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News Nuggets, 09.11.04
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Compiled from staff reports and electronic dispatches

Tulane football crisis turns into boon for program

NEW ORLEANS — Tulane athletic director Rick Dickson may not be ready to breathe a sigh of relief, but he at least has room to breathe now.

Eighteen months after the university debated whether to drop football or drop down from Division I-A, the program is in better shape financially than it's been in years, Dickson said.

"We hit a historical all-time season high for tickets a year ago with nearly 14,000," Dickson said. "We can't backslide. That has to be our floor."

Not huge numbers compared to LSU, where over 90,000 fans jam the stadium for every game, but still well above the 5,000 mark that was the previous high.

Tulane averaged 25,635 fans at home games last season. That may not look like many in the 70,000-seat Superdome, but it's a substantial rise from seasons past.

"I would like to see bigger crowds, of course," said Tulane coach Chris Scelfo. "It would mean a lot to our kids. But I think they'll keep growing. I think we're headed in the right direction."

The study was kicked off because of a $7 million deficit the football program ran every year. Dickson had no trouble understanding why the school president and board of supervisors would take a hard look at keeping an I-A program. If it were a business, a CEO would see no future in keeping a program that lost money and was ignored for the most part.

"In my eyes it's probably a minor miracle that it was retained," Dickson said. "From a financial prospective it just did not make sense. With the apathy that had hovered around the program for decades plus, it not only didn't make financial sense, but it didn't make sense because people didn't care."

From a financial and interest standpoint, Dickson said, the program was on life-support and had been for years.

"The worst thing, and the thing that bothered everyone most was the apathy," Dickson said. "People expressed love of the program, but didn't attend games or support it."

In the end the review proved to be good for the program, Dickson said, because it woke up the Tulane fans and stripped away the indifference.

"I think that when everyone realized they were close to losing Tulane football, it made them aware of how much they wanted to keep it," Dickson said.

Dickson has not let up since the reprieve. He spent much of the summer visiting Tulane alumni groups around the country and drumming up more support.

A report on the program will be given to the Tulane Board of Supervisors on Sept. 17. Although football still does not make money, the deficit is more pink than red these days, Dickson said.

"I think the board will be pleased at the strides we've made," he said. "The main thing now is that we keep making those strides."

Sooners licking chops over visiting Houston?

NORMAN, OK — When he looks at Houston's near-shutout loss in its season opener to Rice, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops isn't convinced that it will be quite so easy to keep the Cougars from putting points on the board.

On the other hand, he's not frightened by the spread offense implemented by Houston coach Art Briles that combines pieces from his days on coach Mike Leach's staff at Texas Tech with the schemes he devised as coach of Texas prep powerhouse Stephenville High School.

In fact, Stoops — whose No. 2 Sooners will be facing a team with a form of the spread for the second straight week — says he doesn't consider the scheme to be all that rare.

"It's fairly common anymore," Stoops said. "I would say that it's not unique. I would say that the more people see it, the more they're used to it. I feel as though we've been quite used to it."

Leach, while an assistant for Stoops at Oklahoma, started putting the Sooners in spread formations, but Stoops says Leach's schemes weren't that critical in helping Oklahoma adjust to defending against the spread because most teams don't use Leach's elaborate offense.

Even Briles, who coached with Leach for three years, doesn't run a system mimicking Leach, Stoops said.

"You see some patterns and some routes in what they do and a little bit of Tech philosophy but not a whole lot," Stoops said.

Last season, Houston averaged 458 yards and 34.5 points in Briles' first year. But Stoops said he feels his staff knows how it will approach games against the spread.

"I feel we have a pretty good handle on what people are trying to do with it and what we can do to handle it."

Rice, which gave up 440 yards in a 48-14 loss to Houston last season, fared much better in its second chance against Briles' scheme. The Owls gave up only 230 yards, with 99 coming on the Cougars' final possession.

The primary improvement for the Cougars after last season was on defense. After allowing 440 yards and 36 points per game last season, Houston allowed Rice only 10 points and 186 yards. That could allow Briles to put his focus back on the offense.

"We're going to try to really get out there and establish something from an offensive standpoint," Briles said. "Hopefully we continue to play good defense like we did last week and shore up any problems we have in the kicking game. That's our main focus right now and going into this week."

News Nuggets are compiled periodically from staff, ECU, Conference USA and its member schools, and from Associated Press and other reports. Copyright 2004 Bonesville.net and other publishers. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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