HOUSTON (AP) _ Houston athletics director Mack Rhoades is offering no timeline for the school to decide its conference affiliation.
Rhoades spoke at Tuesday morning breakfast promoting Thursday’s game between the No. 18 Cougars (7-0, 3-0 Conference USA) and crosstown rival Rice (2-5, 1-3).
On Monday, the school’s regents scheduled a special meeting to give Chancellor and President Renu Khator the authority to explore realignment. Houston is mentioned as a possible newcomer to the Big East, which is losing Pittsburgh and Syracuse to the Atlantic Coast Conference. TCU also jilted the Big East after an initial commitment, opting to join the Big 12.
The Big East is believed to want Navy, Air Force and Boise State as football-only members and Central Florida, Houston and SMU for all sports.
The Big East currently has six football members committed to the conference beyond this season and eight schools that do not compete in the league in football, including Notre Dame. But there’s no
guarantee that the Big East will even keep its automatic-qualifying status after 2013, when the current BCS television and bowl contracts run out.
Rhoades is wary of that contingency, too. “There’s a lot of speculation out there,” Rhoades said. “It (the BCS) could continue as is, it could continue, tweaked, (with a) different formula. Or, it could go away. I don’t think anybody out there has a great idea, a great feel and could definitively
say, `Hey, the BCS after 2013 is going to be exactly like this.”’
Rhoades has mostly stayed quiet amid the talk, and he revealed little when asked about the potential move to a league that would offer a direct path to the Bowl Championship Series. Conference USA is not a BCS-affiliated league.
“The whole conference realignment landscape is fluid,” Rhoades said. “Things change every day. We’re fortunate, because our program has made great strides.”
Rhoades became the Houston AD in June 2009, and he’s launched fundraising efforts toward the construction of a $120 million football stadium and $40 million in renovations to run-down Hofheinz Pavilion.
The school has raised about $60 million toward the football project, and the future plans certainly enhance Houston’s profile in the eyes of prospective leagues.
“We’ve been able to put ourselves in a good position,” Rhoades said. “Right now, today, we’re still in Conference USA. We’re a proud member of Conference USA. We’re always going to seek and look for new opportunity, and we’ll see if that comes here.
“What that timeline is, I’m not sure yet,” he said. “We’ll see what happens here down the road.”
Texas state Rep. Garnett Coleman, whose district includes the Houston campus, said Monday that getting the Cougars into a BCS conference would be a major step after Houston was left out when the Big 12 formed in the early 1990s. Coleman said the announcement of a move could possibly be made within a few days after the regents’ meeting, but Rhoades said the timing is unknown.
“We’re staying engaged, and we’re going to be cautious and careful,” Rhoades said. “The announcement of the board meeting, that’s just a natural progression. It’s what everybody else has done across the country. If we have an option, we’ll be ready. But who’s to say we’ll have an option?”
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)