“They get the big ticket to the Big 12 and we’re left out.”
— Memphis quarterback Seth Henigan.
Hand it to Henigan. He doesn’t sugarcoat things.
The Houston Cougars are coming to Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium Friday for what could be the last time.
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Houston is heading to the Big 12 next year. Memphis is stuck in the American Athletic Conference.
So Henigan is right to carry a grudge into this game. Memphis fans should carry one, too.
The Big 12 was both shortsighted and small-minded when it chose its new members in 2021.
Taking Houston over Memphis was a mistake.
The Big 12 picked a team with a lower ceiling than Memphis.
It picked the team that doesn’t draw as well at home.
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It picked the team that doesn’t matter, even in its own market.
It picked the team that has failed in a power conference before.
And, yes, I know, this must seem like sour grapes, coming from a Memphis columnist. I plead guilty to that.
What Memphian isn’t at least a little sour about the way the program has been passed over time and time again?
What Memphian isn’t at least a little dispirited about the difficult place the program is in now?
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The University of Missouri just bailed on an agreement to play at the Liberty Bowl next year. It’s suddenly somehow beneath a Power 5 program to play Memphis on the road. And while Memphis athletic director Laird Veatch can talk about how important it is to pack the Liberty Bowl to prove the program’s continued worthiness as an expansion candidate, the entire effort seems increasingly futile.
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormak has already said the conference is interested in “going out west” in its next round of expansion. Unless the ACC somehow falls apart, it’s hard to know where Memphis could go.
So, absolutely, Memphians are resentful over the process. And I am a Memphian.
But picking Houston over Memphis was still dumb.
Just look at the state of the Houston program today.
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The Cougars play in a fancy new stadium. They have been given a golden ticket to the Big 12.
But this was the headline in Texas Monthly earlier this season: “Can Houston football figure out a way to fill seats?”
“No,” seems to be the perpetual answer. Houston hasn’t cracked 31,000 in attendance in any of its three home games.
It drew 30,371 for Kansas, a Power 5 opponent. Memphis drew more than that for a game against Arkansas State.
Mind you, the Memphis attendance isn’t so hot, either. For two years now, it has been trending the wrong way.
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But at least a percentage of the decline is because of the realignment exhaustion. Some fans have given up hope.
Can you imagine the excitement if the Tigers were bound for the Big 12? And if they played in a swanky new stadium?
Last season — the year that the Cougars got their invitation to the Big 12 — Houston never drew a crowd of 30,000. It hasn’t drawn a crowd of more than 31,000 since October of 2018.
In that time, Memphis has drawn 11 crowds of 30,000 or more — with crowds north of 40,000 and 50,000 mixed in.
Memphis has outdrawn Houston in each of the last four non-COVID seasons. It has also won more games. Since 2016, Houston is a respectable 45-32. Memphis is 56-26. Oh, and Memphis has won five of the last six meetings between the two teams.
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So what does Houston have going for it? The city of Houston is huge. Houston is the No. 8 TV market in the country. Memphis is No. 51.
But you know what those televisions in Houston are tuned to? Not Cougar football. Houstonians care more about the Texans, the Astros, the Rockets, the Texas Longhorns, the Texas A&M Aggies and the Dallas Cowboys, for that matter.
Memphians care about the local university. It’s a phenomenon people outside of the city fail to understand. The Tigers really matter in Memphis. In a way the Cougars don’t matter in Houston, the SMU Mustangs don’t matter in Dallas and the Bearcats don’t matter in Cincinnati. Bill Hardgrave, the new president at Memphis, told me that he didn’t really understand the depth of the connection himself until he had lived here for a few weeks.
That connection is what the power conferences have missed about Memphis. It’s the source of the potential they fail to see. Houston has done everything right in its pursuit of a Big 12 bid. It spent $128 million for a football stadium, $60 million for a basketball arena, $25 million for a basketball practice facility and $20 million for a football practice facility. According to Texas Monthly, Houston athletics has received $170 million in university support since 2018 — and almost $50 million in student fees and general fund contributions in 2021 alone.
So Houston earned its Big 12 bid, certainly. But who in the city really cares? Memphis, by contrast, draws bigger crowds to a faded old stadium. It does more with dramatically less. If the Memphis athletic program had a Big 12 bid and brand new facilities, there is no telling how successful the program could be.
There’s a ceiling on the Houston program. The Cincinnati, program, too. Those teams will never matter as much as the NFL teams in their respective towns. They’ll fit into a niche. At Memphis, the niche is the entire city. That makes all the difference in the world.
Besides, it’s not like Houston hasn’t had its shot in a power conference. The Cougars went 12-42 their last five years in the old Southwest Conference. Who needed a return to that sort of glory? What was so irresistible about that?
But this isn’t about Houston, really. It’s about the shortsightedness of the people who made the call. Houston is a decent program in a massive city that doesn’t give a flip about the Cougars. Memphis is potentially so much more than that.
Just look at the photos when ESPN GameDay came to Memphis. See a whole city, erupting in joy. It wasn’t like any other GameDay in history. It was a scene that could only have unfolded here. Commenting on it afterward, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt said, “Memphis has always fascinated me. It’s a city that feels like its own country. It’s got its own flavor and language. A pride about itself and a loyalty to it.”
That quote now hangs in the football practice facility. As a reminder of the unique potential of the Memphis program. Let’s hope the people in charge of the next round of realignment understand the truth of those words. So they won’t make the same mistake again.
