I’ve been getting a lot of requests for comment on some proposed legislation by an Illinois state representative from Naperville to have a feasibility study performed on whether another Illinois public university can be added to the Big Ten. Here is the full text of the proposed bill. Note that I actually live in Naperville, but the applicable representative (Michael Connelly) doesn’t represent the portion of town that I live in.
Most people that have a passing understanding of conference realignment know that the odds of the feasibility of the Big Ten expanding with any school from the state of Illinois is less than zero (but we’ll spell it out here for any first time readers that haven’t been paying attention to this issue for the past several years). First of all, what the Illinois State Legislature wants is completely irrelevant to Big Ten expansion. They might have some control over the University of Illinois specifically, but Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin and every other Big Ten school (even Northwestern) would laugh off any attempt for some type of legislative intervention. Second, a viable Big Ten candidate needs a combination of FBS football credentials, academic prowess (preferably membership in the Association of American Universities, which is an extremely select group of top tier research institutions) and, most importantly of all, additional media value in the form of new TV markets and/or a national brand name (i.e. Notre Dame). Considering that the entire state of Illinois is already receiving the Big Ten Network at the maximum cable carriage rate, any additional school from the state would add exactly $0 in TV revenue for the conference. That would actually mean that all other Big Ten universities would lose money with an Illinois-based expansion by splitting the pie further without making the overall pie larger… and the Big Ten isn’t making moves in order to lose money. Plus, the only other public university that even plays FBS football is Northern Illinois, who isn’t anywhere near AAU status on the academic front (and realistically never will be with its mission). If the State of Illinois wants to spend a single dime on whether it’s feasible for another public university here to join the Big Ten, then the legislature is flushing money down the toilet that it doesn’t have.
That being said, let’s not throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater on what ought to be the real intent of this legislation: creating a stronger #2 public university in the State of Illinois behind the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (abbreviated as UIUC for ease of discussion here, although I’ve always thought that was a clumsy abbreviation as an Illinois grad) regardless of any Big Ten prospects (which are non-existent in reality). What I hope is that my fellow Naperville native can’t possibly be this naive and is just using the Big Ten name as a headline grabber in order to shine the light on the very real problem that the academic quality gap between UIUC and the rest of the state’s public universities is so large that Illinois high school grads are heading to out-of-state colleges at a rate that dwarfs almost every other state in the country.
In the typical competitive Chicago suburban high school, the top 5% of the class or so is generally gunning for the Ivy League and Ivy-caliber schools (i.e. Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, etc.). The next 5% is the group that UIUC generally targets (with a little bit of variation depending upon the program – engineering and business require top 5% credentials these days, whereas an applicant might be able to get by with being in the top 15% for liberal arts). Regardless, an Illinois high school grad is pretty well-covered if he or she is in the top 10% of his/her high school class and the 90th percentile in SAT or ACT scores.
The problem is the massive academic reputation gap between UIUC and the rest of the in-state schools. For the very large group of kids that rank between the top 10% and top 30% of their class (people that still have good-but-not-elite grades and test scores and make up a huge share of the college student population), UIUC is getting too tough to get into while the rest of the in-state schools are way too easy to get into in relation to their credentials. There’s no compelling option in-between that’s a solid fit for that group of students. In the latest US News rankings for undergraduate programs at national universities, UIUC is ranked #41 in the nation, but then there isn’t another Illinois public school until the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) at #128. Farther down the list are Illinois State (#152), Northern Illinois (#177) and Southern Illinois (#177). It just so happens that neighboring schools like Indiana, Purdue, Iowa and Missouri are in the top 100 of the US News rankings and have admissions standards that perfectly align to those top 10%-30% students that can’t get into UIUC, so Illinois kids go to those schools in massive numbers* and are willing to pay out-of-state tuition for them (which is still relatively less expensive compared to a lot of lower-ranked private university options). According to the Chicago Tribune, there was an outflow of 30,000 freshmen students from Illinois to out-of-state schools and an inflow of 17,000 last year, which is a negative outflow of 13,000.** The academic quality gap is exactly why this is occurring.
(* Last year, the Chicago Tribune put together this fascinating database of where Illinois high school students currently go to out-state colleges. Not surprisingly, schools in neighboring states drew the largest numbers, with Iowa and Missouri having more than 1000 Illinois students each in their respective freshmen classes last year, while Indiana, Marquette, Wisconsin, Purdue, St. Louis University and Iowa State all had over 500 Illinois freshmen. Interestingly, Arizona State, Colorado, Kentucky and Kansas all drew more Illinois students than Ohio State, with all of them getting just under 200 Illinois freshmen each. Other popular power conference destinations for Illinois students outside of the Midwest are Arizona, Vanderbilt and Miami, with over 100 Illinois freshmen each. After this hellacious winter, I can’t blame any Chicagoan heading to some place where you can wear shorts in the middle of January. Meanwhile, Alabama and Ole Miss surprisingly draw more Illinois students than Nebraska, while Rutgers only has 10 Illinois freshmen. Maryland and Penn State don’t show up in this data set, which doesn’t mean anything one way or another, as some schools like Harvard that definitely have Illinois students aren’t listed here.)
(** New Jersey is a state with an even larger outflow of college students and has almost the exact same issue as Illinois: a very large drop in the rankings of its public universities after its flagship of Big Ten newcomer Rutgers.)
UIC is probably the only public school in Illinois that has a realistic chance of filling that gap since its faculty quality is already on the higher end compared to its admissions standards, the school is solid in STEM areas since it houses the University of Illinois system’s medical and pharmacy schools, and has what is now considered to be a very desirable location in the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago. (UIC was actually a visiting member of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) that’s considered to be the academic arm of the Big Ten for nearly 30 years, but that status was revoked following the conference’s admission of Nebraska.) The main issue is that UIC’s reputation in professional circles (outside of medicine and pharmacy) actually lags behind its perception in academia, and changes there seem to be glacial. Every Big Ten school has a stronger professional network in Chicago in the finance and tech areas that fuel the influx of new college grads every year in Lincoln Park and Lakeview, and UIC still has to catch up to regional private Catholic schools like Loyola, DePaul and Marquette on that front, too. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy – UIC won’t move up in professional prestige without attracting better students, but such better students won’t go there until UIC moves up in professional prestige.
(* Up until 20 years ago, that location was considered to be a major liability when it was far from gentrified. I know this area well since my parents both graduated from there and my father worked there for 30 years, so I have a lot of affinity for the school. My father used to get his hubcaps stolen quite frequently back in the day and we used to joke that we could buy them back at the old Maxwell Street market adjacent to UIC, which was featured in the John Lee Hooker scene in The Blues Brothers. Needless to say, the old Maxwell Street was moved for UIC’s expansion several years ago and what used to be a seedy neighborhood has turned into a land of high-priced condos and restaurants.)
The other practical problem is that it would take a ton of investment from the state to get UIC up to the level of schools that are strong non-flagships (i.e. Michigan State, Purdue, Miami University of Ohio, etc.), yet the state keeps reducing the money to public universities every single year (and as noted, the state doesn’t have the money to give it to them even if they wanted to). Regardless, I hope that some type of better realistic in-state option exists by the time my 4-year old twins are ready to go to college in 13 years. If Representative Connelly can ensure that the focus is on that particular academic goal (as opposed to Big Ten membership specifically, which is a waste of time and resources because it will never happen), then I’m game.
(Image from PIPBlog)
Go Hawkeyes!!! Go Huskies!!!
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Go B1G Red
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Duh, why not expand the University of Illinois to the size of Ohio State or Minnesota? Wouldn’t that be easier?
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There is something to be said for keeping your flagship school elite. UofI doesn’t want to be known as a “come one, come all” school like tOSU, that’s Southern Illinois’ job. I think Frank is looking for another school in the state to raise up to the relative academic level of a Missouri or Iowa or Indiana to keep more of the Illinois kids in state.
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Go Blue!
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GEAUX Tigers!
Frank – two of my best friends at LSU were from the Quad Cities area, couldn’t get in to UIUC, and decided to come to LSU because the drinking age in Louisiana was still 18.
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@Alan from Baton Rouge – I think you hit on the way to keep more students in-state without spending another dollar: lower the drinking age to 18.
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Frank – unfortunately, lowering the drinking age would cost a state ga-zillions in federal highway money. Reagan blackmailed the states into raising the drinking age to 21 by threatening to withhold road money. When my friends decided to attend LSU, only Louisiana and (I think) North Dakota were still holding out. Eventually, Louisiana raised the drinking age to 21, but 18 year olds can still get into bars, and the bars are liable for serving underage patrons.
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As a kid you want 18 (average age of a freshmen)
As a parent you want 21 (average age of a senior)
Hopefully more would have better decision making skills by 21 but companies make big revenue selling products to kids at this age. The recent return of liquor to TV advertising was not done to target the 40 and up crowd if you watch the ads.
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Sorry, I would rather my kids be exposed to southern european style drinking laws than 21+ puritanical american ones.
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Its not puritanical. It saves lives. That’s why it costs an arm and a leg to insure 18-21 year old male drivers (and an arm to insure females of that age).
Of course, that’s easy for me to say since I was in that small window where 18 was the legal drinking age in Texas.
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The change in law has increased drunk diving, so it actually kills lives.
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Tell that to MADD.
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James Buchanan-kind of like the President who did nothing and watched the Civil War start?
Don’t know where you get your ridiculous info? Internet? Drinking buddies? That nonsense couldn’t be further from the truth.
http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/feweryoungdrivers/iv_what_caused.htm
Look at figures 32 and 33 in section G about 75% of the way through the document that show the decline. There’s a lot of good info throughout the report, but those figures are the effective “executive summary.” The 21 year old drinking laws save lives.
There’s a chart out there I couldn’t quickly find, but the dropoff in teen deaths in auto accidents is dramatic starting with the change in the drinking laws. Don’t remember exactly, but I think the average was about 5,000! lives saved a year in the US.
You could argue that as an 18 year old adult you should be free to drink, and with the bad judgement college kids often have, break the law and kill yourselves and others, but I think its a reasonable trade-off.
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“Sorry, the page you requested could not be found.”
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http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/feweryoungdrivers/iv__what_caused.htm#a.%20minimum
Effects of the Laws
The effects of drinking age law changes on traffic crashes, injuries, and fatalities have been studied extensively. These effects are relatively easy to evaluate for several reasons. Each law applied to all drivers in an entire state as of a specific date, so crash results can be compared within the state, before and after the law, and with other states that did not change their law at the same time. Each reduction or increase in a state’s drinking age provided a new opportunity to evaluate effects. Finally, evaluations can use large traffic crash data files. In particular, FARS has provided uniform national data on fatal crashes since 1975.
The United States General Accounting Office (1987) reviewed and synthesized results from all 49 studies that had adopted MLDA 21 by 1986. They concluded that “raising the drinking age has a direct effect on reducing alcohol-related traffic accidents among youths affected by the laws, on average, across the states” and that “raising the drinking age also results in a decline in alcohol consumption and in driving after drinking for the age group affected by the law.” They note that the traffic accident studies they reviewed were high-quality. While the studies used different evaluation methods, they produced “remarkably consistent” results. Additional studies since 1986 have reached the same basic conclusions (Toomey, Rosenfeld, and Wagenaar, 1996).
Two recent studies deserve special note. O’Malley and Wagenaar (1991) used FARS and Monitoring the Future data to investigate how the MLDA affects youth drinking and youth drinking and driving. They compared states with a MLDA of 21 to states with a lower MLDA (during the years before all states raised their MLDA to 21). They also compared behavior in states that changed their MLDA and states that did not. Among their conclusions:
* High school seniors drank more in MLDA 18 states than in MLDA 21 states.
* High school senior drinking decreases throughout the 1980s were not due solely to increasing the MLDA � drinking also decreased in states with MLDA 21 throughout the 1980s.
* After controlling for sex, race, parent education, urbanicity, and region of the country, the MLDA remained a significant predictor of alcohol use: high school seniors drank less if the MLDA was 21 than if it was lower.
* Even after they reached the age of 21, persons in MLDA 21 states drank slightly less than persons in MLDA 18 states.
* MLDA 21 reduced traffic crashes, and this is directly the result of lower alcohol consumption.
In short, O’Malley and Wagenaar conclude that MLDA 21 laws reduce alcohol consumption, which in turn reduces crashes, and there is a carryover effect even after persons reach the age of 21.
Voas, Tippetts, and Fell (1999) use FARS data for all states from 1982 to 1997 to estimate and compare the effects of MLDA 21, zero tolerance, and other traffic safety laws (per se, administrative license revocation, and safety belt use). They find substantial effects for both MLDA 21 and zero tolerance laws.
Reasons for the Effects
The evidence reviewed briefly above shows unequivocally that MLDA 21 laws reduce youth drinking and driving, as measured by traffic crash involvements. But the way in which MLDA 21 laws have produced these results may not be completely straightforward. The laws make it illegal for youth to purchase, possess, or consume alcohol (individual state laws differ in precisely what they prohibit). But, much as national prohibition did not stop drinking, MLDA laws have not eliminated alcohol use by youth: the data in Section IIIC show that most youth drink, and a majority drink at least monthly.
The basic method for implementing MLDA 21 laws is for anyone selling, serving, or otherwise providing alcohol to a young person to verify the person’s age. Retail establishments (liquor, grocery, and convenience stores; restaurants, bars, taverns, sports arenas, etc.) can require that identification be checked. Still, many do not: for example, a 1991 study found that 97 out of 100 liquor outlets in Washington, DC sold alcohol to 17- and 18-year olds (Preusser and Williams,1991). In areas where identification is checked regularly, many youth have responded by acquiring false identification cards. Verifying a young person’s age at parties and other informal gatherings is considerably more problematic. In all settings, identification checking is done most effectively when some organization (retail establishment, college, private club) is responsible for selling or providing alcohol and when that organization faces a substantial legal liability if they serve underage youth. But even then, false identification can subvert the MLDA.
Wolfson, Wagenaar, and Hornseth (1995) investigated MLDA enforcement in 1992. They interviewed law enforcement officers in four states (Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, and Oregon) regarding underage drinking, MLDA enforcement, and community attitudes regarding underage drinking. The officers reported that MLDA enforcement is not a community priority; indeed, they found a general acceptance of youth drinking in their communities. They reported that most underage drinkers obtained their alcohol from legal-age purchasers. When youth were arrested for MLDA violations, the officers felt that the penalties were light and were applied unevenly, so had little deterrent value. Impaired driving violations, on the other hand, were procedurally simpler to enforce and the penalty of a driver’s license suspension or revocation was an effective deterrent. Overall, the officers felt that drinking and driving by youth had decreased in their communities over the past decade but that drinking by youth had not.
Conclusions
MLDA 21 laws clearly reduced youth drinking and driving. They appear to have done so both by reducing youth drinking directly and by encouraging youth to separate their drinking from their driving.
MLDA 21 laws reduced youth drinking both by reducing alcohol availability and by establishing the threat of punishment for alcohol use. Neither works particularly well in practice, as youth still can obtain alcohol relatively easily and underage drinkers are highly unlikely to be detected and punished. But both have had some effect.
But MLDA 21 laws probably had other effects beyond the straightforward prohibition and attempted punishment of alcohol use by youth. As listed in Chapter IIIB, 11 states have had MLDA 21 laws since the repeal of prohibition. These states also saw substantial reductions in youth drinking and driving after drinking in the 1980s. Furthermore, youth driving after drinking decreased more than youth drinking.
This suggests that MLDA laws may have helped influence youth attitudes about drinking and driving. The principal reason for raising the drinking age to 21 was to reduce traffic crashes. Some youth and some parents may have consciously or unconsciously absorbed some of these beliefs: that youth drinking is not a problem unless it results in dangerous actions, of which by far the most dangerous is drinking and driving. Underage drinking is generally accepted, but underage drinking and driving is not. The widespread debate over the legal drinking age also may have had some “spillover” effect in states where MLDA 21 was already in place.
However, the observations that youth drinking and driving decreased substantially more than youth drinking, and that youth drinking and driving after drinking both decreased in states which had MLDA 21 laws throughout the 1980s, suggest that MLDA 21 laws were not the only influence on youth drinking and driving during this period.
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Virginia had much of the outflow problem, but solved it by gradually upgrading Virginia Tech into a large-sized #2 (a far cry from its days as Virginia Polytechnic Institute), with William & Mary as a liberal arts-oriented #2a. Over in Maryland, College Park has become more selective, and UMBC in Catonsville may develop into the #2 public institution; it’s battling Towson for that honor. In New Jersey, the College of New Jersey (formerly Trenton State) has built itself into a poor man’s W&M, and probably has the #2 public status over Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-Camden.
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W&M and maybe VTech are seen as more prestigious than UIC, but I wouldn’t say the rest are.
UIC is a fine #2 as long as they can build some school spirit. It is an urban school, however. You’re not going to get that idyllic New-England-style liberal arts campus (or even B10 campus) feel there. However, it _is_ located in a vibrant city and should be able to sell that. NYU went from being a school for rich kid rejects who couldn’t get in to CUNY to an Ivy-equivalent in a generation mostly due to being in the heart of NYC. UIC is public, but if the money’s there, it should be able to recruit well.
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I recall when UIC fielded ice hockey and was part of the CCHA. Is its arena still home to the WNBA’s Chicago Sky?
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William and Mary might actually be the most selective state school in Virginia, even over UVA. This is anecdotal, but I know a very bright teen-ager who applied to both schools and was disappointed to “only” get into UVA. (I’m sure she’ll be quite fine in life given her aptitude and that UVA is truly an excellent school.) W&M was her dream school. I suppose it has the luxury of being more selective because of its small student body.
My understanding, vp, has been that Virginia has one of the finest state university systems in the U.S. In addition to UVA, William and Mary, and the much-improved Virginia Tech, its regional universities like James Madison, Mary Washington, and Old Dominion stack up very well in reputations with those of other states. Why do you suppose there is an outflow problem?
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@Michael in Raleigh – Yes, my impression is that Virginia actually has one of the strongest top-to-bottom offerings of public institutions of any state. UVA and William & Mary are legitimately elite schools, Virginia Tech is strong in engineering, schools like James Madison and ODU are far better than what would be directional schools in other states, and even the commuter-type schools like George Mason have solid reputations. The Washington Post article that I linked to in the post stated that Virginia actually had a net inflow of 3,000 students, while Maryland had a net drain of 8,600.
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Doesn’t hurt that William & Mary is one of the oldest schools in the country and was at one time considered on par with any Ivy (and is now considered a public ivy). Its not like the Virginia legislature has some amazing foresight to create multiple top-shelf schools.
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If there is an outflow problem in Virginia, it’s among the top students in northern Virginia who find it difficult to get into UVa, W&M or Tech because of in-state quotas. Many of them wind up at other state flagships or private schools on the level of Wake Forest, Lafayette or Bucknell because there’s no room for them in-state.
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Let’s be clear here. The pecking order among Virginia public national universities is UVA, W&M, VT, GMU, VCU, and ODU. And then there are a few good regional universities like James Madison and Mary Washington. And, of course, there are some excellent private schools like Washington & Lee and Richmond.
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One problem I recall discussed on the news in Indiana was that state schools’ admission standards had become lighter for out-of-state residents than for in-state residents. This may be something that has happened for several schools, but the focus was on IU. The problem stems for the fact that IU could make more money from an out-of-state student from the east coast, an increasing source for new students, than it can for in-state students.
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That also applies for W&M, UVa and Tech.
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TCNJ has improved a lot and that helps but it will never be big enough to stop the outflow of students. The current idea is to improve and expand Rowan to give South Jersey a good large public school. There was plans to combine Rowan, Rugters – Camden, and UMDNJ’s School of Osteopathic Medicine, but political pressure stopped Rowan from taking control of Rugters – Camden.
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Too bad politicians in Ohio are not advocating for Cincinnati (a fine research institution with quality athletics). Kudos to him for looking out for his constituency.
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How many schools is the state supposed to advocate for? They’ve already got OSU-Columbus and Miami that clearly outrank UC, and OU is on par or better than UC. Not to mention the OSU-regionals and the other state MAC schools, and that’s just the big schools.
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So Ohio is supposed to just tell Cincinnati to piss off because they have other universities to worry about? Do a little research. Cincinnati is the second largest university in the state and garners over $400M in research funding a year. The economic impact of the university is $3.5B a year– much larger than those MAC schools and OSU-branch colleges you mention.
As far as academic ranking goes, other than Miami Cincinnati is ahead of all of those MAC schools by most rankings.
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Poster X,
“So Ohio is supposed to just tell Cincinnati to piss off because they have other universities to worry about?”
Right, that’s what the state has been doing. They advocate for all of them, but that’s a lot of schools so no one school gets a ton of attention. They advocate for OSU more because it is the state flagship and the desired destination for tens of thousands of students. They advocate for the regionals because they serve some very particular needs in specific areas.
“Cincinnati is the second largest university in the state”
1. Last I looked, Kent State is actually bigger if you count all its campuses.
2. So? There are 11 large (all over 14k enrollment) state schools in Ohio. All of them get advocated.
“and garners over $400M in research funding a year.”
Due, in part, to advocacy by the state. Your own evidence shows the school is doing fine, so why are you complaining?
“As far as academic ranking goes, other than Miami Cincinnati is ahead of all of those MAC schools by most rankings.”
Yes, like I said. OSU is way ahead, then come Miami, then OU/UC. I mentioned the others as schools that also deserve advocacy.
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Agree that Ohio should force OSU to get UC into the Big Ten. It would be best for the state – if Indiana and Michigan have 2 Big Ten schools, Ohio certainly should have 2 as well. UC’s focus on education instead of sports and being paid for by the city instead of the state hurt it in these areas.
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Mark,
“Agree that Ohio should force OSU to get UC into the Big Ten.”
1. OSU is 1 vote out of 14, and 10 are needed for further expansion. No other presidents are dumb enough to support it. OSU literally can’t get UC into the B10.
2. That would be against OSU’s interests, so the state would really want to think twice before forcing anything.
“It would be best for the state”
Would it? OSU would lose money. The B10 would lose prestige. The B10 would be forced to add a 16th mouth to feed, too.
” – if Indiana and Michigan have 2 Big Ten schools, Ohio certainly should have 2 as well.”
They were added when it made sense to add a second school from the same state. Times have changed and it’s now a stupid idea.
“UC’s focus on education instead of sports”
OK.
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The issue with UC is the history. Originally a private school, it was the Duke of Ohio and had both a strong tech side and a strong liberal arts side. It was the college for the prominent families in the area to send their kids to instead of a Vanderbilt or Northwestern due to closer proximity. Founded in 1819 – Ohio State was founded in 1870 – it is both old and large. In 1906 it created the world’s first cooperative education program in Engineering. This type of education has since been copied by many AAU schools.
In the late 60’s – looking for more research funding – UC went from a private school to a “state affiliated” school. This process reached completion when UC became an official state school in 1977. The school grew from 12,000 students to around 45,000 during this time (roughly 4x increase) and continued to excel on the non research side. UC’s DAA and CCM are some of the Top 5 programs in the country. They have a good med school and law school (one of the oldest in the country) where President Taft graduated from.
With state integration UC was saddled with “U College” that was the lower end of the education spectrum while promised research funding – part of the reason to leave private school status – never came. That money always seemed to find it way to Ohio State and such luminary talent as Neil Armstrong left UC for Purdue and other B1G schools. If UC does not have the full academic research credentials it once did, most of that blame can be laid at the feet of Ohio State not wanting to share with the new public school.
While I argued early on on this blog for UC’s addition to B1G status I have since altered my stance because of the overlapping markets argument. While no longer advocating UC’s admission to the B1G at this time, the least the Buckeyes could do is keep the promise from the 1960’s and 1970’s to fund UC equally from a research dollars standpoint. Just like U Chicago has flourished leaving the B1G to focus on academics, U Cincinnati should do the same with the assistance of Ohio State and not hindrance from them.
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Agree that Ohio should force OSU to get UC into the Big Ten…
Which they cannot do, any more than Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Maryland can force the Big Ten to take a second school from their states.
Pennsylvania would have the best argument, because it has the best school (Pitt) that is in the Big Ten footprint, and meets the Big Ten’s athletic and academic criteria. But Pitt ain’t getting in, and neither is Cincinnati.
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Illinois first needs to get AAU status for a second state public university. With Illinois budget issues that is not likely. Even if this were possible, the second school is not likely to have much value to the B1G. I doubt MSU would have been invited post 1990. If Northwestern was not already in, it would not have even got a look when MSU was invited.
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” If Northwestern was not already in, it would not have even got a look when MSU was invited.”
Except that around the time MSU was invited, NWU was a recent Rose Bowl participant and actually decent as a program.
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If the model for expansion is new markets with large population bases then of course no way another Illinois school gets into the BIG. If the older model of geographic fit and good academics then yeah Cincinnati would be a great fit. I am sure ADs hate to see a conference footprint too far spread out for Oly sports. Way too much Ohio legislative power is concentrated in Columbus with ties to OSU, and none of them want any competition from Cincinnati.
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Deservedly or not, Cincinnati’s academic reputation in Ohio and the B1G is quite low. Miami of Ohio is much more highly thought of, and rightly so, and it would be a more likely candidate.
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“Deservedly or not, Cincinnati’s academic reputation in Ohio and the B1G is quite low. Miami of Ohio is much more highly thought of, and rightly so, and it would be a more likely candidate”
No.
Cincinnati’s chance of being in the Big Ten in the next 20 years is probably less than 1/100th of one percent. Miami of Ohio’s chance is straight up 0.
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Actually, the chances of either school bring in the Big Ten in the next 20 years is straight up zero.
Ohio Stadium will rise like a transformer and destroy all those who attempt to get either in the Big Ten. Indeed, the likelihood of the Horseshoe turning into a transformer is actually higher then wither Miami (of Ohio) or Cincy joining the Big Ten.
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Yeah, my odds for Cincinnati getting in are solely based on the scenario in which a nucelar accident occurs in Columbus rendering the town unlivable, and the school is forced to shut down. Plus, the Bearcats somehow win a national title as an AACK! member at about that same time.
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It would be too risky for OSU to be working on that Horseshoe Transformer project, so its Battelle working on it.
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CincyMan,
“If the model for expansion is new markets with large population bases then of course no way another Illinois school gets into the BIG. If the older model of geographic fit and good academics then yeah Cincinnati would be a great fit.”
UC’s academics don’t come close to meeting the B10 standard for acceptance.
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“If the older model of geographic fit and good academics then yeah Pitt would be a great fit”
Fixed.
Granted, I know that UCincy was supposedly well-regarded in the past in several fields (and still are, from what I understand).
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Their are a bunch of misinformed people on this topic. Cincinnati is not a terrible academic school. There are 34 programs thare ranked in the top 50 in the nation, inlcuding Industrial Design (#1 in the country), Interior Design (#3), Architecture (#6), Criminal Justice (#3) and various programs in the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music that rank anywhere from #1-#6 in the nation. The UK Times ranks the school 28th among public universities in the country while the US News and Report ranks in #66 amongst public universities.
In regard to the invitation to the B10, I agree that is not forthcoming. Ohio State does not want another school in the state in the conference. They want everyone in the state to be an Ohio State fan and to give all of their loyalty and money to Brutus.
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Poster X,
“Their are a bunch of misinformed people on this topic. Cincinnati is not a terrible academic school.”
It depends what scale you are measuring them on. Compared to B10 schools, yes they are terrible. Compared to all large state schools, they’re not terrible.
“Ohio State does not want another school in the state in the conference.”
Nobody in the B10 wants to add another OH school. It would add $0 and just be another mouth to feed.
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Then again, SUNY Buffalo is well regarded in academics and research (AAU member). Yet, Cincy will get an invite to the B1G before Buffalo would.
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Wainscott,
“Yet, Cincy will get an invite to the B1G before Buffalo would.”
No, they wouldn’t. Buffalo at least offers a small new market. That should get them in at least the day before hell freezes over which is when UC would get in.
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Of the two, neither will ever get in. But Cincy is ahead because it has actually had some measurable athletic success in multiple sports.
The Buffalo market is not relevant to the Big Ten in any way, certainly not enough to trump the complete absence of any athletic success and tradition.
But since neither school is ever getting invited to join the B1G, its purely academic.
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Wainscott,
“But Cincy is ahead because it has actually had some measurable athletic success in multiple sports.”
It would have to have the AL football program and Duke hoops combined to get in because they add $0 by market.
“The Buffalo market is not relevant to the Big Ten in any way, certainly not enough to trump the complete absence of any athletic success and tradition.”
They can become decent in sports faster than UC can add a market. If UB got good at something, they could add a lot of western NY in combination with PSU. Especially if SU slips.
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Cincy would definitely have to become a Duke/Alabama superpower.
Buffalo is meaningless to the B1G. the markets up there are not that large and not growing. Cincy’s bleed into Kentucky is probably more compelling, as PSU probably does just as much in western NY as Syracuse does.
UB does have legit academics/researching its corner. But its athletics are so far from B1G that Cincy looks like Rockne’s Fighting Irish by comparison.
“They can become decent in sports faster than UC can add a market. If UB got good at something, they could add a lot of western NY in combination with PSU. Especially if SU slips.”
True, but Cincy could just as easily become the aforementioned athletic superpower before UBuffalo even makes the new CFB playoff.
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Before any of that happens, UIC will start a football team and DOMINATE the FBS playoffs.
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And dominate the Frozen Four.
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And dominate the CWS.
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Um, wouldn’t UIC need to have a football program to even be considered by the B1G?
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I took a quick look at your link to the destinations of students heading to Texas.
Baylor University 49
Rice University 19
SMU 38
TCU 57
Looks like Rice is hurt in their name recognition by not being in a major conference. And I was quite surprised to see Tulane (area school closest to a Rice peer) at 87.
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Well, Rice is also much smaller than those others.
I remember when I was in HS (in IL) that the Rice desk was swarmed by prospective students when we held college fairs because it had recently been named the best college for your money or something like that.
BTW, Tulane is known as a fun place to party (while being a respectable school). Rice, not so much.
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Also, kids who would be interested in applying to/going to Rice are likely to have the qualifications for admission into UI-UC’s elite engineering and sciences program, getting a Rice-level education at an in state price.
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@loki_the_bubba – From what I’ve observed anecdotally, Tulane has always been on the radar for Chicago students with the combo of solid academics and the New Orleans location. I’m not sure why Rice isn’t higher up there. As I’ve noted, Vandy is fairly popular with Illinois students in terms of “Magnolia League”-type schools. One factor might be that Northwestern, the University of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis are also competing with the same pool of students as Rice, which are all much closer distance-wise and are natural draws for Illinois natives.
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Rice isn’t known for its social scene. Traditionally, it’s been quite male and known more for it’s science and engineering.
It’s also fairly tiny.
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Part may be that Texas is just off the radar. People in the Midwest gravitate towards Florida or the east. The Rice caliber students may tend to go to eastern privates or the more “local” schools Frank mentioned-NW, Chicago, Washington U.
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I wouldn’t say that’s true. However, Texas has a ton of students.
Unlike the myriad of schools in the Midwest and Northeast (2 regions that have have a ton of schools of all types and declining HS enrollment), schools in TX don’t really feel a need to recruit from elsewhere.
BTW, Katrina sending a ton of people out of the area may have something to do with Tulane drawing so many out-of-staters as well.
Metro Houston is over 5 times the size as metro Nawlins but Rice’s undergraduate student body is less than half the size of Tulane’s.
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Richard – when I attended Tulane Law School in the 90s, the whole campus was about 80% OOS, 20% Louisiana.
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Houston being ten times the size of New Orleans isn’t that big a factor. Riuce got rid of the local quotas decades ago, even if they were just informal. Going through the campus it seems, in some odd way, that Rice skipped over being a national university and went from regional to international some time in the last thirty years.
And like Illinois, Texas needs some more high end public schools. But the legislature put a carrot out there for schools like Texas Tech, Houston, and UT-Dallas to grab for.
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Loki:
It’s not the quotas. It’s that for such a small school with such a big international reputation, there are more than enough Texans (and internationals) to fill the student body with high quality students. So unlike WashU or Oberlin, Rice really doesn’t have to recruit nationally.
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Rice has less students going to it because it is more selective and smaller. I doubt many if any of the Illinois Baylor students are turning down Rice to go to Baylor unless they are getting a full ride to Baylor.
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@Frank:
Good post, but you should address the political question of why UI-UC would just sit back and let Illinois politicians spend hundreds of millions on building up another school without a fight? UIUC has a deep alumni base and (presumably) high-priced and effective lobbyists. The school will fight tooth and nail to get any additional monies out of the relevant legislative committees and try to strangle this idea in its crib.
For any wannabe 2nd major public university, the best path is actually to invest heavily in athletics, specifically football and basketball. The marketing power that those sports bring, with success, are simply unparalleled. Success will lead to a surge in applications (Florida Gulf Coast U had I think 6-8k more applicants this past year based off its tourney run last year; NWU set a record for applicants in the fall of 1996 (post Rose Bowl) that was only broken a few years ago when it switched to the common application).
If, say, SIU (or another Illinois public school) wants to become that school, the best way to do it is to get some wealthy alumni to give big money (its not gonna come from the state) to lure top coaches/young coaches with potential and build a program in football and men’s basketball. With greater athletic success will be the best earned media to attract students, allowing the school to slowly become more selective and as a result , improve academic quality. Even with this, for the reasons Frank mentioned, the odds of admission to the B1G are zero, but it will serve the broader point of establishing a second major state university. This applies to all public universities in the state. If EIU or ISU or some other state school wanted to do this, it could reap the rewards (minus B1G membership) if done right.
Michigan State’s history is instructive, as the president at the time, John Hannah, pushed very hard to get the school admitted to the B1G after Chicago left, knowing that the increased exposure will help grow the school. Its not a stretch to say that the school is where it is now (a major research university) in large part of the earned media from the 1950’s and 1960’s football championships, along with the decades of basketball success, which enticed loyal alumni to give to the school, helped attract applicants and faculty excited to help build a school up from a regional agricultural school to the second major school in the state.
Bottom line: Frank’s twins are not going to have a second UI-UC level school in state to choose from. Maybe Frank’s grandkids will. And there will not be a third Illinois school in the Big Ten Conference.
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UIC, which, research-wise, is in the same tier as FSU, ISU, NCSU, VTech, Tennessee, and Miami (according to ARWU) and is higher than AAU members KU, Mizzou, and Brandeis as well as ND, is best poised to take advantage of a strong sports program. The B10 could assist here (with NCAA cooperation) by taking UIC as an affiliate member in, say, hockey (they could take other branch campuses as well). These other schools could drop down to DivIII in everything else, but that would require the NCAA to allow it (or a split with the NCAA).
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@Richard:
My read of the meaning of this proposal is to make a second Illinois public school as a full-fledged member of the B1G, I don’t see adding UIC as an affiliate in one sport having much of an impact in that regard, because it would get referred to as a Big Ten school only in the context of that individual sport. Much like Johns Hopkins is only mentioned as a B1G school when discussing men’s lacrosse.
Affiliate membership would not have the same meaning and impact as full membership.
As for full membership, since UIC does not offer football, it has to be a non-starter for the B1G, without even considering the quality of its other athletic programs.
Also. UIC’s AAU status is low, and KU and Brandeis are on record knowing they have to improve its status in the AAU to avoid UNL’s fate.
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Oh, I don’t think that UIC has any chance of becoming a full B10 member, however, when you say UIC’s AAU status is low, what are you comparing them to? Other schools in the AAU? Sure. However, compared to all the schools who are outside the AAU, UIC looks to be in the tier of schools that have a chance of entering the AAU in the next several decades. After all, there has been talk about FSU and VTech and Tennessee (and UK, which is even lower rated) being potential AAU candidates, but UIC has just a good a candidacy as those schools.
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I was comparing it to other AAU schools. To me, that’s a critical metric since the AAU has already kicked out one member and was poised to boot a second (Syracuse, who resigned instead) for lackluster performance according to AAU criteria. Further, Kansas’ own leadership has publicly mentioned its need to improve in AAU criteria soon in order to avoid UNL’s fate, and Brandeis is trying to beef up its research efforts, too.
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I also disagree that being an affiliate member in one sport wouldn’t be enough. Hockey at UIC could be like hockey at Coorado College and RPI, lacrosse at JHU, or basketball at Marquette or VCU. The key thing is providing a sense of school spirit, and one sport, so long as you’re good at it, would be enough.
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As an aside, UIC dropped their hockey program back in 1996, so they don’t really have any sport that would be compelling for the Big Ten to add as an affiliate member.
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Affiliates do not claim the same sort of membership mantle as full members, both in reality and in public perception. Nobody refers to Boise State as a Pac 12 member because of its wrestling program’s Pac 12 affiliate membership. Nobody considers San Diego State as a Pac 12 member, even though it is for men’s soccer.
Also, affiliate membership is a brand new phenomenon for the B1G, and only exists because the affiliate member is an academic powerhouse located in a major east coast city previously devoid of B1G membership that excels in the very sport where the conference needed a 6th member (not to mention, is a major rival of new member UMd). JHU was added because it is JHU. UIC, for all its academic merits, is simply not JHU.
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“As an aside, UIC dropped their hockey program back in 1996, so they don’t really have any sport that would be compelling for the Big Ten to add as an affiliate member.”
For now.
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“For now.”
There is no remotely compelling case for UIC on athletics. They do not play football. They do not play hockey . Their basketball is not useful for the Big Ten. Even if they added hockey, they would lack any tradition to make a compelling affiliate member. And at the end of the day, again, they do not play football, the only sport relevant to conference expansion.
Academically, they have the largest endowment by far of all other state public universities other than UIUC. Their student body size would be larger than UNL and NWU, and by default, it is the second best research public university in the state. If this were an athletic powerhouse, and there was real political muscle for Illinois legislators to somehow be able to force another school in the conference, then UIC might be a good option. But they are not athletically relevant for the conference and don’t play critical sports.
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For now.
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And forever
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Wainscott, these are Democrats. They think with the little head, not the big head.
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Matt Murphy and Michael Connelly, who proposed the legislation, are Republicans. I guess I can always count on conservatives to be ignorant.
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Colin Meyer says:
March 24, 2014 at 7:10 pm
Wainscott, these are Democrats. They think with the little head, not the big head.
I guess you’re talking about Republicans as well since Ohio is predominantly Republican as far as power. Ooops! I guess you guys think with the little head as well.
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FtT:
“Note that I actually live in Naperville, but the applicable representative (Michael Connelly) doesn’t represent the portion of town that I live in.”
Point of pride?
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Frank,
California suffers a much larger exodus than Illinois, due to the failure of the UC system expansion to keep pace with the growth in population, especially of qualified HS students from the tech heavy areas. Most folks are unaware that California lacks a mega campus, and that the UC schools UG populations range from 18,000 (Santa Barbara) to 28,000 (UCLA), most in the low 20s. (Riverside and Santa Cruz have poor reputations and most students reject admissions to those schools). The other problem is the Engineering schools are small in the UC System (except Davis) and so very few technical students are graduated. The result is Californians are a very large chunk of schools throughout New England (5th largest contingent after Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania at WPI and RPI, similar at Delaware). It’s not much more difficult to get into Brown or Cornell than it is to get into Berkeley as a result of the tight admissions. The State has continually tightened admission to a point where it can no longer even meet that current top 8% of graduates from HS.
Politics of the left for whatever reason favors elitism in education, and a de-emphasis on tech degrees. The result has been a huge gaps between the UC system and the CSU system, which is not residential excepting Cal Poly, creating a huge exodus to out of state residential schools, especially for technical majors. It amazes me that a state with a lower percentage of college ready students than Texas, which has about 75% the number of HS students, sends almost five times as many out of State.
Texas is really the State California should compare itself too, since we both have about 45-50% Hispanic populations in K-12 (Texas graduates a much higher percentage, and about half are college ready compared to a miserable 20% range in California — we have issues below the college level in California), and large populations, and rapid growth. Unfortunately the focus of Sacramento has been on Michigan, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Illinois, States that lack the growth and have much different demographics. I think its an anti Southern bias, bordering on insanity. But even so they do not understand the need for a 2nd tier residential system, schools like Miami (Ohio), William & Mary, James Madison, and the SUNY system (privates make up the top tier in NY). If a half dozen CSU schools were upgraded to have some research, higher admission standards like those at Cal Poly, and take more non-local (as opposed to the local region first) students, and expand and improve the residential facilities, we could solve the problem in five years at a much lower cost than opening two or three new UC campuses with their massive overhead. It’s insane that we maintain 6 campuses at tax payer expense at AAU standards, and none of them even have 30,000 undergrads.
Anyway, as bad as things are in Illinois, the problem causes a loss in potential residential students that sends about $3-4 Billion a year out of state (BOE calculation figuring about $30,000 a year average tuition per residential student after typical partial scholarships and grants who are out of state). Sure half of that cannot be recaptured – you still go to Harvard if you get in – but the other half could help the economy, at least in college towns.
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So, which other states have the problem that Illinois and New Jersey do? I haven’t seen the data, but I’d expect New York, which has two AAU publics (Buffalo and Stony Brook), neither of which are sexy schools. As you noted, there are very good private schools in New York, but once you start talking private school, better students are probably not going to confine their search to just one state.
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However, UC-Berkeley and UCLA’s relatively modest sizes are part of the reason why those 2 schools are so elite. Make them as huge as OSU, and it’s going to be harder to maintain the same quality of student body.
Also, Cal has 26K undergrads & UCLA has 26.8K undergrads vs. 38.5K undergrads at UT-Austin while UCI, UCSD, UC-Davis, and UCSB (all AAU) add up to a ton more undergrads than A&M, so it certainly doesn’t look like CA doesn’t provide enough slots for the top and 2nd-tier students in CA to my eyes.
Finally, “de-emphasis on tech degrees” . . . huh? UC-Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD are all known as fine institutions in technology.
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Part of the exodus can be something as simple as kids wanting to go and get a different college experience vs their upbringing. I mean, kids from NYC flock to Wisconsin and Indiana and Michigan, but few stay in Bloomington/Madison/Ann Arbor after graduation. Its merely to go and get a good education and have a different experience while young and able.
@Marc:
NY has a major problem in that regard. New York is a leading exporter of kids to other state universities. That’s partially due to NY politics/history (SUNY not having been formed until 1948, for starters) and the lack of a true massive flagship state school (a’la UC Berkeley/Michigan/Illinois etc…).
All you need to know about public universities in NYS is that the state’s lang grant college is actually Cornell, not one of the SUNY campuses (though, most of Cornell is actually state-supported. Its rather confusing).
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New York State definitely has a lot of people leaving, but it doesn’t seem to be as acute as neighboring New Jersey. Part of it is that private institutions like NYU and Syracuse are fairly large and draw in students that would probably have gone to flagships if they had lived in other states (and Cornell has the most Ivy League undergrads with over 13,000). There is also a large inflow of students from other states heading to schools in NYC specifically, so that balances the numbers more compared to a place like New Jersey.
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@Frank:
All true. I was referring only to the public schools in NYS. Private schools in NY, and multiple NYC schools, are magnets for national and international students. State leaders are trying to find ways to make the SUNY schools more attractive in order to compete for these kids, as well as instate kids who instead go to elsewhere.
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@FranktheTank Minnesota seems to have a similar dynamics where a #2 state academic school is needed. In 8 years when my 4th grader is going off to college it would be great to have an in-state public option to the University of Minnesota. The latest data (https://www.ohe.state.mn.us/pdf/ReciprocityDataOverview2014.pdf) shows over 28,000 students leave MN for schools in North Dakota, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, with only 14,000 students from those states coming to MN. The North Dakota D1 schools both boast MN residents exceeding 1/3 of their total student population.
Unlike Illinois there is not even an ounce of political thought going into the positives of having (or the negatives of not having) a clear #2 state university. At least that conversation will be attempted in Illinois (albeit without per diem funding of any sort).
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Texas is trying to develop a #3,#4,#5. They would like California’s problem. Although, unlike BBC’s description of California, many of the “state” universities are residential. Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston and Texas State all have reputations as “fun” schools.
Texas A&M was an 8,000 all male school in the mid-60s that was mediocre in all but a few fields of excellence. They grew and improved rapidly, especially under Robert Gates, and it has become a strong #2.
But Texas is trying to hold the line at 50,000 students, A&M was trying to hold it at 45,000 until Gov. Perry pushed them and now they are at mid-50s. A lot of good suburban students who aren’t in the top 10% can’t get into either one and are looking at out of state schools like LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma and Oklahoma St. We met the Georgia president on a recruiting trip to Houston a few years back. There’s one sorority at UGA my wife refers to as the “Texas” sorority. So while Texas doesn’t have the numbers leaving of other states, it is rapidly growing as Texas and Texas A&M get increasingly difficult to get into.
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Texas supports the development of more Tier I universities (not at the expense of their own $) as it will take some pressure off to increase its own enrollment to a level they don’t believe is sustainable (there is talk of 60-75k). As well, there is a research synergy with more top academics close by.
Athletics really is not necessary. UT-Dallas is pretty much viewed as the #3 university in the state despite being Division III. Its just that it is relatively small and not particularly residential. It benefits from being in the Telecom corridor in North Dallas/Richardson. I think its more the residential component that is needed to make the school a strong alternative. For that reason, Illinois State or SIU would have advantages over UI-Chicago. And Texas Tech has some advantages in Texas over Houston or UT-Dallas who are viewed as somewhat stronger academically (or the other schools they are pushing as potential Tier Is-UTSA, UTEP, UT-Arlington, North Texas).
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bullet: yeah, Texas needs to back up its plans with cash. Houston and UT-Arlington have both been working to get residential, but they’re a long ways off. As steep as the dropoff is between 1 and 2 in the UT system, it’s a sheer cliff in the A&M system. What’s the second-best A&M campus? Corpus Christi? And why are there so many university systems in Texas? That’s part of the problem right there.
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Well, UM-TC is huge for a state it’s size (and tuition is very reasonable).
Here are the biggest schools by enrollment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_university_campuses_by_enrollment
Other than ASU (which seems to take any warm body that applies), all of the other big schools are in much bigger states than MN.
So I reckon nobody feels like thre’s much of a need for a second-tier university.
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It seems that states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois that merge their ‘U’s and States end up with this political inertia towards having a second quality big university.
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Huh? What are you talking about? ISU is an independent institution in IL.
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http://deadspin.com/report-qatars-world-cup-expected-to-take-more-lives-t-1550257688
ITUC report believes that Qatar’s World Cup will kill 4000+ migrant workers.
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Considering when the AAC was considering expansion candidates, Tulsa, Southern Miss, UMass, and Rice (which would give the AAC a second school in Houston) were all higher on the priority list than Northern Illinois, I don’t think that another Illinois school has much of a shot of ever getting into the Big 10.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to invest the money to bring Southern Illinois into the MAC and then form a research coalition for the MAC that is akin to a junior CIC? The MAC CIC could even work with the actual CIC. Getting another Illinois school into the Big 10 is not going to happen. Getting a second Illinois school into the MAC and then turning the MAC into a Big 10 lite seems a lot more doable. While the MAC CIC isn’t going to rival the CIC/Big 10, it could at least make major improvements for its schools, especially if it was able to work with the CIC.
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@Jeffrey Juergens – Illinois State is probably the better step-up candidate from a purely athletic standpoint: they actually do have the school spirit that UIC doesn’t have and they’ve been looking at FBS football for quite awhile. If they moved up to FBS, they ought to be compelling for the MAC. They just have a harder road to raise academic standards compared to UIC (which is more of what I’m personally concerned about from a selfish future tuition-paying perspective).
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Either Illinois State or Southern Illinois getting into the MAC is infinitely more likely than a second Illinois school getting into the Big 10. Northern Illinois has certainly shown that you can get enough talent to an Illinois school to be very successful at the MAC level.
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I just don’t see ISU or SIU attracting more students by joining the MAC, however. Are there any kids who weren’t considering ISU/SIU saying to themselves “hey, I’ll go there because I’ll get to see some MACtion now!”
Realistically, UIC becoming good in a popular sport (right now, that would be only bball) and growing school spirit is the only way that a public IL school will become attractive enough to challenge Mizzou or Iowa for the interest of Chicagoland students who didn’t get in to UIUC.
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What I read was that the networks had no interest in any of the MAC schools.
Tulsa and Rice (and I believe UMass) also have larger budgets than the MAC schools.
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Shaka Smart the new Marquette head coach.
Will VCU get a new coach who can keep the program he built, or will VCU begin its slide back into irrelevance?
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Hook ’em
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BTW, I know that for teenagers who are unsure of their standing in the world, minute differences in perception of reputation and what not matter a lot, but once they get out in to the workforce, they’ll realize that no one cares whether they went to UIC or Loyola or Mizzou or Iowa or SLU or Rutgers. It’s almost all about individual talent & skills and what they can contribute.
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Except that the school you went to can in and of itself open doors and opportunities to new graduates unavailable to recent graduates of other schools .
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Sure. And from what I’ve seen (other than certain fields where a school is really good, like journalism at Mizzou), there’s no difference between UIC or Loyola or Mizzou or Iowa or SLU or Rutgers.
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Agreed. I graduated from Ohio State and I don’t really think that the same classes offered at Ohio State and Columbus State are really all that different.
Actually to be completely honest, I think the value of a lot of college education is being greatly over-valued anymore. Looking back, the math/physical science classes (my minor area) gave me some skills I’m happy to have, but that I only use to a limited degree while only a small handful of the education/social science classes really effected me much in any meaningful long term way. My guess is that in 20 years, this is going to catch up and you are going to see substantially fewer people going to college and despite the cries against that, I think it will be a good thing.
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It goes in cycles. Since the ’70’s, we have been in a period of increasing inequality & social strife where there has been a greater and greater return to education. We’re going to react an inflection point where it will go back in the other direction. Hopefully, it won’t be violent.
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I think there is a lot of training in ways to solve problems. Engineers often approach problems differently than accountants who approach problems differently than English majors who approach problems differently than law students.
You have to constantly update your knowledge and it gives you the base.
And if you get a good education, it causes you to evaluate and question your ideas and stimulates your thinking. It doesn’t have to change you, simply help you clarify things.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2014/03/17/college-basketballs-most-valuable-teams-2014-louisville-cardinals-on-top-again/
The most valuable MBB teams list from Forbes is out again.
1. Louisville $39.5M
2. Kansas $33M
3. Kentucky $32.5M
4. North Carolina $25.7M
5. Indiana $25.4M
6. Arizona $25.2M
7. Ohio State $22.9M
8. Wisconsin $21.1M
9. Syracuse $21M
10. Duke $18.9M
OSU is the only school in the top 10 of both the FB and MBB lists.
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Slam dunk!
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All kidding aside, this could actually be done: Northwestern Illinois State University.
The state of new York owns the Land Grant half of Cornell and NY almost bought Syracuse a couple of decades ago. If Northwestern went public it would blow away Cal-Berkeley and Georgia Tech.
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I’d be interested in reading these sort of academic profiles of other states as well.
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Illinois State has actually improved its academic reputation quite a bit over the years, while NIU made the short-sighted mistake of lowering their admission standards to increase enrollment, which ended up making it less desirable.
It might help UIC to change its name again so it develops more of its own identity.
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Big Ten has: headquarters in Chicago, Illinois who does nothing on the court/field anymore, Northwestern who has never done anything on the court/field and the University of Chicago as an academic partner. Needless to say, enough with the state of Illinois!!!!!
Moving on, lets just be realistic and admit that we suck as a major sports conference, but excel academically. There just aren’t enough willing “great recruits” (I have no interest in getting censored, read EXACTLY between the lines here) to ever bring football back. Basketball can be solved/improved with Connecticut and Kansas. Over time, bring Connecticut and Nebraska to AAU status and then have a complete CIC with 17 AAU members.
Best in academics? Check. (once UConn and Nebraska improve)
Win a National Title in Basketball 1-2 times a decade? Check.
= better than we have now and UNC is too Southern to ever make the leap which prevents Virginia as well.
Yes, people, Big Ten football is past tense. It’s never coming back in any major way. Ohio State has a once-in-thirty year fluke title in them going forward, but that’s it. Michigan has been cooked for a long time. Wisconsin and Michigan State aren’t any better than Notre Dame or Pittsburgh going forward. Nebraska is dead. Iowa and Illinois never truly lived. Rutgers and Penn State both with local recruits have a chance to win the Rose Bowl once every 20 years, but middle class and rich parents in the NE and East Coast are just now seeing the true brutality of football and will just put their kids in another sport and cease to care (much less care about college football) over the next 20-30 years. College football is incredibly savage at the highest level and has nothing to do with “college”. College basketball has a modicum of relation in so far as the coach is wearing a suit and you can see the players’ faces when they play.
To that point, football in general has reached its autumn years. Baseball once king got too boring/salaries became too much. Boxing once king got too corporate/rigged. Football now king will die from lawyer ball or people not wanting to watch an evolved human on HGH now in the year 2030 big and fast enough to basically be a car on the field running over humans and driving into walls. The size of football players is increasing exponentially to point where people will die on the field. To prevent that, the rules need to be changed which is just going to change the sport too much and make the entire circus seem as arbitrary as it has always been.
Want proof? Kickers who can kick the new harder extra points (coming soon!) will make more money than running backs. Well, excuse me, that’s if kicks are even allowed to happen by then (they are the plays which produce the most collisions other than goal-line stands).
We’ve all heard this extrapolation before, but it does speak to the main point that the Big Ten should see the writing on the wall and strive to more or less finish third in the new sport which will resemble football in 2050 while simultaneously occasionally actually winning a national championship in the second money sport (which may be the new national past time after football).
Or hell, aim for soccer and lacrosse as (I’ll say it) suburban parents simply won’t let Johnny take the high school field in shoulder pads against other football players who quite literally can give him a concussion at will within the rules of the sport we now call football. Anyway, Big Ten could dominate soccer and lacrosse for the next 10-20 years (or just compete head-to-head against the ACC for whatever those national titles would be worth). While we’re at it, lets strive to win national championships in hockey and wrestling as well. Football? Dead. Maybe Ohio State wins a national title in triple overtime every 30 years, but no other Big Ten team will come close to that type of “success” in the next 100 years. It would take bringing the “college” back to college football for the Big Ten to truly annually compete for national titles in football. The Big Ten should realize this considering how smart they are. Football, like sumo wrestling, is simply a matter of physics. Kentucky had a better recruiting class than 75% of the Big Ten coming off a 2-10 season last year. Ole Miss literally overnight produced an 8-win team in the SEC West on recruiting just a handful of local players. As mentioned colloquially, there just aren’t enough “good athletes” from which the Big Ten can recruit well-enough to win a National Title in football. Seriously, watch an SEC team get off the bus and then watch Illinois get off the bus. Boxing put in weight classes for this very occurrence. As Big Ten fans, we should stop trying to fight above our weight class in addition to stemming the prioritization of a sport which will one day cease to resemble itself.
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It’s quite obvious that you’ve paid zero attention to Northwestern football or any college basketball.
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I just feel bad this person spent so much time writing and editing this post.
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C’mon. Stop with the snark. We hold ourselves to a higher standard on this board. If you don’t have anything nice and/or constructive and/or interactive to say, just leave it be.
And, why “feel bad?”
Under the strong tone and rhetoric, Devo is just discussing what we all discuss. He’s in favor of Kansas and UConn being admitted to the B1G. Never gonna happen, Devo. 🙂
And then he/she makes many arguably valid points about the future of college sports. We have discussed many of those points in various posts on this board: demographics, race as it relates to college sports, future of football based on violence and injuries, use of performance enhancing drugs, ranking of sports in popularity and predictions as to how those rankings might change going forward, what the B1G should/should not do to “remain on top”, etc.
It is difficult responding to the post because of its very bleak outlook on the future of the B1G and B1G football and because many points are taking a 50-year look into the future. I do not subscribe to the bleakness presented and, really, who knows what will happen in 30-50 years.
Personally, the arc of popularity is a very interesting topic. People have been debating for decades why soccer has not caught on in the US despite practically every kid playing soccer. Why has boxing seemed to diminish so much in popularity? And has it really? Maybe in the 50s, it drew 5 million fans from a nation of 100 million people. Maybe it still draws 5 million fans, but that “popularity” has been swamped by the rising tide of population growth. Who knows. Then you have to consider the rise of “wrestling” and now ultimate fighting. The obituary for baseball has been written 1000 times, but the reports of its demise are premature.
I think a lot of it has to do with TV and quite specifically our evolving definition of “popular.”
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Except that he wasn’t talking about football only. In basketball, nothing needs to be “solved” and the future for B10 basketball (most Sweet Sixteen teams over the past 3 years by far) doesn’t look bleak at all. Given that fact, adding KU and UConn makes even less sense.
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Fair enough. The poster did raise the issue of the future of football as a sport which I think is legitimate issue to be pondered, even if its presented in a borderline hysterical way.
But the vast majority of the post consists of statements that are either factually incorrect or wild exaggerations/ assumptions (Big Ten is dead). Too many, in fact, to spend time rebutting them all, hence the bare dismissal with some snark added in.
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It was more of a typical sports fan’s post, with a lot of ranting, very little serious analysis, and many of the purported facts completely wrong or misleading.
Of course, the Internet is full of posts like that, but we normally don’t see a lot of that here.
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Football, like sumo wrestling, is simply a matter of physics
As compared to all those other sports that defy the fundamental laws of the universe?
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How’d you develop such a great curveball this offseason?
Once I learned how to not conserve angular momentum, it all fell into place.
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Devo,
“Big Ten has: headquarters in Chicago,”
True.
“Illinois who does nothing on the court/field anymore,”
They made the finals in 2005 and have been to the NCAA tourney 5 times since then. They made the Rose Bowl in the 2007 season. That’s not nothing.
“Northwestern who has never done anything on the court/field”
They’ve done a little on the field. I can’t defend their hoops team.
“and the University of Chicago as an academic partner.”
UI and NW are both tremendous academic schools, plus they add Chicago and the state for the BTN.
“Moving on, lets just be realistic and admit that we suck as a major sports conference,”
That’d be great if it was true, but it isn’t. We’re average among the P5 as a football conference, once of the best in hoops, and one of the best in non-revenue athletics. You must have a very high bar for sucking. No conference doesn’t suck by your definition.
“There just aren’t enough willing “great recruits” (I have no interest in getting censored, read EXACTLY between the lines here) to ever bring football back.”
Back from where and to where? And it’s OK to say black recruits if that’s what you mean. Demographics is a well-discussed topic on this blog.
“Basketball can be solved/improved with Connecticut and Kansas. Over time, bring Connecticut and Nebraska to AAU status and then have a complete CIC with 17 AAU members.”
NE go the boot. It’ll be near impossible to get them back in under the current rules since their medical school isn’t part of the Lincoln campus. UConn is miles away from gaining AAU status, and the AAU isn’t looking to grow. UConn would have to pass about 20 school aspiring to join already and another 20-30 current members to get in position to be invited.
“Best in academics? Check. (once UConn and Nebraska improve)”
We already are, assuming the Ivy League doesn’t count.
“Win a National Title in Basketball 1-2 times a decade? Check.”
That could happen now. We’ve been in 4 of the last 10 finals.
Finals appearances in the past decade:
B10 – 4
ACC – 4
SEC – 3
BE/AAC – 3
B12 – 2
P12 – 1
Other – 3
Besides, there’s more to being a good hoops conference than winning the tournament. UK winning it a lot doesn’t make the SEC a good hoops conference, it makes UK good at hoops.
“Yes, people, Big Ten football is past tense. It’s never coming back in any major way.”
OK. The oracle has spoken.
“To that point, football in general has reached its autumn years.”
Uh huh.
“The size of football players is increasing exponentially”
That word doesn’t mean what you think it means.
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Brian whipped Devo. Whipped him good.
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Brian,
Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa, Purdue, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Penn State, Rutgers, Michigan, Michigan State = will never win a National Championship in Football or Basketball
*What ever happened pre-World War One or pre-[censored] isn’t important. Nor do I subscribe to the derpspeak of “it’s a derp cycle”. According to the derp cycle theory posited by many B1G idealists on here, Army and UNLV are due.
Ohio State = will win a National Championship in football once every 30 years in triple OT
Kansas, Connecticut = will win a National championship in basketball once every 10-15 years
Illinois played in front of six people this year. Beating Cincinnati in a meaningless regular season game was the best thing they have done since falling on their face in the ’07 Rose Bowl/ ’05 Title Game. I didn’t forget about when Illinois played Northwestern on a mini-field at Wrigley. That was……… *searches for word to describe extreme embarrassment* …. exponential?
Second place in anything = means nothing
Sweet Sixteen = means nothing
Macaroni And Cheese Bowl = means nothing
You play to win the title! Coming close then deferring to a statistical trend for the conference doesn’t “prove” hunky dory. We’re not fine. The B1G sucks. We don’t win championships in either of the sports that matter. If Northwestern is valuable, then why they are they quitting? For that matter, why did our commissioner mention quitting/D3? Really healthy conference you got there, Brian. Seems to hinge on 1-2 lawsuits.
*South Park Cop Voice* “Nice”.
I care about national championships. If Illinois wins the Mario Kart Bowl every 10 years it doesn’t mean anything to me.
This article is about some political nonsense which has as much chance of happening as Jesus coming back. People come here is for real expansion news. Lets talk about that, Brian and Jeff.
One of you two geniuses name two realistic better expansion candidates.
criteria…
-Decent/good academics (hey Illinois can be proud of that, Brian)
-Large student body (hopefully Northwestern will quit soon to allow Missouri to join)
and most importantly…
-Strong likelihood of winning a national championship in football or basketball during the next 20 years.
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Devo,
“Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa, Purdue, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Penn State, Rutgers, Michigan, Michigan State = will never win a National Championship in Football or Basketball”
IN and MSU have multiple national titles in hoops and have decent odds of winning more. MI has 1 and almost got another only last season. NE, PSU and MI all have multiple football titles and decent odds of winning another one. When did this never clock start?
“Nor do I subscribe to the derpspeak of “it’s a derp cycle”.”
It sounds like you subscribe to a whole lot of derp, actually. Thanks ever so much for sharing it here.
“Kansas, Connecticut = will win a National championship in basketball once every 10-15 years”
UConn – 1999, 2004, 2011
KU – 1988, 2008
“Second place in anything = means nothing”
That tells me all I need to know about you.
“If Northwestern is valuable, then why they are they quitting?”
1. They aren’t quitting as far as I know.
2. Universities actually have value outside of winning national titles in FB and MBB. Apparently that is news to you.
“For that matter, why did our commissioner mention quitting/D3?”
Because he believes in the NCAA’s amateur model of athletics.
“I care about national championships.”
Good for you. I see a whole forest behind those 2 trees.
“People come here is for real expansion news.”
And excellent English, apparently.
“Lets talk about that, Brian and Jeff.”
There is more to this blog than just expansion, especially when there is very little going on in expansion.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10677441/massachusetts-minutemen-reach-agreement-leave-mid-america-conference-2015-season
UMass has to leave the MAC for FB after the 2015 season.
“One of you two geniuses name two realistic better expansion candidates.”
Nobody and no one. More mouths to feed isn’t a bonus. No good targets are available until GORs expire anyway.
“-Decent/good academics (hey Illinois can be proud of that, Brian)”
It’s a hell of a lot more important than sports.
“-Large student body (hopefully Northwestern will quit soon to allow Missouri to join)”
They aren’t quitting and they aren’t coming, respectively. Only an idiot would think that.
“-Strong likelihood of winning a national championship in football or basketball during the next 20 years.”
Since when is that a B10 criteria for expansion? Maybe the Devo conference uses that criterion, but the B10 sure doesn’t.
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Devo, go back either to Storrs and watch your Huskies gradually wither on the vine in the AAC (even Geno’s Evil Empire of women’s basketball eventually will devolve into a slightly stronger version of one-time powers Old Dominion or Louisiana Tech) or to Lawrence, where you can wave the wheat in the winter but do little else in the fall or spring.
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One of you two geniuses name two realistic better expansion candidates.
You forgot the most important possibility: the empty set.
The idea is NOT to expand with the two best candidates available. The idea is to expand only if there are two available candidates that meet your criteria. If not, you do nothing.
The Big Ten is not like the Big XII, which for a short time was down to eight schools and had no realistic choice BUT to expand, even if it took two sub-optimal schools in TCU and WV. The Big Ten is at 14, where they could remain happily for a long, long time.
I certainly think that athletic competitiveness is one factor they’d look for, but counting the number of likely basketball NCs is not the end of the discussion, nor even the beginning of it.
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“Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa, Purdue, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Penn State, Rutgers, Michigan, Michigan State = will never win a National Championship in…Basketball.”
Since 2000 (i.e., 15 seasons), current Big Ten teams have played on Monday night eight times and won two National Championships.
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Pretty much the only people who regard the B1G as the top academic conference are B1G alumni. ACC is the best and most people think Pac-12 is a close 2nd.
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Only if you look at the very top. No other FBS conference has the depth that the B10 has in academics; especially in research.
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When graduate researchers start playing sports that attract undergrads to make decisions on whether or not to attend that school, then maybe counting graduate research will be a good indicator of academic quality of a university. Until then, a university should be judged on what makes it a university – the undergraduate education – and the academic stats that the undergrads – who again, make the university – look for, namely the undergraduate rankings.
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And even there, the B10 keeps to a higher baseline standard than any other FBS league.
Are you seriously going to argue that Louisville is better than any B10 school?
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BTW, I know that many 20 year-olds have an overinflated sense of self, but no, the undergrads are not what makes a university. They may be what makes a college, but the research is what makes a university. Harvard without research is Amherst.
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JustSmithinIt,
“then maybe counting graduate research will be a good indicator of academic quality of a university.”
It’s a great indicator. The best faculty in STEM fields get the most research funding. That attracts other top faculty members as well as the top students. Or is it the elite athletics at MIT that draw in the undergrads?
“Until then, a university should be judged on what makes it a university – the undergraduate education”
Actually, you have that completely wrong. The term university has traditionally been used to designate research institutions and was once reserved for doctorate-granting research institutions. Undergrad education makes a college.
To look at it another way, the faculty are what really make it a university, and research funding is one of the main criteria for tenure in many fields.
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The Pac is very top heavy (Stanford, Cal, UCLA, UW, USC). UO and CU are decent, middle of the road schools. The bottom half is weaker than most, if not all, B1G schools (UA, ASU, Utah, OSU, WSU)
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“UO and CU are decent, middle of the road schools.”…decent, middle of the road AAU schools.
I’m not sure the PAC’s second tier as low as you think.
CU 33 world ranking. UA-78, ASU-79, UU-85t, OrSU-101to150 group, UO&WSU-201to300.
Purdue-57, tOSU-65, (Rutgers-67), Ind-85t, MSU-92, Iowa-101to150group, UNL-201-300.
Slightly below, but do you want to compare the top as closely?
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What ranking is that?
By top heavy, I mean the gap between he top and bottom schools in the conference is larger that the ACC and the B1G. The top schools in the PAC do eclipse the top B1G schools, though. Stanford tops NWU, and Cal tops Michigan.
But PAC also only has 8 AAU schools, vs 13 for the B1G.
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ARWU
http://www.shanghairanking.com/?universitySearch=Nebraska&x=0&y=0
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Why is this ranking system better than others?
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Wainscott:
Purely for research, it’s what people on here have settled on as the go-to ranking. What ranking would you suggest?
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US News or something not designed by foreigners to measure home country universities relative to those of other nations? And when was this decided as the go-to ranking metric?
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Wainscott:
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/your-annual-reminder-to-ignore-the-em-us-news-world-report-em-college-rankings/279103/
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I have no particular allegiance to US News, and certainly should not be relied on for selecting a college.
However, the ARWU methodology to me seems to narrow to draw broader conclusions from:
“ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Scientific, number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index – Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, and per capita performance with respect to the size of an institution.”
I’m not certain the relevance of the number of alumni and staff winning Nobels and Fields medals, or the number of articles published, and a broader emphasis on research.
It also only ranks a particular type of school, I mean, Dartmouth is not a research institution, but many still consider it among the top schools in the USA and the world. Same with Amherst, Williams, and the like. But since those are not research institutions, they are not on this list. Also,,Rockefeller University, which does not actually have any undergraduates, is ranked, as is UT Southwestern Medical Center. Moreover, even the rankings have some oddities (Vandy at 49, below UWashington, Wisco, Colorado; Arizona and Arizona State ranked above Rice, Emory unranked).
All rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. ARWU seems beneficial for a particular type of analysis and ranking. But to rely on it as gospel for drawing broader, overarching conclusions of school rank seems a bit much relative to the methodology.
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I agree different rankings measure different areas/focus. Consistency, reliability, etc are things US News lacks. I’m not stretching much to suggest their ranking is little more than a PR effort from the advertising dept. altered almost yearly in hopes of gaining broader sales/views. It’s a product tailored to increase consumer consumption, rather than a ranking that is tailored to accurately/consistently measure certain specific areas regardless of it’s impact on circulation. Finding the nebulous “best” is difficult without definition, and impossible without consistency.
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The World University rankings produce similar results to ARWU. And both measure the things that are important to academics. None of them consider USNWR a serious measuring system. It does have an impact since people read it. And it has its own biases which negatively impact the rating of state schools.
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@ccrider55:
Everything you said about USNews is spot on. They even admit it was a publicity stunt when they first released it in 1983. But I find by and large, the rankings, at least for the top 50 or 100, if the product of flawed methodology (WTF is alumni giving doing as a metric??) it does tend to play out as expected (though, they also freely admit to manipulating rankings so Har/Yal/Pri are always #1). But then again, most would agree that H/Y/P are 1/2/3/4 in the country.
I think for our purposes, because the rankings are relied on (for better or for worse) by US students and US schools, we should consider it, as Brian did, as part of the picture. I also think its fair to note how other rankings would portray schools, such as ARWU, or Times of London, or some such other system. Maybe from several rankings arises a consensus.
(though, all rankings of colleges will inherently be flawed, based on differing views on what to rank, how, in what weight, and so forth).
US News methodology: http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2013/09/09/how-us-news-calculated-the-2014-best-colleges-rankings
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Someone on here has a composite of virtually all of the different college ranking systems and has posted it before.
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JustSmithinIt,
“Pretty much the only people who regard the B1G as the top academic conference are B1G alumni. ACC is the best and most people think Pac-12 is a close 2nd.”
1. During expansion, many people mentioned the B10 as the top academic conference.
2. The ACC has a tiny lead over the B10 in average USN&WR ranking only if you also include ND (ACC – 55.8, B10 – 58.4, P12 – 81.8). Without ND, the ACC falls just behind the B10 at 58.6.
http://collegespun.com/national/which-of-the-5-major-athletics-conferences-has-the-best-schools-academically
Other rankings put the B10 ahead.
http://www.shanghairanking.com/World-University-Rankings-2013/USA.html
B10 – 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 29, 37, 38, 39, 41, 47, 50, 60, 97; ave = 38.2
P12 – 2, 3, 10, 14, 25, 33, 45, 46, 47, 60, 97, 97; ave = 39.9
ACC – 23, 30, 39, 60, 60, 72.5, 72.5, 72.5, 72.5, 97, 120, 120, 120, 140.5, NR; ave = 83.3 (treating NR as #150)
Averaging those 2 rankings:
B10 = 48.3
P12 = 60.9
ACC = 69.6 (including ND)
Also, AAU members:
B10 = 13/14
P12 = 8/12
ACC = 5/15
What’s the evidence for your claims?
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Brian this is easy – I just looked up your link. The #1 ACC school is Dook at #8. Northwestern is the B1G’s best at #12, lower than the ACC’s best. The #2 ACC school is UVA (leaving out Notre Dame) at 24, the #2 B1G school is Michigan at 29. The #3 ACC school is Wake at #27 vs. B1G’s #3 of Wisconsin at 41.
The #4 ACC school is UNC at 30 vs. the B1G’s #4 of Penn State at 46. You have to go to the ACC’s #8 school of Syracuse to get a ranking that ‘low.’ You can basically compare each ACC school vs. each B1G school all the way down the line and you have to drop to the 11th best school in either conference before the B1G is ranked higher.
So in summary, the ACC’s top 10 schools are all ranked higher than the B1G’s top 10 schools. ACC’s 10/14 schools are ranked higher than B1G’s 10/12. This is completely simple math.
Even your average is only weighted down by the most recent addition, Louisville.
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JustSmithinit:
Now do it with a respected ranking. I think Brian included it to show that even one of the least respected ranking barely has a difference.
Seriously, you’re just trolling…right?
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http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/your-annual-reminder-to-ignore-the-em-us-news-world-report-em-college-rankings/279103/
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JustSmithinIt,
“Even your average is only weighted down by the most recent addition, Louisville.”
And the ACC has a UL while the B10 doesn’t. You don’t get to just compare the best schools or the ones you like. UL weighs just as much in the average as Duke.
And as ccrider55 points out, the USN&WR is a garbage ranking. Nobody that matters takes it seriously. And in the better rankings, the B10 wins easily.
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Do you guys understand the meaning of the word ‘outlier?’ Have you taken a stats class, or are statistics only for the graduate students at B1G universities since undergrad education doesn’t matter in your eyes?
Fine leave Louisville in. So the ACC’s bottom ranked school is ranked lower than the B1G’s, but the ACC’s top 10 schools are ranked higher than the B1G’s top 10. Seems like a pretty cut and dry case to me.
For the record, the USN&WR ranking was from the link that YOU gave, Brian. I used YOUR data provided in YOUR post. Now you don’t like using the most commonly accepted rankings / rankings used by most prospective students? Man, that’s a lot to have to exclude to win your argument, but I guess someone can always be right if they define a problem narrow enough. Even broken clocks are right twice a day.
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I think that was Brian’s point. Including the lowest ranking for the B1G still didn’t move it away from at worst a virtual tie kinda indicates where it ranks overall. He assumed you’d see the logic. Bad assumption…
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JustSmithinIt,
“Do you guys understand the meaning of the word ‘outlier?’”
UL is a member of the ACC and count just as much as anyone else. You don’t just get to ignore the negatives.
“Fine leave Louisville in. So the ACC’s bottom ranked school is ranked lower than the B1G’s, but the ACC’s top 10 schools are ranked higher than the B1G’s top 10. Seems like a pretty cut and dry case to me.”
The mean is almost identical, suggesting it isn’t a clear case at all.
“For the record, the USN&WR ranking was from the link that YOU gave, Brian.
You started it by saying this:
Pretty much the only people who regard the B1G as the top academic conference are B1G alumni. ACC is the best and most people think Pac-12 is a close 2nd.
So I looked for data to support your bias. The most obvious source for dumb ideas about the quality of schools is the USN&WR, so I went there first. Even those barely favor the ACC. Then I went to better measures and the B10 crushed the ACC.
“Now you don’t like using the most commonly accepted rankings”
Most accepted by whom? There is lots of informed criticism of the USN&WR rankings.
“rankings used by most prospective students?”
They also look at things like best party school lists and which sports teams are hot. I don’t look to teenagers for guidance on how to make wise decisions.
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Brian mentioned my composite ranking for BCS schools:
1 Stanford 1508.1596
2 Cal 1438.9787
3 UCLA 1406.2244
4 Duke 1391.0755
5 TSUN 1380.7570
6 Northwestern 1350.3192
7 Wisconsin 1347.1368
8 Washington 1336.6143
9 Texas 1318.6290
10 North Carolina 1272.3637
11 Illinois 1253.4872
12 Minnesota 1231.3986
13 USC 1206.3888
14 Ohio State 1188.2804
15 Georgia Tech 1179.6399
16 Vanderbilt 1159.5158
17 Penn St. 1149.3896
18 Virginia 1128.4918
19 Purdue 1112.1102
20 Pittsburgh 1104.9044
21 Florida 1098.2724
22 Rice 1097.4030
23 Maryland 1085.3163
24 Texas A&M 1085.2718
25 Colorado 1070.6262
26 Sparty 1066.0273
27 Notre Dame 1017.9417
28 Arizona 1008.7879
29 Rutgers 985.5317
30 Utah 970.3064
31 Indiana 937.6816
32 Iowa 937.1647
33 Georgia 869.2267
34 Miami (FL) 867.0165
35 Arizona St. 846.2866
36 NC St. 820.1705
37 U Mass 797.7497
38 Virginia Tech 781.5183
39 Iowa St. 757.1580
40 Wake Forest 756.6680
41 Connecticut 724.0432
42 Missouri 718.3004
43 Tulane 718.0628
44 Cincinnati 716.2576
45 Florida St. 714.1528
46 Buffalo 709.1601
47 Colorado St. 681.2003
48 Kansas 642.6922
49 Boston College 637.2450
50 Tennessee 637.1033
51 South Carolina 630.5778
52 Hawaii 622.7084
53 Oklahoma 605.9622
54 Oregon St. 605.6442
55 New Mexico 604.9492
56 Kentucky 598.1895
57 Syracuse 563.0363
58 Oregon 562.5180
59 UAB 554.5952
60 BYU 547.9338
61 Washington St. 546.2949
62 LSU 541.5464
63 Clemson 530.0574
64 South Florida 521.9056
65 Nebraska 521.5648
66 Army 518.8276
67 Alabama 514.1353
68 Navy 510.6111
69 Central Florida 490.2204
70 Houston 475.8880
71 Air Force 463.3477
72 Texas Tech 455.7067
73 Auburn 449.1348
74 Temple 445.3956
75 Baylor 441.6534
76 San Diego St. 432.8808
77 SMU 431.1580
78 Kansas St. 423.8273
79 Louisville 423.3505
80 Ole Miss 419.2595
81 Wyoming 416.7965
82 West Virginia 412.5111
83 Miami (OH) 394.4083
84 Oklahoma St. 372.8754
85 Arkansas 365.0029
86 Nevada – Reno 362.2354
87 Utah St. 353.5676
88 Toledo 320.0609
89 North Texas 312.0427
90 UNC-Charlotte 311.2408
91 Florida International 309.2417
92 Mississippi St. 307.1069
93 New Mexico St. 304.8031
94 Georgia St. 304.5158
95 UTSA 302.4223
96 Ohio U 299.2098
97 Idaho 293.5137
98 UNLV 280.8629
99 TCU 280.3350
100 UTEP 276.9902
101 Northern Illinois 265.8710
102 Kent St. 265.5975
103 Bowling Green 265.5161
104 Memphis 263.9761
105 WMU 260.7164
106 Southern Miss 251.4007
107 ECU 248.4119
108 Old Dominion 241.0109
109 Tulsa 221.7547
110 Louisiana Tech. 212.2370
111 Florida Atlantic 208.8644
112 South Alabama 208.0876
113 Akron 196.7278
114 Ball St. 180.5617
115 Louisiana-Lafayette 177.1883
116 San Jose St. 166.6809
117 Middle Tennessee 158.4658
118 CMU 158.4392
119 Texas St. 126.5649
120 Fresno St 118.7415
121 Western Kentucky 83.7279
122 Boise St. 71.4831
123 Arkansas St. 45.7090
124 Troy 39.8077
125 Louisiana-Monroe 37.7488
126 Marshall 36.6294
127 EMU 20.4768
Chicago would be #2 if you want to count them as an academic member of the B1G/CIC.
Rankings used:
American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Center For World University Rankings (CWUR), Forbes, Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT), International Professional Classification of Higher Education Institutes (IPCHEI), Leiden Ranking, The Center for Measuring University Performance (CMUP), National Research Council Rankings (NRC), Parchment, QS World University Rankings (QS), High Impact Universities Research Performance Index (RPI), SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR), Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE), University Ranking By Academic Performance (URAP), USNWR, Washigton Monthly
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And crunching those numbers, these are the averages:
B10 1110
P12 1042
ACC 879
SEC 671
B12 571
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Conference realignment have lowered the average academic standing of the new conference for all moves (invites in same season) except for the SEC additions of A&M and MO. This move produced the only change in ranking among the P5 with the SEC taking 4th place and dropping the XII to last. Pitt was the only school ranked significantly better than the conference average it joined. The ACC (Louisville) and B1G (Nebraska) picked up their worst school in recent additions (XII also with TCU by these rankings, but their might be worse schools in the XII).
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I thought this point is most important:
The Big Ten declined to comment about the bill other than stating that any written application to join the league must be approved by at least 70 percent of the league’s Council of Presidents/Chancellors. After Rutgers and Maryland officially join the conference in July, candidates would need 10 of the 14 schools to say yes.
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/97812/illinois-worthy-of-2nd-state-school-in-b1g
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Northwestern University’s president emeritus said that if the players on its football team are successful at forming a union, he could see the prestigious private institution giving up Division I football.
Henry Bienen, speaking last week at the annual conference for the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, said, “If we got into collective bargaining situations, I would not take for granted that the Northwesterns of the world would continue to play Division I sports.”
Bienen, who was president of Northwestern from 1995 to 2009, made his comments during a panel discussion that included a presentation from Ramogi Huma, the president of the National College Players Association and the man who helped organize former Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter to lead a unionization attempt before the National Labor Relations Board.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/25/us/northwestern-football-players-union/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
The next question would be if the players are successful, will Delany/B1G have to follow through on the threat of going to Division III if they have to treat players as employees?
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Northwestern is the only private school in the BIG. Public schools union decisions would be tied to state laws. Northwestern dropping football because of unionization wouldn’t necessarily effect the other BIG schools. If anything, northwestern could just turn into another University of Chicago like member and the BIG would never add a private institution again.
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So let’s play the what-if game. NW decides to follow Chicago’s lead and drop D-I athletics. What does the B10 do to fill the hole?
Options:
1. Stick at 13.
2. Add 1 to get back to 14.
3. Add 3 to get to 16.
4. Drop someone else to get back to 12.
I think the relevant GORs force the B10 to stick at 13 for now. Clearly the state of IL would be happy with the chance to elevate another state school, but I don’t see that happening. Likewise, nobody in the footprint would get an invitation except ND (that won’t happen for other reasons).
Let’s fast-forward a decade as the ACC and B12 GORs are running out:
To get to 14:
1. KU
2. UVA
3. ???
16:
1. KU, UVA, UNC
2. UVA, UNC, Duke
3. UVA, UNC, GT
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Or they could look to the GOR-less SEC. Missouri, Kentucky or Vanderbilt being the three schools that would be most speculated.
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They could, but that seems like wasted effort. UK doesn’t have the academics to be invited. MO wouldn’t leave the SEC now. Vandy has zero interest in joining a northern conference, especially since the other private school would have dropped sports.
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The issue of dropped sports could be a chain reaction. B1G without Northwestern or the SEC without Vanderbilt would just be a collection of public state schools. Conferences would lose the protection from the public eye afforded by the private schools.
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If NW dropped, I don’t think they would be the only one. That might cause the next great mass realignment. Vandy, Wake Forest, Duke, BC, Syracuse?
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Rice finally finds a home!
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If NW was alone in dropping, it would be interesting in seeing what the Big 10 did. Wait? UConn-solid, not AAU? UMass-AAU, not much in football? The sometimes mentioned Buffalo-AAU, not much in football or basketball? Or convince the Big 12 to give them Iowa St.(who would be easier to replace than Kansas)? 13 is a pretty awkward number.
Or maybe just “lease” a MAC school for football. After all, the MAC is at 13. Could be a win-win. Rotate the MAC schools every 2 years.
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13 or 14.
Standard targets would be considered, with an extra focus on academics. Probably wait to poach UVa.
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Stick at 13, join forces with the conferences who want to change CCG rules. Unless they can snag someone like UVA. I don’ think KU moves the needle enough for B1G to forgo the Eastern Statego.
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This would happen to UIC or Illinois St.-or New Mexico St. But not to a Big 10, SEC, Pac 12, ACC or Big 12 team. Summarizing an AJC article today:
NMSU and SDSU were told before their game in Spokane that the loser would have to fly home after their late game (not enough hotel rooms?-or just cheap?). Because of an OT game (and an OT in the previous game) it was pretty late. They packed, were given box lunches and got to the airport at 1 am for a 2:15 takeoff. Plane got in at 7 for the 1+ hour bus ride to Las Cruces. NCAA only sent one bus, so half the people (not the players) had to until 9:30 am for the bus to return.
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NCAA? Shouldn’t the bus in NM be the school’s responsibility?
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The NCAA apologized for it all, so they must have arranged the charters.
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Most teams fly home immediately after the game, regardless of how late it is. I can’t believe the NCAA provides shuttle service in the team’s hometown, that is up to their athletic department.
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Frank:
Great article as usual. The general issue of kids going out of state and whatnot has not really ever caught my attention. Nice to have a summary of the issues.
I saw the articles where the politicians were trying to legislate a new member of the B1G. Gave me a good laugh. As for politicians being smart, I had another good laugh.
Having said that, is there really a “problem” here? Given some of the additional data provided by commentors (e.g., California data), part of me is thinking “so what if a bunch of kids go out-of-state?”
Part of me also wonders what a conference-wide study would show? Is the B1G, in general, a net gainer or loser in terms of inflow/outflow. It sounds like if Illinois succeeds in lessening the outflow, that hurts Wisconsin and Indiana.
Then, particularly related to Illinois, is the State a net gainer or loser as a whole? That is, what is the inflow of non-Illinois students to Northwestern and UofC? And does quality matter? Illinois loses 10,000 B+/A- students to out-of-state, but get 2,000 A+++ students in return. Is that like losing a 100 3* football players, but gaining twenty 5* players?
Don’t know the answers to any of these questions. But it’s all interesting.
Final comment for the politicians: worry more about keeping JOBS in the State than keeping students in-state.
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http://www.cpec.ca.gov/StudentData/50StateMigration.asp
The net outflow from NJ dwarves everyone else.
PA takes in the most net inflow of any state.
BTW, to the person who thinks TX should be a model for CA, TX actually loses more students than CA does.
Outside of NJ (which is on another plane, TX, IL, MD, and CA lose the most students. Other than PA, IN, MA, NC, DC, RI, AL, SC, AZ, & IA gain the most (but other than PA, they gain less than the top 5 who lose the most).
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@Richard – Great find. I’m going to update the post with a link to this.
It would be interesting to see everyone’s thoughts on why Pennsylvania is such a net gainer of college students because I wouldn’t have guessed that at first, but it made sense when I started thinking about it. Both of its largest cities of Philly and Pittsburgh have a disproportionately large number of universities and they are situated at opposite ends of the state providing easy access to the populous areas of both the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. This means that the state is very well situated geographically to draw from a huge pool of potential college students from other states in all directions. Penn State and Pitt are both top tier public universities that are strong draws for both in-state and out-of-state students. Temple has a very similar institutional profile as UIC, but seems to be much more entrenched in Philly’s economy and culture. There is also a wide range of private universities ranging from Ivy/Ivy-caliber schools (Penn, Carnegie Mellon) to urban Catholic universities (Villanova, St. Joseph’s, LaSalle, Duquesne) to highly-ranked liberal arts schools (Swarthmore, Haverford). The State of Illinois, by comparison, has the Ivy-caliber schools (Northwestern, University of Chicago) and Catholic universities, but doesn’t have the 2nd top tier public university or a critical mass of highly-ranked liberal arts colleges. (8 of the top 50 liberal arts colleges in the US News rankings are in Pennsylvania, while none are in Illinois. Each of those 8 schools might be small individually, but collectively they would add up to a school that’s the size of the University of Nebraska with Ivy-caliber admissions.)
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In addition to the broad array of good/great schools in PA, for kids looking to go away from home but not too far away from home, Pennsylvania is centrally located for most midwestern, eastern, and mid-atlantic states, who combined have enormous numbers of graduating high school seniors every year.
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“It would be interesting to see everyone’s thoughts on why Pennsylvania is such a net gainer of college students”
NJ is the most densely populated state, and PA is between Jersey and most of the rest of the country. It makes sense that the largest net provider of college students would make a neighbor the greatest net consumer, especially considering Rutgers is ranked below UIC.
Speaking as one of those immigrants, how does the Illinois system work? At Penn State (20 years ago), you could start your education at any of the Commonwealth Campuses and still end up at University Park for your last two years and get a Penn State degree. Since UIUC is that much better than UIC and Springfield, perhaps they could look at making Illinois larger.
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Problem is, any expansion of UIUC enrollment (especially if they give preference in to in-state students) would hurt UIUC’s rankings.
Plus, with the state of Illinois currently a half billion dollars behind in its payments to the school and U of I already having the third highest tuition of any public school in the country (behind only the partially private PSU and Pitt) I don’t know where the money to expand would come from.
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Frank the Tank,
“It would be interesting to see everyone’s thoughts on why Pennsylvania is such a net gainer of college students”
Proximity to NYC and it isn’t NJ. PSU is the only big time FB school in the northeast. Much of the northeast is stronger with private schools than state schools.
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Trends in that chart are interesting. AL has more than doubled their net inflow in 6 years. Texas has nearly doubled their net outflow in that time frame. NY went from exporter to importer at a time when NJ significantly increased its net outflow. GA went from outflow to inflow to sizable outflow.
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Some of these are very explainable, but I’m having trouble coming up with a reason why Alabama would be in the top 7 (net gainers).
Having said that, is there really a “problem” here? Given some of the additional data provided by commentors (e.g., California data), part of me is thinking “so what if a bunch of kids go out-of-state?”
Is it not obvious why you would prefer to retain your top talent?
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Marc – last fall, I believe that over 50% of the entering freshman class at the Univ of Alabama were OOS kids. Bama has really beefed up its OOS recruitment. Bama, LSU, and Georgia are all go-to schools for good but not elite Texas kids. LSU, Bama, and Auburn get a lot of kids from Georgia as well.
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Reading this post lead me to remember this article last year from the Baton Rouge paper claiming Alabama was outpacing LSU by recruiting out-of-state students to both grow the university and improve its quality:
http://theadvocate.com/home/7433217-125/rising-tide
The whole thing is relevant to this discussion, but here are a few quotes:
“Alabama has grown its enrollment over the past decade from about 20,000 students in 2003 to just under 35,000 today.”
“LSU has about a dozen recruiters working to attract out-of-state students. Alabama has 37.”
“In 2002, out-of-state students made up only 24 percent of Alabama’s student body. Today, they account for 60 percent.”
“Alabama Interim Provost Joe Benson said the extra funds brought in by increasing out-of-state enrollment allowed the school to overcome a 33 percent reduction in state funds over the past five years.”
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“I’m having trouble coming up with a reason why Alabama would be in the top 7 (net gainers).”
Probably a combo of having multiple large state schools (UA, Aub, Troy, UAB all have at least 17k students), some with recent athletic success (never underestimate the impact of winning has on a schools desirability for impressionable teenagers) and smaller number of high school graduates going to college (either because its a small state with less college-age students, or a less ambitious high school graduate population, or both).
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Alabama’s chancellor spent 26 years in the University of Texas system, so he was pretty aware of where some good out of state students could be found. According to the article, they have simply recruited them. And Auburn is pretty close to the Georgia border and has always drawn quite a few Georgians. Auburn is actually closer to Atlanta than Birmingham.
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‘Bama has a bigger undergrad population than UGa and Auburn has a bigger undergrad population than GTech yet GA has mover twice as many people as AL.
As for retaining top talent, getting young people post-college is most important, and kids will go where there are jobs and where they can have fun.
For instance, NJ, TX, IL, and CA are 4 of the 5 states that lose the most students for college, net, but they are among the top 6 of states who gain the most college-educated 22-39 year-olds, net:
http://www.higheredinfo.org/dbrowser/index.php?submeasure=259&year=2007&level=nation&mode=map&state=0
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@Marc Shepherd – Remember that while Alabama and Auburn aren’t really graduate research powerhouses that we tend to look at here regarding academics, they more than hold their own for undergrad. They’re both ahead of Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri in the US News rankings (and that’s not a recent phenomenon – it has been that way for awhile). So, I could easily see how the Alabama-based schools are drawing a lot of the Texas students that aren’t able to get into UT-Austin and A&M or the Georgia students that can’t get into UGA or Georgia Tech. It’s very similar to how Iowa, Indiana and Purdue draw in Illinois students. If you can’t get into the power conference in-state school, then the power conference schools in the next state(s) over become popular choices. Plus, Bama and Auburn probably retain a high percentage of their own in-state students just by the sheer number of spots that they offer compared to their state’s population, so the outflow number is likely low.
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Marc Shepherd,
“Some of these are very explainable, but I’m having trouble coming up with a reason why Alabama would be in the top 7 (net gainers).”
Nick Saban. Winning attracts students, not just players.
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In fact, those states that export students are those who draw college-educated young people while those states that import students are mostly (with some exceptions like NC and AZ) those states with flat or declining HS populations. Makes sense if you think about it.
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Exactly. Its not like kids who go to school in Pennsylvania are hanging around after graduation in any significant way.
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Perhaps I am not up to par today, but I am not seeing how the two statistics would be inversely correlated.
It seems to me obvious that you would want to both retain and attract top talent, and success at one does not preclude success at the other. The problem the “losing” states have (and the reason they care), is that once kids leave there is a higher probability that they will never return.
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Maybe you didn’t see the link in my earlier post.
I’ll repost the relevent parts here:
“As for retaining top talent, getting young people post-college is most important, and kids will go where there are jobs and where they can have fun.
For instance, NJ, TX, IL, and CA are 4 of the 5 states that lose the most students for college, net, but they are among the top 6 of states who gain the most college-educated 22-39 year-olds, net:
http://www.higheredinfo.org/dbrowser/index.php?submeasure=259&year=2007&level=nation&mode=map&state=0
“
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So the data doesn’t support the thesis that kids who go to a state for college stay away for good.
In fact, it seems that over the past few decades, certain states have become more attractive to young college-educated professionals (the type of people who tend to have kids who go to college). However, relative number of slots in higher education change very slowly, so those states who had no growth or lost HS population now have an abundance of slots in their colleges. So overflow from the states who got college-educated professionals fill the schools in the latter states. However, when those kids graduate, there aren’t enough jobs (or fun) in the latter states, so they move back to the former states that attract young college-educated professionals.
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You’re asking the wrong question. It’s not whether they’re a net importer of post-graduate talent. It’s whether they could do even better than they are already doing, if they could keep a higher percentage of talented HS kids in state. Also, I am still not seeing a basis for the inverse relationship you claimed.
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“You’re asking the wrong question.”
I never actually asked a question. What question did you think I was asking?
“Also, I am still not seeing a basis for the inverse relationship you claimed.”
For instance, NJ, TX, IL, and CA are 4 of the 5 states that lose the most students for college, net, but they are among the top 6 of states who gain the most college-educated 22-39 year-olds, net:
http://www.higheredinfo.org/dbrowser/index.php?submeasure=259&year=2007&level=nation&mode=map&state=0
What part of the statement above is unclear?
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I still cannot see it, but I’m sure it isn’t worth trying to persuade me.
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There is actually a way this could be done. Cornell is half public, half private. If the state of Illinois really wanted a public Big Ten university in the Chicago area, they could go the same route and expand the Northwestern campus at state expense.
Actually, this makes a lot more sense than pouring money into SIU or NIU in order to upgrade a campus with the end result that the B1G will sneer at it.
http://www.cornell.edu/about/facts/stats.cfm
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OK, this isn’t going to happen.
I’LL isn’t NY.
The Midwest is not the Northeast.
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Well, let’s think this through. Countless thousands of Illinois kids who can’t get into U of IL are going to Wisc, Purdue, Indiana, Iowa, etc and spending millions on out-of-state tuition. That money could be spent in-state at Northwestern State U, reducing the out-of-state cash flow and also reducing the tuition costs for kids now going out-of-state elsewhere. That’s a win-win.
Should the state of IL spend that same amount of money to upgrade NIU or SIU to Big Ten standards? We all agree that would be a fruitless squandering of money. No way on God’s green earth is another Illinois school getting into the Big Ten.
Has the half public, half private scenario diminished the academic stature of Cornell? Not one iota. Few people are aware that Cornell is NY’s Land Grand college or that they are funded by the state. It’s an Ivy League college, period.
The Big Ten would gain a greatly expanded fan base for one of its members. Northwestern would gain hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding. Tens of thousands of Chicago kids could attend an affordable first class university close to home. BTN does not have another mouth to feed.
So tell me the downside. Don’t just say “it won’t happen”, explain and defend your response.
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Ill give it a whirl:
Why are UChicago or NWU voluntarily going to become partially public schools? What possible benefit does that have? Getting to subject itself to the whims, wills and whines of state legislatures is not exactly something that would get either school’s president to jump up and scream “YIPPEE!”
You please provide possible justification from the UChi or NWU perspective. Remember, the state cannot force them to do this.
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I did not address the U of Chicago. If UC went half public and rejoined the B1G, that would be another mouth to feed. Northwestern is already a full member of the B1G and receives a full and equal portion of BTN and conference revenue.
Why did Cornell agree to go half public? Vast infusion of state/federal funds, huge expansion of campus, greater inclusion of local NY kids, the school would become like the Cubs in Chicago for sports fans, tremendous public service to the community in which they reside, huge expansion of their medical school/hospital, generate a school of education/nursing/PAs that would go out and serve the community from which they came.
So you think that the President and BOT of NW would just stick up their noses and say “No”? I betcha that those people are a lot more imaginative and community-focused than you are.
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@Colin M:
“So you think that the President and BOT of NW would just stick up their noses and say “No”?”
A 1000% yes. What’s in it for the school? Can you even answer that?
“I betcha that those people are a lot more imaginative and community-focused than you are.”
Odd, because from what I understand, NWU does not pay taxes to Evanston, the city its located in, because NWU predates Evanston. Town-Gown relations are quite strained, partially because the school has not been all that community focused, even though those relations have been improving. NWU is community focused like any other private school, but its a private school with a private charter, and you still have failed to give any reason why it would agree to become partially public.
Also, read up on Cornell on Wikipedia. Its a private school that has state-supported contract schools as required by Cornell’s land grant status. Its a very complicated arrangement that is well more complex that “Cornell agreeing to go half public.” You have to bring your A-game around here.
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I suppose the same could be done with the U of Chicago, in theory. Neither one will happen, though.
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Or will it?: http://dailysophist.com/stories/191-is-uchicago-ready-for-the-big-10
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This could have happened following a 2016 Chicago Olympics – at least the upgraded facilities might have been in place. If U of C could become a lax bro/big white frat boy school, it would have positive spillover effects on its south side neighbors.
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“lax bro/big white frat boy school”
It’s pretty obvious that you know nothing about the U of C if you think that is even a possibility.
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Go Bucks.
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UNC academic scandal: Drip, drip, drip…
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=10671809
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http://www.usatoday.com/videos/sports/ncaaf/2014/03/24/6832595/
Real Sports also covered it.
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UNC is really handling this poorly. They should have just come clean and got all of the dirt out in the open at the start instead of trying to downplay it. It’s all going to come out eventually. This should of instituted some 1 year penalty and let the story disappear on its own. It would of been over by now. By playing the “nothing to see here” card, they are only emboldening journalists.
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Well beyond that, they are trying to intimidate Mary Willingham. They had a faculty hearing accusing her of bad research and slandering athletes. Good to see that it is backfiring on them.
Where are the UNC alums? I hear a lot are upset, but why aren’t they asking for the new presidents head for allowing this to continue?
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Doesn’t this just make them a better match for the SEC, where most really want them to be?
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Update on potential changes to Division I governance:
http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/student-athlete-ad-faculty-rep-would-have-votes-proposed-new-board
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No AAC? I wonder if the Big East being included with the other FBS conferences was a typo.
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I assume so. Either way, it’s an official demotion for them to 2nd- class status despite them saying they’ll pay for anything the big 5 do (full cost of attendance, etc).
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For a while the “Big 8” conferences each had 3 votes (WAC/MWC split dropped them to 1.5 each), the BW/SB and MAC each had 1.5 and the rest had 24. So it was Power conferences-18, semi-power-6, other FBS-3, non-FBS-24. Now it will be 20 for the power conferences (who basically absorbed the BE), 4 for what were the semi-power (AAC is CUSA and MWC is merged MWC/WAC again), 6 for other FBS (CUSA only has 2 members from 10 years ago), 22 for the rest and 1 for a student.
Power 20 vs 18
Semi 4 vs 6
FBS other 6 vs 3
non fbs 22 vs 24
student 1 vs 0
So TCU and Utah have carried 2 votes with them to the power conferences.
The 20 some-odd move-ups have carried 2 non-fbs votes with them.
1 extra vote goes to FBS other and 1 to students.
Its really not that big a change. Power conferences have 37.7% instead of 35.3%. The Power + semi-power actually has a little less-45.2% vs. 47.1%. FBS is up slightly, 56.7% vs. 52.9%.
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The number of FBS teams has gone from 111 to 129 in the 18 years.
Power conferences 63 to 65
mezzanine (now demoted) from 23 to 24
others 26 to 40
Temple is the only school who fell out (and they were only partly in).
Rice, UTEP, USM and BYU are the only schools in the “mezzanine” who aren’t in AAC or MWC now. While UConn & USF are the only ones of the 18 FCS move-ups in AAC or MWC.
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Its really not that big a change. Power conferences have 37.7% instead of 35.3%.
I agree. If this is the extent of it, the correct headline will be: “Power conferences surrender.”
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Frank the Tank,
“Interestingly, Arizona State, Colorado, Kentucky and Kansas all drew more Illinois students than Ohio State, with all of them getting just under 200 Illinois freshmen each.”
This is just more evidence of what I’ve said multiple times. OSU doesn’t have deep ties to Chicago like most of the rest of the B10. As the footprint shifts east, more schools are in that group (PSU, RU and UMD). This is another reason why hosting the CCG in Chicago has less appeal to some people. Indy is closer top all the eastern schools (and OSU has much stronger tiers to IN than IL).
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@Brian – Yes, that makes sense. What’s interesting, though, is that Miami of Ohio is extremely popular with Chicago kids. It’s not listed in that database for some reason, but Miami is a huge out-of-state draw. I know the school has a fairly distinct culture for a public university (very preppy, so it looks and feels like an upscale East Coast private school in a way), so that might be a unique draw (whereas Ohio State is perceived, whether rightly or wrongly, as similar in culture to the other Big Ten schools, so it’s not seen as drastically different than the alternatives that might be closer geographically and have lower out-of-state tuition costs).
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Yes, Miami is unique.
I think it’s a 2-way street with OSU as it doesn’t try to recruit IL very hard as far as I know. We have more alumni in NYC and in DC than in Chicago. Chicago is only slightly closer than DC to Columbus, too.
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2014/03/25/dr-pepper-to-sponsor-college-football-playoff/6870899/
Dr. Pepper to be the first CFP sponsor.
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http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/70050352/pac-12-football-is-more-interesting-than-sec
The P12 is more interesting than the SEC and may soon be as good.
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http://www.cleveland.com/osu/index.ssf/2014/03/ohio_state_lining_up_for_first.html
CC and I may be the only ones that care, but here’s a look at what OSU has in line for next year’s wrestling squad. They hope to finally win OSU’s 1st ever wrestling title. Maybe OSU steps up to be the next PSU in the B10, someone to challenge IA and MN every year.
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Next year’s B1G tournament is in Columbus. At Wisconsin the three sessions averaged a bit under 10k. If OSU is what Ryan hopes that could be surpassed. Will Buckeye fans turn out as strongly as Wisky did while not truly a contender?
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I’d like to think a bunch of Buckeye fans from NE Ohio would show up. Certainly IA and PSU fans will show.
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Brian,
On paper it looks like OSU will have a pretty good chance to challenge as both PSU and Minnesota are losing a couple of their biggest studs… Not sure about Iowa’s roster… Next year will be interesting… Was bummed to see local Gopher hero Tony Nelson lose his opportunity at 3 straight heavyweight championships… Still a monster career.
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Yes, it looks like Ryan has aimed for 2015 to be the coming out year, although we came close a couple of times before.
PSU certainly will feel the loss of Ruth and Taylor. They won’t get to just pencil in bonus points in every match. I’m sure they’ll still be good, though.
I’d expect MN to drop a little after losing 4 AAs, but I don’t know what sort of depth you guys have. Certainly Nelson will be hard to replace. He wasn’t very aggressive in the finals, though.
IA is always tough, so I just pencil them in as a contender.
It may be the best B10 race in a while.
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ACC tournament to go to Barclays Center in Brooklyn in 2017-18
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2014/03/25/acc-basketball-tournament-barclays-center/6862583/
Of note is the following:
The Atlantic 10 will move its postseason tournament out of Brooklyn for 2017-2018 and return to the Barclays Center from 2019-2021, according to the person with knowledge of the situation. The person also confirmed that there will be a series of ACC-A-10 doubleheaders at the Barclays Center.
The A-10 is looking at possibly moving its tournament to Washington, D.C., or Pittsburgh for 2017-18, another person with knowledge of the situation told USA TODAY Sports earlier this month.
It looks to me like the ACC and A-10 have entered into some sort of alliance that would, they think, keep the B1G from moving its bball tourney to the East Coast. DC or NYC would be the most realistic choices if the B1G were inclined to move it out of the midwest.
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Washington, DC seems to be the best east coast site for a B1G Tournament, but would Philadelphia be worthy of consideration? I gather that the arenas in New Jersey like the Izod Center or Prudential Center would not be worthwhile as they would fail to garner the desired attention in New York City. Philly would be well within driving distance for both Maryland and Rutgers fans and would be in-state for Penn State basketball fans, few as they are. 😉
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*Washington being the best east coast site, given that Barclays and MSG are tied up through 2021.
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True. You’d think Philly would be an option as well. Plus, the sixth borough is easy to get to from NYC.
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I think the lack of a Philly school in the B1G kills that idea.
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PSU. RU.
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RU is in northern Jersey, PSU is not a philly school like Temple/VU/etc…. Its not a B1G city like Chicago or Indy or the world’s media capital like NYC
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Chicago & Indianapolis are located so much closer to most the B10 Universities, that it would be tough to have the game elsewhere more than a couple times a decade.
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I’m somewhat back and forth with Philadelphia (once accepting there is going to be an east coast tournament). On the one hand, it doesn’t have the critical mass of nearby alumni that Chicago and Indianapolis get to make them feel like Big Ten central for awhile. It also doesn’t have nearly the added value of a New York presence (and keep in mind, we’ve even had the PAC-12 fly a lot of people out there for media days or something of the sort).
On the other hand though, I’m not entirely sure that Philadelphia is really all that different than Washington. It’s a huge city on the edge of Big Ten territory (although which should naturally get more attention than Washington). Putting the tournament there might help the conference develop stronger there and help the more local teams out with fans as well.
All that said, if the conference isn’t going to get into New York proper, then I think that’s another argument for keeping the vast majority of tournaments in the Midwest.
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The more that I think about it, the more that I believe that the primary East Coast outpost for any Big Ten basketball tournament should be DC. From a practical standpoint, Rutgers and Penn State have two of the weakest basketball fan bases in the 5 power conferences – their value for the Big Ten is almost entirely about football and their basketball teams draw very little casual interest in NYC or Philly. Realistically, the Big Ten is never going to own NYC or Philly from the basketball perspective with the lineup of teams that it has now. It could be different if Syracuse and/or UConn were added regarding NYC, but that has to be weighed against the more pressing football interests. For Philly, college hoops there revolve around the Big Five rivalries and none of those schools are viable Big Ten candidates.
DC, on the other hand, is winnable basketball territory for the Big Ten. Maryland has a strong basketball fan base directly in the market and they’ll draw casual viewers when they’re playing well. There is a stronger overall track record of the DC area following college basketball in general and the proportion of the population there that attended a Big Ten school is going to be higher than NYC and Philly (even though NYC might have a larger number of Big Ten alums outright). Maryland is going to be significantly more dependable as a home fan base for selling basketball tickets compared to either Penn State or Rutgers while the rest of the Big Ten schools have a significant alumni presence in the DC area.
Ultimately, NYC and Philly are strictly football markets for the Big Ten. If the league really cared about basketball in that region, then Syracuse and/or UConn were options that were light years ahead of Rutgers. In contrast, DC can legitimately become a Big Ten basketball town, so the conference ought to concentrate its hoops resources there.
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But the big media and advertisers are based in NYC, which is a stated reason for moving east and for Delany’s move to open full time offices in NYC.
But DC, with UMd located in a suburb, does make very good sense. But I’d have to imagine with all the effort the conference is putting into NYC (Pinstripe Bowl! Full time conference offices! Neutral site games in and around NYC in multiple sports!) that NYC is the true first choice (as was reported, the B1G spoke with MSG, Barclays, and Prudential Center in Newark (though the last one was probably initiated by the arena).
The conference has made no attempt to claim philly in any way other than for TV rights purposes, and while PSU is the state school, Philly has its own teams, especially in basketball, and PSU has no MBB tradition to even try to chip away at the Philly Five’s (Temple, VU, Penn, St. Joes, La Salle) hold on the market.
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Well, unless the ACC and A10 occupy both the Barclays and DC every year, there will be years when DC or the Barclays (most likely DC) is open.
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The ACC will likely want to rotate between New York and Carolina, and if the A10 wants to locate in Brooklyn in years the ACC is out of town, then DC is open for the frequency that the Big Ten would want to be on the East coast … say, one year in four.
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Something tells me the folks running Barclays will opt for the B1G over the A10.
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Indeed … the reason the ACC had to do a deal was the A10 had a contract. And Barclay’s don’t have to decide “do we want the ACC two and the A10 two, or the ACC two, the Big Ten one and empty one”, because if its only available to the A10 one year in four, the A10 will take it that year.
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Barclays and the Garden Battle for the Heart of New York
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303779504579463651085428102?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303779504579463651085428102.html
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Frank
Reading that article you linked makes me think player unions are likely to come. Maybe not in Chicago, but as quick as this has moved, it will get to DC pretty quick and Obama’s appointees are extremely pro-labor.
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Connecticut = 1 National Championship in Basketball every 15 years, would accept
Kansas = 1 National Championship in Basketball every 15 years, would accept
Notre Dame = would not accept
Virginia = would not accept
North Carolina = would not accept
Texas = would not accept
Oklahoma = would not accept without Oklahoma State
Oklahoma State = would not get an invite
Missouri = we already have Iowa, not worth having another Iowa
Unless Toronto can get their money sports started soon, we’re “stuck” with UConn and Kansas for 16. And by “stuck” I mean better off than what we have now considering the additions of UConn and Kansas will actually allow the Big Ten to win a national championship in something that matters each decade. I didn’t forget Ohio State’s triple overtime national title in football every 30 years. So, instead of 1 national championship in a sport that matters every 30 years, UConn and Kansas would allow us to have as many as 3 national championships in sports that matter every 30 years.
In the meantime, Big Ten fans can CLOSE THEIR EYES!!! until UConn and Kansas get here. Ohio State isn’t winning another miracle title (off a miracle season) until at least 2032. We do, however, have 99 Sweet Sixteens and a Mario Kart Bowl appearance from Illinois coming up in the next 50 years if those do anything for you. I for one am not impressed by such trash. With all of our money and prestige we should strive for better than a tied-for-16th place finish.
*spoiler alert*
Tom Izzo is about to not win a national championship in basketball.
Michigan is about to not win a national championship in basketball.
Wisconsin is about to not win a national championship in basketball.
In 2034, Ohio State will: go 12-1 playing a cupcake schedule, sneak into the football playoffs, play two playoff opponents that suffer major injuries (cough, Willis McGahee, cough), win the national championship at the buzzer on a quarterback scramble (cough, OSU’s offensive “strategy” since Pryor, cough) while every receiver was covered after the opponent in the championship game misses 3 short field goals in the 4 quarter.
That is the Big Ten in a nutshell. The current Big Ten is not built to be anything more. You could your shoes at an Illinois game and would be akin to a jet engine roaring. Northwestern is about to quit football if a troll lawsuit doesn’t go their way. The South’s brief taste of Old Man Winter’s breath this year will have a deleterious effect on Big Ten recruiting there. The next Dennard Robinson who wore a extra sweater on the day that two inches of snow turned Atlanta into the Walking Dead is not coming now. Michigan passed on Jim Harbaugh and Les Miles for a guy who couldn’t tie his shoes. They replaced him with a guy who barely could. Brady Hoke also has a very scratchy voice for whatever that’s worth. As a prized recruit, that would just make me laugh. Right now, Michigan State is the only real football team in the Big Ten. Ohio State will need to shed Meyer in order to stop being a worthless gimmick team. Wisconsin has never won a big game in football (look it up). Penn State, Iowa and Rutgers are nothing. Er, they will make the Mario Kart Bowl and lose it every 16 years.
The answer is expansion. We’re a 4/10 looks wise. We can only marry other 4’s. Luckily, two 5’s in the human form of Kansas and Connecticut will be ready to tie the not in 2025 after the Big 12’s GOR expires. And on July 1, 2025 with the addition of UConn and Kansas the Big Ten will be something more than it is now. Until then, close your eyes. There’s nothing to see here.
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I don’t see any reason in the world to assume that UConn basketball is more likely to win a national championship in the next 15 years than several Big Ten teams. Jim Calhoun is gone and there nothing inherently stronger with UConn than Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan, or Indiana.
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Exactly right, and beyond that, the writer doesn’t explain why it’s worth adding two teams in order to win two basketball NCs every 15 years, even assuming that would occur.
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Anytime you can add two schools than can in theory give you as many as THREE WHOLE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS in 30 years, you simply have to do that!
I mean, having 27 fallow years is immeasurably better than 29 fallow years. Those two championships will, by themselves, cure all that ails the Big Ten.
Plus, UConn’s one title every 30 years combined with owning the Storrs/Hartford/New Haven TV market = 3 gold mines and a forest of actual money trees. A NO-BRAINER!
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@Devo: no disrespect meant, but many good laughs for me in this post, so thank you for that. I disagree with almost 100% of what you’ve written, but I like your style Instead of a simple “No B1G Bball NC this year” you give us a “spoiler alert” and three more lines. I like that and I had several actual audible chuckles.
Maybe you are right and we can revisit this in 10 years. But for now, football rules the roost and UConn and Kansas are not getting invites to the B1G. Kansas might have a shot as #16 depending on the #15, but UConn brings nothing to the table in terms of TV value. And, as others have said, why is it automatic that UConn gets a NC every 15 years and some combo of B1G schools cannot do the same every 15 years. Adding UConn does NOT automatically equal more NCs for the B1G.
More to the point, in the next 10 years, the B1G is not going to turn into a Bball League and start inviting schools based on Bbbal pedigree.
So, I predict that neither KS or UConn are getting invites come 2025. The B1G will stand at 14 if those are the only choices.
You make some interesting points about snow and recruiting. The way you phrased your points made me laugh and it’s difficult to argue your points. Maybe the next DRob avoids the B1G because of snow. Maybe not.
As for the B1G being a 4 out of 10 on the “looks scale,” that seems a bit harsh (and truly eyes-of-the-beholder). I assume you think the SEC is a 10 out of 10. Okay, fine… whatever. If the B1G is a “4,” what are the other conferences? Seems to me that, if the SEC is a “10,” the rest of the conferences are a collection of 4s, 5s and 6s.
But, really, that is about recruiting.
For fans, it is about where you were born and raised. I was raised in Cbus, went to B1G schools and live in the B1G footprint. So the B1G is a “10” and the SEC will always be a grudging “2.”
Although, in truth, I am not a B1G fan per se. I am an Ohio State fan. So the B1G is a “0” while OSU is the “10.” Ohio State is in the B1G, so, by default, I sort of like the B1G and hope the B1G prospers because that means Ohio State will prosper (sort of, in theory). And the B1G is where our rivals are. I do not root for the B1G, I do not consider a MI or MSU or PSU or Wiscy victory a victory for OSU, and I will go out of my way to pointedly sneer in contempt at anyone chanting “B-I-G B-I-G B-I-G.”
In short, IMHO, conference-competition discussions are pointless, nothing more than filler for the talk-shows.
As for your use of macro-trends to predict future B1G NCs, maybe and maybe not. But, frankly, irrelevant to what makes sports sports. I don’t care how many NCs the B1G gets in the next 30 years. And, the flip-side of that coin, it’s about my team. Have a chat with Chicago Cubs fans. The macro-trends are not favorable to them (or any any team for that matter), but regardless, every year every fan believes that THIS is the year. We watch because THIS is the year. Moreover, not winning is not the same as meaningless. Is the Rose Bowl any less the Rose Bowl just because the B1G has a losing record? Is any true rivalry game any less a rivalry game just because one team has been beaten more often than the other?
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Devo,
“Connecticut = 1 National Championship in Basketball every 15 years, would accept”
They play in a tiny stadium well off campus in the middle of nowhere and have been I-A for a couple of decades. They’re also miles away from being AAU. In other words, no invitation is headed their way.
“Kansas = 1 National Championship in Basketball every 15 years, would accept”
1. GOR
2. The B10 wants to expand east, not into another plains state.
3. KU’s academics barely pass the threshold, and they could lose AAU status in the next deacde or two.
4. KU doesn’t bring a huge market and their football is laughable.
No invitation is headed their way.
“Oklahoma = would not accept without Oklahoma State”
Their academics keep them from getting an invitation anyway.
“Unless Toronto can get their money sports started soon, we’re “stuck” with UConn and Kansas for 16.”
Staying at 14 is better than adding bad choices.
“Tom Izzo is about to not win a national championship in basketball.
Michigan is about to not win a national championship in basketball.
Wisconsin is about to not win a national championship in basketball.”
Over 300 D-I schools don’t win the title every year. So what?
“There’s nothing to see here.”
That’s a good summary of your comment.
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Devo’s sense of self-entitlement is proof why none of the power conferences want anything to do with Connecticut (in addition to a lackluster football program with barely a decade of big-time experience and no shot of joining the AAU in the foreseeable future). Sorry, Huskies, but you’re stuck in the AAC barring major realignment over the next decade (e.g. Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Okie State finally joining the Pac; the Big Ten and/or SEC picking off the ACC’s top properties) which requires the ACC or less likely the Big 12 (or a combination of both) to replenish.
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re: we already have Iowa, we don’t need another Iowa.
You do realize that Iowa has a population less than half the size of Missouri, right?
but yeah, I guess in terms of sports and academics the two universities are relatively similar.
Not that the B1G can get Mizzou at this point. They could have a couple of years ago but it’s too late now.
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OK, we already have one Iowa, we don’t need one and a half more Iowas plus half an Arkansas.
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FiveThirtyEight analyzes why Mark Cuban might be wrong.
It’s true that fewer kids are playing football; but fewer kids are playing baseball and basketball too, and those sports are not particularly concussion-prone. Football is the #1 concussion-causing sport, but hockey and lacrosse are 2nd and 3rd, and participation in those sports is rising. So if football is in trouble, it’s far from clear that the risk of concussions is the reason for it.
Beyond that, the article suggests that, although fewer kids may be playing the sport, the ones not playing are probably the ones who didn’t have much potential to begin with. A 10% decline in the rate of kids playing football would therefore not translate into a 10% decline in NFL prospects. The ones not playing would tend, overwhelmingly, to be the ones who never had any chance of playing the sport at an elite level.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the NFL ought to be happy to see fewer kids playing football, or that they shouldn’t keep trying to reduce the risk of injuries. But it does suggest that the predictions of gloom and doom could be far over-stated.
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Navy just lost a kid during spring practice.
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http://www.stripes.com/news/navy/will-mckamey-navy-football-player-who-collapsed-at-practice-dies-in-coma-1.274555#.UzLnNym9K0c
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All sports can be dangerous. UCSB had a water polo player die during drills. They don’t know yet what happened.
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@Marc Shepherd – Very interesting article, but the one caution is that this is examining data from 2008 to 2012. The concussion concerns have really come to a head over the past year, so this historical data isn’t necessarily reflecting the choices that parents will be making going forward. I love football, but even I’m personally concerned about my own son ever playing the sport because of all of the concussion studies. Anecdotally, I know a lot of fellow parents feeling the same way (and I live in a Chicago suburb that has very strong organized football programs from grade school up through high school). What happens over the next few years will be instructive, particularly in the North where there are already lower participation rates for football. (The South might be a different story with the way youth and high school football is engrained in the culture there.)
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But the broader point is that those who show extreme skill/talent in football at a young age will in all likelihood continue to play, especially kids in poverty for whom athletics is the best hope at financial success.
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“…especially kids in poverty for whom athletics is the best hope at financial success.”
Especially kids in poverty for whom athletics is the only highly visible and promoted “hope” at financial success in their demographic.
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Indeed. If you’re an under-represented minority with good enough grades and test scores to get in to one of the top 30 or so privates, you pretty much don’t have to worry about not having enough money to go to a school like that.
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It may be a good idea for Cuban to not throw stones.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/04/news/la-heb-athletes-and-heart-attacks-04042011
About 1 in every 44,000 NCAA athletes dies of a cardiac problem every year, with the highest rate occurring among basketball players, according to the first comprehensive study of the problem.
But the incidence varied dramatically by sport. The highest rate was in Division 1 basketball, with 1 death per 3,146 players per year. Lacrosse (1 in 23,357) and swimming (1 in 23,488) trailed well behind, with football coming in at 1 in 38,497. Cross-country running was lowest, at 1 in 41,695. Males (1 in 33,134) were more than twice as likely to die as females (1 in 76,696), while blacks (1 in 17,696) were much more likely to die than whites (1 in 58,653).
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Those basketball results are odd. More drug use contributing maybe?
Cross-Country being low isn’t surprising. While the studies say runners aren’t less likely to have a heart attack, they are more likely to survive one.
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Basketball also had Hank Gathers faint and die during a game on live television,
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Posting the article Frank tweeted out:
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/10675532/south-florida-bulls-kill-coaching-deal-steve-masiello-lying-resume
What a dumb-ass.
Of course, that won’t stop another college from hiring him at some point (assuming he gets fired from Manhattan), as he’s shown ability to coach and win at least at a smaller school. (See: O’Leary, George).
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Update: He knew he was in breach of the agreement with UCF, but signed it anyways. Dared UCF to catch him, and they did.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/10704850/documents-show-steve-masiello-lied-south-florida
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This is just a really cool picture:
(Background on the photo here: http://www.gophersports.com/genrel/010604aab.html )
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Clay Travis on the ACC lawsuit:
http://msn.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-coverage/the-acc-and-marylands-lawsuit-is-getting-nasty.php
I agree with his analysis of why the ACC will fight this hard. However, I think his analysis of the GoR is largely incorrect, He grossly oversimplifies them (instead of analyzing an actual GoR) and discounts (for unknown reasons) that granting rights is a voluntary business decision done in order to maximize revenues. This stands in contrast to an exit fee/penalty. Courts are not going to be so quick to void or re-write them simply because a school changes its mind. He also ignores the reality that conferences won’t be so quick to challenge another conference’s GoR because a victory could weaken its own GoR. Victory in such a lawsuit would be a true double-edged sword.
He is right that lawsuits challenging GoR’s would take years and likely settle before trial.
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I agree with you on all counts.
He is right that lawsuits challenging GoR’s would take years and likely settle before trial.
As FTT once pointed out, university presidents hate uncertainty. The GORs were written by lawyers who know a lot more about the law than Clay Travis. It is, at the very least, a distinct possibility that the GOR would turn out to be enforceable, and would any school want to take that chance?
He also chooses a poor example, in that Texas has retained the Tier 3 rights to two of its home football games. In the ACC (which is the league under discussion), that is not the case.
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Kain Colter and CAPA wins NLRB hearing:
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wow, that would be something. As noted by Fischer in his tweet, there will be appeals. This ESpin article quotes various “experts” who predicted that the players would win based on criteria like having their schedules set, meals regulated, etc. etc.
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/10673274/national-labor-relations-board-official-set-decide-northwestern-football-players-campaign-unionize
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Definitely big news.
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NBC report: http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/03/26/nlrb-ruling-gives-players-first-labor-union-win/related/
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Rittenberg’s article: http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/94278/northwestern-union-push-clears-big-hurdle
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From Rittenberg’s article:
“Northwestern issued a statement shortly after the ruling saying it would appeal to the full NLRB in Washington, D.C.
“While we respect the NLRB process and the regional director’s opinion, we disagree with it,” the statement read. “Northwestern believes strongly that our student-athletes are not employees, but students. Unionization and collective bargaining are not the appropriate methods to address the concerns raised by student-athletes.”
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Props to Wainscott for posting the Fischer tweet. We saw it here before it was posted on any main sports site.
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SI article which includes an ESpin link to the actual ruling. http://tracking.si.com/2014/03/26/northwestern-nlrb-employees-capa-college-football-ncaaf/?eref=sihp
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The Opinion is really interesting. Very long; only have time to skim for now.
But I already see various way to attack it on appeal. Ohr starts with “facts” he “found” including that Northwestern is engaged in commerce and this: “There is no collective-bargaining agreement covering any of the employees in the unit sought in this petition and the parties do not contend that there is any contract bar to this proceeding.”
Okay, so all NLOI are amended whereby all the players foreswear any union membership? Or maybe it’s not that simple?
Anyway, lots of info to parse including what Northwestern supposedly “pays,” how that changes depending on summer classes, how much Northwestern “paid” out of the Assistance Fund, lots of info on the “real” life of a college football player, etc. etc.
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Here’s hoping karma bites them in the ass.
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It goes without saying, basketball wins this same lawsuit on the same grounds. Therefore, Northwestern drops sports and Big Ten adds Missouri or UConn. Wake Forest may also leave the ACC on these grounds.
This is a win for the Big Ten. And fresh heroin for expansion junkies like me.
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*finishes bag of expansion dust*
There ends up being 60 P5 schools playing football and basketball. Wake Forest and Northwestern drop both sports. The SEC finally raids the ACC. Missouri and Kansas get back together. The ACC survives. The Big 12 dies. The Texas to PAC thing happens…
(in order)
pre 2025…
-Northwestern drops football
-Missouri joins Big Ten
-West Virginia joins SEC (for SEC-Big 12 scheduling alliance and new bowl game)
-BYU joins Big 12 (or doesn’t… Big 12 could play with 9 members until 2025)
-Wake Forest drops football
-Notre Dame joins ACC (full-time)
post 2025…
-Florida State and NC State join SEC
-ACC stays at 12 with true North / South divisions
-Kansas and Connecticut join Big Ten
-Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State join Pac-12
-Kansas and Connecticut join Big Ten
-These 60 P5 schools de facto split from NCAA
-All money sport athletes are paid a flat rate ($30K-40K per year + free tuition)
P5 becomes P4 and it looks like this…
PAC 16 West / East
USC / Oklahoma
UCLA / Ok. State
Cal / Texas
Stanford / Texas Tech
Wash. / Arizona
Wash. State / Ariz. State
Oregon / Colorado
Or. State / Utah
SEC 16 West / East
Texas A&M / South Car.
West Virginia / NC State
Miss. / Kentucky
Miss. State / Georgia
Alabama / Florida
Auburn / Fl. State
LSU / Tenn.
Arkansas / Vanderbilt
BIG 16 West / East
Missouri / Indiana
Kansas / Ohio State
Nebraska / Michigan
Iowa / Mich. State
Wisconsin / Maryland
Minnesota / Penn State
Purdue / Rutgers
Illinois / Connecticut
ACC North / South
Notre Dame / Virginia
Miami / Virginia Tech
Louisville / North Car.
Pitt / Duke
Boston College / Clemson
Syracuse / Georgia Tech
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@Devo: How many martinis have you chugged before you write these posts?
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Ladies and gentlemen, now we know what a UConn version of Andy would be like. (Apologies to Andy.)
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Difference is Mizzou actually made a lot of sense for the B1G, and nothing I was saying was ridiculous.
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@Devo – The problem is that your assumption is that since this particular ruling is just going to apply to private schools means that public universities are shielded. They’re not. Students at public schools are subject to their respective state labor laws instead of federal laws. So, you’ll just see this process repeated at individual schools in individual states, particularly union-friendly states (which make up much of the Big Ten).
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Although it will take a long time for that to happen. It will be state by state, school by school.
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@bullet – Yes, this is true. I’m just responding to this notion that I’ve seen here and some other places suggesting that power conferences are going to suddenly kick out private schools due to this ruling, which is patently false because it can eventually apply to public universities via other mechanisms. Call me crazy, but the Pac-12 isn’t kicking out USC and Stanford at any point. So, it’s a not a private school vs. public school issue. At the same time, I don’t buy for a single second that any of these power private schools are going to drop out of Division I with the amount of money involved. Let’s just think about how many academic functions are complete cost centers without any revenue to the university, yet they still engage in them. It would take some LeBron-level salaries being paid to athletes to make it financially untenable for power conferences with the revenue that they’re raking in. Sure, university presidents and commissioners might threaten to drop sports with sabre-rattling threats in the media, but we all know the alumni bases aren’t going to be fine with that at all (and ultimately, the bean counters at schools that are hungry for any type of revenue with declining enrollments will rule the day).
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Also, we don’t know the full extent of unionization. Women’s groups will do whatever necessary to remind everyone that what applies to men applies to women.
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Indeed. The state that is probably most sympathetic to unionization these days is probably CA; and the Pac isn’t going to kick out USC, UCLA, Stanford, and Cal.
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Any chance of following a piece of the Ivy model and eliminating athletic scholarships? If that’s the compensation that makes for athletic employment could a return to strictly scholastic scholarships/grants/aid/etc. be the simplest solution? Many/most are eligible for at least some.
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There is nothing wrong with adopting the Ivy League model, if you’re also willing to win at Ivy League frequency.
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I said adopt the scholarship model, not the de emphasize model. A number of Ivy’s are close to “if you’re admitted, you’re on a full ride.” Take all athletic scholarship and oversight money to increase the general school scholarships. Perhaps this would incentivize the ath dept to send more over to the academic, and the academic to be more supportive of the athletic.
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I see a scenario where the P5 or Division 4 or whatever it turns into follows a quasi-professional Ivy League model. Where the men’s football and basketball athletes do not receive scholarships. Rather, they are employees who earn enough to cover tuition and the full costs of attendance…after taxes…and perhaps a bit more. What’s am I missing? Is there something wrong with that scenario?
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ccrider55:
The rich privates are able to provide most athletes with financial aid that is as much or close to a full scholarship (because that’s what they give all students who don’t come from a rich family).
The state schools? No way.
FYI, here are the schools that provide financial aid for 100% of financial need:
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2013/09/18/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need-2014
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In the Ivy League, scholarships are not dependent on athletic ability. Most of Division I clearly could not just give a free ride to everybody. The athletes would need to fill out the FAFSA just like non-athletes, and wait on a financial aid decision, like the rest of us. That can only work if all of Division I goes that route, as otherwise the schools offering traditional athletic scholarships would have a huge advantage.
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“In the Ivy League, scholarships are not dependent on athletic ability.”
That’s the point. You may need to divorce from this model if it is deemed scholarships for athletic ability are “pay.”
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Brad Smith,
“I see a scenario where the P5 or Division 4 or whatever it turns into follows a quasi-professional Ivy League model. Where the men’s football and basketball athletes do not receive scholarships. Rather, they are employees who earn enough to cover tuition and the full costs of attendance…after taxes…and perhaps a bit more. What’s am I missing? Is there something wrong with that scenario?”
Yes, there are many things wrong with it.
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NW and WF drop sports but all the other private schools don’t? Why?
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Devo apparently believes Rice is a budding football powerhouse.
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But it may not be worth the union’s time. And the potential costs of football are much higher for the schools.
And a union of 13 is not the hassle of a union of 85.
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“It goes without saying, basketball wins this same lawsuit on the same grounds. Therefore, Northwestern drops sports”
Why does NW automatically drop sports? The union has claimed they won’t ask for anything that violates NCAA rules.
“and Big Ten adds Missouri or UConn.”
No. Just no. MO has zero interest in leaving the SEC now and the B10 has zero interest in adding UConn now. They’d stay at 13 until the GORs run out before jumping to add UConn now.
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UMass leaving the MAC after 2015.
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UMass was football-only. The MAC insisted upon full membership, but UMass said “no.” So MAC said g’bye.
IMO, partial memberships are bad. Should Johns Hopkins ever have more than just LAX, I would hope the B1G would force them all-in or kick them out.
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So, if the B1G tenders an offer to UConn, the Huskies will have a potential partner. Of course, the UMass mascot is the Minuteman, and he has a scary gun. Maybe the B1G should take a pass on that one.
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The B10 isn’t adding UMass any time soon, and it has nothing to do with guns (which people in B10 country own as much as elsewhere).
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I think bob was making a joke.
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I was joking.
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IMO, partial memberships are bad. Should Johns Hopkins ever have more than just LAX, I would hope the B1G would force them all-in or kick them out.
I don’t really see any reason to object categorically to partial memberships; you have to look at the circumstances, and in this case it was all upside for both parties, JHU and the B1G.
Anyhow, you have nothing to worry about. JHU plays Division I LAX under a special exemption not likely to be extended to other sports. They’d have to jump up to Division I in all sports, and that is not going to happen.
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The point of the UMass add was in combination with Temple, to put MAC football onto the East Coast (to the extent feasible), and put Bowling Green and Toledo into the same division. That was another move in realignment that fell apart before it occurred, Temple paying the hefty short-notice exit fee to leave the same season that UMass joined.
It was an arrangement with some potential for benefit, including the schedule of MAC BBall teams to be played OOC by Temple and UMass, but when the arrangement fell apart, that made UMass a loose end.
Hard to see UMass BBall leaving the 6-bid A10 for the 1-bid MAC, so when the MAC decided to exercise the option in UMass’s affiliation agreement (in the event that Temple left), the UMass decision would not have come as a surprise. Maybe UMass talks to the Sunbelt about a FB-only-with-no-strings-attached offer, which would put the Sunbelt up to 12 and a CCG.
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I guess this means the MAC doesn’t think Northern Illinois is going to see a Big 10 invite anytime soon.
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And doesn’t think that Cincinnati is going to the Big12 with OhioU snapped up by the American, or any other of the crazy Fantasy Realignment scenarios people have built up in response to CREW (conference realignment excitement withdrawal) syndrome.
In the last fifteen years of MAC realignment, while all the other Go5 schools go through tremendous change, all that seems to happen to the MAC is the pair of schools it added to the east got taken out (Marshall/UCF), replaced (Temple/UMass), taken out (Temple before UMass could actually get there). At this point, the MAC losing an eastern FB-only member is starting to seem like a lizard losing a tail, only to eventually grow it back.
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AAC will be at 12 when Navy joins for football only. Likely no room for UMass unless the conference goes to 14. Though, would potentially be a nice little rival for UConn.
Who would be the AAC’s 14th team in this scenario? Is there even a good option out there? Maybe beg Army to join for football only and make Army-Navy a conference game? Granted, Army football is absolutely terrible, but its at least the best name out there.
Maybe some random school like Georgia State to get some Atlanta TV eyeballs? Marshall? Beg Villanova to upgrade to FBS?
On second thought, these options might mean if AAC adds UMass, they do stand pat at 13 and deal with any issues from an odd number of schools.
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If the AAC goes to 14, they will probably do what they did before. Invite military academies or old CUSA schools. So Army, Air Force, Rice, UTEP, USM, UAB or Marshall.
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I’m assuming UMass has done its research, and either believes it is likely to get a conference invite, or has decided it’s okay with independence for the time being. But I can’t see them surviving as an independent. They’re not like ND, BYU, or Army, institutions with substantial national followings. Hardly anyone outside of Massachusetts (and perhaps not even there) cheers for UMass football.
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I sure hope they’ve done their research. AAC expansion to 13 in football/12 basketball is difficult to imagine. I suppose that if the ACC’s proposal to allow championship games to occur without divisions would help make such an expansion possible because going to 13 with unbalanced divisions just seems ridiculous. UMass couldn’t give the added bonus of a CCG. Given their lack of national following, their very minimal local market penetration, and their state of football ineptitude, there’s hardly a reason for the AAC to add them. Even for basketball’s sake, they don’t add anything in that sport that a VCU or Wichita State wouldn’t, and those potential additions wouldn’t dilute the football product.
I would not put it past the Sun Belt to add UMass as a football-only addition. If that league was willing to add the very distant and very mediocre New Mexico State (no bowl games in roughly the past 50 years) and Idaho (stadium is a non-expandible dome seating under 20,000), then hey, why not UMass. As an App State fan who’sbeen sobered up by the worst season in 20 years as we leave the very regional, travel friendly SoCon, where we enjoyed much success, and enter the worst, very widespread FBS conference, I would prefer James Madison or Eastern Kentucky. Those schools are closer to the rest of membership, have an actual history with App State, and could actually be full-time members. But UMass is low hanging fruit that commissioner Benson is likely to pick.
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Again, I hope UMass has done its research. I understand wanting to stay in the A-10. Overall, it is a far better league, and it has more of their traditional rivals (though the losses of Temple and Xavier mitigate those ties a bit). But because having a home for football is so vitally important, sometimes it is worth moving to the weaker league for the sake of football. UNC Charlotte, for instance, left that same strong Atlantic 10 for what will be, in most years, a one-bid basketball league in C-USA. Their chancellor called the move a “no-brainer.” Football independence was not a viable option.
This UMass story will likely fly under the radar because it’s so far down the totem pole in the FBS world, but it will be very intetesting to see whether UMass ends upbregretting its rejection of the MAC or somehow finds safe harbor for the huge investment it has made to become an FBS program.
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It seems to me that if Army/Navy becomes a conference game, it has to be played before the CCG. That is, indeed, one of the strikes against the AAC from the Army perspective, whereas the “sprawl across half the country” aspect of the AAC is an attraction to a school that would like to play a national schedule … part of why it made sense for Navy to stick to its invite when the “Big East of Reno” plan fell apart. For Navy, add the annual game against Air Force (mountain west) and Notre Dame (midwest), and all you need is a game against a west coast school to make a “national schedule”.
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Props to Wainscott for posting the McMurphy tweet. We saw it here before it was posted on any main sports site.
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oops, that should be above for the Wainscott post re: Northwestern story.
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Thanks!
Twitter is an invaluable resource for getting news faster than anywhere else. Routinely, stories will break on Twitter a good 10-20 minutes before being up on TV/websites/radio.
Bottom line, its the best live newspaper out there.
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The depth and insight is unbeatable…
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@ccrider55
Best post of the day! No, make that ever.
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Actually, your response qualifies as the best post ever.
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UMass football back to FCS? I don’t see any compelling reason for the Sun Belt to add UMass (let alone the AAC). And UMass isn’t likely anxious to ditch A10 basketball for the Sun Belt.
Is FBS independence possible? Yes, but I would think not likely. They could get annual games with Army and BYU, one of those a home game. Add one FCS home opponent. Then, they just need 3-4 other home games. There are enough MAC and Sun Belt teams out there now (many that just left FCS), that they might be able to find those 3-4 needed home games to make a run at independence. Not exactly stellar schedules, but I think they could do it.
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It seems highly likely that UMass could get offers of eight games on a home and home basis from the MAC / Sunbelt / CUSA, the problem would be the likelyhood that seven of them would be in four weeks in September.
One thing they could do, though, would be to get a deal with a Go5 conference for four games from mid-October to mid-November in return for four OOC BBall games. Then including BYU/Army they could have three home games in the last seven weeks of the regular season, where the year BYU hosts Army, UMass hosts BYU and visa versa.
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The AAC would presumably be all-sports, but the AAC’s problem is that they are best placed among the Go5 for markets, they just are short of teams that people in those markets want to watch play football, and UMass doesn’t address that problem. With Navy already coming to make 12 in FB, and lots of Olympic-sports schools available at the terms that the AAC wanted to move their Olympic sports from 11 to 12, its hard to see taking the hit on AAC FB and requiring a 14th school to get UMass BBall in the AAC.
The Sunbelt would certainly be FB-only, and it would allow the Sunbelt to start up their CCG. I don’t know how much the Sunbelt cares about BBall for the potential for four UMass OOC games to be appealing. Part of that depends on whether JMU’s preference for CUSA or the MAC over the Sunbelt is just a ranking, or whether JMU is in fact not interested in moving up to FBS if it means joining the Sunbelt conference. If JMU takes the 12th Sunbelt spot all-sports, which would make the divisions work out, that would seem to settle down Go5 conference realignment for a while, with UMass looking for some side deal to allow it to survive as an FBS independent until the next round of realignment, possibly in the twenties.
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There’s an email doing the rounds from the EKU President to advise them not to get their hopes up about EKU moving up to FBS in the Sunbelt. The part that people have seized upon is the EKU President saying that the Sunbelt is moving on from FCS promotions to considering FBS schools, which is taken by many to imply that the Sunbelt will be inviting UMass FB only and promoting NMSU to all-sports to go from 11/11 to 12/12 FB/Olympic Sports.
The EKU President also tweeted something to a similar effect:
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UMass in the Sun Belt? Yikes. Unless they have a good coach who can parlay games in the south into good recruits and great on field success, that can’t be a situation that will get the 5 UMass football fans excited. That UMass vs Troy State game in Amherst could be played in a local high school with seats leftover.
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Not that its great, but having rejected MAC all-sports, they can drop back down to FCS, try to play as an FBS Independent, or, if the Sunbelt FB-only offer comes their way, play in the Sunbelt FB-only. And among those choices, Sunbelt-FB likely wouldn’t be any worse than trying to play as an FB independent. I wouldn’t be surprised if the deal was that the $1m extra CFP money for the 12th FB member was distributed as travel subsidy. I don’t know what the dollar breakdown is for the Idaho deal, but if all of the extra $1m/school CFP money (to a max of 12 schools) is divided evenly per game, it’s $500,000 to UMass and $125,000 for the four Sunbelt schools traveling to Amherst or Gillette. Likely plus, as with the current MAC deal, four BBall games per year in home and home series with Sunbelt schools.
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http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/24501337/report-nashville-laying-plans-for-own-kickoff-classic-style-game
Nashville is looking to stage a kickoff game, too.
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Indiana would be the straight shot down I – 65 to Nashville.
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Supposedly they want to copy Atlanta and have it be SEC vs someone. I’m not sure how many big SEC vs other games can be hosted every year, but that’s their plan.
It would be a decent location for a B10/SEC kickoff challenge. Maybe a double host with a smaller game (NW/Vandy, UK/IU, MO/IL, etc) and then a bigger game (UGA/WI, AL/PSU, LSU/MI, etc). St. Louis would be a better host, but nothing’s perfect.
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The problem is that the 4 kings pretty much want to have 7 home games every year. Couple that with a 9-game conference slate and there are precious few OOC slots for games away from home. Even Iowa seems insistent on 7 home games a year. Heck, _Illinois_ wants 7 home games a year.
The only way I can see it work is if schools like Wisconsin and MSU are OK with either 7-5/6-5-1 or 7-4-1/6-5-1 schedules. The IN schools are close to Nashville, but would a neutral site game schedule them? Northwestern may be good enough to be considered an attractive opponent, but really, only if Wisconsin and MSU are willing to have 6 home games + a neutral site game some years would we see plenty of B10 schools in neutral site games.
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Though UM has an open slot in 2016, it looks like. They could potentially play an SEC team in Nashville . . . or one in Daytona that year.
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M’s schedule is full through ’23 other than buying home games from the MAC, C-USA, MWC.
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The nice thing about neutral site games is you can still make $$ while playing a road game. The Georgia-Florida game is held in Jacksonville every year now because the teams found that they could make more money splitting the annual gate revenue than they could hosting the game every other year. Of course, Georgia-Florida is intra-conference, so there aren’t the same TV implications.
The Jerry World games (Michigan-Alabama, Oregon-LSU, ASU-Notre Dame, etc.) show that the kings are willing to participate in neutral-site kickoff games. College football needs more non-conference marquee matchups. If the neutral-site idea is needed to make it happen, then I say “Go Nashville!”
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Richard,
“The problem is that the 4 kings pretty much want to have 7 home games every year.”
I’m aware of that. I just pointed out it would be a decent site to do it, unlike Atlanta or Dallas.
“Couple that with a 9-game conference slate and there are precious few OOC slots for games away from home.”
But some might try 2 neutral site games instead of a home and home OOC series. Play neutral when you have 5 B10 home games. The tradeoff is no big OOC game in the years with 4 B10 home games.
EX.
2017 – 5 B10 home games, play at a neutral site
2018 – buy 3 OOC home games
2019 – play someone else at a neutral site
2020 – buy 3 OOC home games
2021 – revert to OOC home and homes
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Why not a mixture of SEC-ACC-B1G-Big 12- and even AAC teams?
Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Georgia, Auburn, Alabama, Ole Miss, Mississippi St., Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Memphis, and Cincinnati, are all fairly close.
Not to mention it’s a fairly central location between all these conferences.
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They want SEC vs other because it seems most likely to guarantee good ticket sales, presumably. I don’t think they really care what conference the other team is form, just whether or not it sells tickets.
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Dominate the State!
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MAC news, union news and Apple TV/Comcast news today:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/03/24/apple-comcast-deal-implications/6829929/
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Yormark said Brooklyn has a “deep connection” with the ACC, citing borough natives Michael Jordan, Billy Cunningham and Sam Perkins, who all played for North Carolina. The cachet of programs like UNC, Duke, Syracuse and Louisville, which joins the ACC next year, the ACC tournament could become the hottest ticket in town the week before the NCAA tournament.
“I think there’s a paradigm shift going on in the marketplace,” Yormark said. “The ACC, no one can dispute it is the preeminent college basketball tournament in the country, and we have it now. It’s Destination Brooklyn.”
Yormark hopes Barclays becomes part of a regular rotation for the ACC tournament following 2021 and to develop a long-term relationship.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/barclays-center-boss-hypes-arena-leader-college-hoops-article-1.1735583
Why would Brooklyn settle for “second-best” when they already going to have a collection of big names in college basketball? I agree with Yormark.
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Eh, it’s standard hyping of a recent deal. They would say the same exact things if the B1G had a deal with them.
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ACC also going to Charlotte & Greensboro
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Good. The ACC isn’t going to completely abandon their roots any time soon. It also serves right those fools supporting certain former BE schools (especially those who like to wear orange) who think that they can turn the ACC into the old BE somehow. They’re the newbies and they should learn to respect the other schools in that conference.
Now the Big Ten has a real opportunity from 2017 through 2021 to make a big presence in the Washington, D.C. area, assuming the A-10 doesn’t get there first. I’m hoping the A-10 goes back to the Palestra, as I think it could help with their exposure in Philadelphia. Providence would be a bad fit, as it is too north for most of the A-10.
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BTW, with the NLRB ruling, it really behooves Delany to extend at least a part of the tier1 deal with ESPN this year.
The whole economics of college sports is likely to change quite rapidly, and you want to know what your revenue streams are before you make decisions.
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The whole economics of college sports is likely to change quite rapidly…
The ruling is profound if it holds up, but I think the appeals will take years.
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My understanding is that NLRB appeals are fast.
Otherwise, employers can just stall unionization drives with appeals until the instigators are gone.
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But the Supreme Court isn’t.
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The BIG will be fine. Same goes for the SEC. The real fear has to be for ACC.
Non-revenue sports are in the greatest danger with this ruling. Anything given to football and basketball players will in all likelihood have to be given to non-revenue sports. Good luck giving a full cost of scholarship to football players and not woman’s lacrosse in today’s world. So the cost of everything will go up. The BIG, due to the BTN, has a financial interest to keep these sports running for content on its network. What will be the financial interest for UNC or UVA that sponsor 27 and 25 sports respectively to operate all those programs? Or BC with 29 and Duke with 26? You will see the death of a lot of these non-revenue sports at a lot of schools without conference networks.
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Remember, the owners said that free agency was going to kill pro sports. The IOC said that allowing athletes to be paid would kill the Olympics. Years ago, the NCAA said that football would die if schools were allowed to make their own TV deals.
All of these forecasts of gloom & doom turned out to be wrong.
Both the schools and the athletes want the non-revenues to survive. When all sides want it to survive, they usually find a way.
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“Both the schools and the athletes want the non-revenues to survive. When all sides want it to survive, they usually find a way.”
Thee that to the hundreds and hundreds of dropped programs (wrestling, swimming, track, tennis, gymnastics, etc) and the tens of thousands of those who never had an opportunity to compete over the last few decades.
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Free agency and unionization has really hurt baseball. It was my favorite sport as a kid. But then it gets harder to keep track of the players and you don’t want strikes messing up seasons or stopping the World Series. That last was a really stupid move by the players.
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I am referring to free agency in general, which exists now in all the major sports, not just baseball. As fans, we are certainly free to prefer it the old way, but there isn’t a credible argument that free agency has “killed” those leagues, in any way that we can measure. Indeed, they are all more profitable now than they were before free agency was introduced.
Go back and read the arguments from when free agency was being litigated, and see how many of the owners’ dire predictions came true.
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There is a very strong argument that free agency has seriously hurt baseball whether you believe it or not. There is no question the way it played out in baseball hurt the sport. In the NFL, it simply turned fans into fantasy football league players.
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My point is that since all four sports have free agency, and all four sports aren’t “hurting” the same way (if at all), free agency itself is probably not the issue.
The sports clearly are different than they would have been without free agency, and some fans may prefer the good old days, but there isn’t good evidence that free agency itself makes sports worse, in any way we can measure.
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http://tracking.si.com/2012/07/03/university-of-maryland-cuts-sports-teams/
Wanting to keep non-revenue sports and having the ability to pay for them are two different things. Maryland cut 7 sports just a little under two years ago because of trying to keep up with big time football at its present price point.
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I’m interested to learn whether Title IX applies to scenarios where some (or all) student-athletes are deemed employees. What if universities start to pay football players enough to cover the costs of tuition plus living expenses (after taxes), without granting scholarships? Perhaps they could avoid Title IX implications – and actually get back more men’s scholarship sports, instead of club-level sports (soccer, wrestling, rugby, etc.).
My thinking is that this ruling, and subsequent rulings that are sure to come for other universities, will either accelerate the rise of Division 4 or ruin college athletics. It will be interesting to see who would be willing and able to jump up to Division 4.
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A labor lawyer on Cowherd this morning opined that unionization would only apply to football and men’s basketball because are the only sports that operate as businesses. So it is unlikely the others athletes would be granted union privileges.
Division II and III might similarly be exempt in toto.
As to Title IX, it only applies to the opportunity to participate and not to compensation.
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Feminist are currently fighting for other people to pay for a woman’s contraception. Do you think they will sit back and watch male student athletes get special privileges that student female athletes do not?
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“Do you think they will sit back and watch male student athletes get special privileges that student female athletes do not?”
This x 1000.
Now, if unions are ultimately limited to football, I don’t think women’s groups will be successful, They will try, but I think football’s unique role in terms of physical violence, time commitment, and revenue generation will be the basis for denial.
But try telling female leaders, students, politicians, alumni, etc, that male basketball players are allowed to unionize, but female basketball players at that same school are not. Absolutely no chance from a public relations perspective of that occurring. Zero.
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@Wainscott – I think that it would almost impossible to limit the ability for any particular sport (whether men’s or women) to unionize under this NLRB ruling. The university would almost certainly lose. However, we shouldn’t equate the ability to unionize with the ability of all sports to collectively bargain for the exact same benefits. If each sports team has its own union, then they’ll all need to separately enter into different contracts with the university and those could conceivably treat football and men’s basketball players better than the other sports. However, I’m not sure whether that brings in some Title IX exposure – this is uncharted territory. The only way to guarantee that everything is equal among all sports is if all of the athletes at a school are under a single union.
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@Frank:
I find it hard to believe that each sport would have its own union. There is nothing in it for a union organizing a track and field team or some other non-revenue sport.
My only point is that from a public/political perspective, feminist activists, female politicians, students, et al will not for a second stand by and let male athletes get better treatment than female athletes in the same sport. Regardless of Title IX, because of the public relations issues that it would create for the schools and the sponsoring union alike.
Its not an accident that a football player brought the test case for this, because football is along such a revenue producing sport. There is a colorable argument to treat football players differently because of all the money football makes. But gender politics will make such a distinction in basketball impossible. Womens rights activists will not willingly concede football is unique, but I think they would be unsuccessful in protesting because football is that special.
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I think Universities will argue for larger pools in the union vote (all full scholarship athletes) while the athletes in the revenue sports will try to split off. Splits by sport may be approved, but it will be hard to get separate bargaining groups approved by the NLRB when sex is the primary basis of the split such as men’s and women’s basketball. Keeping both in the same union will minimize Title IX issues.
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Interesting, the amount of time and pressure for Non-Revenue sports are very similar. Talking to D1 athletes in Olympic sports their time requirements are just as great as football and basketball, but they just don’t have the fans in the stands like basketball and football. They are often traveling everywhere by bus or vans. So seems like Non-Revenue athletes could make a similar case. Perhaps instead of by sport, they could unionize as a union of non-revenue sports.
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The NLRB only applies to private universities. A key part of the decision is that the athletic scholarships is the compensation that creates the employer relationship. Northwestern walk-ons are not allowed to be part of the union. Few of the state labor laws that apply to public universities will consider athletic scholarships as compensation that creates state employment.
The Ivy league is exempt since no scholarships are based on athletic participation. That is the key item, since men’s football and basketball at all levels can be considered a business even if not profitable. The Ivy does quite well at the FCS level just be creating a level playing field within the conference. The big impact of this decision could be that more non-P5 conferences comprised mostly of private schools decide to eliminate athletic scholarships to keep the playing field level within the conference rather than stepping down to Div. III (no scholarship). Even without a conference agreement, some non-football schools may limit athletic scholarships to basketball (men and women for IX). That will both save money on Olympic sports and limit the impact of athletic unions. There are NCAA scholarship limits, but no minimums.
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The NLRB only applies to private universities.
If this ruling holds, it’s exceedingly likely that as the NW players win concessions from their “employer,” some of the same concessions will be offered at other schools even the non-unionized ones.
This is part the story of organized labor historically. Benefits won by unionized workers tend to spill over into the non-unionized workplace. Not all of them, and not immediately, but it does happen.
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Pinkertons are cheaper.
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One impact I foresee is that fewer walk-ons will get rewarded for stellar play with a scholarship.
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There are minimum scholarship requirements to be in Division I.
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Two things.
If athletic based scholarships are found to be pay wouldn’t that violate the NCAA amateur rules?
and, if they are pay then they are not (and haven’t been?) scholarships – so no one has been in compliance in D1 for quite a while.
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Athletic scholarships were actually quite controversial for many, many decades. UChicago actually stopped playing NWU in the mid 1920’s in part because Coach Stagg accused the school of recruiting football players with an early form of athletic scholarship. Eventually, by the late 1950’s, they were accepted by more schools, primarily out of resignation (acknowledgement that it was impossible to stop schools from giving aid to athletes). I believe this was an issue when Michigan State applied to join the conference in the late 1940’s, as the school openly granted aid to athletes.
From what I’ve read, athletic scholarships were, at that time, justified in part based on the ideal that colleges at that time gave out scholarships for other non-academic reasons (ex. some gave scholarships to those in marching bands), that giving based on athletics was not really any different.
But yes, on some level, giving any sort of benefit based on athletics does seem to run counter to the ideal of amateurism.
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http://www.gocrimson.com/information/recruiting/helpfulinfo
Somehow the Ivy seems to get away without offering any. Ivy is Div. I for everything, but FCS rather than FBS for football.
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They describe the “scholarships” as financial aid. That may be how they get around it.
From the NCAA:
20.9.3.2 Minimum Awards. A member of Division I shall provide institutional financial assistance that
equals one of the following: (Revised: 1/10/91 effective 9/1/94)
(a) A minimum of 50 percent of the maximum allowable grants in 14 sports, at least seven of which must be
women’s sports. If an institution uses indoor track and field, outdoor track and field and cross country to
meet the financial aid criterion, it must award the equivalent of at least 80 percent of the full grants for
men and 80 percent of the full grants for women in those sports. If the institution counts two of those
three sports to meet the financial aid criterion, it must award the equivalent of at least 70 percent of the full
grants for men and 70 percent of the full grants for women. If the institution counts indoor and outdoor
track and field as one sport, it must award the equivalent of at least 50 percent of the full grants for men
and 50 percent of the full grants for women; (Revised: 1/10/91 effective 9/1/94, 10/27/98 effective 8/1/99)
(b) Financial aid representing a minimum aggregate expenditure of $1,394,580 in 2013-14 (with at least
$697,290 in women’s sports) and $1,419,682 in 2014-15 (with at least $709,841 in women’s sports)
exclusive of grants in football and men’s and women’s basketball, provided the aggregate grant value is
not less than the equivalent of 38 full grants, with at least 19 full grants for women. The Administration
Cabinet shall adjust the minimum aggregate figure annually to reflect inflation, based on changes in average
national tuition charges for regionally accredited institutions. The Administration Cabinet shall announce
the revised figure in the fall each year for the following academic year. If the institution does not
sponsor men’s or women’s basketball, the minimum aggregate expenditure must be $920,707 in 2013-14
and $937,280 in 2014-15 for the gender without the basketball program, but in no case fewer than the
equivalent of 29 full grants for that gender; (Revised: 1/10/91 effective 9/1/94, 1/10/95, 1/9/96, 1/14/97
effective 9/1/97, 4/15/97 effective 8/1/98, 10/27/98 effective 8/1/99, 4/13/99, 4/11/00, 4/10/01, 4/28/05,
4/27/06, 6/11/07, 11/1/07 effective 8/1/08)
(c) A minimum of the equivalent of 50 full grants (at least 25 full grants in women’s sports), exclusive of grants
awarded in football and men’s and women’s basketball. If the member institution does not provide men’s
or women’s basketball, it shall sponsor a minimum of 35 full grants in the sports program for the gender
without the basketball program; or (Revised: 1/10/91 effective 9/1/94, 10/27/98 effective 8/1/99, 8/14/02)
(d) A minimum of one-half of the required grants or aggregate expenditures cited in (a), (b) or (c) above, for
institutions that depend on exceptional amounts of federal assistance to meet students’ financial needs.
This provision shall be applicable to an institution in a given year if the average per-student allotment of
Pell Grant dollars for undergraduates reported to the U.S. Department of Education the previous September
is more than one standard deviation above the mean for all reporting Division I member institutions
that year. If an institution does not qualify under this provision after having been able to do so the previous
year, the institution may continue to use this alternative for one year and shall not be required to meet the
provisions of (a), (b) or (c) above until the following year. This provision shall be applicable only to institutions
that were members of Division I on September 1, 1990. (Revised: 1/10/91 effective 9/1/94)
20.9.3.2.1 Aid Counted Toward Minimum Requirements. All institutional financial aid (including
aid that is exempted from an equivalency computation per Bylaw 15.5.3.2.2) awarded by the member institution
to a counter (per Bylaw 15.5.1) shall be used to meet the appropriate minimum.
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“They describe the “scholarships” as financial aid. That may be how they get around it.”
That’s the crux of the challenge. The players, if they win through the appeals process, would be paid employees. Their financial aid/scholarships is what the employer is paying them for their (FB) job.
Pay for play broke up the precursor to the PAC, and was a concern with the Ivys. We are really talking about the professionalization of college athletics. And once established is there any legal impediment to it following the path of the other professional sports? How long ’til we have Cuban University basketball in Houston. Perhaps Jerry would like to go home – the Jones Razorbacks, farm team for the Cowboys. Could Artie Moreno revitalize USC baseball?
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Indeed, the Ivies offer financial aid.
So long as an athlete and non-athlete with the same financial circumstance get the same level and type of aid (and it isn’t contingent on continuing to be an athlete), there should be no problem.
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We are really talking about the professionalization of college athletics.
Or maybe the re-amateurization. Originally, college sports were just like any other extra-curricular activity, like the debate team, the drama club, or the school newspaper. Those other activities remained hobbies, as they’d always been, while being a scholarship athlete became more like a job.
Division III and the Ivy League schools still adhere to something resembling that model. Eliminate the athletic scholarship, and you’re back to where you started. Of course, the quality of play would go way down, and maybe they wouldn’t fill those 100,000-seat stadiums any more.
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“Eliminate the athletic scholarship, and you’re back to where you started.”
Good.
“Of course, the quality of play would go way down…”
Why? Will a viable pro alternative suddenly appear?
“…and maybe they wouldn’t fill those 100,000-seat stadiums any more.”
As opposed to schools abandoning the sport? I don’t/wouldn’t support the schools I do because of mercenaries they hire.
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Ccrider:
Change in quality depends on the sport. I don’t see the best basketball, baseball, or hockey players paying to play college sports when they can get paid to play instead. For that matter, dual-sport athletes choosing between at least a decent signing bonus to play baseball or paying to play in college are more likely to choose baseball.
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“Of course, the quality of play would go way down…”
Why? Will a viable pro alternative suddenly appear?
The pro alternative exists already, e.g., minor-league baseball and hockey, European basketball. If the choice is an all-expenses-paid apprenticeship under Coach K at Duke or a couple of years in Croatia, Duke wins. If the athletes had to meet the usual requirements of admission at Duke, then most (all?) of Coach K’s current team wouldn’t be there.
What would happen to football is an interesting question, as it’s the only major sport where an 18-year-old has no realistic opportunity to turn pro. But it’s hard to deny the quality of play would go down if the schools no longer recruited marginal students purely for their athletic ability.
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“What would happen to football is an interesting question, as it’s the only major sport where an 18-year-old has no realistic opportunity to turn pro. But it’s hard to deny the quality of play would go down if the schools no longer recruited marginal students purely for their athletic ability.”
And all prospective minor leagues have gone by the wayside, from the Arena Football League to NFL Europe to that recent football league that Marty Schottenheimer was involved in. Certainly, having already killed one league, the NFL is not starting up its own league.
Then again, kids can always try the Eric Swann route: who was a first round pick of the Cardinals in 1991 after playing semi-pro ball for $5 bucks an hour (He was academically ineligible for NC State, played at a community college for two years, then played semi pro ball for a year before being drafted).
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Ccrider:
Your “where would they go” logic is actually a good argument to cut scholarships in non-revenue sports with no pro alternatives, since, by your logic, those athletes would still play anyway.
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You may be right, but we can’t know that unless we know how much general aid and/or scholarships the current full ride kids would be eligible for. If the average Duke kid gets 60-80% covered I’d bet most still opt to “intern” under coach K. Those from low incomes probably are close to 100% covered, and those from more affluence both can afford more and can see the value they are paying for at a discount.
Remember the Gonzaga kid that returned his schollie because his family didn’t require it and others did to a greater extent? It gained them another “scholarship caliber” player.
I knew a college wrestling coach who almost never gave full rides (first full ride was to a senior defending national champ). First stop for recruits? Financial aid office, to find out what recruits qualified for and then he would offer some supliment. For top kids it equaled full rides but it was predominantly not from the athletic dept. budget. His concern at the time was cost control and program protection rather than pay for play. He was very successful for decades and it showed a high number of kids were eligible for aid. A few went elsewhere because they wanted to be able to say they got a full athletic scholarship. He was fine with that as he felt their motivation was misplaced and exposed a internal weakness.
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Richard:
“Your “where would they go” logic is actually a good argument to cut scholarships in non-revenue sports with no pro alternatives, since, by your logic, those athletes would still play anyway.”
Yes and no. The argument is made against the proposition that FB would drop dramatically in quality, presumably because they’d flee to a more attractive alternative. No such claim exists for most non revenue. However, if the pay for play model was eliminated across athletics I’d have no problem with that.
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Marc:
“If the athletes had to meet the usual requirements of admission at Duke, then most (all?) of Coach K’s current team wouldn’t be there.”
Why would anything change regarding requirements and admissions? Only the compensation changes. And for many that change wouldn’t be the amount, but the source of the aid.
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Ccrider-
Its too bad the brilliance of that wrestling coach was not copied by the fb/mbb coaches of the mid 1970s to mid 1980s. At that time many big10 schools were in a fever to get their minority numbers up and they embarked on many full-ride academic scholarship programs with lower thresholds then for white students. Im sure a lot of the black Big10 players at the time were middle to upper income and middlebrow academically. A rogue coach e.g. a Switzer or McCartney would have put a lot of the more upstanding kids on academic scholarships (e.g. U of I’s Presidents Award Program) and used the remaining athletic scholarships for academically marginal/physically talented recruits.
Prop 48 was actually a good thing, which was pointed out indirectly in the recent Real Sports UNC expose. It gave those students a year to get it together academically and also let them bulkup or refine their skills .
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What basis do you have for assuming that black players playing football in the B10 in the ’70’s were mostly middle-class, middle-brow or above?
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urbanleftbehind:
Yes, that coach was brilliant…and abrasive/confrontational. I heard him ask multi time state champs if they were worth a damn, or why should he be allowed on the team. He was also a PhD and a fully tenured professor. He and Dr. Harold Nichols of ISU were, I believe, the last such critters, at least in D1 wrestling. Came in handy when the AD tried to cut the program and told him to shut up or be fired. Response was F… You, you thought I was a thorn before? Program still exists and the coach created an endowment that has grown considerably and provides significant support…and can’t be touched by the school (believe me, it’s been attempted).
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ccrider55,
“Why? Will a viable pro alternative suddenly appear?”
Yes. The SEC sure as hell isn’t going to drop football down to a D-III equivalent even if other conferences do.
“As opposed to schools abandoning the sport? I don’t/wouldn’t support the schools I do because of mercenaries they hire.”
Maintenance and operations of giant stadiums are huge expenses. Without high demand, schools could easily lose millions every year. Some would have to consider paying players because of the money involved.
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urbanleftbehind,
“ts too bad the brilliance of that wrestling coach was not copied by the fb/mbb coaches of the mid 1970s to mid 1980s.”
The financial aid rules are different for FB and MBB than for wrestling. FB and MBB are head count sports while wrestling use equivalency. The coach’s plan helped him spread his aid pool over more people. In a head count sport, giving 1% of a full ride from the AD is the same as giving 100%. It would save them money, but that’s rarely the issue anymore. You also have to prove that playing sports has nothing to do with any outside aid they receive.
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I don’t believe this is true. Lots of public universities have employee unions for their staff, and many have faculty unions. All of these function under NLRB rules.
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What I was commenting on is the willingness of states to consider scholarships compensation equal to pay checks. Many states have already ruled students that are part time employees of the university they attend (actually get paychecks) are not covered, while a few states have allowed these unions. State employees function under state rules. These may have been crafted to mimic NLRB, but they are not covered by the act. A private employer contracting to provide services to the state is covered, so there can have workers on the campus that are covered by the NLRB, but this would not be the faculty or any athletes.
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Here’s a take from ESPN’s legal analyst Lester Munson.
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/10678393/nlrb-director-decision-follows-road-map-laid-northwestern-quarterback-kain-colter-legal-team
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I didn’t see this posted yet so here it is:
Records in the tournament so far
SEC 7-0
American 5-2
Pac 12 7-3
Big Ten 6-3
Mountain West 2-1
ACC 6-5
Big 12 6-5
A-10 2-4
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I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising that the SEC turned out to do pretty good in the tournament. No, the SEC wasn’t very deep. But the better teams in the league had some good wins.
Florida beat Big 12 champ Kansas by 6 pts.
Kentucky beat American Conference champ Louisville by7pts
Tennessee beat ACC champ Virginia by 35 pts
Missouri beat Pac 12 champ UCLA by 9 pts
etc.
What killed the league’s RPI was teams like Alabama, Georgia, Auburn, and A&M losing tons of games they shouldn’t have lost. That drug the whole league down.
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Well everybody wiped out in the 2nd round of the NIT/CBI-Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, LSU, A&M.
At least the NIT got their seeds right. NIT final 4 are 3 #1 seeds-SMU, Minnesota, FSU and a #3 seed-Clemson.
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Well, the higher seeded teams host so they have home court advantage.
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True, but that didn’t help your Missouri Tigers in the NIT this year as they lost to Southern Mississippi at home in front of 6,000 Tiger faithful.
I do think that home court can be pretty significant in the NIT though. Especially a team like SMU – they did pretty well at home all year, but poor strength of schedule and a bad road record kept them out of the NCAA tournament. Now they’ve won 3 straight at home over average competition and they are crowing that they really did belong in the NCAAs. Chances are though, if they didn’t play all home games, they would have lost.
And then there is the fourth NIT #1 – St John’s, who lost in the first round. The biggest factor there was the fact that no one at St John’s really cared to play in the NIT. The game was at Carnesecca Arena – their home for low key non-conference games that they know won’t draw a big Madison Square Garden crowd. 1,000 people showed.
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Mizzou fans are spoiled. We had been to 5 straight NCAA tournaments and the fans are treating the NIT like it’s the end of the world. People refused to attend.
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re: Frank’s original post, specifically your link to this article:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-11-30/news/ct-met-college-students-leave-illinois-20121130_1_missouri-school-mizzou-students
Interesting topic, and I had never thought of it that way, but I think you’re right that Mizzou is drawing off 1,000 to 1,500 Chicago area kids every year who didn’t get into UIUC but doin’t want to go to NIU or SIU or Illinois State, so then they decide between Iowa or Mizzou, and more and more are picking Mizzou.
I don’t think this is something that is going to change any time soon. NIU has a long, long way to go before they’d catch up with Mizzou or Iowa.
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I think that’s the whole point. Outside of UI-UC, there is no other public state university that is on the level of Mizzou/Iowa/Indiana/Wisconsin/KU, etc…, or even close to the level of those schools. It would take decades for one (or more) of SIU/NIU/ISU/EIU/WIU to get to that level.
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I suppose it all trickles down stream. Illinois students who didn’t quite make it into Illinois head to Mizzou, pushing more Missouri students out of Mizzou and down to Arkansas and Oklahoma and Ole Miss.
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I guess an interesting strategy that Mizzou will employ going forward is now they’ll not only be recruiting students heavily in Chicago and Dallas as they have been for years, but also in Atlanta and throughout Florida. I guess we’ll see how that goes. I’m hearing Atlanta has been going well.
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Minny announces a new $70 million indoor football facility; basketball one is also in the cards:
http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/252564751.html
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TPTB already denying it.
http://blogs.twincities.com/gophers/2014/03/27/gophers-football-no-groundbreaking-scheduled-for-december-on-football-practice-facility/
Remember, Sid is about 167 years old and probably wouldn’t be trusted with a spork. The new facilities will come eventually, just not on his ambitious schedule.
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I was up at Minnesota a few months ago. They’ve really been building a lot on that campus lately.
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http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/24502907/75-percent-of-americans-against-college-players-unionizing
Not that it matters, but 75% of people are against college players unionizing.
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Most Americans would kill for a free education for the themselves or their children. It is one of the reasons peewee sports has gotten out of hand in this country, as every parent thinks their kid will get a scholarship.
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Crazy thing is, I think that there are still more academic scholarships out there than athletic scholarships. Definitely true if you exclude football. Plus, financial aid changes the equation a lot if you are lower-middle class or below. Academic scholars are nowhere as visible as athletes, however.
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This earned an A- at UNC.
On the evening of December Rosa Parks decided that she was going to sit in the white people section on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time blacks had to give up there seats to whites when more whites got on the bus. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Her and the bus driver began to talk and the conversation went like this. “Let me have those front seats” said the driver. She didn’t get up and told the driver that she was tired of giving her seat to white people. “I’m going to have you arrested,” said the driver. “You may do that,” Rosa Parks responded. Two white policemen came in and Rosa Parks asked them “why do you all push us around?” The police officer replied and said “I don’t know, but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.”
http://deadspin.com/this-unc-athletes-paper-is-a-joke-whos-to-blame-1552798110
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Actually, now that I look at the original, I realized there were no final quotation marks. I guess that is why it only got an A-.
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When Maryland joins the Big Ten, you’ll hear “raise high the black and gold” as part of the team fight song. Here’s how red and white entered the picture, thanks to a coach with a Big Ten background: http://umdarchives.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/red-and-white-a-new-maryland-tradition/
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Which private school will drop football first?
a) Northwestern
b) Wake Forest
c) Rice
d) Tulane
e) other
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Maybe Northwestern would have won more than 5 games if they weren’t so focused on trolling.
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http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/dennis-dodd/24504372/pac-12s-scott-reacts-to-projection-of-new-money-in-conference-tv-deal
A little more info on the P12 TV money issue that came up recently. Dodd claims a 4% escalation clause, but Dodd’s linked article leads to a Wilner piece that claims 5.1%.
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegesports/2013/06/17/pac-12-conference-annual-payouts-from-espn-and-fox-the-official-numbers/
* The ESPN/Fox deal includes a $30 million signing bonus, which I believe Scott used to help fund the start-up costs for the Pac-12 Networks.
* It also features a 5.1% escalator, which is a tad more than I figured.
* According to the documents, ESPN is a slightly larger rights-holder than Fox (53% to 47%).
Here are the payouts:
2013: $185,000,000 million
2014: $194,250,000 million
2015: $204,540,000 million
2016: $215,060,000 million
2017: $226,140,000 million
2018: $237,780,000 million
2019: $250,020,000 million
2020: $262,900,000 million
2021: $276,420,000 million
2022: $290,660,000 million
2023: $305,620,000 million
2024: $321,340,000 million
What does that mean on a per school/per year basis? It’s not quite as simple as dividing the numbers by 12.
For one thing, Utah doesn’t get a full share for a few more years.
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2012/12/26/3788712/college-football-conference-realignment-tv-money
Dodd also linked to an article that claims these 2013 TV payouts:
Pac-12: $250 million ($20.83 million per school)
Big Ten: $248 million ($20.67 million)
Big 12: $200 million ($20 million)
ACC: $240 million ($17.14 million)
SEC: $205 million ($14.64 million)
Notre Dame: $15 million
That’s with the SEC still looking to renegotiate before the 2014 season.
Do those numbers agree with what we know? That’s a little higher than the last MI AD budget projected, but possible.
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“All credit to the Oregonian’s John Canzano for his fine reporting on the subject.”
Did Canzano contribute this line? Many in the NW refer to him as Clownzano. What is he just now discovering that we didn’t discuss years ago? (crickets…crickets)
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I take that back. He cites an 800K P12N payout, with no attribution. I understood it was profitable in the first year, but they were going to plow it back into upgrading wify, cell networks, etc. in all FB and BB facilities.
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The Pac 12, Big 12 and SEC are consistent (but we have no idea what the recently re-negotiated SEC deal is-that contract was the figure for 12 teams so it was $17.1 million/school before expansion).
The ACC is consistent with the pre-Notre Dame deal. With ND and the GOR, the average is $260 million which is divided among 14 full shares and a partial share for Notre Dame.
There may be some updated numbers for Notre Dame, but I haven’t seen it. That was their old deal. NBC has updated it to extend through 2025.
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I don’t think the Big 10 number is quite right. There were reports that the BTN was paying an average of $112 million to the 11 schools over the 20 year term. I think people pretty much concluded that was an estimate, not a real number. Now if you use that, it agrees with what we know:
$12 average CBS basketball
$24 average Fox ccg ($145/6 years)
$100 average ABC/ESPN ($1 billion 10 year deal)
$112? average BTN
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