Houston & the Big 12: What might have been
The University of Houston’s football visit to Stillwater for a game Saturday is a good time to consider what might have been 15 years ago. What if Houston, not Baylor, had been selected to join the Big 12?
We all know why Baylor is in: politics.
The other candidates from the Southwest Conference? Rice and SMU, no way. Which leaves TCU or Houston. TCU has since become a force, a regular top-20 team that can play with the big boys. The Horned Frogs knocked off OU in 2005 and have been BCS bowl contenders from time to time. Houston has not fared as well, becoming a solid Conference USA team but nothing like Bill Yeoman’s Cougar teams of the 1970s, which went to three Cotton Bowls in the first four years after UH joined the Southwest Conference.
Meanwhile, Baylor has been a Big 12 doormat in both football and men’s basketball but very competitive in many other sports. And lately, Baylor has shown signs of coming to life; the Bears made the 2008 NCAA Tournament and its football team, after a win at Wake Forest, seems poised to make a bowl run for the first time in the Big 12 era.
How would TCU and Houston have done instead of Baylor? I say the same.
TCU’s football stock grew when its opponents changed. From the Grant Teaff renaissance at Baylor in 1974 until the formation of the Big 12, 21 seasons, TCU finished with a better record than Baylor exactly once. In 1995, TCU was getting better, but Baylor was still Baylor, even though Teaff had retired. Baylor’s records under Chuck Reedy in the final three SWC years were 5-6, 7-5, 7-4.
And yet Baylor immediately became the worst program in the Big 12 and really hasn’t deviated. There’s no great reason to believe TCU would have fared better. TCU would have started from even further down than where Baylor started, with no great hope of rising up. TCU has flourished by competing well in the WAC and Conference USA and now the Mountain West. That’s four leagues for the Horned Frogs in less than 15 years. Put TCU in the Big 12 now, and the Horned Frogs would be competitive. Put TCU in the Big 12 in 1996, and the Frogs would have been soaked. The private schools’ rarely have the alumni bases or financial support to compete with the major public institutions.
So what about Houston, a public school that took the SWC by storm when it joined in the ’70s? UH was the victim of bad timing. If the Big 12 had been formed in 1980 instead of 1995, Houston would have been one of the first schools in. If the Big 12 had been formed in 1990, same thing, although some NCAA questions plagued Houston. Houston’s three-year record from 1988 through 1990 was 28-6, and that’s in a SWC that also included Arkansas.
But by 1995, Houston had fallen on hard times. The John Jenkins scandal sent UH into a spiral, and the Cougars from 1991 through 1995 went 4-7, 4-7, 1-9-1, 1-10 and 2-9. Attendance was minimal at the Astrodome, and though Houston had seen glory days, they seemed far removed.
Houston likely would have fared no better than Baylor in the Big 12, and the reason we can say that is to compare UH to TCU. While the Horned Frogs took their new mid-major status and ran with it, navigating conference shifts and building a solid program, Houston never took advantage of dropping down and becoming the new bully on the block.
In the 13-plus seasons since the SWC ended, Houston’s overall record is 70-85. In 1996, its first year in Conference USA, Houston tied for the title and went to the Liberty Bowl. It has won Conference USA just once since, 2006.
So Houston didn’t take advantage of its superiority over new rivals, and while Art Briles and now Kevin Sumlin have the Cougars playing competitively, there is no grandeur in the program. Houston has moved to on-campus Robertson Stadium, which seats 32,000, not enough to be considered by a major conference.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Baylor was significantly better in football than both Houston and TCU, just prior to the formation of the Big 12. Those schools would have suffered a similar football fate.
Baylor overall athletic program has performed decently in the Big 12.
Houston did win the 2006 CUSA championship, but this is a blog on no-name website….why would they need to research facts before posting?
Top to bottom, UH has far better credentials and tradition than Baylor and Texas Tech. Not only is UH the 3rd largest school in Texas, but 24rd largest in the nation.
Athletics:
Golf – 16 National Championships, Fred Couples, Steve Elkington, Blaine McCallister, Jim Nantz (CBS Broadcaster)
Track and Field – 50 Olympic athletes including Carl Lewis and Leroy Burrell
Football – 4 SWC titles a Heisman and Lombardi; NFL players including Allen Aldridge, Lamar Lathon, Kimble Anders, Donnie Avery, Alois Blackwell, Glenn Cadrez, Simon Fletcher, Paul Gibson, Eugene Lockhart, Audray McMillian, Warren McVea, Alton Montgomery, Glenn Montgomery, Robert Newhouse, Riley Odoms, Wade Phillips, Antowain Smith, Lamar Smith, Marcus Spriggs, Elmo Wright
Basketball – 18 NCAA Tournament appearances, 5 Final Four appearances, Phi Slamma Jamma, Hakeem, Elvin Hayes, Cylde Drexler, Don Chaney, Otis Birdsong, the UCLA/UH in the Astrodome
Others – Gymnast Shannon Miller and Body Builder Lee LaBrada
….the list goes on and on…
Bottom line, UH should have been in the Big 12 before a Texas Tech or Baylor selection.
A ridiculous statement given what different decisions recruits might have made in deciding to go to u/h as a B-12 school vs a cusa AQ school.
unfortunatey backing UH into the Big 12 is highly unjustified. Especially over Texas Tech. Baylor is questionable and I have to agree with this article. It’s simply because they’re having one good football season. They don’t have the fan support or the wealthy alumni. UH is also commuter school and does not offer the top of the line facilies that attract anyone outside of Houston. Hence the reason all the athletes and scholars go elsewhere when offered. Case in point, UH had not beat TTU since 1993…yes yes until this year. Every dog has his day. They quite simply would have been the whipping boys of Big 12 for years and years and years. Bottom line is you can spout off famous people and accomplishments of UH all you want. Most schools have them. They will not compare to the overall scale and caliber of the majority of the schools in the Big 12 simply becase they don’t make the effort to. I could see UH getting picked over Baylor or even Iowa State. But the other schools were picked justifiably. The truth hurts but once Case Keenum leaves the football program, the fans will go away too and so will the attention UH is getting now.
Baylor has never been in the class of Houston in either major sport. How many conference titles does Baylor have in football? How many double-digit win seasons? How many top ten finishes? How many Heisman winners? Houston tops Baylor IN ALL CATEGORIES.
Furthermore, Houston absolutely runs away and hides when you compare basketball programs. Game of the Century? Phi Slama Jama? Five Final Fours? All happened at Houston. Baylor, by comparison, has never been anywhere near a Final Four. And I’m not even going to mention how much better Houston has been in minor sports like golf and track and field (ever heard of Carl Lewis?).
BTW, TCU was a joke for about 40 years until Franchione and a guy named LT showed up to help turn it around in 1999. They were a classic UH whipping boy in the SWC. Heck, Texas Tech was a classic UH whipping boy in the SWC.
Sorry guy, but your analysis doesn’t jibe with reality. Houston is a better sports school than Baylor, TCU, Rice, SMU, or even Texas Tech. The facts don’t lie.
you are correct. and the facts are…Texas Tech has proven quite the opposite of being a Big 12 whipping boy. My school and the powerhouses of the Big 12 know that. Houston has proven nothing since the correct decision was made not to include them in the conference. You truly are dwelling way in the past (70′s and 80′s) for your analysis. UH has made no significant strides to improve themselves overall. They win football in a weak conference. Athletic facilities are second grade that will never attract the talent they need to be better.
Hey Longhorn, so when a football program with a “weak conference” and “2nd-grade athletic facilities” that can’t “attract the talent they need to be better” actually makes do with what they have, and can certainly compete and even win against those teams WITH those resources, what does that mean?
If Texas was left with the recruits, facilities, coaches, and donors that Houston has to deal with, then I think you’d have a hard time being successful too. The fact that Houston is starting to be successful again is something greater than a BCS conference school being successful. Basically the odds are against them. They weren’t handed their status, they’re having to work from the ground-up to get it. TCU is the same way, and you have to respect those programs for that.
The bottom-line is not that Houston was certainly not a crappy program in the SWC, it’s that the program came upon tough times right before the conference broke up, and thus UH got shafted. Our teams in the late ’80s and early 90s were great, but by 1995, our coaching staff was horrendous, and it was exactly like the article mentioned.
I wish we could play the Longhorns this coming season to see how the top dog in the Big 12 would do a school with a weak conference and a second-graded facility. Seems like we will meet with TTU again. Hopefully we crush them once again to see if one of the big boys in the Big 12 can handle a second-graded team.
Crush Texas Tech? Ha! Cougar High beat TTU by 1 point, a crappy OSU team and now you wanna take on the Longhorns that were in the BCS NCG the year before?
Try focusing on your own conference. Once you can take down “powerhouses” like East Carolina, UCF or UTEP (58-41, hahahaha) maybe you’ll get noticed by the leftovers in the Mountain West.
“In the 13-plus seasons since the SWC ended, Houston’s overall record is 70-85. In 1996, its first year in Conference USA, Houston tied for the title and went to the Liberty Bowl. It hasn’t won a conference championship since.”
Hate to let facts get in the way of a good argument, but UH won the 2006 CUSA conference championship.