(07-21-2015 10:19 AM)T_Won1 Wrote: Or throw the AAC in too....
Conference 1
SMU - North Texas
Houston - Rice
UTSA - Texas St
Tulsa - Arkansas St
La Tech - ULM
ULL - Tulane
No, a thousand times no.
The problem with the old SWC, of which Rice was a founding member way back in 1914, until its death in 1996, was that pretty much no one in the rest of the country really cared.
So why would
any of those schools listed above want to go back to a greatly downgraded version of what already proved to be a less than ideal conference?--and that was with schools that non-alumn fans at least followed, like Texas, A&M and Oklahoma (for a while):
from Wikipedia:
The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma and Arkansas as well.
For most of its history, the core members of the conference were Texas-based schools plus one in Arkansas, namely
Baylor University,
Rice University,
Southern Methodist University,
Texas A&M University,
Texas Christian University, the University of
Arkansas, and the University of
Texas. After a long period of stability, Arkansas left in 1991 to join the Southeastern Conference. Five years later, the conference precipitously broke up as Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech (which had entered in 1956) combined with the members of the former Big Eight Conference to form a new powerhouse, the Big 12 Conference, while Rice, SMU, TCU, and Houston (which had entered in the 1970s) found homes in less prominent conferences.
SWC
L. Theo Bellmont, the University of
Texas athletic director sent out questionnaires to schools in Texas and neighboring states to gauge their interest as to if they would be willing to be part of and organize an athletic conference. By March 1, 1914 a number of schools had responded favorably to the idea.[2]
The first organizational meeting of the conference was set to be held on April 30, 1914. The date was changed due to the fact that representatives from every school could not make it then. It was ultimately held on May 5 and 7, 1914 at the Oriental Hotel in Dallas, Texas.[3] It was chaired by L. Theo Bellmont. Originally, Bellmont wanted
Louisiana State University and the
University of Mississippi to join the conference as well, but they declined to do so. The Southwest Intercollegiate Athletic Conference became an official body on December 8, 1914, at a formal meeting at the Rice Hotel in Houston.
Its early years saw fluctuation in membership;
Southwestern (a comparatively smaller school) dropped out of the conference in 1916, and
Southern Methodist University (SMU) joined in 1918;
Texas Christian University (TCU) became a member in 1923.
Rice University left the conference in 1916, only to re-join in 1918.
Phillips University{who?} was a conference member for one year (1920).
Oklahoma left in 1919 to join the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (later known as the Big Eight Conference), and was followed by
Oklahoma A&M in 1925. However, the series between Texas and Oklahoma would continue as an out-of-conference matchup in the annual Red River Rivalry game held in Dallas. From 1925 until 1991, the University of
Arkansas would be the only conference member not located within the state of Texas.
Texas Technological College (now
Texas Tech University) joined the SWC in 1958, followed by the University of
Houston for the 1976 season (Houston won the SWC football championship in its first season in the league).
Beginning in the late 1930s and lasting until 1995, the Southwest Conference Champion automatically received an invitation as the "host" team in the Cotton Bowl Classic game on New Year's Day in Dallas, Texas. Opponents usually were the runners-up from the Big 8 Conference or the Southeastern Conference, although independents Penn State and Notre Dame were also often featured. From the 1940s onward, the Cotton Bowl Classic was counted among the four major bowl games, and often had national championship implications.