Interesting article on the addition of Memphis

A good time can certainly be had on a road trip to Memphis. I thought Beale Street was great. I had a good time in Nashville and blues is about 10 times better than country.

RandyMcTiger makes a good case. I've been one of the boneyard crew opposed to Memphis. In fairness, I opposed Boise, SD State and Houston as well. By the way, my criticisms of those schools are based on (1) the public perceptions of those schools, USNews etc., which I don't believe reflect the reality of educational quality (although for Boise there are very real questions) and (2) dissimilarity of culture, mission and geography.

In short, UConn now finds itself in a conference of schools that are generally not local, and which are also, unlike UConn, predominantly urban campus public universities, rather than traditional major state universities with a research mission. This is true for Louisville, Cincy, USF, UCF, Houston, Memphis, Boise St. and San Diego State. None of them are really a good fit. I think they fit well together, I just don't think UConn or Rutgers fits well with them. We are the outlier. None of this has anything to do with whether Memphis has good BBQ (I'll take KC) and is a fun place to visit. Hell, anywhere is more fun than East Hartford.

Memphis is also a perfect lapdog for the basketball only schools. I wonder how big of a check they wrote Trangeese after his successful consultancy.

Funny. I grew up in Vernon and remember Mark's. That building used to have a new owner and cuisine every other year. Mark's stayed there for a while (might still be there for all I know).

Never in a million years would I have thought anyone would come to Vernon for good BBQ.

For what it's worth, Beale is the second best strip I've been to. Key West is easily the best, then Beale, the French Quarter and finally Gaslamp in San Diego.

Original use was Arthur Treachers.

And how can you leave South Beach off that list for strips?

Ahh, yes. Good Ole Arthur Treachers.

I was only listing places I've been.

Unless you're Boise State.

Boise is certainly a special case due to their recent gridiron success and national notoriety.