http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/blog?name=mcgee_ncf_ryan&id=6834321

I spent a semester in Austin on a Architecture scholarship while at Tech in the summer of 82 and I loved Austin, but when I read stuff like this it makes my stomach turn and it makes me realize just how important it is for Tech to be up there with Texas and A&M in terms of money and title I status...

They try to make you feel like we are second class citizens!! Screw UT and we better fight like hell to be a Title I school...we will need it to keep up!!

 

What exactly are those pieces? The formula is as simple as it is rare:

 

 

• The school has to be big. Texas is, with a student body of more than 50,000, with another 300,000 in its continuing education programs, and a faculty/staff of 24,000.

 

 

• The alumni base has to be even bigger. UT claims more than a half million alums, and it is cranking out another 12,000 degrees each year.

 

 

• It also has to have enough cash to support independence and wean itself off of the financial support of a conference. In 2010, UT led the nation in athletic department revenue at a whopping $143 million, $93.9 million through football. They were one of only seven schools in the $100 million club. Big 12 rival Oklahoma brought in $99 million and Texas A&M stood at $72 million. That's not bad, but it's not in UT's zip code, either. In addition, the Texas university system has somewhere around $14 billion in endowment.

 

 

• There has to be a media platform to reach all of those people listed above. Notre Dame has NBC. BYU has BYUtv, carried in 60 million homes nationwide. Texas now has the Longhorn Network, which would encompass two top-10 media markets (Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston) even if it never bothered to leave its own borders, which it will.

 

 

• A recruiting system that isn't conference-dependent. You may have heard they have pretty nice talent in Texas. But that hasn't ever kept Mack Brown from looking outside the state. And "You get to play in the Big 12" has never been an integral part of their pitch. "You get to play Texas" is a staple of their rivals' approach.