Brett McMurphy: sources (note plural) say AAU membership “not a requirement,” to join BIG10
The dominoes of realignment could start very soon. The Pac-12 is continuing to line things up as if things will hold together for them. But it's no certainty.
University of Arizona president Robert Robbins said he knew nothing of it though:
When asked if Arizona would leave the Pac-12:
Colorado would have made $56 Million more since 2011 if they had never left the Big-12 in the first place:
Apparently Colorado could be announcing as early as Friday what their plans are. I don't think any Pac-12 media deal could top what the Big-12 would offer. So the first realignment domino could be falling very soon, and we may see extensive realignment not too long after.
Will we end up, some day, with non-AAU schools in the BIG10? Brett McMuphy's 'sources' make it appear we will.
If that's true that's really too bad. I work at another big ten school that merged, and a colleague who has worked there longer always talks about how joining the Big Ten had a positive influence on the academic direction of the University.
Apparently joining the B1G was NOT a positive influence on Nebraska's academic or athletic direction. I blame Carol Frost!
If I recall correctly, Nebraska got dropped from the AAU because the hospital affiliated with their medical school is not in Lincoln but is instead 60 miles away in a major population center. That’s pretty dumb if true. There’s more to academics than just AAU membership.
Not just a distance away but part of another campus in the state system (University of Nebraska Omaha), which used to be accepted but is not anymore (in terms of counting those research dollars towards the flagship institution).
I'm not sure it was ever totally clear, but the impression was that it was changed to penalize Nebraska for leaving the Big 12.
I agree that the rationale for dropping them seemed silly, but I doubt it had anything to do with Nebraska leaving the Big 12. I don't think the AAU cares much about these things, and there are only two current Big 12 schools (Kansas and Texas) in its membership.
Seems silly for the AAU to punish Nebraska for joining (at the time) an 11 member conference whose entire membership was in the AAU, and leaving a conference with 2 remaining members.
It would also beg the question, if they were punishing Nebraska for leaving then why weren’t Colorado, Texas A&M and Mizzou also punished for leaving the same conference at the same time?
We kind of already knew this, right? There isn't any technical requirement for AAU membership, but it's an important factor that affects the only real requirement: whether the university presidents will vote to admit you.
With Notre Dame and Miami joining the AAU, the only non-AAU member with a real shot at Big Ten membership is Florida State. It's easy to envision AAU membership still being a tiebreaker if the Big Ten is ever deciding between Miami and FSU.
Interestingly, Miami and FSU are tied (at number 55) in the U.S. News rankings. They're just another measure, and there's lots of ways to judge the value of an education at different schools, many of which people clawing for prestige in a classless society (joking) might never value.
For example, FSU--in moving from ca. number 65 nationally in the public u rankings 18 years ago when my wife arrived to number 19 today gave up bragging about being the leading u in the country for graduating first members of families to attend college. Kids entering today have far better test scores and are in many ways better prepared to think and study, but she felt quite proud of working with those kids, and does not find the current cadre nearly as interesting as people.
I don’t think people appreciate this enough w/r/t admissions and “great” universities. The rankings are set up to benefit the most well-off kids, by making them a hotter commodity. But having those kids does not a better university make. I loved the schools that used to target diamonds in the rough. Maryland used to be in that category. UVa has probably slipped a bit because they’re doing it.
I take FSU over Miami all day. Outside of AAU membership FSU is better all the way down the line.
Agreed. I wouldn't mind either though just for the recruiting footprint. Would beat the hell out of the Oregon & Washington argument, I would definitely prefer FSU if I had to choose.
With Miami we have to deal with their exceptional slimy booster/agents, however, the upside is we could finally get rid of the YTM acronym.
I don't know for sure but I wonder if Miami has the richer alumni base. FSU was a historical women's college for much of its history. I don't think it has the alumi $'s most schools its brand stature would indicate.
You are probably right. But what is that going to look like in 20 years?
Miami's endowment is a quarter billion dollars bigger, from what I see looking around the internet. But FSU's Alumni Association has, for example, just funded the building of an entire area of downtown Tallahassee--with 45,000 students to Miami's 15,000 my hunch is that when it comes to money brought to bear, etc. FSU can't run far behind Miami. The legislature is full of UF and FSU grads; you hear less about Miami. In fact, Miami sports were in trouble on all fronts just a short time ago.
FSU is likelier to look juicy from a football standpoint than Miami, I would suspect. FSU started a medical school a decade ago with AAU membership partly in mind; there's a huge new business school in the works. (As with UGA's aspirations to AAU membership, lack of an engineering program is said to be an issue.) FSU looks much more like a B1G campus than Miami/Coral Gables.
Part of FSU's rise has to do with Jeb Bush, who ca. '08 made FSU and UF the state's two flagship schools, raising FSU's funding up on a par with UF's. FSU had until then run behind UF in prestige, etc. I'm always struck by how much these things are shifting, and by how commenters tend only to look at the current superficial questions of comparative prestige, often very much a question of hearsay or long-held/outdated opinion.
Adding Miami, FSU, Washington, and Oregon to already having USC and UCLA, then some day Notre Dame, would probably make the BIG10 a lone super conference. I dont know what the SEC could do to come close to equaling that.
Have two teams that dominate college football, which in SEC logic, means that every SEC school is great.
Interesting point here: the Pac=12 Grant of Rights will distribute money based on the teams ranking in the CFP. Arizona and Colorado obviously would be well down the CFP ranking list, making their cut lesser. The Big-12 wants Arizona because of basketball.
Or maybe it's a hail Mary way of hanging on to Oregon and Washington.
Greg McElroy thinks Colorado may have had a move out of the Pac-12 in mind when they hired Deion Sanders:
I'm not sure why this subject keeps getting discussed. The Big Ten does not look like it is going to expand any time soon unless there is some major shakeup in the structure of FBS or Notre Dame comes calling. The Big Ten has a TV deal that runs until 2030, and TV partners are not going to add money to the deal unless it adds to their bottom line which would probably only happen with ND. The ACC members are stuck together with Grant of Rights for another decade.
Because Brett McMurphy's Creatures keeps posting it here.
It’s not something I think the B1G is “working on” but I think the relevance here is that if, say, the PAC 12 falls apart in the next 12 months, the B1G may want to be opportunistic is scooping up schools that may be a good fit with some "plans" in place. There's a potential game of musical chairs about to happen and if it does, you don’t want to be the conference who got left behind while superconferences emerge.
The superconferences are already here: the Big Ten and the SEC. There is no one else left. With the LA schools gone, the SEC is not calling for any of these Pac-12 schools. And even if the best schools from the ACC, Big 12, and Pac-12 banded together it would still be third with any of those schools ready to jump to the Big Ten or SEC if an invite ever came. There is no more left behind at this point. Maybe some scenario emerges in the future with the LA schools unhappy with no West Coast partners in the conference, but how about we see how this works first before crossing that bridge?
Let's say the Pac-12 does fall apart in the next 12 months. How would that change anything? This isn't like a distressed business where you can acquire a school for pennies on the dollar. It's more like a bunch of people who got evicted showing up at your front door, and you deciding to house, feed and clothe them for the rest of their lives. If they are going to be your roommates, they still have to make enough income to pay rent and the bills.
2030 is only a couple of years off, of course, when it comes to renegotiating; and if wholesale network moves or realignment are going to be involved, then a conscientious and competent leadership (did the B1G even have that for the last round?) is plotting that, quietly.
I would imagine an ND has some idea what its next 2 or 3 moves might be, and I'll bet they involve the B1G. But that doesn't mean that plying a line that keeps them most visible/in the public eye in the meantime isn't in their interests. (If you're looking two steps down the road, are you just going to lose an FSU or Miami again, presuming you take them now, when the divisions are carved up geographically?)
In my view, too, most of the large schools have some sense either that a) they will retain some tenuous possible hold on an expanded playoff in the rare years when they have a team that outperforms; b) that they may quietly de-emphasize football or hoops and just retain it as fall fun; or c) that you're going to have to keep pretending to do these things whether you like it or not. Decisions made now, to double down financially or work hard to remain attractive, are going to be pretty damned fateful, financially and in terms of reputation, for a lot of these schools. Kids really do decide, unfortunately--at least some of the time--based on the kind of vague glow that a school carries with it.
It's only the Pac Howevermany that looks like it's really really flailing as a conference, in a super-awkward position. But when you dig into some of those school budgets and see how stretched some of them are. . . You're a school like MSU that has suffered whopping budget cuts going back to '08, have suffered these scandals, have dug so hard to keep your scholastic thing--your true raison d'etre--pretty strong despite it all, and you're giving an inept guy 90 million dollars? There have to be gusts of despairing laughter issuing from some of those meetings at times in EL these days. The athletic tail really does come to wag the academic dog quite a bit here, even as--for the leading schools--research money may dwarf academic budgets. . .
The Big Ten won't let you into their party with a 12-pack or even a case. You and your friends have got to bring a keg with a tap. And it better be recent from a craft brewery.
Would rather not compromise on the AAU standard even if it is no longer supposedly a formal requirement. Though it cannot be seen directly by non-Big Ten fans this is one of the hallmarks of the conference that differentiates it from the other Power 5 conferences and has certainly played out culturally in the stability of the conference and the BIG‘s philosophy of academic-athletic balance. One of the reasons that the BIG is such a desired destination is because of the long tradition of collaboration in the old CIC, now the Academic Big Ten, which until recently still included the University of Chicago. It is one of the few bulwarks left that conference members that are predominantly public flagship universities can cling to keep them competitive on a reputational basis with the Ivies, other elite private schools, and fast-rising foreign universities in the competition for students, faculty, and funding. You are defined in many ways by the company that you keep. Best not to give that up for the for a short-sighted cash grab that is not tied to the core educational and research missions of these universities.
That’s a relief, we hadn’t had a Brett McMurphy tweet here in like 72 hours so I was beginning to worry.
Maybe we should've had Keith Jackson do a wellness visit on Brett.
its only a matter of time before they pac it in ....
i'll show myself out
I'll believe it when I see it
i hate to tell you this, but brett mcmurphy will never love you, no matter how many times you amplify his boring shit.
Interesting point about AAU Membership. Though, it may not be a requirement, I really don't see University Presidents inviting schools / institutions without a very strong academic reputation. As others have pointed out, there is a great deal of pride in the conference for their collective contribution to academic advancement. This is very important. Collegiate athletic programs wouldn't exist without the university.
In a way, this point may be moot - since, it appears every program that's being talked about as a potential new member of the B1G is, in fact, either an existing AAU member - or - will become an AAU member soon. The only school that I have seen mentioned, which is not an AAU member is Florida State.
Personally, I believe that phrase "not a requirement" - is folly. The majority of University President's certainly understand the role of athletics in the environment of their respective institutions. And, the B1G President's will not lower the academic reputation of the conference to include a geographic market that seems desirable for a media agreement.
Beyond this, any discussion of FSU right now has to look hard at what their tenure and nondiscrimination policies are and are likely to be. It be a hard sell to let a school in Florida enjoy the Big 10 money flow.
ND got invited twice by Big Ten, and only very recently was invited to AAU.
Can you please enlighten me? When were the two times the Big Ten extended a membership invitation to Notre Dame?
I'm not implying it never happened, I just wonder WHEN it happened. Thanks.
When USC and UCLA joined and 1999.
they ain't coming to play school
AAU isn't a requirement and we know certain additions would make the academic people happy. With that said the schools imo that the big10 are likely to target.
Pac12, Stanford, Oregon, Washington, ASU would give a 6 team pacific pod. Could there also be interest in Colorado or Utah, both?
ACC Virginia, North Carolina, Ga Tech, Miami with other possibilities being FSU and Duke seems most likely but I also wouldn't rule out Boston College being considered with that media market.
ND would get an invite and I'm not sure what the total cap of teams would be for the "Super Conference".
Outside of those teams the only big12 remaining programs I could even think of the Big10 would have interest in are Kansas, Oklahoma st, Baylor maybe Tcu? Idk....
Is it possible that the BIG Presidents will relax the informal requirement that new conference schools be AAU members? Sure, but it would be a significant move for them to do so, and I'm going to need more evidence than McMurphy's unnamed "sources."