Wednesday, September 15, 2021

The Big XII (finally) invites Houston

The Cougars appear to be finally getting their long-desired wish of joining an elite collegiate athletics conference:
The Big 12 presidents and chancellors voted on Friday to accept BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF into the conference.

In a statement, the Big 12 said the four schools were "approved unanimously by the eight continuing members."

The move comes less than two months after Big 12 co-founders Oklahoma and Texas announced they would join the SEC by July 1, 2025, leaving the future of the remaining eight schools in the Big 12 in a precarious position. Big 12 officials moved quickly to make the league whole again, forming a subcommittee that concluded that the most successful football schools in the American Athletic Conference -- Cincinnati, Houston and UCF -- were the top choices, along with independent BYU. The Big 12 was waiting until this week when those schools formally indicated they wanted to join the conference.
After being rejected for Big 12 three times - once when the conference was originally created in the mid-90s, once in 2011, and once again in 2016 - it's nice to see the University of Houston finally being offered that coveted seat at the big boy conference table. 

The move to the Big 12 won't just benefit Houston's football program; Ryan points out that the new-look Big 12 will be one of the best basketball conferences in the nation, and that Houston's inclusion will positively affect all sports: 
Most importantly, the Big 12 means better conference rivalries that will draw better crowds, increase donations and gameday revenue, and significantly boost UH’s share of TV rights monies. The league will help UH recruiting in every sport, especially football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, and softball.
There's no denying that this is very good news, even as I recognize that the Big 12 the Cougars are set to join is not the same conference it was when programs like Nebraska or Texas A&M were members, and certainly won't be the same after Texas and Oklahoma decamp to the more lucrative pastures of the SEC. The remaining Big XII schools are not adding Houston, UCF, BYU and Cincinnati to replace the prestige and viewer appeal of Texas and Oklahoma - there is no school available that can do that - but are simply trying to preserve relevance. In that regard, Houston's location in a major media market - one that the Big 12 would otherwise completely cede to the SEC - was a plus for UH's inclusion.

That being said, I'm still hesitant to pop my champagne bottles just yet. It will be a few years before Houston finally plays in the reconfigured Big 12, and a lot can happen between now and then. If I sound a bit cynical, it's because I've seen the Cougars get screwed too many times before.

Ever since the demise of the Southwest Conference and the rise of the Big 12 in the mid-90s, the University of Houston has been on the outside looking in: banished to lower-profile conferences that didn't command huge television contracts, didn't get attention from the most talented recruits, and whose members could never hope to play for national championships. During that time, the gap between these "have-nots" and the "haves" of college football - the conferences with the "name brand" schools, the generous TV contracts, and the high-profile bowl tie-ins - has only widened. The Cougars, of course, did not do themselves any favors due to lousy attendance, losing programs, weak administrations and substandard facilities. But the inherent inequity of this self-reinforcing arrangement still stung.

A decade ago, it looked like the Cougars might finally join the ranks of the "haves," when the Big East, which at the time was one of six conferences that automatically qualified for the Bowl Championship Series, invited the Cougars to join. 

Shortly thereafter, however, the conference fell apart. First Notre Dame left the conference, followed by Rutgers, Louisville, and the rest of the non-football schools (which took the "Big East" moniker with them). Finally, Boise State and San Diego State, which had been invited to join the conference, backed out. When it was all over, the Cougars found themselves in a weaker, cobbled-together American Athletic Conference; the elite "BCS Six" conferences had contracted down to the "Power Five," and the Cougars once again found themselves on the outside looking in.

What makes anybody think this won't happen to Houston again? What if the ACC, Big 10 and PAC 12, in a desire to bolster their own TV contracts and continue accumulating the best recruits, reverse their current "no expansion" stances and pick off some of the Big 12's remaining high-profile programs before the Coogs even have a chance to play a down in it? What if the "Power Five" further contracts down to the "Super Four," leaving the remaining Big XII schools - Houston included - out in the cold once again?

Going further, what if this "Super Four" eventually leaves the NCAA and forms a top-level NFL feeder league that pays its recruits and dominates coverage of the sport? This eventuality is oftentimes speculated as the ultimate endgame for college football, and recent developments such as the name, image and likeness policy as well as the Supreme Court's Alston decision might be steps in that direction. If and when that day comes, schools like Houston will be damned to eternal irrelevance, and I will no longer be a college football fan at all because the sport will have been ruined.

Obviously, I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope Houston's ascension to the Power Five world goes off as planned and the program finally gets the attention and revenue it deserves. 

But until then, the champagne stays chilled.

The Cougars are set to join the Big 12 no later than July 1, 2024, but will probably join earlier if a buyout deal with the American Athletic Conference can be worked out. As for the American, they will probably look to poach teams from Conference USA or the Sun Belt, as the conference realignment dominos continue to fall.

 The Daily Cougar, Sean Pendergast and Ryan have more.

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