C-USA Deserters Mean Bad News for Hurricane

Harry · December 8, 2011

Tulsa's wildest conference dreams came true nearly 17 years ago when the Southwest Conference imploded and the Golden Hurricane landed in a league with natural rivals SMU and TCU.

TU formed strong ties with a quadrant of Texas schools (SMU, TCU, Houston and Rice) over the last several decades.

And, it was believed, that as long as those four schools stayed strong all would be good in the world of college athletics for Tulsa.

TCU didn't last long. The Horned Frogs started an odyssey that has taken them through a handful of leagues and ultimately a Rose Bowl that landed them in the Big 12 Conference this fall.

Still, Tulsa felt pretty secure as long as it had a bond with the others.

That ended this week. SMU and Houston are leaving Conference USA and Tulsa behind for the perceived greener pastures of the Big East.

It is bad news for Tulsa, now without any kind of natural rival or geographic partner in Conference USA's future.

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/article.aspx?subjectid=203&articleid=20111208_203_B1_TULSAS101452

NorthTexan95 · December 8, 2011

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/article.aspx?subjectid=203&articleid=20111208_203_B1_TULSAS101452

Really? I've never given Tulsa much thought at all. I don't think those other teams would consider Tulsa a natural rival.

greenjoe · December 8, 2011

NT is closer to Tulsa than TCU or SMU. And we wouldn't whine about trying to get out of the conference.

Mean Green 93-98 · December 8, 2011

TU formed strong ties with a quadrant of Texas schools (SMU, TCU, Houston and Rice) over the last several decades.

TCU and Tulsa were only together in the WAC for 5 years, and it's been a decade since they were in the same conference.

letsgiveacheer · December 8, 2011

These guys have short memories. North Texas and Tulsa were conference mates in the MVC for many years.

NM Green · December 8, 2011

I find it absolutely crazy that programs like UTEP and Tulsa don't automatically lobby to get us included in CUSA to preserve a DFW presence. Isn't one of the primary goals of playing SMU and TCU is to have a place for their alums to watch their teams? I am sure many Tulsa and El Paso alums are present here in DFW. It feels like we are the biggest, hungriest, largest invisible program in the world to some of these people.

Time to join them and then beat their arse in every sport possible.

GMG

The Fake Lonnie Finch · December 8, 2011

Poor old, little bitty Tulsa...3,000 undergrads, give or take...not many alumni...and, there they go chug, chug, chugging along like the Little Engine That Could.

Having gone to school at UNT and TU, I can honestly say that the difference between the two is that TU wants to play, and UNT doesn't.

TU faculty attends games, wears TU shirts and stuff on Fridays...and on days when the basketball team is battling in conference tournaments or national tournaments, you walk by offices and hear professors listening to the game on the radio.

I wish UNT had a faculty and students that give a damn, but it really is different.

TU is a small, private school without a lot of crap majors. So, the folks who apply there really do want to go there. It is too expensive to have many commuter students.

UNT is sort of fighting that which is used to be - not the first choice of many of its students, and an inexpensive way for commuter to finish degrees begun at junior colleges.

UNT is the only Texas school I applied to. I could give a rat's fat ass about Texas or Texas A&M. I'd been to dusty ass Lubbock and knew I didn't want to be there.

I liked beer and women. Denton appeared to have enough to that for me. I didn't have to go to some other exotic locale like Huntsville or Nacogdoches to find playful women and beer barns. And, I'd grown up in Dallas, so I didn't want to go to school smack in the middle of another city like Austin or Houston.

The degree programs at North Texas were the same, more or less, than every other school in Texas, so I figured, "What the hell? This place is close, and I can get drunk and laid on approximately the same night, and come out of it with a degree."

Even though later in life I found Jesus again, I'll always cherish my days at UNT...even if the faculty and students don't like athletics much.

We'll get there. I hope we get there with Tulsa as well. I love 'em both. Plenty of beer and women in both.

College.

ADLER · December 9, 2011

I find it absolutely crazy that programs like UTEP and Tulsa don't automatically lobby to get us included in CUSA to preserve a DFW presence. Isn't one of the primary goals of playing SMU and TCU is to have a place for their alums to watch their teams? I am sure many Tulsa and El Paso alums are present here in DFW. It feels like we are the biggest, hungriest, largest invisible program in the world to some of these people.

Time to join them and then beat their arse in every sport possible.

GMG

That's exactly why Tulsa, UTEP, and Rice would want North Texas in Conference USA.

The other CUSA/MWC schools view North Texas as being in an extremely valuable market, both for television revenue and for recruiting purposes, and it has the added benefit of being an accessible travel destination with nearby DFW airport.