"Disappointing Bowl Destination and Opponent"

Falconfreak90 · Post by **Falconfreak90** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:36 pm

Weatherdemon wrote:
Falcons4Life wrote:For anyone that is concerned, I unfortunately took a detour yesterday on my way home from the Ozarks and ended up darn near Tulsa.....its definitely in Oklahoma...surrounded by vast nothingness!!!
Not sure where you were but most likely south of South Tulsa.
Tulsa is a fairly large town. Here is downtown.

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Welcome to the Tulsa fans! BTW, what is the population of Tulsa? Looks to be the size of Akron, OH...maybe a bit bigger?

Weatherdemon · Post by **Weatherdemon** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:25 pm

Thanks!

The City of Tulsa's population is about 400,000

TG1996 · Post by **TG1996** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:37 pm

Sweet. With Freak comparing Tulsa to Akron, all other insults will pale in comparison.

Fire away boys!!!

Falconfreak90 · Post by **Falconfreak90** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:56 pm

Weatherdemon wrote:Thanks!

The City of Tulsa's population is about 400,000

Wow...really? Akron has about 220,000. Guess ya learn something new every day. Nice photos of Tulsa.

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 8:23 pm

Drove through Tulsa on my road trip to Vegas a few years back. We never left the highway, but it was definitely a much bigger city than I realized.

Schadenfreude · Post by **Schadenfreude** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:16 pm

Tulsa was the nation's 59th largest metropolitan area in 2000, according to the 2000 U.S. census.

http://www.census.gov/population/cen200 ... /tab03.pdf

The census definition of a "metropolitan statistical area" (MSA) can be a bit funny. Does it include vast windswept barren counties? Is the MSA small because its hemmed in by another larger MSA?

Still, here are some comparables:

Dayton-Springfield: 53rd
Syracuse: 60th
Toledo: 69th

Wood County and Bowling Green are part of the Toledo MSA, which is about three quarters the size of the Tulsa MSA.

On the other hand, the Tulsa football program is pretty comparable. They play in a stadium that resembles ours in size, and they have similar attendance at games.

It's a big metropolitan area, but my sense is that a lot of people there don't identify with the university, which is private and tiny. Only Rice is smaller in Division I-A. In fact, Bowling Green may have more education majors than Tulsa has undergraduates.

Rightupinthere · Post by **Rightupinthere** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:06 am

My brother-in-law works at the Gilcrease museum (see my reference in the coach's thread). For those that don't know, the Gilcrease is finest museum American Art in the world. Their collection of Native American artifacts is nothing short of awesome.

Tulsa was also my father-in-law's hometown. It's surrounded by "vast nothingness" but the topography is beautiful and the residents are quite pleasant. BG is also surrounded by vast nothingness - but only of the corn/bean/tomato variety. Residents of BG are more pleasant, but I'm biased.

Tulsa is a great town and i very much enjoy my visits.

h2oville rocket · Post by **h2oville rocket** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 7:12 am

Schadenfreude wrote:Wood County and Bowling Green are part of the Toledo MSA,

Schadenfreude · Post by **Schadenfreude** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:01 am

h2oville rocket wrote:
Schadenfreude wrote:Wood County and Bowling Green are part of the Toledo MSA,

In other words, some of your fans need to shut your traps about The Blade covering Falcon sports.

---->

Rightupinthere · Post by **Rightupinthere** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:29 am

Schadenfreude wrote:
h2oville rocket wrote:
Schadenfreude wrote:Wood County and Bowling Green are part of the Toledo MSA,

In other words, some of your fans need to shut your traps about The Blade covering Falcon sports.

---->

The need exceeds "some."

>

<

Gold* · Post by Gold* » Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:43 pm

Schadenfreude wrote:Tulsa was the nation's 59th largest metropolitan area in 2000, according to the 2000 U.S. census.

http://www.census.gov/population/cen200 ... /tab03.pdf

The census definition of a "metropolitan statistical area" (MSA) can be a bit funny. Does it include vast windswept barren counties? Is the MSA small because its hemmed in by another larger MSA?

Still, here are some comparables:

Dayton-Springfield: 53rd
Syracuse: 60th
Toledo: 69th

Wood County and Bowling Green are part of the Toledo MSA, which is about three quarters the size of the Tulsa MSA.

On the other hand, the Tulsa football program is pretty comparable. They play in a stadium that resembles ours in size, and they have similar attendance at games.

It's a big metropolitan area, but my sense is that a lot of people there don't identify with the university, which is private and tiny. Only Rice is smaller in Division I-A. In fact, Bowling Green may have more education majors than Tulsa has undergraduates.

TU is smaller than Rice. I've seen it both ways, but trust me, after years of seeing the statistics, we are the smallest "FBS" (hate that name) school. 2,600 or so undergraduates.

We have a growing group of fans in football, but we do have to compete with OU and the "other" OSU for fans. We try to put home games on weekends where one or both are on the road. Thankfully, the "other" OSU has priced themselves out of the market with outrageous ticket prices -- they charge Nascar prices for the Nascar crowd, LOL. There is a pretty dedicated core of fans and attendance was up this year (a lot of that was getting OU and BYU at home).

Fans in Tulsa as a whole are pretty fairweather. When our football or basketball team are doing something big, EVERYONE gets on the bandwagon. If it's an average team in average year, parking isn't that bad, if you know what I mean.

Flipper · Post by **Flipper** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:54 pm

Tulsa's primary exports are tornadoes, bib overalls and guys with two first names...

Gold* · Post by Gold* » Tue Dec 04, 2007 7:10 pm

I don't think we export too many tornadoes -- sure seems like we IMport a lot of them!

I don't know that many people in Tulsa with two first names, but our athletic director does go by "Bubba." In fact, you might be familiar with him -- former Ball State AD Lawerence "Bubba" Cunningham. (Aside: when Bubba came to Tulsa, the Ball State fans seemed quite nuts and were among the nastiest I've encountered on the web. Is that your observation also or did I just get them on a bad day?)

I wouldn't know where to buy overalls, either. I actually want a pair for when I'm at my summer home in New Mexico. We have a western wear store, but I'm too lazy to go there.

It's funny -- I hear all these wisecracks about Okies, but in Oklahoma, we are treated like the uppity rich kid private school. A couple of years back there was a movement afoot to get us to rehire Nolan Richardson. Everyone around the administration knew it would never happen, for all sorts of reasons, including Nolan's problem graduating players all the bad PR his last couple of years coaching. Anyway, some in the local media tried to kick up muck about how TU was stuck up. The response from TU could be read as, "Yeah, and what's wrong with that?"

Best smack talk I've ever heard about Tulsa was when I was a little kid -- we had a player that everyone thought would go in the NBA draft. I was talking to a friend of mine at summer camp, who had talked to his dad -- a stock broker and huge basketball fan. His response to this whole NBA deal was something like, "Son, the only things that gets out of Tulsa are oil companies."

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:23 pm

These Tulsa fans seem like good people.

Stick around Gold*...we have a pretty fun group around here

If you're ever in the need of a future opponent, you guys would make for a quality home & home as well!

Flipper · Post by **Flipper** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:32 pm

Yep..these Tulsa fans seem like good people. Maybe they'd like to join the MAC? Those OU Bobcat fans are getting on my nerves