To Mr. Western commenting on Berry Tramel's article, thank you for your support.
"Steve Western ·
Gilbert, Arizona
In looking at Houston and Colorado State it's clear that more than 50% of their athletic budget has to be subsidized which is indicative of the level of support or non-support the two schools are getting. While Houston averages about 30-35,000, CSU comes in at around 20,000 a far cry from even Big 12 bottom attendance bottom dweller Kansas. What makes it tough to analyze which of the 20 school best benefits the conference IF the Big 12 does pull the trigger are the smoke and mirrors "facts" offered up. CSU is building a nice new bandbox to play football in stating the CAPACITY with be 41,000, an interesting word choice as there will be 36,000 seats. Houston, the Floida Schools, Boise St, Memphis have poor to terrible academic rankings on both the US News and Forbes highly respected rankings, yet the claims made in the sales pitches would have you thinking that only students with 4.0's and perfect SAT's make up the student body being taught by Nobel Prize winners. And the Carnegie Best 100 label used by both UH and Boise is pretty confusing since BSU couldn't even make the US News top 200 while listed #612 of #650 in Forbes, UH hits the mid-300's, the Carnegie designation loses all of its glitter.
I agree with Barry, BYU and UConn are the only prospects capable of adding to the Big 12, rather than taking away whatever respect and prestige the 10 members have created."
UConn's athletic budget much larger than other Big 12 expansion hopefuls