SWC? A completely different name like the American Southwest Conference? (That name might already exist, but I'm not sure.) The Southwest 10? (Semantics, of course. Still, a name matters, too.)

Darrell Royal as Texas AD talked about adding North Texas in the late 70s.

Was that when UNT was playing games at Cowboys Stadium in Irving?

(12-30-2020 09:52 PM)bullet Wrote:  They were talking to Louisville, Tulsa and Tulane before the Big 12 was formed.

Houston didn't want to participate or they might have been able to form off the SWC instead of the CUSA. Don't know how Louisville and Cincinnati felt about that, but it could have been:
Rice
TCU
SMU
Houston
Tulane
Memphis
Louisville
Cincinnati
Tulsa
UTEP
And possibly DePaul and St. Louis for basketball.

As a variation of your idea:

Southwest Conference, 1996:
Houston
SMU
TCU
Rice
Tulsa (from I-A Independent/Missouri Valley)
Memphis (from I-A Independent/Great Midwest)
Tulane (from I-A Independent/Metro)
Louisville (from I-A Independent/Metro)
Cincinnati (from I-A Indepndent/Great Midwest)
Southern Miss (from I-A Independent/Metro)

This would be all that's left of Conference USA:

Marquette, Saint Louis, DePaul, UAB, Charlotte, South Florida

The Sun Belt readmits UAB and South Florida. Marquette and DePaul join the Midwest Collegiate (now known as the Horizon). Charlotte and Saint Louis join the Atlantic 10. Both the Metro and Great Midwest are dead.

Since the WAC only expands to 12 (no TCU, SMU, Rice, Tulsa), they remain unscathed until the Pac-10 takes Utah and BYU responds by going independent. The WAC then takes Boise State and Utah State from the Big West.

The realignment of 2003-2005 still happens. The ACC takes Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College from the Big East. The Big East takes Louisville and Cincinnati from the Southwest Conference; South Florida from the Sun Belt; and Marquette and DePaul from the Horizon. The SWC takes UAB from the Sun Belt and I-A Independent East Carolina.

The Big 12 winds up snatching Big East-bound TCU. The SWC responds by adding Central Florida.

The ACC then raids the Big East again, causing the Big East/American to take Memphis, Houston, SMU, UCF, ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa from the Southwest Conference. The Southwest Conference responds by adding North Texas, FAU, FIU, Louisiana Tech, and Middle Tennessee from the Sun Belt. The next year the SWC adds Marshall from the MAC and Western Kentucky from the Sun Belt. The Sun Belt then adds UTSA, Texas State, and Louisiana-Monroe from the Southland; Georgia State from the CAA; and South Alabama begins FBS play. They are then followed a year later by Georgia Southern and Appalachian State.

SWC (2014-present)
Western - Rice, North Texas, Tulsa, Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss, UAB
Southern - FAU, FIU, WKU, MTSU, Marshall, East Carolina

Sun Belt (2014 - present)
West - NMSU, Arkansas State, UTSA, Texas State, Louisiana, ULM
East - USA, Troy, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, App State, Charlotte

WAC (2011-present)
Pacific - Hawaii, San Jose State, Fresno State, San Diego State, UNLV, Boise State
Mountain - Utah State, Colorado State, Air Force, Wyoming, New Mexico, UTEP

Nevada and Idaho continue as FBS independents and members of the Big West.

Old Dominion becomes a full member of the MAC along with James Madison, who replaces football-only UMass.

(01-03-2021 11:05 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(01-03-2021 04:15 AM)Foreverandever Wrote:  

(01-02-2021 06:56 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-02-2021 06:12 PM)Foreverandever Wrote:  

(01-02-2021 05:11 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  I think the only difference is the eastward sprawl would have been minimized. I doubt a Texas based conference would have looked to add Marshall for instance.

So, the original SWC rebuild would be something like---

Houston
Rice
SMU
TCU
Louisville
Cinci
Tulane
S Miss

They might have been imaginative enough to add a couple of non-football schools to super-charge basketball.

When Cinci and Louisville get nabbed by the Big East---Im guessing Tulsa and LaTech probably come aboard. ArkSt would be an option (rebuilds the old SWC footprint). UAB had some basketball credentials back then---they might have been in the mix as well. In the end---its not an earthshattering difference one way or another. The only way a Southwest Conference rebuild creates a really different long term path is if the SWC leftovers are able to convince BYU and some WAC front range schools to shift east and rebuild the SWC. That might be a conference that had some heft.

Houston
Rice
SMU
TCU
Tulane
Tulsa

BYU
New Mexico
Wyoming
Colorado St
Air Force
Utah
Tulane
Tulsa

That might could have gained some real traction long term.

This isn't what happened.

I mean that would have been interesting but when Arkansas left for the SEC Tulsa started to consider a conference and by 1994 we were pretty active. Tulsa had its choice of CUSA and the WAC. As I pointed out earlier the Tulsa administration at that time wanted to be with the Texas private schools so unless they split up (they were acting cohesively at the time) we were going where ever they were. The WAC 16 with the core of the original WAC conference and then adding three of the SWC schools and a dedicated tag along seemed more stable than CUSA which was just starting, which is is why the privates went west in my opinion.

Well--of course that isnt what happened. That said, all 4 SWC leftovers were invited to the WAC. Three accepted. UH opted throw in with the Great Midwest/Metro mash-up that was hoping to be a big market Big East/basketball first type conference. To be fair, if Tulsa had a choice between the WAC and CUSA, its because Houston turned down the WAC invite.

FWIW---I absolutely hated that decision by the UH administration. My first preference was to rebuild the SWC around the remaining core with some WAC schools. My second preference was to go to the WAC with the other SWC schools in order to preserve some of the our familiar SWC opponents--plus the WAC seemed like a fun solid football league with BYU--and schools like Fresno making some noise. As a football first guy---I absolutely hated the idea of going to a basketball first conference that had a football league tacked on just for convenience.

Ummmm, what? I don't believe you were given a choice. You had little in common with the private schools that were left, and despite Houston's desire, you were reluctantly added to the SWC.to start with. You hadn't been good in basketball in a decade and your football had just been caught cheating twice, was in the middle of like a four or five year run of terrible that stretched until the early 2000s.

But good job trying to rewrite that history, I'll take any source for you turning down the WAC.

Houston basically abandoned the idea of joining the private schools effort to rebuild the SWC and (I believe) focused their efforts towards joining the Great Midwest/Metro merger. Why? I’m not sure, but every article written back then has them being vague with their actual intentions. The private schools joined the WAC when it became apparent there just weren’t enough potential members for a rebuilt SWC.

THIS^^^^
Houston had finished ranked #10 as recently as 1990 with Andre Ware winning a Heisman just a few years prior to the SWC breakup. They had been the Cotton Bowl 4 times over the last 2 decades and were a well known football program. Their basketball was a household name after the Phi Slamma Jamma run. The program had NCAA invites in 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 90, and 92. They just were not interested in the WAC or rebuilding the SWC with the other remaining members. From what I understand, all the tattling on other members that resulted in the massive wave of SWC NCAA probations caused a lot of mistrust and the UH faction just wanted to get away from it (many at the time believed Rice was the source of many of the investigations---since they never seemed to be the subject). That was part of the motivation for Arkansas to get the heck out.

At any rate---the administration saw the success of the Big East and early on fell in love with the idea that CUSA, with an emphasis on big city metro schools could replicate that success for both basketball and football. The problem is this all occurred in the very early internet years---along with the WAC and CUSA not being covered like the P5---there is even less information than normal (realignment, as a rule, generally doesnt get a lot of sunshine until its announced--and even then you get little to no information on the actual sausage making--just the result).

Houston didn’t want to rebuild the SWC or stay with the private schools. They liked the urban feel that C-USA was going for.

(01-03-2021 01:40 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-03-2021 11:05 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(01-03-2021 04:15 AM)Foreverandever Wrote:  

(01-02-2021 06:56 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-02-2021 06:12 PM)Foreverandever Wrote:  This isn't what happened.

I mean that would have been interesting but when Arkansas left for the SEC Tulsa started to consider a conference and by 1994 we were pretty active. Tulsa had its choice of CUSA and the WAC. As I pointed out earlier the Tulsa administration at that time wanted to be with the Texas private schools so unless they split up (they were acting cohesively at the time) we were going where ever they were. The WAC 16 with the core of the original WAC conference and then adding three of the SWC schools and a dedicated tag along seemed more stable than CUSA which was just starting, which is is why the privates went west in my opinion.

Well--of course that isnt what happened. That said, all 4 SWC leftovers were invited to the WAC. Three accepted. UH opted throw in with the Great Midwest/Metro mash-up that was hoping to be a big market Big East/basketball first type conference. To be fair, if Tulsa had a choice between the WAC and CUSA, its because Houston turned down the WAC invite.

FWIW---I absolutely hated that decision by the UH administration. My first preference was to rebuild the SWC around the remaining core with some WAC schools. My second preference was to go to the WAC with the other SWC schools in order to preserve some of the our familiar SWC opponents--plus the WAC seemed like a fun solid football league with BYU--and schools like Fresno making some noise. As a football first guy---I absolutely hated the idea of going to a basketball first conference that had a football league tacked on just for convenience.

Ummmm, what? I don't believe you were given a choice. You had little in common with the private schools that were left, and despite Houston's desire, you were reluctantly added to the SWC.to start with. You hadn't been good in basketball in a decade and your football had just been caught cheating twice, was in the middle of like a four or five year run of terrible that stretched until the early 2000s.

But good job trying to rewrite that history, I'll take any source for you turning down the WAC.

Houston basically abandoned the idea of joining the private schools effort to rebuild the SWC and (I believe) focused their efforts towards joining the Great Midwest/Metro merger. Why? I’m not sure, but every article written back then has them being vague with their actual intentions. The private schools joined the WAC when it became apparent there just weren’t enough potential members for a rebuilt SWC.

THIS^^^^
Houston had finished ranked #10 as recently as 1990 with Andre Ware winning a Heisman just a few years prior to the SWC breakup. They had been the Cotton Bowl 4 times over the last 2 decades and were a well known football program. Their basketball was a household name after the Phi Slamma Jamma run. The program had NCAA invites in 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 90, and 92. They just were not interested in the WAC or rebuilding the SWC with the other remaining members. From what I understand, all the tattling on other members that resulted in the massive wave of SWC NCAA probations caused a lot of mistrust and the UH faction just wanted to get away from it (many at the time believed Rice was the source of many of the investigations---since they never seemed to be the subject). That was part of the motivation for Arkansas to get the heck out.

At any rate---the administration saw the success of the Big East and early on fell in love with the idea that CUSA, with an emphasis on big city metro schools could replicate that success for both basketball and football. The problem is this all occurred in the very early internet years---along with the WAC and CUSA not being covered like the P5---there is even less information than normal (realignment, as a rule, generally doesnt get a lot of sunshine until its announced--and even then you get little to no information on the actual sausage making--just the result).

Both of these sound much more accurate. They also line up with what I know from the WAC and private schools view.

Houston was not in it, the private schools (particularly Rice) wanted to stick together and Tulsa was a natural fit. Houston always seemed headed for CUSA, there was zero talk of them going WAC. Tulsa was deciding where to put football, basketball was important but the Valley had been solid for us (the valley really had a great run in the 1980s-2000s). Football struggled to schedule, our coach felt the stability of a conference would offset measures on the academic side making life more difficult. Texas games would be a huge recruiting benefit, the administration liked the association with the other privates, the WAC wanted to take all sports and was looking pretty impressive. With the original members and the three Texas privates Tulsa felt it was more stable, I am not sure an all sport was on offer when we were deciding for what became CUSA. I might be wrong but I think before we threw in with the other privates the conference was being looked at as what amounted to a football only set up with a core of the basketball schools playing in the Metro.

Tulsa went to the WAC for all those reasons together. These responses show why Houston was not interested in that route, with the different cheating scandals viewed by both sides as the souring component that made it even easier to split when offered "equivelent" divergent paths. One group went west the other east. TCU swapping back to CUSA and the WAC/MW split proved that Houston going east was the correct choice, the move of Rice, SMU, and Tulsa back to CUSA settled it. All five schools are in central or eastern looking conference now.

The flaw in this scenario is that the remaining schools made up arguably the weakest four of the conference in 1995.

TCU hadn't been to the Cotton Bowl as SWC champs since 1958, Rice in 1957. SMU was effectively gutted by the death penalty and was a combined 13-61-3 since. Houston was coming off five consecutive losing seasons.

In modern terms, it would be as if the ACC imploded and they tried to rebuild around Duke, Wake, Boston College and Pitt.

(01-03-2021 03:45 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  The flaw in this scenario is that the remaining schools made up arguably the weakest four of the conference in 1995.

TCU hadn't been to the Cotton Bowl as SWC champs since 1958, Rice in 1957. SMU was effectively gutted by the death penalty and was a combined 13-61-3 since. Houston was coming off five consecutive losing seasons.

In modern terms, it would be as if the ACC imploded and they tried to rebuild around Duke, Wake, Boston College and Pitt.

These decisions were largely made in 1994, before the '94 football season was even played. Houston was literally just 3 seasons from being 10-1 and ranked 10th in the nation 1990. They went 9-3 and 9-2 in 1988 and 1989 seasons just prior to that. The fan base wasnt much better---but the Houston program had enjoyed quite a bit more success in the two prior decades than the other 3 (with maybe the exception of SMU's controversial Pony Express run that resulted in the death penalty). That said, the 4 remaining were obviously not the main value drivers of the SWC. UT and A&M were clearly the primary drivers---the rest were largely interchangeable. The new Big-12 would not have been appreciable better or worse (or more or less valuable) based on who the last 2 in were once Texas and A&M were locked up.

I was there ...it was a Wake Up Call for the remaining Schools....At TCU we created a “Committee of One Hundred ‘...Fort Worth Community leaders who were committed to putting their time and their resources into Fort Worth.being one of the cities hosting a Major League University ...Both Athletics and Academics....TCU has excelled in both ...In the last ten years TCU has won The Rose Bowl,The Peach Bowl,The Alamo Bowl and The Fiesta Bowl ...Has Won the Big 12..and has played in the conference Championship game against OU ..TCU has WON more Football Games than Any other Major Team in Texas and is the Number Ten team Nationally in number of victories in this Century ...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

(12-30-2020 11:30 PM)ClairtonPanther Wrote:  I'd like to recreate the SWC for shtz n giggles:

Texas
TAMU
Baylor
New Mexico
Arkansas
TCU
Texas Tech
Utah
BYU
Colorado

This to me would be a fantastic conference to watch with a plethora of nice rivalries. Instead CFB is too greedy and thus destroying itself.

New Mexico?

(01-04-2021 02:26 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  

(12-30-2020 11:30 PM)ClairtonPanther Wrote:  I'd like to recreate the SWC for shtz n giggles:

Texas
TAMU
Baylor
New Mexico
Arkansas
TCU
Texas Tech
Utah
BYU
Colorado

This to me would be a fantastic conference to watch with a plethora of nice rivalries. Instead CFB is too greedy and thus destroying itself.

New Mexico?

New Mexico had a good basketball program at the time. The Lobos just like UTEP and UNLV fell off the map and other Western programs took their place with Gonzaga and San Diego State as good examples.

(01-03-2021 11:06 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(01-02-2021 10:36 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(12-31-2020 02:48 AM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  

(12-31-2020 01:03 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(12-31-2020 12:47 AM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  At least half of the programs I named in my original post have some history with each other, including the four real SWC schools left from the Big 12 merger. Either they've shared a league with the SWC 4 or played them quite a few times before the mid-90s. And even then, schools like UTEP, New Mexico, and NMSU have history together as well.

Here's an example of what I mean: The last conference Houston was in before going Independent (and ultimately joining the SWC) was the Missouri Valley Conference back when it was an all-sports conference. (Currently, the MVFC is a separate entity from the MVC as a whole, though some all-sports MVC members are football members of the football MVC.) From 1957 to 1959, Houston, Cincinnati, North Texas, and Tulsa were in the MVC. (Houston's tenure was from 1951-1959.)

Sure---but you actually want to be in a quality conference. You want teams that you actually WANT to be in a conference with. I mean, when UT/Aggie/Baylor/Tech made their announcement to leave for the Big-12, North Texas was playing D1-AA football. I think LaTech had only been D1-A for a few years in 94. Point is, those types of schools would not likely have been considered acceptable options for the SWC leftovers who were long time D1 members---and had been competing in a top level power conference just a few months before. If it was me, I have at least tried to strip away BYU and front ridge schools from the WAC to join the SWC 4. Failing that---the group posted by someone earlier is probably your best outcome. Those are all schools that have been around a while at the top level of football. Respectable academics. Not a bad basketball conference either.



Rice
TCU
SMU
Houston
Tulane
Memphis
Louisville
Cincinnati
Tulsa or S Miss to get to 9. Nine was a good number for a 8 game full round robin conference.

Of course. And it's a shame, too. North Texas was a good program before they spent a hell of a lot of money trying to get into the SWC in the '70s. That made them go I-AA for about twenty years. (Which brings me to this, but only as a reminder: In my original scenario, the Mean Green are invited to join the SWC.)

But once again, this is all hypothetical. I'm going back to the early '70s, fellow Coog.

If we were to go off of what actually happened up until the announcement of the Big 12, of course, we'd have to go in a different direction. Therefore, your league is a good league, too. In fact, why not make it even better and invite both Southern Miss and Tulsa? It would be a good 9-game round robin league. (And a decent hoops league, too.) This is probably what should've happened. But what would we call it? Conference USA? SWC? A completely different name like the American Southwest Conference? (That name might already exist, but I'm not sure.) The Southwest 10? (Semantics, of course. Still, a name matters, too.)

Darrell Royal as Texas AD talked about adding North Texas in the late 70s.

Was that when UNT was playing games at Cowboys Stadium in Irving?

Playing in Texas Stadium was probably a major reason why the NCAA was able to force North Texas down to the DII level for a decade. Playing 30 miles away from campus hindered our ability to grow students into fans. Then when Hayden Fry left for Iowa, our university leadership gave up on supporting football and playing in Irving. So, when the NCAA put the stadium size and crowd standards went into place, North Texas was in a terrible spot. UNT had not played a game in Fouts in years, and the place badly needed renovation. Plus, it was under the size standard. Fry was gone. Our students had not been to games on campus in years so our fan support was not large enough to meet the minimum attendance standards. And, we got pushed out of DI until 1995.

If Hayden Fry never moved the North Texas home games to Texas Stadium, Fouts would have been renovated or replaced. The campus and Denton community would have stayed engaged with our football program, and North Texas probably would have been sent down. We were an independent at that time, and I think we could have continued as one.

Is it true Rice owns the rights to the name? I had an idea where if Boise left the MWC that could trigger a nice compact merger with the following schools, especially if UTEP gets a MWC invite.

North Texas, Rice, UTSA, Louisiana Tech, and So. Miss could join with Texas State, A-State, Louisiana, South AL, and Troy. UTA and Little Rock could be olympic sports only. They could rebrand as the Southwest Conference while having the Sun Belt TV contract and bowls. Maybe renegotiate one bowl to get at least ONE At-large P5 team. ULM gets voted out because that seems to be the consensus among most fans who don’t cheer for ULM and so I’ll roll with it. 12 team Southwest with 10 for football. Helps maximize payouts. Also there are good baseball programs in this. Basketball wouldn’t be the strongest but it would be that bad either. The other SunBelt schools could join the rest of the CUSA through invitation for them to have an eastern conference split into north and south divisions. I just don’t see the AAC schools in the west leaving unless the AAC gets a MASSIVE pay cut ever.


This would also probably take place closer to 2026, 27, or 28. It’s just a thought though and not necessarily I think what might happen. It helps save on travel since the commerce is East Texas to Southern Alabama.