Things I would like to point out in this interview.
Advocate: Tulane is joining the American Athletic Conference next year. How do you think that will work out?
Cowen: It’s going to be a very strong conference in football. It will be extraordinarily strong in basketball and very good in all of the other sports. For Tulane, it was a nice step forward. Also, we continue to compete against SMU and Memphis and Houston, schools we had been with before. But it also makes us a little more East Coast-centric with Connecticut and Temple, which is where so many of our students come from. We’re also more academically akin to them. And I think success will continue to make us an attractive school for perhaps other conferences.
Advocate: With the new system, unless a team from the American finishes in the top four in the nation, it will have no chance to play for the national championship. There is a guaranteed spot in another BCS-level bowl for the best team from the group of five, though. Is that a fair trade-off?
Cowen: It’s going to be tough to make the playoff. But that will encourage all of us to upgrade our nonconference scheduling and to be part of the strongest conference you can be in. At least we do have the guaranteed spot, and that’s going to be exciting.
Advocate: Is it going to be a question your successor will have to ask anytime soon?
Cowen: I don’t think so. We’re in pretty good shape. For the first time in decades, we basically have all new or renovated facilities: the football stadium, the basketball/volleyball practice facility, Devlin Fieldhouse. Secondly, I think we’ve turned the corner in football, and I think we’ll continue to be successful. What I mean by that is competing every year for a conference title and going to bowl games. I think we’re headed in the right direction in basketball, although it was very unfortunate with all of the transfers. But (coach Ed Conroy) has brought in a lot of talented young guys who will go through a learning curve. So I feel that athletics is in pretty good shape and, with the new conference, that just adds to all of it.
Advocate: It’s often been said that, to compete in football, Tulane needs to make some academic accommodations for athletes, both in admissions and in available majors. Has that been done?
Cowen: People have already misunderstood the standards. We’ve always had the flexibility to admit the student-athletes that we felt could be successful. We have some majors options for them we didn’t have before, especially in the School of Continuing Studies. But most are still taking the standard majors. I’m very proud of how our athletes are doing academically
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