(07-21-2022 03:53 PM)Poster Wrote:  That was 1979 when Arkansas supposedly inquired with the Big 8 about membership.


And the only articles about that were written by Barry Tramel in 2010. More than 30 years after that supposedly occurred. I don’t know how true it really is.


https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/c...906959007/

Arkansas to the Big 8 was such a no-brainer. Yes, they are closer to four Big 8 schools (OSU, OU, Mizzou, KU) than to any SWC school, and K-State is about the same distance as SMU/TCU.

Not sure if Arkansas actually inquired about membership in the Big 8. There is also a rumor that Nebraska vetoed their application...I'm definitely not sure about that. In those days, competition mattered more than revenue, and it could be true that Nebraska saw Arkansas as being closer on the field to the Big 2 (OU/Nebraska) than the Little 6 (the rest).

Arkansas to the Big 8 would have made a ton of sense, especially in those days when Fayetteville could only be reached by two-lane road and had a tiny airport. Visiting teams flew into Tulsa before the new Northwest Arkansas airport was built.

There were rumors, or at least urban legend, of kicking a lower-performing school out of the Big 8 and adding Arkansas. Colorado (location and performance) and Kansas State (performance) were among those rumored of being switched out in favor of Arkansas. Again, I think that's purely rumor, speculation, and urban legend.

I don't understand, nor do I believe, the story Frank Broyles told that Arkansas would not have made the cut for the Big 12, and therefore looked to move out of the SWC first, to the SEC. Arkansas in 1990 was winning SWC football championships, was a national basketball power, and had a brand and fan base that any conference would have wanted.

Arkansas would have made too much sense for the Big 8. And, they would have greatly stabilized the Big 12. But they made a GREAT choice to join the SEC, even as their football program has been inconsistent.

(07-21-2022 06:18 PM)johnintx Wrote:  

(07-21-2022 03:53 PM)Poster Wrote:  That was 1979 when Arkansas supposedly inquired with the Big 8 about membership.


And the only articles about that were written by Barry Tramel in 2010. More than 30 years after that supposedly occurred. I don’t know how true it really is.


https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/c...906959007/

Arkansas to the Big 8 was such a no-brainer. Yes, they are closer to four Big 8 schools (OSU, OU, Mizzou, KU) than to any SWC school, and K-State is about the same distance as SMU/TCU.

Not sure if Arkansas actually inquired about membership in the Big 8. There is also a rumor that Nebraska vetoed their application...I'm definitely not sure about that. In those days, competition mattered more than revenue, and it could be true that Nebraska saw Arkansas as being closer on the field to the Big 2 (OU/Nebraska) than the Little 6 (the rest).

Arkansas to the Big 8 would have made a ton of sense, especially in those days when Fayetteville could only be reached by two-lane road and had a tiny airport. Visiting teams flew into Tulsa before the new Northwest Arkansas airport was built.

There were rumors, or at least urban legend, of kicking a lower-performing school out of the Big 8 and adding Arkansas. Colorado (location and performance) and Kansas State (performance) were among those rumored of being switched out in favor of Arkansas. Again, I think that's purely rumor, speculation, and urban legend.

I don't understand, nor do I believe, the story Frank Broyles told that Arkansas would not have made the cut for the Big 12, and therefore looked to move out of the SWC first, to the SEC. Arkansas in 1990 was winning SWC football championships, was a national basketball power, and had a brand and fan base that any conference would have wanted.

Arkansas would have made too much sense for the Big 8. And, they would have greatly stabilized the Big 12. But they made a GREAT choice to join the SEC, even as their football program has been inconsistent.

I’ve been unable to find a single article that was actually written in 1979 that discusses Arkansas possibly joining the Big 8. The only article about that is a 2010 Barry Tramel article that supposedly reflects on events in 1979. Of course, there was no internet in 1979, so it was easier to keep things under wraps.

(07-21-2022 02:09 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  

(07-21-2022 12:04 PM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  B1G passing on Notre Dame ... soon to be rectified?

Bobby Bowden's self-serving decision to take Florida State to the ACC

Canes not going to the SEC as the backup choice for FSU

B1G not taking Mizzou

Big East not taking Saint Louis

HBCU's joining low-major non-HBCU conferences

ACC taking Syracuse instead of UConn

How is the Big East not taking SLU a blunder?

LOL, it's not.

Just like to see the Billikens in the BE

(07-21-2022 06:50 PM)Poster Wrote:  

(07-21-2022 06:18 PM)johnintx Wrote:  

(07-21-2022 03:53 PM)Poster Wrote:  That was 1979 when Arkansas supposedly inquired with the Big 8 about membership.


And the only articles about that were written by Barry Tramel in 2010. More than 30 years after that supposedly occurred. I don’t know how true it really is.


https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/c...906959007/

Arkansas to the Big 8 was such a no-brainer. Yes, they are closer to four Big 8 schools (OSU, OU, Mizzou, KU) than to any SWC school, and K-State is about the same distance as SMU/TCU.

Not sure if Arkansas actually inquired about membership in the Big 8. There is also a rumor that Nebraska vetoed their application...I'm definitely not sure about that. In those days, competition mattered more than revenue, and it could be true that Nebraska saw Arkansas as being closer on the field to the Big 2 (OU/Nebraska) than the Little 6 (the rest).

Arkansas to the Big 8 would have made a ton of sense, especially in those days when Fayetteville could only be reached by two-lane road and had a tiny airport. Visiting teams flew into Tulsa before the new Northwest Arkansas airport was built.

There were rumors, or at least urban legend, of kicking a lower-performing school out of the Big 8 and adding Arkansas. Colorado (location and performance) and Kansas State (performance) were among those rumored of being switched out in favor of Arkansas. Again, I think that's purely rumor, speculation, and urban legend.

I don't understand, nor do I believe, the story Frank Broyles told that Arkansas would not have made the cut for the Big 12, and therefore looked to move out of the SWC first, to the SEC. Arkansas in 1990 was winning SWC football championships, was a national basketball power, and had a brand and fan base that any conference would have wanted.

Arkansas would have made too much sense for the Big 8. And, they would have greatly stabilized the Big 12. But they made a GREAT choice to join the SEC, even as their football program has been inconsistent.

I’ve been unable to find a single article that was was actually written in 1979 that discusses Arkansas possibly joining the Big 8. The only article about this is a 2010 Barry Tramel article that supposedly reflects on events in 1979.

Between the 10th anniversaries of joining the SEC and Big 12 formations, there were a lot of articles about both and the fall of SWC. There few snippets of it, but they were there. The links are all broken, now. The Dallas Morning News had a big story on it about that time. I think maybe the Tulsa World did, too. Here is a more recent story.
https://www.thegazette.com/columns-blogs...-happened/

(07-21-2022 06:50 PM)Poster Wrote:  

(07-21-2022 06:18 PM)johnintx Wrote:  

(07-21-2022 03:53 PM)Poster Wrote:  That was 1979 when Arkansas supposedly inquired with the Big 8 about membership.


And the only articles about that were written by Barry Tramel in 2010. More than 30 years after that supposedly occurred. I don’t know how true it really is.


https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/c...906959007/

Arkansas to the Big 8 was such a no-brainer. Yes, they are closer to four Big 8 schools (OSU, OU, Mizzou, KU) than to any SWC school, and K-State is about the same distance as SMU/TCU.

Not sure if Arkansas actually inquired about membership in the Big 8. There is also a rumor that Nebraska vetoed their application...I'm definitely not sure about that. In those days, competition mattered more than revenue, and it could be true that Nebraska saw Arkansas as being closer on the field to the Big 2 (OU/Nebraska) than the Little 6 (the rest).

Arkansas to the Big 8 would have made a ton of sense, especially in those days when Fayetteville could only be reached by two-lane road and had a tiny airport. Visiting teams flew into Tulsa before the new Northwest Arkansas airport was built.

There were rumors, or at least urban legend, of kicking a lower-performing school out of the Big 8 and adding Arkansas. Colorado (location and performance) and Kansas State (performance) were among those rumored of being switched out in favor of Arkansas. Again, I think that's purely rumor, speculation, and urban legend.

I don't understand, nor do I believe, the story Frank Broyles told that Arkansas would not have made the cut for the Big 12, and therefore looked to move out of the SWC first, to the SEC. Arkansas in 1990 was winning SWC football championships, was a national basketball power, and had a brand and fan base that any conference would have wanted.

Arkansas would have made too much sense for the Big 8. And, they would have greatly stabilized the Big 12. But they made a GREAT choice to join the SEC, even as their football program has been inconsistent.

I’ve been unable to find a single article that was actually written in 1979 that discusses Arkansas possibly joining the Big 8. The only article about that is a 2010 Barry Tramel article that supposedly reflects on events in 1979. Of course, there was no internet in 1979, so it was easier to keep things under wraps.

I recall seeing a story in SI, that showed a person wearing a T-shirt that said Arkansas, Big 8 champs. IIRC is was on the faces in the crowd page.

(07-21-2022 06:57 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-21-2022 06:50 PM)Poster Wrote:  

(07-21-2022 06:18 PM)johnintx Wrote:  

(07-21-2022 03:53 PM)Poster Wrote:  That was 1979 when Arkansas supposedly inquired with the Big 8 about membership.


And the only articles about that were written by Barry Tramel in 2010. More than 30 years after that supposedly occurred. I don’t know how true it really is.


https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/c...906959007/

Arkansas to the Big 8 was such a no-brainer. Yes, they are closer to four Big 8 schools (OSU, OU, Mizzou, KU) than to any SWC school, and K-State is about the same distance as SMU/TCU.

Not sure if Arkansas actually inquired about membership in the Big 8. There is also a rumor that Nebraska vetoed their application...I'm definitely not sure about that. In those days, competition mattered more than revenue, and it could be true that Nebraska saw Arkansas as being closer on the field to the Big 2 (OU/Nebraska) than the Little 6 (the rest).

Arkansas to the Big 8 would have made a ton of sense, especially in those days when Fayetteville could only be reached by two-lane road and had a tiny airport. Visiting teams flew into Tulsa before the new Northwest Arkansas airport was built.

There were rumors, or at least urban legend, of kicking a lower-performing school out of the Big 8 and adding Arkansas. Colorado (location and performance) and Kansas State (performance) were among those rumored of being switched out in favor of Arkansas. Again, I think that's purely rumor, speculation, and urban legend.

I don't understand, nor do I believe, the story Frank Broyles told that Arkansas would not have made the cut for the Big 12, and therefore looked to move out of the SWC first, to the SEC. Arkansas in 1990 was winning SWC football championships, was a national basketball power, and had a brand and fan base that any conference would have wanted.

Arkansas would have made too much sense for the Big 8. And, they would have greatly stabilized the Big 12. But they made a GREAT choice to join the SEC, even as their football program has been inconsistent.

I’ve been unable to find a single article that was actually written in 1979 that discusses Arkansas possibly joining the Big 8. The only article about that is a 2010 Barry Tramel article that supposedly reflects on events in 1979. Of course, there was no internet in 1979, so it was easier to keep things under wraps.

I recall seeing a story in SI, that showed a person wearing a T-shirt that said Arkansas, Big 8 champs. IIRC is was on the faces in the crowd page.

That could have been celebrating the Orange Bowl blowout over the Sooners.

As early as 1974, there was an article in Texas Monthly Entitled “The Declune and Fall of the Southwest Conference, which discussed attendance and fan support problems in the league. The only NCAA issues the article discusses are SMU’s first ever sanctions, which were extremely light because the SMU president had reported the violations. (Which got him fired as university president.) So apparently the SWC was already in less than spectacular shape as early as the 1970s.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entert...onference/


Anyway, if Arkansas had left the SWC, I wonder if Texas and aTm would have followed. In the 1990s, the only reason why Texas and aTm stayed in the SWC when Arkansas left is because state politics kept them chained to Texas Tech and Baylor. But I’m not sure that Texas Tech and Baylor had the same political power in 1979 that they had in the 1990s.


So, if the Big 8 took Texas, aTm and Arkansas, that would leave one more spot to get to 12. Either Texas Tech, Baylor or Houston. TCU and Rice were putrid at the time, and actually SMU had generally been a sub-.500 program from 1951-1979 too. (Before they temporarily became a winning program in the early 1980s after ramping up their cheating to a million.) The SWC would dissolve after about the 1980 season, and there would be a conference championship game as early as 1981.


I wonder how that would affect future SEC expansion. Would the SEC have been able to get to 12, without Arkansas available? Who would the SEC have partnered with South Carolina? South Carolina isn’t some Penn State like add a conference would take on their own as the 11th team-I think the SEC would have just stayed at 10 unless the SEC could find somebody else to add with the Gamecocks as the 12th team.

(07-21-2022 06:12 PM)No Bull Wrote:  

(07-21-2022 06:07 PM)Schadenfreude Wrote:  Northern Illinois to the Big West has got to be up there.

But I'm going with Eastern Michigan and Akron (tie) to the MAC. While both schools have been at times competitive in basketball, the MAC is a football conference, and both of these schools have mostly struggled in football for decades.

Eastern Michigan has gone to a bowl 4 out of the past six seasons.

Yes, and it took them almost 50 years to advance to this level of mediocrity.

Eastern Michigan is 118-242-6 in MAC play. This .331 record is 11th among all current members, just barely ahead of Kent State, a (more or less) founding MAC member that has a better academic reputation and that is not literally next door to a Big Ten school.

It would be interesting to know what the MAC saw in Eastern Michigan back in the early 1970s. (Was it basketball?) Given that the school just a few miles from one of the biggest football powerhouses in the country, much of what has happened in the past half century seems foreseeable.

(07-21-2022 06:13 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  As our friend jdgaucho loves to point out, NIU using the Big West as a steppingstone to the Big Eight delusionland.

Exactly.

(07-21-2022 07:54 PM)Poster Wrote:  As early as 1974, there was an article in Texas Monthly Entitled “The Declune and Fall of the Southwest Conference, which discussed attendance and fan support problems in the league. The only NCAA issues the article discusses are SMU’s first ever sanctions, which were extremely light because the SMU president had reported the violations. (Which got him fired as university president.) So apparently the SWC was already in less than spectacular shape as early as the 1970s.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entert...onference/

A great article, and prescient to many of the problems the SWC faced. One area it did not cover, however: SWC teams split gate revenues with its opponents, which drove Texas and Arkansas crazy.

One interesting aside from the article - Texas A&M is hardly mentioned at all in this article. They had earned one Cotton Bowl bid in the prior 33 years when this was written.

(07-22-2022 10:21 AM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(07-21-2022 07:54 PM)Poster Wrote:  As early as 1974, there was an article in Texas Monthly Entitled “The Declune and Fall of the Southwest Conference, which discussed attendance and fan support problems in the league. The only NCAA issues the article discusses are SMU’s first ever sanctions, which were extremely light because the SMU president had reported the violations. (Which got him fired as university president.) So apparently the SWC was already in less than spectacular shape as early as the 1970s.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entert...onference/

A great article, and prescient to many of the problems the SWC faced. One area it did not cover, however: SWC teams split gate revenues with its opponents, which drove Texas and Arkansas crazy.

One interesting aside from the article - Texas A&M is hardly mentioned at all in this article. They had earned one Cotton Bowl bid in the prior 33 years when this was written.

"...The great years for the conference were the Thirties and Forties, when all of the schools except Baylor won at least one football championship in each decade. (Poor Baylor hasn’t won in half a century, since Calvin Coolidge was president. Baylor’s last championship was closer in time to Custer’s Last Stand than to us in 1974.) Even when the private schools weren’t winning, they played competitive football...."

Interestingly, Baylor won the SWC title in 1974.

At the time this was written, Texas was in a 13 year win streak vs. SMU (that would go on to be 24 out of 27 before the SWC ended), 18 year winning streak vs. Baylor, 26 vs. TCU, 28 vs. Rice and had only lost 3 times in 35 years vs. A&M.