Hmmm, there's not much of an appreciation for satire at Tulsa, it seems.

The University of Tulsa is filing a complaint with Conference USA against those smarmy elitists at Rice over a football halftime show.

It appears the Rice marching band did a halftime show that lampooned Tulsa coach Todd Graham, who coached for one year at Rice before leaving for Tulsa. The skit was based on Dante's Inferno (that's Mr. Dante to the left)  and depicted a search through the circles of hell for the missing coach.

The skit ends with Graham being called a vulgar term by the announcer narrating the skit but some of it was pretty funny, such as this passage taken from a transcript of the program that appears on the Rice website:

Announcer: We thought we might find Todd Graham in the fourth circle with the greedy and the avaricious, but he was nowhere to be found. However, we did find his shredded Rice contract -- leading like breadcrumbs into the inferno -- and there, gathering the pieces, was Dennis Franchione.

(Note: Franchione recently resigned as the Texas A&M coach where he was singed earlier this year for selling an online newsletter with insider information to boosters, but that's another story.)

In the transcript (warning, Will Robinson, indelicate language in that link), you'll see references to the MOB.  That would be Rice's Marching Owls Band.

The Rice band director apologized but he didn't sound all that contrite.

"Tulsa won the football game and still has their coach," the band guy said. "This was his first time back since he left, and we gave him a rhetorical public flogging. Everyone expected it. It was as mild as we could make it with it still being funny."

So, who says they don't have a highbrow sense of humor in Texas.

Image credit: Associated Press