sec03 wrote:
The SEC divisions began with TWO permanent cross-overs. Mississippi State, for example, played South Carolina and Kentucky. The later complaint was that certain schools had easier conference schedules, which was part of the reason for dropping it to one. South Carolina played Arkansas and MSU as cross-overs. Auburn, in the beginning, wanted to play both Florida and Georgia, later cut to Georgia. The Arkansas-So. Carolina permanent matchup had something to do with being newbies', but the stated rationale at the time was to bond the conference together at the geographic extremes. Florida got LSU, and they probably wanted it. The central schools seem to get closer regular matchups, i. e. Vandy-Ole Miss, Ala.-Tenn. The deciding had also much to do with allowing big traditional rivalries as much as possible. Of course, near all see Georgia as a big rival; could add Clemson from the ACC to the list.
The SEC could go back to two permanents, but with increasing the conference to 14, substaining a bigger rotation is probably preferable. As to Mississippi schools, maybe not Mizzou, but Alabama, Auburn, and LSU are not wanting to give any of that up. Perhaps Arkansas as well. Miss. State and Alabama are very close. OK, 'Bama dominates bigtime, but that does not mean they de-value the series at all. And every decade, there are a couple of seasons Miss. and/or Old Miss rise to the occasion.
Mississippi actually has a good higher education system for a state with less industry and a largely rural population, particularly in the delta. While Mississippi is often criticized for public education, they have done better in recent decades in reading scores and graduation rates compared to some sister and other states. The state system including schools such as Delta State, MUW, Southern Miss., and historically black colleges in Jackson State, Alcorn A&M, and Mississippi Valley State have defined missions that have kept each afloat. While a poor state, Mississippi was spending the highest percentage, not quantity, of its tax dollars on public and higher education. The governing body in higher education has done a decent job in not duplicating unnecessary programs of study and keeping the three largest public institutions at comparable size. Often characterizing Mississippi in an unflattering way has an element of racial stereotyping.
Broke California has taken a big hit in subsidy for public higher education. Other states have as well. Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education, once having the best paid professors, has steadily declined. And academics and athletics? Texas Tech while asking their professors to accept a take-back on a promised pay increase, at the same time, extended to Tommy Turbeville a huge boost. Maybe think of Texas as one big Mississippi is some respects. Rice is the real academic school in Texas. And if one is to pick from flawed US NEWS rankings (discredited by even some Ivy League sources), Texas is ranked near Georgia who doesn't have the AAU label.
GA Tech recently got theirs', while Nebraska lost theirs. Georgia doesn't even have the engineering and medical schools whereby so much of the research grants are based upon. But, Georgia is adding a new medical school along with their well established VET school. Try applying to Miss. State Vet school if one thinks it is so inadequate.
I am not defending SEC academics; but neither am I bashing them to promote the B12 who are losing many of their top schools, at least one to the SEC. They need to improve as elsewhere. But using terms as "worst" has a envious agenda behind it.
I agree with most of your points, the SEC academics aren't at the top but they aren't near the bottom. Adding Mizzou and A&M helps, and I agree UGA will be AAU soon too. But nowhere in my post did I used the word worst referring to the SEC's academics at all...I said...they were the worst schools in the SEC in relation to Mizzou, they aren't geographically close (UK, Vandy, Ark), in recruiting hotbeds (A&M, LSU) or national programs that energize fans/alums/recruits that get national attention that puts their games on major TV (Bama, Auburn, UGA, Florida, Tenn).
The mosing damning thing I said was that "clearly Ole Miss and Miss St are the worst (schools in relation to Mizzou), they don't have the same cache that many other SEC schools have little market penetration and rarely attract the attention of the nation, have pretty bad academics which give the administration less of a reason to associate with them outside of athletics."
I'm not down on Mississippi academics, I just stated that Mizzou isn't telling its supporter that they are join the SEC in order to do research with the schools in Mississippi. But yeah Ole Miss and Miss St are the worst schools academically speaking in the SEC
http://outkickthecoverage.com/west-virg ... happen.php and it is not racist to state that as a fact, which is ironic for you to say since Ole Miss had a racist Confederate as a mascot until last year.
And at no time during my post did I say one single thing about the Big 12 so your comment is extremely out of place. And to keep things fair Texas Tech is ranked worse than both Mississippi schools but still if Missouri stays in the Big 12 it won't be for the ability to associate with them either.
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