It is contradictory for the most part, the better the football at Tulsa, the more likely that entrance guidelines will need to be stretched. You just don't have that problem at state universities, you can also understand why many of the privates want to play each other, a fairer fight.

And how do you know that the next coach can't win ten games in three out of four years? The only really big wins (i.e. unexpected)in the regular season for Graham were BYU and Notre Dame. Except for Hawaii, the bowl wins were over clearly inferior teams. Everything else could be accomplished on a regular basis, with the occasional upset giving TU another 10-win season.

As for academics, there are plenty of universities that have superior academics than Tulsa, and better football programs as well: Stanford, Notre Dame, BYU, Air Force, several Big-Ten and Big East schools...
If Graham were concerned about the undermining of football by academics, he would not have gone to Pitt! No, Graham's move was about money and a BCS conference, that is all.

@Tulsa in Exile, I'll give you Stanford and Notre Dame, but TU's academic rise has been meteoric in the last 15 years (since Bob Lawless took over for Donaldson). Focus on certain programs has made TU an elite school in more than just Petroleum Engineering and a reason why TU students have won more nationally competitive scholarships (Fulbright, Truman, NSFs, etc.) over that period than all but Duke and Princeton. As for your claim that TU beat clearly inferior opponents in the GMAC bowl both years, Miami (OH) was ranked at the time and had a consensus high round QB draft pick in Nate Davis (I'll give you that TU was far superior than Bowling Green). Todd Graham was able to take the so-called inferiority complexes laid on it by experts like Todd McShay and turning it into a chip on the shoulder motivation.

Of course he was going to leave for a bigger challenge, but Pitt isn't playing for a BCS game anytime soon. He is making the same mistake that Steve Robinson made when he left for Florida State. Graham is trying to make a football school out of a basketball school. Not gonna work. Pittsburgh may be a football town, but it is clearly only for the Steelers and some of the big name HS teams. Overall support for college football in western PA tends to go to Penn State or Ohio State.