Since I last wrote a UH Cougar season update post in the wake of that crushingly disappointing C-USA championship game loss to Southern Mississippi that knocked us out of consideration for a BCS bowl berth there have been a lot of things happening on Cullen Blvd. Former head coach Kevin Sumlin went for the money and bounced to Texas A&M. UH got the official invitation to join the Big East Conference which they accepted and will begin play in the league starting in the 2013 season. Special teams coordinator Tony Levine was elevated to the head coaching spot to replace Sumlin and UH found out our number 20 ranked 12-1 footballers would be going bowling in Dallas' Cotton Bowl stadium to play in the 2nd annual Ticket City Bowl on January 2 against number 24 and 9-3 Penn State.So yep, been a rollercoaster of emotions and a lot of things happening for Cougar fans lately.As for the C-USA title game loss, still disappointed that we're not going to New Orleans to play in the Sugar Bowl and what made it worse was hearing about it from all those nekulturny Harris County t-shirt wearing Longhorn and Aggie fans and UH haters. Sumlin leaving was adding salt to the wound. But getting the long rumored Big East invite made up for some of the drama. It's a reward for all the effort put into President Khator's goal of in making UH Tier One in athletics just have we have strived for decades in academics. Who cares if the Big East has questions about its AQ status? We're finally in an AQ conference and still have the challenge of getting the recruits we need to get the basketball program ramped up to Big East level ball and keeping the forward momentum going in the football program and Cougar athletics in general. That shouldn't be too hard for a Tier One level university smack dab in the middle of the largest city in the state and in the best recruiting turf for all sports in Texas.The Big XII will regret the day they let UT AD DeLoss Dodds' grudge against UH cloud their thinking about admitting the third largest university in the state into the conference and I hope TCU kicks their behinds next year.So looking forward to the new year, the UH footballers and Case Keenum closing out a marvelous season with a bowl game win. It's also going to be interesting to see what transpires in our last C-USA season starting in September enroute to Big East play in 2013.
