40 Acres Sports

Literally.  Since there’s some sort of footsie being played between the conference and BYU, I assume the LDS Board of Apostles is thinking they’ll get invited in a couple of years.  Maybe we ask for a ton of money as a buy in since we know they have it out there in Provo.  There’s probably a Scrooge McDuck vault under the Temple.  But what about the other spot?  I’ve thrown this idea out to a few other Orangebloods and the best I can say is that nobody hates it.

The University of Memphis.

A couple of months ago, around the Big 12 Missile Crisis, the CEO of FedEx said something along the lines of his Memphis based company being able to give ten million dollars a year to whichever BCS conference would take those sad little Tigers out of C-USA.  The Dirty Dozen has a spot and those cash-deprived Aggies dying for their share of the Colorado / Nebraska buyout money can be satisfied.  And frankly, why does Texas care?  Memphis is a Southwest flight away from Austin.  Sure, it lacks the granola flavor of Boulder or the midwestern charm of Lincoln.  It makes up for that in ease of travel and one of those big checks every year.  We’d only see them every other year – think about how long we’ve put up with Iowa State.  I know that a lineup of BYU, Memphis, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, and Mizzou doesn’t really excite anyone on the gridiron, but what other options that pay the conference ten million are out there?

TCU?  I’ve championed them for a while because it would weaken Tech, A&M, Baylor, and Oklahoma State significantly just being in Fort Worth.  I have to exclude Norman for being the only habitable town in the state and Austin is still Austin.  Line up Fort Worth against College Station, Lubbock, Stillwater, and Waco – it’s not even close.  Their annual home game against UT or OU could go into Jerry’s Death Star in Arlington.  We’re fully aware what they can do in baseball and the city would finally own them with BCS conference membership – just to have either UT or OU in town twice a year, really.  They’d join up so fast our heads would spin since BYU just ditched them and their crummy league.  I bet even a Horned Frog would rather go to Ames (or Memphis) than Fresno or Boise.  Really though, I don’t know what value they bring that Texas doesn’t have already.  It just sounds good.

Memphis makes sense.  Fork over the check and we’ll use the Kansas excuse that’s come in handy over the years – we’ll put up with your terrible pre-Mangino era football teams for basketball superpowers.  For that matter, why the heck would we want two stud programs joining up?  The NCAA isn’t going to take the Big 12’s BCS autobid.  If this really is the Longhorn Athletic Conference like so many say, adding two bleh teams for the money when the default title game is in October every year is important.  Texas sells out wherever the Horns go, and if we’re talking TV sets, Memphis plus most of Utah is about as close to replacing Denver and Nebraska as we’ll get. Talk about sticking a thumb in the eye of those Rocky Tops – stealing their TV’s and recruits by adding poor little Memphis to the big time.  It would screw up Arkansas, too, and that never stops being entertaining.

This could be fun!  C’mon, we’ve got starving Aggies to feed!

The Houston Chronicle looks at how Memphis and UT match up. They give Memphis the edge overall, but I think they’re off in saying Rose has the edge over Augustin.

Longhorns lean more on Dexter Pittman for defense. Facing a much more athletic lineup than Stanford, might be a game where we need Gary Johnson to shine.

Derrick Rose, DJ Augustin battle for spot in Final Four. DJ got the best of a Rose in a game this summer, hopefully he can do it again with more on the line.

After a big victory over Stanford Friday, the Longhorns now face their toughest test by far of the tournament in the [tag]Memphis[/tag] Tigers. Before the tournament started, I thought the Tigers had a chance to be one of the first number one seeds knocked off. It’s a lot later than I thought but that could still be the case if Texas takes care of business Sunday afternoon.

If the Horns want to hand Memphis only their second loss of the season they’ll have to contain the dynamic guard duo of freshman Derrick Rose and 6-foot-7 junior Chris Douglas-Roberts. Both players are averaging around 15 points and 4 rebounds per game and are excellent on offense and defense. The battle between point guards Rose and [tag]DJ Augustin[/tag] should be an entertaining match-up to watch.

Watch the SI.com video preview of Memphis below: