Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

[ScriptOhio]

More funny stuff from the M-Zone....

Big Ten New Pledge Meeting



Jim Delany stands next to an overhead projector:

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JIM DELANY: Nebraska Cornhuskers.

A picture pops on the screen:

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JIM DELANY: All in favor?

Murmurs of agreement from the current Big Ten members.

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PURDUE: We need the dues.

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JIM DELANY: Good. Nebraska is now a pledge to the Big Ten. Next slide, please.

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As Maryland's picture comes up:

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Boos, screams and looks of horror fill the room.

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JIM DELANY: Just a minute! Just a minute! This is Maryland. He's a legacy from the ACC.

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More boos and shouts of disagreement.

Michigan AD Dave Brandon glances at OSU AD Gene Smith sitting next to him.

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Straightening his "legacy v-neck sweater," Brandon stands and addresses the others:

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DAVE BRANDON: Okay, Maryland is a real loser. That's true. But let's just think back to when you guys got accepted to the Big Ten.

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DAVE BRANDON: Sparty, you had an academic reputation just this side of Eastern Michigan. And Ohio State here, everybody thought that the Buckeyes were brain damaged. I myself was so superior, I asked Minnesota to play for a trophy in a rivalry game then beat them like 70 out of the first 75 times we played. So Maryland is a total loser? Let me tell you the story of another loser...

​

They all start throwing beer cans at Brandon.

 

[Muck]

On the various Rutgers boards their fans are confident that they are going to come into the B1G & beat up on the middle tier programs. They attribute some of that reasoning to their recruiting compared to B1G schools (and some to the fact that their defense beat up on Cincinnati. ). So of course I decided to go back and look at the last few years recruiting for all of the schools involved.

Counting all of the kids from the 2010* recruiting class** up through the current commits from the '13 class gives you...

Some things of note:
-There is a clear delineation of the conference into 3 ***tiers:
Jarls - Ohio State, TSUN, Nebraska & Penn State
Carls - Sparty, Wisconsin, Iowa (+ Rutgers & Maryland)
Thralls - Northwestern, Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana

-While Rutgers has been bringing in a similar talent level as the Carls it is certainly not out recruiting them by any stretch.. Rutgers needed 10 more recruits to bring in as many 3 & 4* as Sparty.

-Maryland fans are not nearly as optimistic about their team's chances competing in the B1G yet Maryland's recruiting is actually very similar to that of Rutgers.

-PSU's recruiting has dropped off rapidly the past few years while Indiana's is slowly improving (neither of which is obvious unless you look at the year by year numbers).

-thaKid really nailed it when he continuously pointed out that Illinois has consistently been recruiting at or better than Ohio State's level.


* 2010 is the earliest class that will have red shirt seniors still around when the new schools join the conference in 2014
** Rivals rankings
***Instead of the usual Kings/Princes/Knights/Surfs/whatever analogy I went with the medieval Scandinavian social structure as it is a better fit for the 3 tier nature of the B1G:
Jarls = Nobles
Carls = free men/land owners
Thralls = surfs/bondsmen/slaves

 

[Muck]

Forbes:
The Big 10 Conference Outmaneuvered The ACC And It May Not Be Done Yet

In the chess game that is conference realignment, the Big 10 Conference was two moves ahead of the Atlantic Coast Conference and proved it with the additions of Maryland and Rutgers this week.

The decision by Notre Dame to leave the Big East and join the ACC for all sports except football in September led directly to this week?s invitations. The Big 10 was steadfast that it would not accept the Irish unless it joined for all sports, which was never going to happen. But it held out anyway. Once Notre Dame was ACC-bound, it freed the Big 10 to explore other alternatives. Few believed Maryland, a charter member of the ACC, was part of those plans but Rutgers was a natural fit.

Now there are rumors that Virginia, Georgia Tech and even North Carolina could be Big 10-bound, which would be devastating to the ACC. Florida State, which like Maryland voted against the increase in the exit fee to $50 million two months ago, is also looking at the SEC and the Big 12 as possible partners. And, if that domino happens, Clemson and Virginia Tech may not be far behind. How quickly the landscape can change. A league that seemed fortified by the additions of Syracuse and Pittsburgh for all sports and Notre Dame, except for football, now seems in a similar, if not worse, position than the Big East.

.../cont/...

Hey kiddies it's time for another storytime with your favorite hillbilly, Uncle Dude!

Expansion Update: UNC & Duke Won’t Go Down Without a Fight

According to some the ancient Mayans foretold the end of civilization on December 21, 2012 — they must have been ACC fans.

The Mayans must have known when basketball interests trump those of revenue generating football that the end is surely nigh.

Rumors and speculation on what the next wave of expansion means for the ACC are rampart. Duke’s coach K publically voiced concern of the conference. Virginia Tech’s president assures ACC commissioner John Swofford that VPI is not interested in the SEC. Notre Dame chimes in with concerns about the ACC’s stability and ACC apologists, the same apologists who said WVU was not a fit for the ACC, tout Louisville as the glue that will hold the ACC together.

What’s certain is the next defection is likely to set off a chain reaction that sees as many as 8 schools leave the ACC for greener, and more football friendly, pastures.

Last night I shared what WVU had learned from Maryland, Ohio State and the Big 12 and the post raised so many questions that I thought it best to expand on what I wrote and provide additional details and rationale for the scenario I laid out last night.

.../cont/...

 

[Bleed S & G]

Interesting...

Sources close to WVU with ties to Ohio State President E. Gorden Gee confirm that the Big 10 has all but decided to accept the applications of Georgia Tech and UVA and is seriously considering adding UNC as the Big 10?s 17th member as insurance against potential U.S. Department of Education sanctions against PSU that could lead to Penn State being ineligible to receive federal student aid due to violations of the Clery Act.

The Big 10 showed initial interest in FSU but, according to Ohio State, the Seminoles are no longer a candidate for Big 10 membership.

http://www.eersauthority.com/expansion-update-acc-on-the-brink/

 

[Muck]

Interesting...

FYI the Dude is WVU's version of PBC, ie he's full of shite.

If NC is seriously on the table they're at the front of the line ahead of Tech.

 

[Mike80]

FYI the Dude is WVU's version of PBC, ie he's full of shite.

If NC is seriously on the table they're at the front of the line ahead of Tech.

Yep and there's no way FSU was ever on the table either.

 

[ScriptOhio]

FYI the Dude is WVU's version of PBC, ie he's full of [Mark May]e.

If NC is seriously on the table they're at the front of the line ahead of Tech.

Re: Now there are rumors that Virginia, Georgia Tech and even North Carolina could be Big 10-bound, which would be devastating to the ACC. Florida State, which like Maryland voted against the increase in the exit fee to $50 million two months ago, is also looking at the SEC and the Big 12 as possible partners.

I'd consider the Forbes article in Muck's post a lot more credible.

 

[Mike80]

Realignment is just shifting the chairs around so that the haves (including everyone in the CIC) are taken care of and not having to drag the dead weight around of the have-nots, e.g. Cincinnati and Wake Forest.

This is just putting things back to where they should be - the teams that are big time universities and the true mid-majors are being separated for the most part.

 

[darbypitcher22]

I like Georgia Tech.

I like Virginia, in most cases.

The big question is UNC. If that's true and they take UNC, but Penn State doesn't get smacked, where do you go with a 17 team league? You almost have to pick someone else up to move to 18, and then you essentially have 2 leagues in one (for those of you familiar with Columbus, think the Ohio Capital Conference just crammed into two divisions)

 

[MU-Buck]

I like Georgia Tech.

I like Virginia, in most cases.

The big question is UNC. If that's true and they take UNC, but Penn State doesn't get smacked, where do you go with a 17 team league? You almost have to pick someone else up to move to 18, and then you essentially have 2 leagues in one (for those of you familiar with Columbus, think the Ohio Capital Conference just crammed into two divisions)

I really don't see us going to 17...

We take UVA (they want it if the ACC is crumbling) and UNC (an internal "battle" will end up being in favor of Big Ten over SEC)...

If PSU gets pummeled by the Federal Government (unlikely but could happen)... We take Pitt. A Pennsylvania AAU school that will help carry the state if PSU fails to exist... And Pitt will join the moment we ask, so no reason to get an insurance policy (a 17th member) when you know you can replace PSU whenever you want to.

 

[zincfinger]

To a degree, research and grant applications are coordinated [among CIC members], but schools don't pool and share their research funding.

That being said, joining the Big Ten would be a huge boost to Notre Dame's Ph.D and research programs from the areas where institutions do work together, and faculty cooperation and the ability of doctoral students to attend other CIC institutions for a stretch...

I think there are some interesting points raised here. Because, since conference expansion talk started a couple of years back, I've seen a lot of online comments about the enormous benefits of CIC membership, and I suspect some of it is overblown.

For example, there have been quite a few online comments over the past few years suggesting that CIC membership will lead to a substantial increase in research funding for new members. I'm skeptical that this is true. I'm not an expert on CIC activities by any stretch of the imagination, but I went to graduate school at OSU in a scientific discipline, and our lab got a lot research dollars. Not one of them had anything to do with CIC. I was familiar with the activities of a lot of other campus research labs, and I'm confident the same was true of all of them. Truth be told, during my tenure as a scientific grad student at OSU, I had never heard of the CIC. To the best of my knowledge, CIC has nothing whatsoever to do with obtaining research funding.

Based on my viewing of the CIC website, it appears that the main activities of the collaboration are, i) facilitating sharing of library resources, ii) facilitating the offering of some intra-member classes and some technology resources, and iii) collective bargaining on common purchases. These may well be good, but they are small potatoes compared to the research budget of any serious research University. And frankly, most labs are going to collaborate with whoever the hell they want, CIC institution based or not.

My point here isn't to disparage the CIC. But I get the impression that some (and I'm not directing this at ORD - he likely knows more about the CIC than I do), have an outsized view of what the CIC does, and what the advantages of membership are.

 

[Hodgepodge]

The Feds aren't going to do anything major to Penn State. The leaders are now (finally) taking a more proactive role and the state is looking into changing their relationship with the state. Those things will likely satisfy the feds that although laws were broken, that they are making the moves needed so they won't happen again. That, along with the fact that coming down hard on PSU means economic Armageddon for Central PA, means that PSU is off the hook.

 

[Hodgepodge]

I think there are some interesting points raised here. Because, since conference expansion talk started a couple of years back, I've seen a lot of online comments about the enormous benefits of CIC membership, and I suspect some of it is overblown.

For example, there have been quite a few online comments over the past few years suggesting that CIC membership will lead to a substantial increase in research funding for new members. I'm skeptical that this is true. I'm not an expert on CIC activities by any stretch of the imagination, but I went to graduate school at OSU in a scientific discipline, and our lab got a lot research dollars. Not one of them had anything to do with CIC. I was familiar with the activities of a lot of other campus research labs, and I'm confident the same was true of all of them. Truth be told, during my tenure as a scientific grad student at OSU, I had never heard of the CIC. To the best of my knowledge, CIC has nothing whatsoever to do with obtaining research funding.

Based on my viewing of the CIC website, it appears that the main activities of the collaboration are, i) facilitating sharing of library resources, ii) facilitating the offering of some intra-member classes and some technology resources, and iii) collective bargaining on common purchases. These may well be good, but they are small potatoes compared to the research budget of any serious research University. And frankly, most labs are going to collaborate with whoever the hell they want, CIC institution based or not.

My point here isn't to disparage the CIC. But I get the impression that some (and I'm not directing this at ORD - he likely knows more about the CIC than I do), have an outsized view of what the CIC does, and what the advantages of membership are.

I agree that the CIC portion of this is overblown. I could see CIC collaboration helping with major grants if it is impossible for one school to handle everything, but for most funding it likely plays no role.

Now, if the CIC really wants to get into steering money towards their schools, they could be a lot more proactive by lobbying their senators to get more major funds headed their ways. At this point, with the inclusion of Maryland and Rutgers the CIC stats' senators control just under a quarter of the senate, and with the addition of two more schools, that number would increase to over a quarter. The CIC could be a giant if that's what they want to do, but right now they don't appear to be that proactive.

 

[PlanetFrnd]

I'd be in favor of booting Purdue in favor of UVa, UNC or Tech... no need to have two schools from Indiana, esp when one is a perennial zero-value-add. Keep IU because it's a flagship, go down the coast and gobble up flagship schools. I'd apply the same logic to NWern, if it wasn't such a good academic school.

 

[ScriptOhio]

I'd be in favor of booting Purdue in favor of UVa, UNC or Tech... no need to have two schools from Indiana, esp when one is a perennial zero-value-add. Keep IU because it's a flagship, go down the coast and gobble up flagship schools. I'd apply the same logic to NWern, if it wasn't such a good academic school.

Come on now, nobody in the B1G is going to vote to "boot out" a "member school in good standing".