bullet
Legend
Posts: 66,900
Joined: Apr 2012
Reputation: 3317
I Root For: Texas, UK, UGA
Location:
|
RE: Add UMASS simply because they are a flagship?
(04-02-2014 06:42 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote: (04-01-2014 12:52 PM)billybobby777 Wrote: I'm up for adding UMASS because they are a flagship. Don't know why, but on this board many fans seem to think a conference can work their way up to being a power conference. Can it? Maybe, but I don't think it's possible simply because I've never seen it done. When looking at the P5 conferences there's something that they have in common, and that is they are made up of mostly state flagships or the "2nd fiddle" in the state. Example: The University of ________ and _____ State. The last component is wealthy private schools, which they all have a few. UMASS to AAC would give the league 2 Flagships. It would be a start.
Big 10-Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan St, Ohio St, Penn St, Maryland. Rutgers. 11 state flagships, 1 Second fiddle.
SEC . 11 Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Mississippi St, Louisiana St, Texas A&M. 9 State Flagships, 2, 2nd Fiddles
Big 12 7 West Virginia, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa St, Kansas St, Oklahoma St, Big 12,4 State Flagships, 3 2nd fiddles.
PAC:9Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, California, Washington St, Oregon St. Arizona St. [u] 6 state flagships,3 2nd Fiddles
ACC: Florida st, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Virgina, North Carolina St, Virginia Tech. 2 Flagships, 3 2nd Fiddles the rest are wealthy privates and "city state schools" `
AAC 2 (With inclusion of UMASS, UCONN AND UMASS. The rest are a military institution and a few wealthy private schools, and several "city-state schools" and "directional schools"
MWC 6 4 Flagships:Hawaii, Wyoming, Nevada, New Mexico. 2 "2nd Fiddles" Colorado St and Utah St. Also has a military institution
SBC/MAC/CUSA: All three of these conferences are made up almost entirely of "directional schools and "city-state schools".
My point is this: The only hope for a "6th power conference would be to grab all the remaining state flagships left and put them in the same conference plus sprinkle in a couple wealthy private schools and the military institutions. It would obviously have to be a coast to coast league meaning it probably wouldn't work unless you have 8 of these lumped close enough together for an eastern division, and 8 lumped close enough together for a western division creating a 16 Team National Conference.
This is riddled with errors.
First, Purdue is a state flagship. It's actually the land-grant school in Indiana. It's a more important and prestigious university than IU in every field except law and medicine. It's also a bigger school with a bigger endowment.
Second, Florida State is not a state flagship. Florida is. According to the state's funding and classification systems, FSU is on the same level as UCF and USF. It's actually below USF in the quality of its graduate and research programs.
Third, Arizona State is not a state flagship. It was originally a teachers' college and now is more similar to a metro university (similar to UCLA in both respects). Except that other metro universities like UC and Louisville have much bigger endowments than them.
Fourth, Texas Tech and Texas State are technically flagships. Although in reality they're 3rd and 4th fiddle.
Fifth, Georgia Tech is not a flagship, despite it's $1.7 billion endowment.
Sixth, several AAC "city" schools have branch campuses and qualify as flagships under most standard definitions. Cincinnati, Temple, USF, and UCF each have several branch campuses. They are also larger, more elite, and wealthier than a lot of the SEC & MWC flagships.
Seventh, the MAC technically has 1 flagship: Buffalo. New York State technically has no flagship, but its 4 biggest and best schools are generally considered flagships. Although Ohio could also be considered flagship because of its extensive branch system. Kent and Miami also have several branch campuses.
Sheesh, with your logic you may as well refer to tiny HBCU's like Kentucky State and West Virginia State as "2nd fiddle flagships."
You're making his point a little. I've never heard anyone refer to Cincinnati, Temple, USF or UCF as flagships. And Texas Tech and Texas State aren't flagships at all. Texas State isn't 4th fiddle or 5th or 6th.
|
|