Agreed . . . which is why I say that the Big East should hold out for UMass, Albany, & Stony Brook. ;) :o 8-)

Friar,
Umass, I can understand & agree with; but Albany & Stony Brook???? Buffalo is much more established and closer to the level and they have not distinguished themselves in the MAC.

Big differences between East and West coasts. I am not so sure the ACC, even with their original expansion effort ('Cuse instead of VPI) believed they would fully dominate from Maine to Miami. The ACC dominates North Carolina, now all of Virgina with who really cares in Maryland.

I will concur, paraphrasing liberally, Friar, et. al., the ACC will continue to be viewed (image) by its history and centrality as "North Carolina (state of) & Friends".

I was more than a little tongue-in-cheek on that on SEC 03. ;) While those are all major state university research campuses in great market locations, they are obviously "not ready for prime time."

I see no need for the Big East to add anyone - even to solve their scheduling problems - unless that somebody brings added value to the conference. Otherwise, they're just another mouth to feed, thereby reducing everyone else's revenue. I don't see anyone who fits the bill anywhere east of the Mississippi.

No school in the Big Ten is in a location comparable to Penn State, much less several. It's not the cow pastures; it's the lack of anything else. State College is out in the middle of nowhere, hours away from civilization. It's remote for fans & inhospitable to the basketball players who grew up in that urban blight you disparage.

Ah, but its within 1/2 hr of excellent fly fishing. On such pursuit last week I continually passed within eyeshot of The House Which Joe Built. Capacity is 103,000 or so? Having lunch in State College I also was within eyeshot of what might be more attractive to BB studs as the coeds paraded down College Avenue. It's not tha much in the sticks, folks.

Hmmm . . . The more I think about it, why Massachusetts?

For TV markets & the like, the assumption is that when you get Massachusetts, you bring most of New England with you. Since New England has 14 million people, even if you lose 10 or 15 % to New York that's a lot of people. That's the thinking of the NFL, major league baseball, the NBA, etc.

But, according to noted Boston intellectual & BC alum the late Tip O'Neill, "All college sports are local." . . . or something to that effect. ;)

So, Massachusetts doesn't really bring you much more than . . . well, Massachusetts - at least for the purpose of this discussion. Since Massachusetts only has a population of about 6.4 million & New Jersey has about 8.6 million, I would think that New Jersey is more desirable for a college conference. And if either school is going to attract fans from neighboring states, Rutgers has a lot better shot at a lot bigger population base in New York/Long Island than BC or anyone else in Mass has at UNH or URI whose football programs both have more interest on the local level than Stony Brook, Hofstra, Fordham, or anyone else in New York.

Division IA talent still wants to play at a IA school rather than the local IAA school, so a Massachusetts school has a bigger recruiting base throughout all New England for kids that want to stay close to home than Rutgers does in New Jersey, but it has to share New England recruits with UConn, so even that advantage is mitigated.

Cheers,
Bill

Just thought I'd research the question of Doyel's background. He grew up in Mississippi & went to Florida. Sounds like an SEC guy to me.

Frianfan, et. al.,

I agree with a got bit of much that is said. Good discussion. I believe I am less absolute on several points though.

Given, hypothetically, there will be some fashion of a split with the Big East and which schools would be available for expansion, I believe there are good choices potentially. Good choices, certainly not perfect ones.

If all-sports is the criteria, and proven, long-term strength and tradition in basketball is the emphasis, then there are two possibilities from current 1A, east of the Mississippi, that may be worthy of serious consideration: Memphis and Alabama-Birmingham. I have argued against those somewhat in the past purely for geographic reasons. They are southern, not northeast. But with the Ohio valley corridor of Louisville and Cincy and the stretch to USF, these schools are not way off-base, just a few more of them. The Big East made the decision to reach beyond the northeast, albeit necessary for football unless they wanted to accept much less.

I like the consideration of 1-AAs such as UMass and Delaware. But such carries variables of which the schools and funding bodies would have to commit to. Going from 1-AA to a BCS conference without a foot in the door, as UNCONN had, is a gamble the Big East would not make unless pushed into it by circumstances.

Army, Navy, East Carolina, Central Florida, Marshall, Ohio, Toledo, etc. all have pluses and negatives. There are no near-perfect choices hanging, except Notre Dame, who isn't budging.

The PAC 10 has some of the same factors if they wanted to expand. I can say Utah should do---but who else?

Suppose the ACC, a few years ago, had no Big East teams to pursue because the Big East was well bonded and fortified---which could have also had made the ACC want to expand even more. Would the ACC, in that case, considered Temple, or East Carolina, UCF and/or USF, Tulane, or even Army and Navy? It is slightly conceivable that the ACC could have ended up expanding with Louisville, Tulane, and somebody else. In other words, go a different geographic direction. In any case, they would have wanted the best that was available that they viewed best matched the ACC.

If, hypothetically, the SEC was expanding at the time and looking at the Big East, I could see the SEC focusing on West Virginia first, even over Miami who they talked with before their venture to the BE. I do believe conferences have differing views and priorities of what makes a fit.

Back to the Big East, the point is how the conference wants to define itself. Big East may be name only, and the conference could ultimately stretch its footprint. While the ACC and Big Ten each (with BC and PSU) have a prominent school in the core domain of the Big East, it is reasonable for the Big East to also project its presence beyond what is viewed as the traditional northeast. That can be a plus requiring some cultivation. The key is doing it whereby continuity is not compromised. To me, deficient continuity/cohesion has been the one factor that contributed to some Big East vulnerability. Geography is an ingredient.

And the above shows you know very little about the academics and overall mission of the ACC schools.

You try to divide simply on public and private lines. As I have mentioned previously Virginia and North Carolina are public schools that operate academically like smaller private colleges.

Each of those institutions considers the likes of Duke and Notre Dame peer institutions and identify with them far more than any Big 10 or SEC public institution. UVA has a full-time undergrad population of 13,151 and UNC has a full-time undergrad population of 16,304. Georgia Tech has a full-time undergrad population of 11,842 which is actually smaller than Syracuse, which is at 12,128.

Maryland operates like the land grant institutions of the northeast - Penn State and Rutgers. But, as an ACC affiliate the institutions they mostly consider their peers are again Virginia, North Carolina, and Duke.

Does this mean that they could not consider UConn and Rutgers peer institutions? No, of course not. But the fact they (Maryland, Virginia, UNC, Georgia Tech, etc.) are state schools while Miami, Boston College and Syracuse are private institutions wasn't a major consideration for them.

This isn't like Northwestern being totally unlike the other Big 10 institutions or Vanderbilt being totally unlike the other SEC institutions. You are, once again, attempting to make an analogy that just doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

Now, let me state again, I have no problem with anyone believing that ultimately (over time) UConn and/or Rutgers might prove to have been better choices, but if you are going to use the state vs. private argument it would be best to limit the point to the difficulty many privates have had in maintaining investment in the arms race ($$$-wise versus larger state schools) than trying to divide the ACC along state vs. private lines and trying to maintain that VT was more like the 7 state ACC schools in terms of academic institutional character and academic mission.





VT, while rising to near-elite status in football, has hardly been a perfect fit in every other way for the ACC. A case could be made in terms of culture, geography and increasing the football prestige of the league, VT has been an asset. At this point in time their unexpected success in basketball has actually lowered the league's perception as the premier basketball league. And the initial returns of their being in the ACC has been a definite hindrance, not a help, for Virginia.

And just as Miami may not be a power over the next 20 years, they at least have 5 NCs they can point to. And they will always be in Miami, and unless a natural disaster causes Miami to sink into the Atlantic, the Miami market is worth $$$ to any conference in which she is in.

Now, since as you say, you never know what the next 20 years are going to bring, what happens if it is VT that slips instead of Miami? What do the Hokies bring? They have yet to win an NC in any sport. They have no market whatsoever. Should they slip in football they would then bring less to the ACC than Mississippi does to the SEC.

As of this moment, they obviously were the better choice than either BC or Syracuse. But this is still a very short time frame in which to be making any definitive statements on this topic. However, I do know that one thing isn't likely to change - VT has no intrinsic value of their own whatsoever in that they simply have no market. And this, coupled with the fact that they have no history, makes them at this moment a marginal candidate as well.

Cheers,
Neil

So, the pros don't know what they are doing???




Since the majority of the 6 million plus residents of Massachusetts reside in the Boston metropolitan area and since Boston College is local, I'm not sure why you think that quote is pertinent. If you want to make a point that college athletics is immaterial in Boston, that I could understand. But the concept that college sports are 'local' and since Boston College is the only big-time NCAA 1-A institution in the local Boston metro area and since the area is almost 50% Catholic - I don't think the quote you provided has much meaning in the context in which you are trying to use it.




You might think that based upon the 'simple' numbers. But as I mentioned before the 'numbers' don't tell all. True there are approximately 8.6 million in New Jersey. However, almost 2 million of that number (from Bergen, Hudson, and Passaic counties) are considered part of the NYC Metro area in US Census figures.

Over 1 million of that number (from Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester counties) are considered part of the Philadelphia Metropolitan area by US Census.

Which, with the other points I have made in this thread on this topic, is why Rutgers has hurdles to overcome (while not insurmountable) do indeed exist and which you continue to either downplay at best and at worse refuse to even acknowledge.

Now BC has its own hurdles to overcome as well. These include its smaller alumni base, its playing second fiddle to ND in its own backyard with the fan base it would most like to tap into to take it to the next level (which kind of makes the quote you had above invalid), its abandoning its geographical rivals to be in an SEC-lite southern conference, etc.

Cheers,
Neil

I didn't know this discussion was about me. I'm flattered. ;D




I didn't try. I clearly made this distinction. Are you saying that public vs private is not a significant distinction?




In what way do they operate like smaller private colleges?




I don't care who they consider to be their peers. They are very different from Duke & Notre Dame in any number of ways. Big Ten & SEC schools are irrelevant to this discussion. I don't recall making any such comparisons.

You picked 3 of the 4 smallest ACC public universities. UConn fits right in with that group with an undergrad enrollment of 16,100. OTOH, why not pick 3 of the largest? Florida State (30,800), Maryland (25,400), & North Carolina State (22,800). Virginia Tech (30,800) fits right in with FSU & Rutgers (26,700) is right there with Maryland.




Very much like Rutgers, but not really like Penn State. Many differences from the latter.




Again, what difference does it make who they consider to be their peers? Are they in fact peers in any real way?




Obviously not enough of an issue to veto their candidacies - at least until Virginia got involved & insisted on their state school.

But this is my whole point in this thread. It should have been a major consideration. I think that they made an enormous mistake by ignoring this factor.




Well, let's scrutinize it.

Enrollment - BC (9,000) & Miami (10,900) have smaller undergrad enrollments than every other ACC school except the two charter privates, Duke (6.500) & Wake Forest (4,300). Syracuse (12,900) is smaller than every ACC public school except Georgia Tech (11,800)

In-State/Out-of-State Enrollment - BC (72%), Syracuse (56%), & Miami (45%) have enormous out-of-state enrollments - just like the Duke (85%) & Wake (71%). The public schools are very different, ranging from Florida State (8%) to Gerogia Tech (32%), the only public over 30%. Rutgers (11%) compares with NC State (13%), UConn (24%) with Maryland (25%), & Virginia Tech (28%) with Clemson (28%) & Virginia (27%). The remaining public is North Carolina (18%) - right in the same range with Rutgers, UConn, & VPI.

Research Function - Every ACC school prior to expansion was classified by the Carnegie Foundation for Teaching & Learning as "Very High" in research dollars - its highest category - except Wake. Of the three proposed additions, only Miami ranked this high. BC & Syracuse both ranked "High" - the middle of the Carnegie Foundations 3 research categories for Doctoral/Research Universities. In contrast, Uconn, Rutgers, & Virginia Tech all ranked "Very High."

The distinctions may not be as dramatic as they are for Northwestern in the Big Ten, but they are there nonetheless.




That of course was part of my point. Its clearly a difference between publics & privates.




The facts I've listed speak for themselves. VT is more like the 7 state schools. While its enrollment is on the high end, it is still within the range of the state schools while of the 3 proposed privates, only Syracuse is within the enrollment range of the state schools. Its mission is research & the education of in-state students - just like all the other state schools. This mission is not shared to the same degree by BC & Syracuse, who are both lower in research dollars & higher in out-of state-students. Miami falls somewhere in between, but is still clearly different than the publics.




Don't you mean that Virginia Tech has no new market for the ACC? Of course they have a market. After all, they are the "state university" of Virginia as it says in their full name. They bring the entire state of Virginia as their market. And this is a market that has been poorly represented by U VA in postseason both in football & in basketball for many years. Virginia residents now actually have an ACC to root for in the postseason. It's a market that is far more valuable than Mississippi or the greater Oxford market. Even Blacksburg is bigger than Oxford, MS.

Of course VA Tech can be the one to decline rather than Miami. The problem is that Miami has shown that interest in its football program drops off very quickly when they are not winning. VA Tech has done a much better job at keeping its fan in off years. Miami never has brought any fans for basketball. In terms of market, Miami does not bring its metro market exclusively. The Flirda Gators still are Florida's team - even in Miami. This is a shared market, not one that is owned by the University of Miami.

But this was never my point. I've been trying to say that a conference is a better entity when it brings together similar schools so that even when one or another of them is down, they still have enough in common to see each other as rivals. We may disagree on which schools fit best, but that was my point.

By talking about how schools see themselves & who they see as their peers, you've ignored what is in my mind the biggest advantage of state flagships. Citizens in-state support state universities in a way that they never do for private schools. They do this for a numnber of reasons:

1. State schools educate state kids. Even a school like Georgia Tech has over 2/3 of its students from in-state.

2. State universities have larger enrollments. Research shows that college graduates tend to seek employment near where they went to college in greater numbers than anywhere else, such as where they grew up. That means lots of in-state alumni in the area to go to games at the alma mater.

3. State residents pay taxes to support their state university. They have a sense of ownership about their state university, so even out-of-state transplants tend to adopt the state school & develop a rooting interest in it. Games involving the state school become major events that draw a lot of people to them because its something for groups of people to do together. They can all root for the home-town team.

4. State universities throughout the country play a major function as research centers - especially for the issues that are of highest concern to state residents & local industry. Because research at the state university often benefits local industry, this increases even further the sense of even non-alumni experiencing ties to State U.

A final note. The improvement of Virginia Tech basketball has nothing to do with the decline of ACC prestige in this sport. The failure of the ACC traditional powers (North Carolina & Duke) to adapt to the new realities of college basketball is what has altered the results for the ACC - a conference whose prestige has always rested on what these two do in postseason play. The ACC has failed to advance a team to the Final Four in 3 of the past 5 years. It's been almost 30 years since the last time that happened (1976, '79, '80). Regardless of what Virginia Tech does or does not do on the court, the ACC will not regain its reputation unless & until this changes. It doesn't have to be Duke & UNC, but someone has to step up or it will be the end of a remarkable run.

Happy Memorial Day!
Bill

Of course they know what they're doing. But they're doing something different. The Red Sox, Pattriots, & Celtics are selling their respective products all over New England & are successfully recruiting fans from all 6 states. The Patriots even bring in a substantial number of season ticket holders from Albany, NY.

But with few exceptions, colleges are not selling their tickets & TV programming out of state. So, the Boston or Massachusetts market, which means the New England market for pro sports, means only Boston or Massachusetts for colleges.




I paid 4 years of tuition at BC. It doesn't capture the Boston market in any way similar to the way a major state university captures its market.




I don't care how the census bureau defines the market. Are you saying that Northern New Jersey fans of college hoops will follow St. John's instead of Rutgers because they somehow feel more affiliated with New York? Rutgers is still New Jersey's state university & will capture the interest of New Jersey residents if they continue to build their program. There have been numerous articles coming out of New Jersey about how New Jersey businesses are now using the Rutgers name to sell their products on billboards, about how sales of Rutgers closthing lines has quadrupled, & about how demand for season tickets is through the roof. Nonetheless, I doubt that we'll ever agree on this one.

But it's the ONLY college in that area that comes close. Which is something you are failing to recognize or acknowledge. Will it ever have the popularity of the Red Sox, Patriots, or Celtics? Probably never, but if college athletics is going to rise in popularity in the Massachusetts area, ND remains the first choice and BC will be the second. This is what all of the TNS polling data shows.






Except for the St. John's part, that is precisely what I am saying. These northern New Jerseyites, for the most part, are transplanted New Yorkers. What about this is so difficult to understand?

Many have no special 'affinity' or connectivity to New Jersey at all. Hell, even New Jersey as a whole has a problem relating to New Jersey considering the fact that allow pro franchises in their state to be called "New York" teams.





Which again demonstrates that New Jersey fans, like most northeastern athletics fans, don't give much consideration to Rutgers being the state university, they only care about winning.

If Rutgers win, they will build a fan base, if they lose, that fan base will disappear leaving behind only the diehards. Of which, we have seen that the hardcore Rutgers fans are about 4,000 for basketball and 25,000 for football. Numbers that are no greater in bb and about 10K less in football than BC's or Miami's hardcore following and far lower than Syracuse's hardcore fan following in both sports.

Which basically calls into question your 'theory' that somehow being the state school is far superior. It is not, at least not in the northeastern states where the dynamics are entirely different than the south or even the midwest.

Cheers,
Neil

Thanks for the perspective, Neil. Different opinions is what makes it all interesting. To each, his own. :)

As a transplanted New Yorker, I have had no problem in developing a loyalty to the state university here in Connecticut & I have relatives in New Jersey who are very excited about what's going on at Rutgers. They could care less what is going on at St. John's.

All the best . . .
Bill

There are different types of private and there are different types of public schools. UNC and Virginia are both public schools, but they have much more in common with Duke, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Miami, Georgetown, and Boston College than they do with these public schools (to name a few) - Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois - which those 5 institutions have much less in common with these public schools - West Virginia, Louisville, Mississippi, Memphis, USF.





A much more balanced approach toward undergraduate and graduate education in terms of faculty and resources (unlike the Big 10 public schools where the majority focus of quality resources are on graduate education), admission criteria, academic qualifications/background of enrolled students, enrollment size, class sizes, fiscal management, emphasis on endowments rather than on state funding support, etc.




Obviously you don't care, but you do realize that all institutions develop a 'peer institutional list' by which they compare and measure themselves for both internal and external reporting, right?




Again, not in the ways that count - academic mission, admissions criteria, faculty, endowments, etc.

And again, this isn't to state that UConn and Rutgers don't meet the academic profile of the ACC. For those who truly understand these issues, UConn is a perfect fit for the ACC in terms of academic profile and while Rutgers is also, they, like Maryland, are betwixt and between, with being slightly more like a Big 10 profile than an ACC one.




Ahh, but you did, and continue to do so when you simply divide along public and private lines without making any kinds of distinction that there are different types of public and different types of privates.

By the way, do you know what institution is New York state's land-grant university?




I thought it was obvious that I picked the way I did because you were attempting to say it was 7 versus 2. I was trying to point out that it was like 5 versus 4 - in other words it wasn't as lopsided as you were attempting to make it out to be.

And besides, if you recall, it was FSU, NC State, and Maryland who wanted Miami, BC, and Syracuse. And the first two of those three desperately wanted Notre Dame as well.

So obviously, nobody in the ACC really cared about the one thing (state versus private) that you believe is more important than history, than markets, than like institutions, than sports facilities, and any other criteria upon which the ACC made their decision.

And once again, this is not to say that UConn and/or Rutgers won't eventually prove to be the better choice(s) in the long run - but at that point in time when the decision was made, they simply were not in the running.




Which, of course, you are entitled to have your opinion. But since the actual players involved disagreed, I am attempting to present the other side of the argument - why those initial choices may have ultimately proved to have been the best choices (and the fact that what the ACC got was betwixt and between may have been the worse of all possible scenarios, but that is a different thread ;) )





Let's look at this differently:

Less than 5000:

Wake - 4,263

Between 5000-10000

Duke - 6,244
BC - 9019
Miami - 9601

Between 10000-15000

Georgia Tech - 11842
Syracuse - 12128
Virginia - 13151
Clemson - 13192

Between 15000-20000

UConn - 15196
North Carolina - 16304
North Carolina State - 18718

Between 20000-25000

VT - 21083
Maryland - 22648
Rutgers - 24242

Over 30000

Florida State - 30418

As can be seen by doing the entire list, each of the schools that were candidates to be selected and the two you now feel the ACC should have accepted all fit in terms of enrollment. The oddballs in term of enrollment size are Wake and Florida State. There is nothing about the sizes of the 3 private institutions that make them 'unlike' the rest of the ACC.




The above is a difference, but I would contend if you do an academic profile of the backgrounds of the selected candidates and admissions criteria of schools you will discover that the three privates you wish to dismiss as being 'unlike' ACC schools fits like a glove.




The ranking of research universities is controversial even amongst these institutions. The Carnegie Foundation rankings are the most controversial, since they employ dollars only in their rankings and they combine both federal and state dollars, which puts many privates at a disadvantage.

The Center for Measuring University Performance has its own Research rankings, in which only federal dollars are look at.

In terms of this ranking of federal dollars only, GT(14) and MD(20) are the only 2 in the Top 25. In the Top 50 are UNC(34), VT(39), NC State (41), Rutgers(45), and FSU (50). In the Top 100, Duke(58), Clemson(67),Virginia(71),Miami(79) and UConn(89).

Out of the Top 100 are BC(112), SU(135), and Wake(145).

Of course, as the report points out, medical and engineering require the most dollars while social science and political science requires the least amount of dollars. It is the latter in which Syracuse is most proficient, being one of the Top 10 research universities in terms of political science and government as well as media and pop culture.

In terms of ranking research universities in terms of quality of research as well as funding the following are ranked by the same organization in the Top 25(note there are about 50 colleges ranked in the Top 25 because to get into the Top 25 you need only be ranked in the Top 25 in 1 of the 9 criteria being assessed):

Those in the Top 25 are Duke, UNC, Virginia, and Maryland. The only two Big East schools in the Top 25 are Pitt and Notre Dame.

In the Top 50 are GT, NC State, Rutgers, VT, BC, and Miami. When you make $$$ 1 of 9 criteria in determining the quality of research institution, then FSU, Clemson, and UConn drop slightly.

Finally, the site does an analysis of privates only and public only.

In this analysis, Duke, ND, Miami, and Wake are in the Top 25 while Syracuse and BC rank in the Top 50 for privates.

In public school analysis, UNC, UVa, MD, GT, and Rutgers are Top 25 while FSU, UConn, and Clemson are Top 50.

So, once again, there really isn't much of a distinction between all the candidates being discussed on this topic either.











Well, not quite. They are a state university in Virginia, the University of Virginia is Virginia's state university. It is the reason why the term 'flagship university' has become popular.

The comparison in my mind as I made the above remarks are like UNC and NC State. Both have North Carolina in their names, but they bring different markets, this requires an understanding of DMAs.





No, if I said Mississippi State then the above would be accurate. But Virginia, as the flagship institution, brings the ACC the key Virginia markets, just as Mississippi brings the key markets of the state of Mississippi to the SEC.




Which has less to do with it being a 'state' school than it does the culture of the area in which the school resides.




With Florida the SEC can stake a claim to all of Florida's key markets including Miami and Tampa while the ACC can claim the Miami market (thanks to the presence of Miami) and the Big East can claim the Tampa market (thanks to USF).

But when VT was in the Big East, the league couldn't claim all the key Virginia markets, the best it could claim was the nearest DMA which was Roanoke-Lynchburg.

See the difference?

Now there are times when a secondary state school transcends their local markets and become national in nature - Florida State being the prime example of this, but that is rare. And VT isn't anywhere near that level yet.






And my point isn't that the UConn and Rutgers are not ACC type schools but that your point that Miami, BC, and Syracuse are dissimilar is off-base. And because you are starting with this faulty premise, it hurts, imho, the overall point that VT, UConn and Rutgers might eventually prove to have been the better candidates.

There are reasons why that might be so, but these reasons are not rooted in the reasons you are giving.

And they are rather simple reasons, VT is a cultural and geographical fit while UConn and Rutgers might one day surpass all but Penn State in terms of being the best of the northeastern college sports universities. The first is current and is unlikely to change while the latter is far from happening at this point in time.

Cheers,
Neil