What are the 'bully' issues with UT?

[LongJohn]

You read about all this griping and whining from aggy, OU, Missouri's Pinkel, Nebraska but they are never quite specific about what exactly Texas is doing that is causing so much consternation. What are the issues that have directly affected these institutions?

- move Big XII offices to Dallas. How did that help Texas?
- rotate Big XII Championship and tournament games. How did that favor UT?
- capitalizing on 3rd tier rights. Certainly helps UT but how does that hurt other schools? If it helps recruiting UT can still only take 18-20 kids per year.
- ruled out partial and non-qualifiers. Obviously this hurt Nebbie (not sure who else) so maybe that's one instance.

What else is everyone so pissed about?

 

[agssuk]

It boils down to WHO has the money. As far as I know, we only gey 1 vote at the table. If others are on board with us, so be it. I have heard that some vote our way because they are afraid we will leave. I cant see that. My guess is that it is to their benefit also, but I have never been to a Big12 meeting.

 

[Dr_Bob_Rio]

Tom Osborn was a great coach at Nebraska. He is a mediocre AD at best. Bitching about Texas is his way of blowing smoke up everybodys *sses and diverting their attention from his failures. There is no basis for the claims of Texas being a bully.

It's the same with aggy. They have never been more than mediocre at anything including cheating and have to blame someone else or face up to it. Texas being the cause of all their problems is the lie told loud and often that Goebels spoke of.

Colorado preemptively went to the PAC when the TX legislature started talking about including Baylor rather than CU in the 6 team move west last summer. They were the only school that acted with honesty and integrity out of the 3.

That is the long and the short of it. Texas is big and rich. Nebraska and aggy are jealous and paranoid. None of that makes Texas a bully.

 

[XOVER]

It boils down to every school in the B12 had a vote. One school, one vote.

What? Does Texas have a supervote? No, Texas doesn't.

 

[BigEarlinBastrop]

UT's image takes a beating

 

[ViperHorn]

LongJohn, some observations:

In reply to:

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[Gone To Texas]

Nebraska's bully issues with Texas: 37-27, 20-16, 24-20, 27-24, 38-7, 22-20, 28-25, 13-12, and 20-13. Aggy's bully issues are similar, but the margins are wider.

 

[XOVER]

Best I can tell, there are two, unequivocal issues that could be interpreted to be "bully" issues. There are certainly more, no doubt, but these are the two that stick out in my mind.

First, back when the B8 approached the SWC about merging, the B8 had the idea of taking all 8 SWC teams. Texas thought about it, and picked 4. The other 4 therefore weren't invited. While there were political pressures involved, Texas also calculated that TCU, SMU, Houston and Rice brought insufficient resources to the table, and should not get an invitation. The same considerations hold true today, BTW, regardless of how many people go around crying "add TCU!", for example.

Second, shortly after the B12 was formed, Texas wanted to eliminate the PQ/NQ recruiting practice. Even though the SWC allowed limited PQs/NQs, IIRC, Texas had an institutional rule that disallowed Texas from taking them. Texas decided it didn't want to deal with PQ/NQs in a new conference.

NU probably had 20-25 PQs/NQs, and 6 or 8 of them started, so NU vehemently opposed that elimination, seeing it as a threat to their football program. They were right.

Texas' Cunningham flat-out said that if the PQ/NQ vote went against Texas, then Texas wouldn't join the B12 after all. The vote went 11-1. I'll leave it to your powers to logic to deduce which school cast that single vote in opposition to Texas.

As PQ/NQs cycled through and out of the NU football program, they entered a period of decline, which they are only now beginning to show signs of emergence.

While Texas only has one vote in conference matters, much deference (intimidation?) is taken by other schools as to Texas' wishes because Texas is the undisputed "anchor school" of the conference. Texas is truly the big dog, and the big dog eats first, so to speak.

 

[kujotx]

You should never apologize for doing the right thing.

 

[Hook 'Em Danno]

There are several stories floating around like this one out of Lubbock about ESPN and Texas "bullying" teams by threatening to not show what might otherwise be Tier 2 games if they do not agree to allow certain games to be aired on the LHN: Link.

I'm not sure how much truth there is to this story, but I wouldn't put it past ESPN to do it. I suspect this happens in other conferences involving other teams, but there will probably be no dealings more scrutinized than those associated with the ESPN/LHN for the foreseeable future.

 

[jdelatorre]

All the Texas Machiavellian maneuvering with the LHN are outlined here.