JRsec
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RE: PAC Expansion Behind the Scenes...Utah Speaks
(07-15-2018 10:35 PM)Stugray2 Wrote: JRsec,
You stated that I see no value in Oklahoma State. That is incorrect. I said that Oklahoma State has insufficient value to draw an invite from another power conference. R2 status is only one of the reasons (Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi State, TCU, Baylor, Wake Forest are R2 institutions as well; Auburn and Mississippi State are also Land Grant schools like Oklahoma State). And they have an impressive and well funded athletic program, better than half the P5 schools. But Auburn and Mississippi State are vestiges of the old SEC, 2nd schools in smaller states much like say Oregon State in the Pac-12, and would be passed over in a modern realignment. This is a position shared with other strong programs like Kansas State, Iowa State and dare I say even Clemson
However I am speaking in terms of the one hundred years decisions that are conference realignments, and specifically to a realignment upward to a more stable long run conference, with the rarefied air of the Pac-12, Big Ten or SEC (the latter two in play here). In this respect Oklahoma State is at a severe disadvantage.
You may not have noticed but the SEC is now more similar to the Pac-12 and Big Ten in composition than it was in the days of ten schools. 10 of the 14 schools in the SEC are flagships, and that is not counting Vanderbilt who are in effect a private of flagship caliber, and Texas A&M who are de facto one as well, being an AAU member of similar caliber to land grant schools Michigan State and Purdue (also AAU members but not flagships, and with very selective admission standards) or perhaps like Georgia Tech, which academically outshines the state flagship in Athens. The expansion gate keepers are Vanderbilt and Florida. They added 3 flagships, plus A&M, and two AAU schools. Being a conference of flagships, these schools have benefited from the explosive growth in much of the South, gaining money and prestige in research and becoming increasingly more selective in admission. Georgia is well on the path to becoming fairly difficult to get into thanks to the explosion of Atlanta, and Florida is already very highly selective, a top ten public University.
Oklahoma and Kansas both fit the profile of expansion in the SEC in recent years, as flagships with good research and doctorate programs with solid athletics (well KU is elite MBB rather than elite FB). Texas of course is a different stratosphere, in the über elite public crowd with the likes of UCLA, Cal, UC San Diego, UMich, UVa, UNC, UW, Wisky and Florida.
But Oklahoma State is quite a few notches down latter. When you look at the numbers as an institution, it's not too bad (forget the R2 classification), they slot in a little below K State and Clemson, ahead of Tennessee, Louisville, Utah State, Texas Tech, West Virginia, FIU, Wake Forest and Houston. Not bad at all, but not sterling either.
This is especially true when you look at another 2nd school, Florida State, which slots in a little below LSU, KU and Nebraska, and just ahead of UConn, OU, Oregon State (the very bottom P12 school) and Missouri. You are the company you keep. And given the trajectory of Florida demographically it will only become a more prominent and more selective school in the future. If the SEC is looking for a 2nd school from a state they already hold, Florida State, even having to wait a decade, is a far better choice (as also Miami could provide). This really adds something (Miami would as well).
Another of the premises you run on is the idea that by taking both OU and oSu to isolate Texas from the B1G. This is ridiculous on two counts. The B1G was ready to junk the contiguous state concept for Texas without Nebraska or Kansas, and they'd certainly be willing to junk it with those two schools. The SEC gains nothing additional on this front after taking OU if they then add oSu, as they achieve isolation with OU alone. If the SEC is increasingly picky, the B1G is even pickier.
Expansion is a 100 year decision that will outlive football. The last thing you want is the indigestion the ACC is feeling with Louisville, when they selected an institution below their core standards simply for the Athletic program; then when the athletic program hit scandal they were left with a school that as an institution nobody was closely associating with already is now unmentionable. Even with a terrible fake class scandal, North Carolina still brings the institution other schools want their name associated with. College sports, unlike professional, can't simply move an unsuccessful franchise to another city, they are stuck with whomever they take. The P12, B1G and SEC are conferences of flagships who will not take a new member that does not also enhance the conference, or at least slot safely above the threshold. All I am saying about Oklahoma State is that they slot in with Kansas State, Texas Tech, and West Virginia, schools that are clearly below the threshold of SEC membership, especially with Florida and Vanderbilt guarding the door. It's the same thing in the Pac-12 with Cal, UCLA, Stanford and UW guarding the door.
Oklahoma State is safely a P5 school, just like NC State, WSU, Oregon State, ASU, Iowa State, K State, Texas Tech, West Virginia, Auburn and Mississippi State. That doesn't mean they are an expansion candidate anymore that any other school on that list. These are all more valuable than any G5 school. So don't say I see no value in Oklahoma State. Be more accurate and say I don't see them having enough value beyond the athletic field to join a conference of flagship schools.
Spoken like a true graduate of the Big 10.
First of all you misrepresent the Oklahoma / Oklahoma State strategy. It didn't have single thing to do with contiguity. Nada! You haven't heard me make the argument that the Big 10 would only move into contiguous states, at least not in over 5 years when Delany said it was not a requirement.
What I argued was the compelling nature of the lure that it would create for Texas. The more conferences expand the fewer games there will be for playing OOC games. Texas has 3 important historic rivals. Arkansas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma are their most historic rivals. If the SEC contained all 3 the Longhorns would have to give pause as to whether they would have enough OOC games with which to play the RRR and keep at least two current Texas schools on the schedule (should of course the Big 12 dissolve with the exodus of Oklahoma and other schools). Serious consideration would have to be given to the SEC if Texas wanted to keep their business model intact for athletics. The Big 10 simply doesn't offer / or show proficiency in the same sports that are important to Texas. The PAC does have those, but a move West would likely alienate the Horns from their historic rivals altogether with the possible exception of the RRR. But, a move to the SEC would give them access to all three of Texas's historic rivals and still leave them a couple of OOC games with which to schedule other Texas schools, which has been important to them for their ticket packages.
So that angle of taking OSU to get OU is not without merit. As for Mississippi State and Auburn being R2 research facilities do you even know why that is so? Reconstruction Constitutions and Reconstruction Government following the Civil War didn't want all disciplines taught in the same schools in the South, but rather wanted them split up to make any future insurrection less likely. Because of that disciplines were split. Agriculture and Engineering schools comprised one bent in disciplines and law and medicine the other. Some states were much quicker to get away from those types of edicts and their constitutions were rewritten and their laws changed much sooner following reconstruction. Alas Alabama and Mississippi lagged in this. And since AAU, and most academic research estimations, refuse to acknowledge the cancer research that goes on inside of schools of Veterinary Medicine as actually counting as research (although such studies advance treatment of that disease in humans) we get stuck in a category that doesn't acknowledge our contributions. But thankfully the SEC, and I might add the SWC/now Big 12, has never historically discriminated along those lines.
Mike Slive said that the only thing that would limit SEC expansion was profit. Yes we would like to add state flagship institutions, but ones that can add to our bottom line. And one of the greatest myths perpetrated in realignment is that the Big 10 can, by association with them, help a school like Oklahoma, who is by all metrics clearly not Big 10 material, academically. What a crock! You can't gain them any Federal Grant money that they don't qualify for on their own and you can't gain them membership in, or even recommend them to, the AAU, because their membership and invitations don't operate that way (and I'm not claiming that you personally have stated this but I've read it and heard it coming from many of your Big 10 fans who do make that claim). But that proves, as Texas has anyway, that schools can thrive and seek academic associations independent of athletics. Indeed the Big 10's stance on possibly taking Oklahoma belies your true intentions. You want a school whose pedigree can enhance the value of you athletics. So if Oklahoma works for the Big 10 then why wouldn't Oklahoma State to get Oklahoma work just as well for a conference that doesn't see its academic attainments as being bound to the athletic conference?
Florida, Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Texas A&M are no more hampered by their associations than are Texas, Kansas, Iowa State, Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia Tech or Pitt. It's only a big deal to Northern schools which admittedly had to grow in the shadow of the Ivy's and so needed to hang their hat on something. If it bites you in the butt athletically then that's your problem, but one you are apparently addressing since you fudged your stated standards with the admission of Nebraska knowing that they would lose their AAU status, and now you are willing to fudge on it again to get the earning potential of the Sooners.
So Stugray2 your conference's policies are hypocritical. If the SEC takes Oklahoma State to get Oklahoma and to have a better shot at landing Texas so that our athletics benefit from merely athletic moves then so be it. And while our conference, like all conferences, might prefer AAU schools, if they don't add to our bottom line then they won't be invited. But you preach academic associations and then add a school in Nebraska that ranks 14th (12th then) in the present 14 member Big 10 and go after one that would rank even lower in Oklahoma.
And whether my poor old Cow College ever gains R1 status or not, we have made our contributions to medicine and aerospace engineering.
So just as you made statements emphatically about the value of Oklahoma State to other conferences, and now take an oblique shot at one of my schools, the other other you dare not touch, I simply say to you stick to the Big 10 party line, speak on the preferences of the PAC which you know, but don't dabble in the South and tell us what we will or will not do, the same goes for the Big 12. Associations in the South are historic and neighborly. They aren't social stepping stones in the same sense as they are in the North. And comporting our athletic conferences around athletic associations (what a novel concept) hasn't hurt any of our AAU schools' associations with Big 10, PAC or ACC schools. Georgia wouldn't be Georgia without Tennessee, Auburn, Florida and Tech. We've played them since 1894 and prior to Tech joining the ACC in '78 we had played them since 1892.
Our fans, our donors, and our athletic departments are in agreement on what makes us successful, and that has been regional games that are important to our schools because of their historical context, and are therefore important to our fans for the same reason. That is why Florida State and the schools of the old Southern Conference are always to be considered, and now that Arkansas and Missouri and A&M have joined our ranks we will give consideration to their historic foes as long as they add to the bottom line. If they are AAU or R1 then great. But profitability is priority #1, as apparently it has been becoming the same in the Big 10.
BTW: Oklahoma State would be down a few notches on the ladder, not latter.
(This post was last modified: 07-16-2018 06:17 PM by JRsec.)
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PAC Expansion Behind the Scenes...Utah Speaks
