On the day UC was approved as a member of the Big 12, here’s a look at the Bearcats' long struggle to find a suitable conference for its athletics program, based on a May 13, 2013 story I wrote for the Enquirer
By Bill Koch
The University of Cincinnati won two national championships in men's basketball and made five straight trips to the Final Four while playing in the Missouri Valley Conference, but after 13 years in the MVC, the Bearcats decided in 1969 they needed a change of scenery.
UC's departure from the MVC was the beginning of a nomadic conference existence that led the Bearcats to the American Athletic Conference, and now to the Big 12, which they hope will finally fill their need for a major conference home for their sports teams.
Since leaving the MVC, UC has competed in five different basketball conferences, with a sixth on the horizon when they enter the Big 12, which will be the Bearcats’ fourth different football conference since leaving the MVC. UC played as an independent from 1970 to 1995.
In every instance, it was football that led, and sometimes forced, the Bearcats to move to a new league. According to a 1969 Enquirer story, the Bearcats drew a crowd in excess of 20,000 for an MVC home football game only once during the 12 years before UC decided to leave. There also was concern about travel costs in a league that included Tulsa, Wichita State and North Texas State.
"In an era of rising costs," then-athletic director George Smith told The Enquirer, "we find ourselves ... hard pressed to meet the demands of travel over so wide an area and the accompanying expenses."
There was talk when UC left the MVC that the Bearcats, who were charter members of the Mid-American Conference when it was founded in 1947, should return to the MAC, which they left in 1953. But school officials decided instead to become an independent.
Operating as an independent, though, made scheduling difficult, so in 1974 the Bearcats joined with five other schools - Louisville, Georgia Tech, Tulane, Memphis State and Saint Louis - to form the Metropolitan Collegiate Athletic Conference, popularly known as the Metro, which provided an adequate home for basketball but did not include football. Florida State, South Carolina, Virginia Tech and Southern Miss joined the league later. From the outset, there was a sense that the Metro was not the complete answer for UC.
"While a more comprehensive, total athletic conference would have been more desirable from our standpoint, I feel that this new basketball conference will in the future be beneficial for our entire athletic program," said then-UC athletic director Hindman Wall when the Metro was formed.
Eventually, the lack of Metro Conference football convinced UC officials that the Bearcats had to move again. Then-athletic director Rick Taylor forced the issue at the Metro Conference spring meetings in Destin, Fla., in May 1990 when he, along with the athletic directors from Memphis State and Louisville, tried to convince South Carolina and Florida State to allow their successful independent programs to play football in the Metro.
"We were trying to get to a bowl game, any bowl game," Taylor said.
Neither school was interested.
Bob Goin, who became UC's athletic director in 1997, was the AD at Florida State in 1990. At the time, Louisville refused to share its basketball revenue with the rest of the league. Why then, Goin asked, should Florida State be expected to lend a hand to UC, Louisville and Memphis State as they sought to improve their football programs? So Taylor decided - with the backing of then-UC president Joseph Steger - that the Bearcats would cast their lot with a new basketball conference proposed by DePaul athletic director, Bill Bradshaw.
That was the beginning of the Great Midwest Conference, which opened for business in 1991 with UC, Memphis, Saint Louis, DePaul, Marquette and Alabama-Birmingham. The Bearcats went to the Final Four during their first year in the new league and to the Elite Eight in their second year.
"The Great Midwest was a great landing spot," said Brian Teter, associate athletic director at UC from 2003-06 and associate commissioner of Conference USA from 1995-2003. "You always have to get your program in the best possible position to be prepared for the next moves."
But the question of what to do with UC's football program remained unanswered. To help fill the void, UC in 1993 became a member of the Independent Football Alliance along with East Carolina, Memphis State, Southern Miss and Tulsa to facilitate scheduling. The schools in the alliance also picked an all-star team. It was better than nothing, but it still wasn't a full-fledged conference.
Finally, in 1995 the Metro Conference merged with the Great Midwest to form 12-team Conference USA, giving UC its first conference home for football since it left the MVC after the 1969 season.
"It gives our young men a chance to win a conference and go to a bowl game," said then-UC football coach Rick Minter.
It did more than that. With a move already under way in the NCAA for the major football conferences to call the shots in Division I college athletics, C-USA gave UC and its fellow members a seat at the table with seven other leagues.
"This is one of the best things that's ever happened to this university," said then-UC athletic director Gerald O'Dell. "This puts us in the upper echelon of Division I."
But when the Bowl Championship Series was born in 1998, only six conferences emerged as automatic qualifiers to the major BCS bowl games that provided a path to the national championship game. Because C-USA was not among them, UC no longer was in the upper echelon of Division I.
The Bearcats got their big break in 2003 when Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami (Fla.) left the Big East for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Suddenly, the Big East - which was a BCS automatic-qualifying conference - was in the market for three football schools.
Goin seized the opening and orchestrated a campaign to convince the Big East to make UC one of those schools.
"I sold the city," Goin said. "We sent out a brochure showing all the great things that have happened and the great things going on at the University of Cincinnati academically."
Goin's campaign paid off. The Big East invited UC, Louisville and South Florida, putting the Bearcats on a par with the top football programs in the country. In 2009, in their fifth year as a member of the Big East, the Bearcats capitalized by going undefeated during the regular season and playing in the Sugar Bowl. They barely missed securing a berth in the national championship game that year when they finished third in the BCS standings, something that would have been unfathomable during UC's Metro Conference days.
UC finally seemed set for the long haul until another wave of conference realignment hit in 2011, when Pittsburgh and Syracuse announced that they, too, were leaving the Big East for the ACC. This time realignment, which in 2003 was the answer to the Bearcats' prayers, was the worst thing that could have happened to them.
Ten years later, the decision by Texas and Oklahoma to leave the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, created the opening that has enabled UC to land in a Power 5 conference. This time UC officials hope they’ve found a permanent solution.
By Bill Koch
The University of Cincinnati won two national championships in men's basketball and made five straight trips to the Final Four while playing in the Missouri Valley Conference, but after 13 years in the MVC, the Bearcats decided in 1969 they needed a change of scenery.
UC's departure from the MVC was the beginning of a nomadic conference existence that led the Bearcats to the American Athletic Conference, and now to the Big 12, which they hope will finally fill their need for a major conference home for their sports teams.
Since leaving the MVC, UC has competed in five different basketball conferences, with a sixth on the horizon when they enter the Big 12, which will be the Bearcats’ fourth different football conference since leaving the MVC. UC played as an independent from 1970 to 1995.
In every instance, it was football that led, and sometimes forced, the Bearcats to move to a new league. According to a 1969 Enquirer story, the Bearcats drew a crowd in excess of 20,000 for an MVC home football game only once during the 12 years before UC decided to leave. There also was concern about travel costs in a league that included Tulsa, Wichita State and North Texas State.
"In an era of rising costs," then-athletic director George Smith told The Enquirer, "we find ourselves ... hard pressed to meet the demands of travel over so wide an area and the accompanying expenses."
There was talk when UC left the MVC that the Bearcats, who were charter members of the Mid-American Conference when it was founded in 1947, should return to the MAC, which they left in 1953. But school officials decided instead to become an independent.
Operating as an independent, though, made scheduling difficult, so in 1974 the Bearcats joined with five other schools - Louisville, Georgia Tech, Tulane, Memphis State and Saint Louis - to form the Metropolitan Collegiate Athletic Conference, popularly known as the Metro, which provided an adequate home for basketball but did not include football. Florida State, South Carolina, Virginia Tech and Southern Miss joined the league later. From the outset, there was a sense that the Metro was not the complete answer for UC.
"While a more comprehensive, total athletic conference would have been more desirable from our standpoint, I feel that this new basketball conference will in the future be beneficial for our entire athletic program," said then-UC athletic director Hindman Wall when the Metro was formed.
Eventually, the lack of Metro Conference football convinced UC officials that the Bearcats had to move again. Then-athletic director Rick Taylor forced the issue at the Metro Conference spring meetings in Destin, Fla., in May 1990 when he, along with the athletic directors from Memphis State and Louisville, tried to convince South Carolina and Florida State to allow their successful independent programs to play football in the Metro.
"We were trying to get to a bowl game, any bowl game," Taylor said.
Neither school was interested.
Bob Goin, who became UC's athletic director in 1997, was the AD at Florida State in 1990. At the time, Louisville refused to share its basketball revenue with the rest of the league. Why then, Goin asked, should Florida State be expected to lend a hand to UC, Louisville and Memphis State as they sought to improve their football programs? So Taylor decided - with the backing of then-UC president Joseph Steger - that the Bearcats would cast their lot with a new basketball conference proposed by DePaul athletic director, Bill Bradshaw.
That was the beginning of the Great Midwest Conference, which opened for business in 1991 with UC, Memphis, Saint Louis, DePaul, Marquette and Alabama-Birmingham. The Bearcats went to the Final Four during their first year in the new league and to the Elite Eight in their second year.
"The Great Midwest was a great landing spot," said Brian Teter, associate athletic director at UC from 2003-06 and associate commissioner of Conference USA from 1995-2003. "You always have to get your program in the best possible position to be prepared for the next moves."
But the question of what to do with UC's football program remained unanswered. To help fill the void, UC in 1993 became a member of the Independent Football Alliance along with East Carolina, Memphis State, Southern Miss and Tulsa to facilitate scheduling. The schools in the alliance also picked an all-star team. It was better than nothing, but it still wasn't a full-fledged conference.
Finally, in 1995 the Metro Conference merged with the Great Midwest to form 12-team Conference USA, giving UC its first conference home for football since it left the MVC after the 1969 season.
"It gives our young men a chance to win a conference and go to a bowl game," said then-UC football coach Rick Minter.
It did more than that. With a move already under way in the NCAA for the major football conferences to call the shots in Division I college athletics, C-USA gave UC and its fellow members a seat at the table with seven other leagues.
"This is one of the best things that's ever happened to this university," said then-UC athletic director Gerald O'Dell. "This puts us in the upper echelon of Division I."
But when the Bowl Championship Series was born in 1998, only six conferences emerged as automatic qualifiers to the major BCS bowl games that provided a path to the national championship game. Because C-USA was not among them, UC no longer was in the upper echelon of Division I.
The Bearcats got their big break in 2003 when Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami (Fla.) left the Big East for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Suddenly, the Big East - which was a BCS automatic-qualifying conference - was in the market for three football schools.
Goin seized the opening and orchestrated a campaign to convince the Big East to make UC one of those schools.
"I sold the city," Goin said. "We sent out a brochure showing all the great things that have happened and the great things going on at the University of Cincinnati academically."
Goin's campaign paid off. The Big East invited UC, Louisville and South Florida, putting the Bearcats on a par with the top football programs in the country. In 2009, in their fifth year as a member of the Big East, the Bearcats capitalized by going undefeated during the regular season and playing in the Sugar Bowl. They barely missed securing a berth in the national championship game that year when they finished third in the BCS standings, something that would have been unfathomable during UC's Metro Conference days.
UC finally seemed set for the long haul until another wave of conference realignment hit in 2011, when Pittsburgh and Syracuse announced that they, too, were leaving the Big East for the ACC. This time realignment, which in 2003 was the answer to the Bearcats' prayers, was the worst thing that could have happened to them.
Ten years later, the decision by Texas and Oklahoma to leave the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, created the opening that has enabled UC to land in a Power 5 conference. This time UC officials hope they’ve found a permanent solution.
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