Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

[fistofrage]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

BYU is simple. There is NO WAY Stanford or Cal will ever let a religious institution in the Pac. EVER.

The Pac prides itself on leading the way as a conference of Research Institutions. Boise State's academics is about equal to a large JC. They have nearly no research and have an endowment of around $75 million with $11 million in research. It's just not going to happen. Compare that to the Pac-12 school with the least amount of research (Oregon) $67 million and the lowest endowment is Oregon State at $412 million. Boise St is out of it's league.

These decisions are alot more complex than just "Hey, lets add this university becasue their football team is sweet...."

Members of conferences share research grants, etc. For example, the B1G gets billions in research grants and funding. The major conferences want to make sure they are getting a good fit because they could be sharing alot more than just football revenue.

[nortobc]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

BYU is simple. There is NO WAY Stanford or Cal will ever let a religious institution in the Pac. EVER.

What a bunch of close minded tree hugers at Stanford and Cal...

That being said, that statement is not true. USC is a Methodist school. If you say Mormon school, then you might be right, but not religious.

[cdawg44]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

I wouldn't say USC has zero religious affiliation. They have a tiny bit of Methodist in them.


Do you really care where I sent this from?

Historically yes, but they recieve no support from the United Methodist church and is no where as closely tied as BYU is to the Church of LDS. The Fighting Methodist mascot hasn't been used since the Woodrow Wilson administration.

[dickey1331]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

Historically yes, but they recieve no support from the United Methodist church and is no where as closely tied as BYU is to the Church of LDS. The Fighting Methodist mascot hasn't been used since the Woodrow Wilson administration.

Yeah thats why I said tiny bit. Same goes with Duke and Vandy.

[caasoccer]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

The problem with BYU is the no play on Sunday rule.

[cdawg44]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

The problem with BYU is the no play on Sunday rule.

If it is a football only move, then it is a moot point.

[TDenverFan]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

JW, wy would Stanford and Cal not want a school with a religious affiliation in their conference?

Stanford plays Duke (Methodist) a decent amount.

[gordogg24p]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

Plus from an academics stand point ND going to the BIG makes no sense. Honestly the only thing ND has in common with BIG schools is the location.

Is that an insult to ND academics? The B1G always made a huge deal about how all of the member institutions were AAU-certified (until they let in Nebraska, and even they used to be AAU). Hell, the University of Chicago is even an associated institution for the B1G based solely on the academic emphasis of the conference.

[TDenverFan]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

Is that an insult to ND academics? The B1G always made a huge deal about how all of the member institutions were AAU-certified (until they let in Nebraska, and even they used to be AAU). Hell, the University of Chicago is even an associated institution for the B1G based solely on the academic emphasis of the conference.

The ACC is probably known more for academics than the B1G.

Duke, Wake, BC, UNC, the U, etc.

[seasprite]

I would love to hear your reasoning for this statement.

Before ESPN came along, you got maybe 2 football games a week on your TV programming. Now, due the ESPN, you have more than you could possibly watch and smaller schools now can be seen all over the country . Do you remember college football before ESPN? I do and it is such more accessible and visible to everyone due to ESPNs programming.

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[lonewolf371]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

These decisions are alot more complex than just "Hey, lets add this university becasue their football team is sweet...."

Members of conferences share research grants, etc. For example, the B1G gets billions in research grants and funding. The major conferences want to make sure they are getting a good fit because they could be sharing alot more than just football revenue.

Having worked on several research grants, this isn't how it works. Most grants are awarded to individual principal investigators or a group of principal investigators at a single institution. Sometimes the government will try to encourage cross-institution collaboration, but those projects can be very difficult to manage (I know since I've worked on a couple).

The ACC is probably known more for academics than the B1G.

Duke, Wake, BC, UNC, the U, etc.

It depends on what the criteria is. If you think the quality of a school should be determined by the quality of the research that their faculty perform (and this is the most important thing for faculty at any B1G university; they aren't hired for their teaching ability), then the B1G really smashes the ACC. You can see this in research output based rankings like the Shanghai ranking, which is based on publications from the school in major research journals and major awards/recognition (such as Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals) given to faculty. You can also see this by the quantity of federal research dollars awarded to the schools; every B1G school is a research powerhouse. You also see this in AAU membership, which is more research based. Duke, UNC, Georgia Tech, Virginia, and Pittsburgh are the only ACC members (Notre Dame isn't a member), while every B1G school except Nebraska is a member.

Of course, the quality of the research doesn't have so much to do with the quality of education you get as an undergrad. I don't really put a lot of stock in US News rankings, though. More than a fifth of the weighting is given to opinion surveys of university presidents and high school counselors, most of whom are going to have no idea what the quality of education at other universities is like. Heck, most university presidents probably don't even know what the quality of education at their own university is like. US News also requires schools to self-report their data, and a lot of schools game the system to pump up their rating. You even have some cases, such as Emory, where it was recently discovered that the school deliberately falsified their data reported to US News to pump up their ranking.

Notre Dame is a fit academically in the sense that their research mission and make-up are more similar to ACC schools. They're a small, private school that's not particularly research focused. There is no school in the Big Ten that has such a structure, including Northwestern which is also a major research institution.

[cdawg44]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

The more I had time to digest yesterday, the more I believe that ND had to make this move. Yes, Notre Dame values their Independence in football, however they have to play HIGH quality teams to make it work for the NBC contract. Yes, they could find 8 really good teams to fill out their schedule, but finding 12 BCS level teams and avoiding playing 1-AA teams or sun belt or MAC teams was getting harder and harder for them. Especially with leagues going to nine game schedules to accomidate the huge wave of expansion going on. And NBC was not going to accept ND home games versus UMASS, South Alabama and Kent State to make up the difference. Hell in 2014, ND has Rice and Temple along with their usual service academies and Northwestern games. And their only games that year aganist elite BCS teams are USC, Stanford and Michigan. This looks like ND needed the ACC more than they wanted to admit.

[coogrfan]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

Before ESPN came along, you got maybe 2 football games a week on your TV programming. Now, due the ESPN, you have more than you could possibly watch and smaller schools now can be seen all over the country . Do you remember college football before ESPN? I do and it is such more accessible and visible to everyone due to ESPNs programming.

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Fair enough.

[Perfect Zero]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

I also think a big reason for this is that in the past it was either BCS or bust for Notre Dame. Now they have a path to the ACC's bowl affiliations, plus they solidify themselves as a player in future playoff possibilities through the ACC.

[superjames1992]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

ACC fans are going to enjoy having Notre Dame steal their best non-BCS bowl bids for the foreseeable future, assuming they get included in the bowl contract somehow.