Texas Southern football’s best season in over 15 years has given Tiger stakeholders a reason to be hopeful for the future, but even that future has challenges.
The Tigers announced the bulk of their 2026 home schedule will be played at W.W. Thorne Stadium in north Houston, which is nearly two hours north of TSU’s campus. Homecoming will be played much closer at the home of the Houston Texans, NRG Stadium, just about 7 miles away.
The change of venue was brought about by conflicts with the Tigers’ usual home field, Shell Energy Stadium.
According to a report by HBCU Legends’ Kyle Mosley, the Texas Southern administration failed to meet with Shell Energy officials, as well as Houston Dynamo FC, the Major League Soccer team that uses the stadium as its home, regarding scheduling matters.
While this could explain Texas Southern’s announcement of a 1.7 billion-dollar master plan that includes an on-campus stadium, that plan’s completion promises to be years away, and that’s if it ever happens.
TSU administration fails to enlist important government support
Former Texas Southern president Dr. James Douglas explained to Mosley that the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority is responsible for Shell Energy Stadium, not Dynamo FC.
Furthermore, Douglas said that the Authority would support TSU in negotiations with stadium management, providing Texas Southern with an important ally the university’s administration has not called on to date.
There are so many sayings that can apply to this situation: “Don’t put the cart before the horse,” “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” etc.
In TSU’s case, it’s as simple as don’t piss off a governing body that wants to help you when the governing body you’ll need some funding from won’t even look in your direction.
The latest in a long line of bad decisions
The Shell Energy Stadium fiasco is just another in a long and ongoing line of bad decisions that will likely handcuff the Tigers’ athletic program’s progress.
Those decisions include the board of regents overruling then-athletic director Kevin Grainger’s hiring of Fred McNair as football coach, Grainger losing his job due to a sexual assault civil suit, and the still-vacant men’s basketball head coaching position that has called for a search committee.
Running a college campus isn’t easy, but your job as administration is to make the experience as enjoyable for your students (and student-athletes) as possible.
A two-hour drive through the heart of Houston for a football game is not the way you do it.
Tiger football could sink or swim thanks to this drama
To be fair, Cris Dishman has done a more than fair job of making Texas Southern football reasonably competitive.
As a veteran NFL DB and coach at all levels, Dishman will certainly use this drama as a motivator to rally his team.
It could very well work; the Tigers could shock everybody and win the SWAC West.
Or it could be another lost season, thanks to the inability to make good decisions by the people paid good money for that exact task.
