The Fake Lonnie Finch

Surely Marshall could get back into the MAC. MAC lost Temple, but gained UMass. That gives them the weird 7 in one division and 6 in the other. Marshall could even that out by going back to their old conference. Question will be, what is the future TV contract of New C-USA versus MAC?

UTEP is Mountain, not Central, Time Zone.

I think it just wears on people that 15 years ago neither school even had a football program, and now they are our equal...if not more. The only thing confusing to me about any of it is FIU firing Cristobal, then not hiring Butch Davis.

Or, people could just accept the fact that the SEC has a superior brand of football and hope that their conference strives to its level.

Although, winning more than us hasn't helped Arkansas State. And, us losing all these seasons in a row did get us into (the now crumbling) C-USA. I used to think it was all about winning. Now, I know better. It's not even worth discussing anymore. Tulsa has been in talks with MWC before. For whatever reason, old money at TU likes basketball and MWC delivers that in spades over CUSA or New Nig East. That MWC football has done well in recent years is like a cherry on top. My brother and I dove up to the Boise State - Tulsa game back in 2009. The place was packed, rocking, and the game - a 28-21 Boise State win - was a good one. Tulsa has winning football, some basketball history, revamped facilities (although, not as good as ours...by a long shot), and an administration who jumped on board fully 10 years ago after not giving it much thought. We've got none of that. Our time to strike while the iron was hot was during the midst of our bowl run. Problem then, our AD and head coach wanted to fight, our administration wasn't fully on board, and we weren't getting much out of basketball to sweeten the pot. So...two conferences chase Tulsa and its current conference wants it to stay. They are without an athletic director, but it seems their new president isn't waiting for dominoes to fall. I hope Tulsa stays in the C-USA with us. They are trying their best to get out. If they do, we'll likely be looking at another Sun Belt school joining us in the C-USA. At that point, I really don't see why Banowksy would keep up the charade. C-USA will surely lose bowl tie-ins because of the defections, and the conference will be a hodge podge of former Sun Belt teams and newly devised FBS programs. He and Benson should then just hash out a geographically sensible conference. Neither will have any clout to get a better television contract.

Close to home, Dallas Baptist is D-I in baseball only, D-II in everything else.

Colorado College is D-I in hockey and women's soccer, DIII in all others. Union College, also D-I in hockey, DIII in all other sports. Rensselaer Polytechnic, D-I in hockey, DIII in all others. Georgetown, D-I in basketball, DIII in all others. Johns Hopkins, D-I in Lacrosse, DIII in all others. Hartwick, D-I in men's soccer and women's waterpolo, DIII in all others. There's no rule against it. New Mexico State doesn't care about competition. They are wasting money. College football is expensive. The Aggies have had strong basketball. Let basketball lead. In fact, if NSMU cares so little about football, they should just drop it altogether like Pacific, Long Beach State, and Cal State Fullerton did in the past. Why waste time and money?

John David Crow was no spare. He was of the era where guys played on offense and defense, and he excelled at both. Then, he played 11 season in the NFL and was a pro bowler four times. How is that spare?

As I understand it, Tulsa already told the Big East no a while back. But, in a couple of interviews since then it appears that they might reconsider to stay with SMU, Houston, and Tulane. My guess is they also lobby on behalf of Rice if this is the case. Whatever is happening, we will not be in a more competitive conference. My worry is the bowl tie-ins as well. What are these bowls going to do with the C-USA losing its power players? In the end, I think that after Tulsa, Big East, Rice and whomever else decide to do what they do, Sun Belt and C-USA need to just find a way to make two geographically logical conferences. My opinion of New Mexico State after learning that they have no intention of holding their football coach to any standard other than having a cohesive lockerroom should be in no one's discussion. If they care so little about it, I don't even know why they bother with the cost. Just drop to DIII in football and let any athletic money go to Aggie basketball.

Yeah...it's a good thing Sumlin doesn't coach down here in the Sun Belt. The compeition is so fierce, he'd need four or five years and "his own guys" for sure.

Yes. I read where the Big 12 was better earlier in the thread. Well, tonight, the Big 12's co-champs by an SEC school who didn't even play in its title game. Both of the Big 12 co-champs had their butts handed to them this week. The Big 12's only two bowl wins were squeakers that came done to the final minute of the game. Weak. The SEC is the king until someone knocks them off the throne.

Agreed. And, because the man who hired him is gone, it's easier to get rid of him.

Yeah, boy...that SEC is overrated. Just bad luck, I suppose that Big 12 schools went 3-5 in the their bowl games...and, both of those wins coming in the closing minutes.

TU basketball hasn't been to March Madness in 10 years. And, while TU may have launched those coaches, none of them delivered a title at Tulsa. I do not think Danny Manning is the man for the job at Tulsa. The AD who hired him is now gone due to a gambling scandal. Both hires - the AD and Manning - were less than stellar. I think TU is in a tough situation. The donors and many fans covet a place in the MWC. The president seems to want to keep the ties to Texas flowing - likely due to the success of the football program during the last 10 years as the basketball has declined. They are having to watch/endure all of the conference chaos without an athletic director at this point as well. That can't be making them all that much more attractive to any conference.

Another "Top" Big 12 team lost last night. Does that make the SEC worse?

Delicious...SMU forced into the same conference with us by default! I suppose they could go independent, but.... Would SMU go to the Sun Belt to avoid us if the Big East falls apart?

What he said. And...until someone can break the SEC's national championship streak, the point is moot.

Tulsa isn't a small city. It's got more than Arlington, less than Fort Worth, and a shade under a million (998k in the 2010 census) in the metropolitcan area. TU's media size problem is that while Tulsa was once the Oil Capital of the World, the rich people who lived there didn't think much of outsiders and did their best ot keep to the wealth and power to themselves. Result: Once OKC got a decent mayor in the mid-90s it began to make changes in its city that culminated in an NBA franchise. TU kind of pays the price for the city looking down its nose at its Okie cousins and carpetbagging yankees for so long. They're trying to change it now. The money is there, for sure - both at TU and in the oil and gas businesses again...though most of the companies formerly based in Tulsa are now in Houston because Texas doesn't have a state income tax and the Port of Houston. I'm telling you, my parents both grew up in Tulsa and I lived there for three years - it's a bird of a different feather: both the city and school. I mean, think about this...TU has less than half the undergraduate enrollment of Abilene Christian and is an FBS school. I mean, when I enrolled in the law school there in 2000, the undergrad enrollment was less than 3,000!

Romo is a good QB. But, there have many many good QBs in the league stuck in bad situations team-wise. You have to look at everyone's situation. Dallas, whether we as Cowboy fans like to admit it or not, is going the way of Oakland - a franchise with an owner who stubbornly must be the center of attention, win or lose. He must make all decisions. He cannot let go of what he perceives to be "control" to a real football GM. I can't for the life of my understand why guys like Jerry Jones and Al Davis couldn't just enjoy their wealth, but let people who knew football better make decisions as the league progressed into a baseball-like free agency entity. How anyone can look at the Cowboys offensive line and place blame for whatever failures Dallas has on Romo is beyond me. If you have no run game, it is because your offensive line is not good. Look at Washington, or any team under Shanahan in Denver. You can take any decent back and make them productive with a good offensive line. With the threat of a run game, you open up the pass game. Dallas' run game is a joke. Their offensive line is a joke. And, really, their receiving corp is inconsistent. They gave a huge contract to Miles Austin, which is a terrible albatross now. You simply cannot give out that kind of contract based on one year of production. You can't. Dallas did, and got stuck with it. Dez Bryant...he catches some, he misses some. He'll never be disciplined enough about his game to be a consistent threat. Despite the head cases Randy Moss and Terrell Owens were off the field, they managed many great years on the field. Bryant...it's just not in him. The only consistent part of the Cowboy offense since Tony Romo has been starter has been Jason Witten. It's not enough. Jerry and his boy have done a terrible job of building the team around Tony and Jason. it's a terrible waste of two first rate talents.

True, Rice. I hope us being near Dallas and Rice being in Houston is enough for TU to stay. I'm just always hearing from people I know there that they covet the MWC. I understand from the basketball perspective, and know it drives many of TU's larger donors.

This is what I read as well. I think he is saying to his donors, "Look, C-USA already has Dallas and Houston. Even though it doesn't now have other private schools like us, we'll probably be okay because we're already beating the public schools in C-USA." Remember, though, as I've already said, Tulsa's old money really thinks TU is a basketball school. They would have slobbered at the opportunity to get into the Big East before all of the basketball school left it. Although the MWC has no privates either, they will - in theory - have better hoops programs than the new Big East will. Currently, MWC RPI is #2, Big East #3...C-USA #11, behind the MVC (led by Creighton) and WCC (led by Gonzaga). Adding us, UTSA, and the others isn't going to help C-USA's basketball profile. Sun Belt RPI is currently #21, below even the Southland. These RPI rankings are as of 1/2/13, which, last I checked was today: http://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/rpi-ranking/rpi-rating-by-conf

I voted no, but only for two real reasons: (1) The Big East's television contract probably won't end up being that much better than whatever C-USA renegotiates, and (2) I don't really like yankees and want no association with a part of the country Texas will soon secede from anyway.

"Rumor has it...." Sounds like Upham is a fan of Adele. Tulsa's a weird monkey. They are flush with cash, but in a small market. The hire of Parmley was questionable from the get go because he's one of these insecure approaching middle age guys who had his hair gold tinted. (He'd have fit in here in Frisco, for sure.) I'm always 159% suspicious of guys who won't go gray. Their minds are not 100% on their work product. This Parmley, caught up with bookies in Oklahoma...what a joke. How far down the bookie food chain is Oklahoma? Old money there wants to go to the Mountain West. Sounds like Upham is for staying in the C-USA, but willing to listen to the Big East as well. Only C-USA and Big East give him the Dallas and Houston he claims to want. However, I'd argue (and, as a Tulsa alum, I will argue to him) that the C-USA gives him not only Dallas and Houston, but now San Antonio as well. Many people here have something in their brain telling them to hate UTSA. I think getting into San Antonio is peachy. It's big and growing.

The lesson is, hope your GM drafts or signs some offensive linemen.