To those who think there are too many bowl games:

Granted, Idaho and Bowling Green might not be powerhouse football programs in big-time conferences. And with their just-above-mediocre seasons (both with 7-5 records coming into the game), nobody is going to mistake either school for Texas or Alabama.

But: in what way was the sport of college football harmed by yesterday's thrilling Roadys' Humanitarian Bowl between the two, which featured 15 points being scored in the final minute of the game?

A frequent chorus I hear from pundits and fans alike is that there are "too many" bowl games. And to be sure, there are a lot of them. Every team with a winning record, and several with 6-6 seasons, gets to go to a bowl game now.

But how, exactly, does that hurt football?

In this case, the players from Idaho and Bowling Green got an end-of-season reward and some national TV time, and those of us who enjoy college football got to watch a fun game with an exciting finish. Where's the harm in that?

For those of you who complain about the proliferation of postseason bowl games, I have a simple solution: don't watch the ones you don't think are "worthy." Let the rest of us will enjoy games like the Humanitarian Bowl.

Merry Christmas!

Hoping that everyone is having a safe, fun and fulfilling holiday season!

2009 UH Cougar football attendance

Although the season did not end with the Conference USA championship that the Cougar faithful had hoped, the 2009 University of Houston football season was, relatively speaking, a successful one at the turnstiles. The Coogs averaged 25,242 fans across six home games this fall, an increase of 3,723 fans per game over last season. This is Houston's highest attendance average since the 1991 season, and this was the first time since the 1984 season that the Cougars had no home games with less than 20,000 fans in attendance. Furthermore, this average was helped by the 32,114 fans that attended Houston's game against Texas Tech - the largest home crowd the Cougars have had since returning to Robertson Stadium in 1998. My historical wins-versus-attendance graph has been updated accordingly.

While attendance at University of Houston football games is still not where it ought to be, compared with other football programs of similar stature, there is no question that crowd averages are trending upward. Certainly, winning football has a lot to do with this. However, other developments, such as the significant (and on-going) increase in on-campus housing, are also doubtlessly playing a role.

Let's hope the trend continues in 2010.

The subprime mentality

Of course, nobody expected the recently-passed CARD Act to completely keep greedy banking companies from screwing their customers. The legislation eliminated some rather odious practices of credit lenders, but banks quickly found some loopholes to exploit. From the Chronicle's Loren Steffy:

To dance around the new consumer protections on credit cards, First Premier Bank is now issuing a card with an interest rate of 80 percent. Previously, First Premier had a card that charged $256 a year in fees for a $250 credit line. The new laws won't allow that - they cap fees at 25 percent of the credit line -- but they don't limit interest rates.

Now, obviously, First Premier is charging this rate because it's extending credit to some of the riskiest borrowers in the market. But it shows the subprime mindset at work. Banks will do whatever they must, circumvent whatever laws are written, to continue to tap this highly lucrative market of extending credit to people who shouldn't have it.

That's right: a card with an 80 percent interest rate. That used to be known as "usury." I guess now it's just known as "standard business practice," at least for the bank in question.

It can be fairly argued that such a scheme is the only way for people with bad credit histories to repair their credit scores, or that credit is such an important commodity that it should be available, in some form, to everyone, including people who really shouldn't have it. At the end of the day, however, practices such as this are simply predatory. These kinds of cards are targeted at people who've already proven that they can't manage debt. The bank knows that the overwhelming number of these people are not likely to show any newfound responsibility for their credit management and that most of them will eventually default, but if they can make a lot of profit in the form of interest in the meantime, then who cares that these people will likely end up in a worse financial situation than they were before?

Steffy also hits upon something else that I completely agree with:

It also shows the myth of those who believe the Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to make subprime mortgages. There was no need to force them. Banks rushed into the market, slobbering after customers they knew couldn't pay. The subprime mentality dictates that an irresponsible borrower is worth more than a responsible one.

Although there are valid arguments regarding the role of some government regulations and policies in the subprime housing bubble (for example, the Fed keeping interest rates low), I've never brought into the idea that the CRA was in any major way responsible for the housing bubble. I've yet to hear a cogent argument as to why a law passed in the 1970s to combat the discriminatory practice of redlining was responsible for a housing bubble in the 2000s. The CRA is a scapegoat for the "unregulated free markets are always good and government regulation is always bad" crowd, attempting to excuse a phenomenon that was, in fact, caused largely by the unregulated ability of lenders to make money off of people who should never have been allowed to buy homes in the first place.

Apparently, some bankers have not learned their lesson.

Breaking the silence

Yes, I am still here, and this blog is still active, although I realize that "active" is a relative term. I haven't generated a lot of new material lately.

As I have noted in previous posts, my current focus is on some ongoing, unresolved changes in my personal life. I've also had some pressing issues in my professional life (unfortunately, a RFP that I spent many long hours working on did not result in my company's landing the project). I've furthermore been busy with some travel (to Florida in mid-November and to North Carolina in early December; I'll have pictures and recaps of both up shortly) as well as the standard holiday rush (although I am pleased to announce that I am done Christmas shopping). Lori and I are also currently dealing with an unfortunate and distressing situation regarding Kirby's education that will probably require us to find yet another school for him in the near future. All this means that posting on this blog has been sparse over the past few months and will likely continue to be so well into 2010.

Unfortunately, I haven't had time to write about the last few games of the UH Cougar football season (the Coogs ended the regular season with a 10-2 record and the Conference USA West division championship but unfortunately lost the conference's title game to East Carolina). However, I will provide a full season recap after the Cougars complete their bowl game, a rematch of last year's Armed Forces Bowl showdown against Air Force.

I also haven't had time to add my thoughts about the latest trouble in Dubai. Last month's announcement that the Emirate was attempting to restructure the mountain of debt under which it was struggling sent a brief wave of panic through world financial markets and, predictably, generated another flurry of Dubai-bashing articles from the Western press. A Times of London report on the latest crisis featured a cartoon of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum drowning in a sea of debt; this apparently offended Emiriati authorities such that the paper was banned from distribution in the UAE. British journalist Johann Hari, whose hatred of the Emirate seems to know no limits, meanwhile took the opportunity to describe Dubai as "morally bankrupt" and a "sinister mirage in the desert."

Bashing aside, I think that British academic Christopher Davidson and Harvard economist Edward Glaeser have the best takes on what is going on over there right now. In sum: Dubai is currently facing some serious problems, and there are likely going to be changes in the way business is done there, but rumors of the city-state's impending death are grossly exaggerated. On a personal note I think it is going to be a long time, if ever, before I make any more business trips there.

Anyway, I have a backlog of posts that I want to clear over the next few weeks. Shortly after the new year begins, however, this blog will probably go silent again for awhile, at least until things in my personal life are resolved. Afterwards all will be revealed and I'll hopefully get back to the business of writing on a regular, or at least semi-regular, basis.

In the meantime, I've tweaked some of the links in my blogroll, adding new sites I enjoy reading and removing a bunch of old sites which are either dead or which I no longer bother to read. I've also added word verification for comments. This is a step I really didn't want to take, but the increasing amount of comment spam I have been receiving (most of it Japanese porn spam; go figure) has forced me to turn on this option. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Confessions of a jaded Houston sports fan

At halftime of today's game, when the Texans were up 20-7 on the undefeated Indianapolis Colts, my thought wasn't "oh, wow, the Texans have a chance for a huge upset!" but rather "hmmm, I wonder how the Texans are going to blow this one?"

(For the record, the Texans blew it by scoring only seven points the entire second half, while allowing the Colts to score 28 points, seven of which came on an interception returned for a touchdown.)

Cool map of the day

Via GOOD, a really neat map of the Interstate Highway System drawn in the style of a map of the London Underground:
Click for a larger view. The "major" Interstates (east-west highways ending in 0 and north-south highways ending in 5) are colored; the "minor" interstates are gray.

Hat tip to Matt Yglesias.

Not to gloat or anything, but...

...it's kind of cool to see this kind of development planned for a rail station that I helped locate.

This particular corner of Lewisville, close to the intersection of I-35E and the 121 Bypass and right across the Interstate from Vista Ridge Mall, has already seen significant retail, office park and multifamily development. So the kind of density, land use and amenity mix being planned makes sense for this area. My only question is how they'll deal with the floodplain issues.

Kuff and Greg have more.

#17 Houston 50, Southern Miss 43

Thirty-six seconds.

That's all it took for the University of Houston offense to score the game-winning touchdown against Southern Mississippi last Saturday.

In shouldn't have come down to that, of course. The Cougars were leading by a comfortable eighteen points early in the fourth quarter, but then the defense became complacent and that, along with an inopportune Cougar fumble, allowed the Golden Eagles to mount a furious fourth-quarter. USM tied the game with 57 seconds remaining and everybody in the stadium thought that overtime was in the works.

Everybody, that is, except for Case Keenum and the rest of the Cougar offense. With all three time outs at their disposal, The Cougars marched right back down the field to score with 21 seconds remaining. Southern Miss then got the ball back and attempted to tie it up, but USM QB Martevious Young's hail mary pass into the endzone was batted away and the Cougars held on to win, 50-43.

Keenum was his usual impressive self, completing 44 of 54 passes for 559 yards and five touchdowns. He was also intercepted once and sacked once, but still performed well enough to earn a helmet sticker from Lou Holtz on ESPN's College Football Final. The Cougars also gained another 191 yards on the ground for a whopping 750 yards of total offense. But the real story of the game came from the Cougar special teams, which blocked one USM field goal and two USM extra points, running one of them back for a two point conversion of its own. That equated to seven points that turned out to be the difference in the game.

With the good came the bad, however. Houston's defense played reasonably well for three quarters but was completely dominated in the fourth, allowing three Southern Miss touchdowns. In all, the Golden Eagles gained 608 yards of total offense and suffered no turnovers. Houston running back Bryce Beall, on the other hand, fumbled the ball three times. Needless to say, the coaches will be spending a lot of time working with him on his ball handling skills this week.

The important thing, however, is that the Coogs came away with the W. As a result of the win, the Cougars move up from #17 to #13 in the AP poll. They're now 15th in the Coaches poll and 15th in the BCS standing as well. In order to crash the BCS party, they need to be at least 12th. With non-automatic-qualifiers TCU and Boise State already in the top ten, however, I don't think the Cougars are going to be busting the BCS this year. That loss to UTEP really hurts in that regard. However, UTEP's loss to UAB last Saturday also means that the Cougars are once again in control of their own destiny regarding the division championship.

Which is significant in that the road doesn't get any easier from here. The Cougars now travel to Tulsa to play their second game of the "Golden Trifecta" against the Golden Hurricane. Needless to say, Tulsa has revenge on their minds after their 70-30 beating at the hands of Houston last season. The Coogs are in for another struggle, and the young defense must improve.

Given the history of the two schools, it should be no surprise that Saturday's game was as hard-fought as it was. Since the two teams joined Conference USA in 1996, USM has traditionally been Houston's nemesis. The games are oftentimes close - past scores inclide 56-49, 15-21, 29-35, 27-31 and even 3-6 - and the Golden Eagles command a 7-3 lead over the Coogs in the series.

New stadium for North Texas; could one be on the way for Houston?

The University of North Texas announced last Thursday that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board had approved their request to build a new football stadium in Denton. Groundbreaking is to occur later this month, with construction scheduled to be completed in time for the 2011 season. The new stadium will be located on the other side of Interstate 35E from Fouts Field and will seat about 30,000.

This is a great step forward for the struggling Mean Green football program. 57-year-old Fouts Field was old and lacking in amenities and its sightlines weren't great. Denton ISD's new stadium on the north side of Loop 288 put it to shame, and it's hard to recruit high school students that are used to better facilities than the ones your school is offering.

The University of Houston is in the same boat. As much as I love Robertson Stadium, the fact is that it is even older than Fouts Field - it was built in 1940 - and is simply substandard in terms of amenities such as locker rooms, press boxes, restrooms, concession areas, luxury suites and the like. It really needs to be upgraded, or even replaced. To that end, the University has just put out a Request for Qualifications (see .pdf here) for a feasibility study to renovate or even replace Robertson Stadium. Several options are going to be considered, including the possible construction of a new stadium on the intermural fields at the corner of Cullen and I-45 (a prospect that is appealing to me) or on the other side of Brays Bayou from campus in MacGregor Park. Any new stadium would have to have a capacity of 40,000 fans, up from Robertson's current capacity of about 32,000.

The RFQ comes as no surprise, as new Athletics Director Mack Rhoades has experience building new stadia from his time at Akron and was brought to Houston precisely for this reason. What is a bit of a surprise is the speed at which the University of Houston wants the study completed; the RFQ closes on November 23rd and the study could begin as soon as early January 2010. Clearly, the University of Houston administration wants to move forward with these facilities upgrades as soon as possible.