SMU comes in second with 23.

Tulsa won the football title. Tulsa has two Liberty Bowl victories since joining CUSA, one more than CUSA-11 combined since TU joined CUSA. The ladies just won the CUSA women's bb tourney. The ladies are also ranked #20 is softball. Not bad for a pizz ant sized school with only 4,167 students (the official bean count) and high academic standards.

There are those that say CUSA is "holding us back." That certainly doesn't apply in Tulsa's case.

(03-17-2013 10:37 AM)Tallgrass Wrote:  SMU comes in second with 23.

Tulsa won the football title. Tulsa has two Liberty Bowl victories since joining CUSA, one more than CUSA-11 combined since TU joined CUSA. The ladies just won the CUSA women's bb tourney. The ladies are also ranked #20 is softball. Not bad for a pizz ant sized school with only 4,167 students (the official bean count) and high academic standards.

There are those that say CUSA is "holding us back." That certainly doesn't apply in Tulsa's case.

Why would you say your school has high school academic standards? Forget all the athletic stuff

Even with what I assume is a congratulatory thread, tallgrass still has to insert derogatory undertones.

If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?

Oh wait those are CUSA "championships".....

If you are comfortable with CUSA fine no skin off my back. The problem is not what CUSA was/is it is what it will be going forward.

You will likely pile on more championships if you stay in CUSA but they will mean even less (depreciation) than they do now.

Congrats to Tulsa, I can't wait to face them on the field again in C-TBA.

Good thing they are going to the NBE (AKA TBD) soon then.

(03-17-2013 10:37 AM)Tallgrass Wrote:  SMU comes in second with 23.

Tulsa won the football title. Tulsa has two Liberty Bowl victories since joining CUSA, one more than CUSA-11 combined since TU joined CUSA. The ladies just won the CUSA women's bb tourney. The ladies are also ranked #20 is softball. Not bad for a pizz ant sized school with only 4,167 students (the official bean count) and high academic standards.

There are those that say CUSA is "holding us back." That certainly doesn't apply in Tulsa's case.

You need to take that crap about the Liberty Bowl out of there. Your school helped engineer an agreement that kept USM and only USM from going to the Liberty Bowl even though we won the 2011 football championship. We earned the berth on the field and would have won the game in front of a packed house... if history is any guide. You and our other "conference" "allies" (note that BOTH words merit their OWN quotation marks) denied us the opportunity to earn a Liberty Bowl win. To come out now and try to lord your own LB wins over us is morally repugnant.

Outside of football and men's basketball who cares about all the other stuff.

(03-25-2013 11:44 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  [Tulsa] helped engineer an agreement that kept USM and only USM from going to the Liberty Bowl even though we won the 2011 football championship... You and our other "conference" "allies" (note that BOTH words merit their OWN quotation marks) denied us the opportunity to earn a Liberty Bowl win.

To me, the reasons for Southern Miss being kept out of the 2011 Liberty Bowl have never been fully explained. I thought the Liberty Bowl, on its own initiative, excluded any C-USA team from the game that year. What actually happened?

(03-25-2013 11:53 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(03-25-2013 11:44 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  [Tulsa] helped engineer an agreement that kept USM and only USM from going to the Liberty Bowl even though we won the 2011 football championship... You and our other "conference" "allies" (note that BOTH words merit their OWN quotation marks) denied us the opportunity to earn a Liberty Bowl win.

To me, the reasons for Southern Miss being kept out of the 2011 Liberty Bowl have never been fully explained. I thought the Liberty Bowl, on its own initiative, excluded any C-USA team from the game that year. What actually happened?

There was a clause exempting the SEC from having to play any instate rivals in the Bowl. That clause was not directed at anyone but USM. Yeah, there was some small chance it could have been applied to Tulane or UAB, but the likelihood was always that it would get applied to USM. Our administrators acceded to this clause because they were outvoted.

Crap like this keeps me from understanding how USM fans can claim they want to stay in CUSA. CUSA is no home for us.

(03-25-2013 11:58 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  There was a clause exempting the SEC from having to play any instate rivals in the Bowl. That clause was not directed at anyone but USM. Yeah, there was some small chance it could have been applied to Tulane or UAB, but the likelihood was always that it would get applied to USM. Our administrators acceded to this clause because they were outvoted.

Could that clause have been applied to UCF or Memphis? Would the Liberty Bowl have ever agreed to accept the C-USA champion without such a clause?

(03-25-2013 12:03 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(03-25-2013 11:58 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  There was a clause exempting the SEC from having to play any instate rivals in the Bowl. That clause was not directed at anyone but USM. Yeah, there was some small chance it could have been applied to Tulane or UAB, but the likelihood was always that it would get applied to USM. Our administrators acceded to this clause because they were outvoted.

Could that clause have been applied to UCF or Memphis? Would the Liberty Bowl have ever agreed to accept the C-USA champion without such a clause?

Yes, UF could have invoked the rule. UT (the Vols) could have invoked it had Memphis gone. But it was always far more likely that a MS SEC school would end up in the Liberty Bowl, and it was always very likely that USM would win the championship... and that's basically what happened. I think there was some combination of events involving the Big East, too... they didn't have enough bowl eligible teams to bump the SEC out, or something.

The LB negotiations were a protracted round of SEC butt-kissing. I don't think they would have agreed to any scenario that didn't include the "no USM" clause. Maybe extra money would have done the trick, but it wasn't there. I don't know.

Vanderbilt was the SEC's Liberty Bowl team in 2011. How could Vandy have invoke the "instate rival" clause against USM?

I agree with your description of the Liberty Bowl negotiations. The SEC is a monster and everyone else -- C-USA included -- would be well-advised to have as little to do with it as possible. But I don't necessarily agree that the contract between LB and C-USA was some sort of anti-USM deal. I actually think the SEC was offended by UCF's victory over Georgia in the 2010 LB and didn't want to let C-USA have the chance to repeat that success. Obviously Iowa State (Tulsa's opponent in last year's LB) didn't compile its 6-6 record in the SEC.

(03-25-2013 11:58 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(03-25-2013 11:53 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(03-25-2013 11:44 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  [Tulsa] helped engineer an agreement that kept USM and only USM from going to the Liberty Bowl even though we won the 2011 football championship... You and our other "conference" "allies" (note that BOTH words merit their OWN quotation marks) denied us the opportunity to earn a Liberty Bowl win.

To me, the reasons for Southern Miss being kept out of the 2011 Liberty Bowl have never been fully explained. I thought the Liberty Bowl, on its own initiative, excluded any C-USA team from the game that year. What actually happened?

There was a clause exempting the SEC from having to play any instate rivals in the Bowl. That clause was not directed at anyone but USM. Yeah, there was some small chance it could have been applied to Tulane or UAB, but the likelihood was always that it would get applied to USM. Our administrators acceded to this clause because they were outvoted.

Crap like this keeps me from understanding how USM fans can claim they want to stay in CUSA. CUSA is no home for us.

C-USA had no influence on the 2011 decision. This was totally on the Liberty Bowl committee members. And yes, there is a LB clause that says "no instate rivals" in their bowl game, which you'd think is the DUMBEST clause ever created for a Bowl game that wants some hype, but it had no influence on 2011.

The clause was a Big East/SEC agreement in terms of how many teams they each had that were bowl eligible.

BB could have argued til we were blue in the face, but he would have been outvoted 2-1 regardless.

(03-25-2013 12:42 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  Vanderbilt was the SEC's Liberty Bowl team in 2011. How could Vandy have invoke the "instate rival" clause against USM?

I agree with your description of the Liberty Bowl negotiations. The SEC is a monster and everyone else -- C-USA included -- would be well-advised to have as little to do with it as possible. But I don't necessarily agree that the contract between LB and C-USA was some sort of anti-USM deal. I actually think the SEC was offended by UCF's victory over Georgia in the 2010 LB and didn't want to let C-USA have the chance to repeat that success. Obviously Iowa State (Tulsa's opponent in last year's LB) didn't compile its 6-6 record in the SEC.

UT would have been able to avoid playing Memphis in the Liberty Bowl. The thing is, Memphis and UT don't seem to end up in the LB. MS State and USM have a history of going.

There was never any chance the clause would get invoked against Tulsa. There's no SEC school in that state.

(03-25-2013 12:54 PM)DaSaintFan Wrote:  

(03-25-2013 11:58 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(03-25-2013 11:53 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(03-25-2013 11:44 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  [Tulsa] helped engineer an agreement that kept USM and only USM from going to the Liberty Bowl even though we won the 2011 football championship... You and our other "conference" "allies" (note that BOTH words merit their OWN quotation marks) denied us the opportunity to earn a Liberty Bowl win.

To me, the reasons for Southern Miss being kept out of the 2011 Liberty Bowl have never been fully explained. I thought the Liberty Bowl, on its own initiative, excluded any C-USA team from the game that year. What actually happened?

There was a clause exempting the SEC from having to play any instate rivals in the Bowl. That clause was not directed at anyone but USM. Yeah, there was some small chance it could have been applied to Tulane or UAB, but the likelihood was always that it would get applied to USM. Our administrators acceded to this clause because they were outvoted.

Crap like this keeps me from understanding how USM fans can claim they want to stay in CUSA. CUSA is no home for us.

C-USA had no influence on the 2011 decision. This was totally on the Liberty Bowl committee members. And yes, there is a LB clause that says "no instate rivals" in their bowl game, which you'd think is the DUMBEST clause ever created for a Bowl game that wants some hype, but it had no influence on 2011.

The clause was a Big East/SEC agreement in terms of how many teams they each had that were bowl eligible.

BB could have argued til we were blue in the face, but he would have been outvoted 2-1 regardless.

Of course, the damage was done well before December of 2011. The danger that a school- most likely USM- would get screwed was lurking in the background from the moment that agreement was signed. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

The LB tie-in was the single most important thing that gave CUSA legitimacy. From day one, CUSA was perceived as better than several existing FBS conferences because of the LB tie-in.

Without an ironclad tie-in to a top-tier non-BCS bowl game, CUSA has no reason to exist, in my opinion. Any collection of wannabes can form an association and send a champion to some made-up bowl game, e.g. the Balk Bowl of the Hearts of Palm Bowl. The Liberty Bowl was a game having a prestige level that was appropriate to CUSA. Once it was lost, the thing that lured USM was gone.

(03-17-2013 10:37 AM)Tallgrass Wrote:  SMU comes in second with 23.

Tulsa won the football title. Tulsa has two Liberty Bowl victories since joining CUSA, one more than CUSA-11 combined since TU joined CUSA. The ladies just won the CUSA women's bb tourney. The ladies are also ranked #20 is softball. Not bad for a pizz ant sized school with only 4,167 students (the official bean count) and high academic standards.

There are those that say CUSA is "holding us back." That certainly doesn't apply in Tulsa's case.

I don't see it as a coincidence that Tulsa's two victories in the Liberty Bowl represent the only two times in the current conference arrangement that the C-USA champion went there and did not play against an SEC (the strongest football conference) team. Just sayin..

(03-17-2013 10:37 AM)Tallgrass Wrote:  SMU comes in second with 23.

Tulsa won the football title. Tulsa has two Liberty Bowl victories since joining CUSA, one more than CUSA-11 combined since TU joined CUSA. The ladies just won the CUSA women's bb tourney. The ladies are also ranked #20 is softball. Not bad for a pizz ant sized school with only 4,167 students (the official bean count) and high academic standards.

There are those that say CUSA is "holding us back." That certainly doesn't apply in Tulsa's case.

If the paper in Huntington is correct that Tulsa to CTBA will be announced right after NCAA is over, you will make an excellent addition.

welcome to the Big Leftover Conference, Tallgrass!!! May you enjoy your stay there!

It amazes me that Tallgrass hasn't figured out that the CUSA conference, that we agree has been a good conference home for Tulsa since 2005, has moved.

Tulsa is wanting to move (with a majority of their current neighbors) , to the new neighborhood.

Tulsa has more history with the 2014 Big East football schools than they have against CUSA 2014-2015 teams.