TCU is private, you have a huge advantage on how you fund athletics, admissions and how you run a program. UTEP is a state school and what you can and cannot do hinders a program. Plus you have to disclose to the university and in public. Private schools don't have to answer to this so they can "sweep a bit under the table and nobody is the wiser". You do this a state school you get slapped, embarrassed and then fired. It takes more than leadership, or a "grand plan". TCU had a huge endowment, like Rice and Baylor, but for many years they choose not to leverage it for athletics, dropping enrolment, being dumped by the old southwest conference and fear of becoming nonfactor prompted TCU to invest heavy in sports, mostly football. Baylor got the Big 12 invite and this was a bit of slap to TCU. Funny SMU didn't figure this out until it was too late and being burned by scandal, NCAA death they should have been in TCU's place. Rice it appears has picked another path. TCU was lucky in many respects, but they did have enough foresight to see what was happening or by luck made the right choices. Not sure this was just on the athletic director, I'm sure the alums, president and donor were responsible for what happened. A&M, Colorado, Missouri and Nebraska leaving the Big 12, which opened the door for TCU, well nobody saw that coming.
