Fair point. And to that, he'll always deserve at least partial credit for that. But we’ll never truly know how much of that was CDC and how much of that was luck.
The way the story goes, CDC showed up with a huge binder to pitch TCU to DeLoss Dodds and sat outside of his office all day. DeLoss finally comes out of his office at 3:30 and thinks his name is Del. Invites him to have drinks and discuss it further. Who knows what was discussed, but it's known that DeLoss never once opened a binder and took a look at what Del Conte was prepared to share. His mind was already made up. Was his mind already made up before his afternoon drink outing with Del Conte? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, DeLoss votes in favor of adding TCU the next day. We'll never know how much of that was Del Conte. Just as it isn't fair to say he deserves no credit, I also don't think it's fair to say he deserves all the credit.
No matter, the west side lower bowl was an irreversible and unforgivable disaster of a decision.