Outside the box B1G expansion idea: McGill University
The B10 should add McGill University. Excellent academic reputation. AAU member. 28 varsity sports, including basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse. Would make the B10 the only international conference. And Canada has a population approaching 40 million (about the size of California). Yes, they would need to build an American football program. Idk if they even have club American football, but it can be done. And it's effectively contiguous to the B10 geographic footprint ... it's in Montreal. Oui oui!!
Edit: And if the point of college athletics is (1) marketing your university to as many potential future students as possible and (2) enhancing the student experience, how isn't adding an elite Canadian university (in french-ish Quebec) a home run? Imagine going to Montreal for an away football game. Or taking a semester at McGill immersed in French.
McGill needs to form their own conference with the University of Chicago.
Only if Groundkeeper Willie is their ball coach
University of Chicago is already in a conference, UAA (University Athletic Association).
that's where McGill fits--with NYU, Carnegie-Mellon, Chicago, Emory et al.
The UAA is really a great conference of academic colleges. My children applied to several schools in the conference - and, though accepted by some of the UAA schools - they decided on Michigan. Go Blue!
I went to NYU. The college experience was pretty amazing and getting to go to school in Greenwich Village is an experience that is pretty hard to beat. However, I did feel I missed out on the traditional university football/basketball game experience in the student section. I really wish I could have had that experience.
FWIW, this wouldn't make the B1G the only international conference.
Simon Fraser University (in suburban Vancouver, B.C.) has been a NCAA member for over a decade-now. They play football in the D2 Lone Star Conference (yes, Lone Star, most of the other schools in the conference are from Texas!) and all other sports in the D2 Great Northwest Athletic Conference. They went 1-9 in football last year.
https://athletics.sfu.ca/sports/football/schedule/2022
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This is tangential, but back in the day when Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno were going back-and-forth in all-time wins, I would hear (PSU fan talking point) about how 2 of Bowden's wins while at Samford shouldn't count because they were over the National University of Mexico. I don't know anything more than that, but they were apparently another a non-US based school that played some American college football games back in the late 1950s/early 1960s.
I mean…Michigan’s all-time wins (989 to be exact) include wins over: Ann Arbor High School (now Pioneer) and the Detroit Athletic Club
Wins over Rutgers count too. Crazy
You kid, but remember --- Rutgers once was the college football program with the most all-time wins!
Michigan may hold that honor now, but Rutgers intends to get that back.
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As to wins against Rutgers counting --- they better count! Some schools have 3.4% of their all-time victories against Rutgers.
U of Chicago, Army and Princeton were once the powerhouses of college football too. Big deal, they all suck now.
i think that was their joke
That's totally different... totally.
If the athletic department could take a page from the UM FOIA Office and perhaps not write the opponent on a freaking football and stick it in a glass case at Schembechler Hall for all to see perhaps these trivial details would pass more quickly into the ether.
Mods, please delete Qmatic's needlessly truthful post, have someone at Bentley change the opponent to Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame, Standord, or some other school we're better than at everything, and we can all forget this unfortunate oversight.
- Blue Brother
The series Alex is doing on past Michigan games ---- I want to see a write-up on Michigan's March 12, 1883 7-1 victory over the Detroit Industrial Team. It's a historic game, Michigan's first win in a game played in Ann Arbor. But I have quite a few questions, LOL. Why were they playing in March? How did the scoring take place? Did the weather, I'm guessing the game may have been played on a muddy and cold field, factor in? What sort of folks played for the Detroit Industrial Team? Did the Industrial Team recruit and pay their players - were they a bunch of no-good cheaters?
(that's all sarcastic - but in a way it would also be interesting, if it could possibly be researched)
As to the University of Mexico --- I looked them up and they regularly played American teams in the 1940s to early 1960s. They also played in the 1945 Sun Bowl.
Fun fact: MSU has a losing record against the Detroit Athletic Club
My UAF Nanooks have been playing the Simon Fraser Red Leafs for at least the past decade. And had several classmates who transferred from both SF & McGill. 2 things I've learned about our neighbors to the east/north: Don't make jokes about the maple leaf without expecting some backlash & B.C.ers are beyond arrogant about the beauty of their home.
Nice, nice! Yeah, UAF by necessity has some long-ass road trips, but it's cool that they (and UAA) can make it work.
I know way too much about conference realignment --- in both the MHSAA and lower division college athletics --- than I should, but UAF & UAA used to be in the Pac West. Same conference as Chaminade, Hawaii-Hilo, BYU-Hawaii and Hawaii Pacific, as well as a bunch of California schools. That was really a crazy-ass conference for travel.
The UAF hockey team probably has the longest commuting of any D1 college hockey program every year, now that they're playing Long Island U in Brooklyn (about 200 miles further than Maui).
I grew up with the biggest early season basketball tournaments being hosted by 2 D2 schools, UAA (Great Alaska Shootout) & Chaminade (Maui Invitational). Kinda weird how that happened, but it was the pinnacle of sports in Anchorage seeing those powerhouse D1 teams come play on our tiny ~5,000 seat arena. And of course, UAA got a favorable whistle in every game!
The point of college athletics at this stage is for your revenue generating sports to outpace the costs of running your non-revenue sports so your Athletic Department can turn a profit. The point of college conference expansion is to ensure you have a compelling and significant offering to broadcast networks to leverage that advantage to ensure highly lucrative contracts to help you achieve the first objective.
I'm all for adding AAU schools but there is literally no point to adding a school to the B1G that doesn't have a football team.
But the exposure! You are discounting how attractive it might be for a Canadian prospective student to come to a US school and pay $45,000 more a year than tuition at a comparable Canadian school...
Let's go even further outside the box and add the University of Phoenix. 80,000 students, national reach, soon to be acquired by the University of Idaho.
I don't know, man, it seems like letting the vandals from East Lansing visit every other year is more than enough.
drugs?
Day-drinking is fun.
Can’t be drunk all day if you don’t start early
yes please
Heavy drugs. Like, Hunter S. Thompson-type drugs.
I like it. I'd like the fit better if McGill was in Toronto, but if we're gonna be flying field hockey out to CA, why not get them passports and fly them to CAN while we're at it? I don't see it ever happening, but it's a fun idea, and a great university.
The California schools can just head over to Paramountie Studios and play virtually.
The U of T already has a football program and I can walk to the stadium. What's not to love?
Although to be fair I've never complained about having to visit Montreal.
Aw, take off, you hoser!
you know the call on 4th and 1.....steamroller!!
Main complaint is that all our signs we bring on game day to harass them would also have to be written in French.
I'm sure the logistics are impratical, but I always thought it'd be cool to add someone like UofToronto or McGill as an affiliate for B1G hockey. Would help our Canadian recruiting for sure if we were playing games in Toronto and Montreal every season
Most upper-level Canadian kids go to US colleges or play junior. Their college hockey teams are not very good.
Yeah, I figure in this very theoretical scenario that those universities would be making the move in an effort to build a program and be at the level of NCAA D1 / major junior teams
That’s true mostly because Canadian collegiate athletics aren’t promoted at the same level that they are in the US. A Canadian college joining NCAA hockey would then be at the same level of play and would immediately be an attractive option for Canadian athletes.
Oxford, Cambridge have excellent crew teams. That HAS to be the next front in expansion otherwise we will fall behind the SEC and go the way of the Big East.
And let's not forget the IITs and their cricket prowess, and a market that would mean 1 BILLION television sets would get the BTN. Of course we need the boys from Stellenbosch - sure they're famous for "rugby" but it's BASICALLY football, and then we'd be the first conference in Africa. Adding all 3 of those schools and that one system would up our academics, because research and money and profit. And really think about the students and this is good for their health.
/sarcasm
I’m on board with this. I’d like to visit Europe too, so if we can add those too in my lifetime that would be great! Maybe my kids could catch a game in Australia in their lifetimes.
Can you imagine the international games with the tall Dutch people against the strong Samoans?? It’s like Mutant League Hockey in real life!! I always enjoyed the alien team personally.
too many mutants in the backfield
I guess if the Big Ten can have 12? 14? 16? (I've lost track - how many teams are there now?) teams in it, why can't the National Collegiate Athletic Association include schools that are international.
As long as their new football team doesn't expect to play by CFL rules for home games, I'm OK with it. Otherwise you'd have to prepare special for them like you do with Army.
Yes. Add an international element to the NCAA and imagine the foreign policy hijinks that would ensue.
How about we McDon't
I suppose the one benefit of adding them is that then we'd have another reason to,
Not a terrible idea, but granting your premise of adding schools from Canada being a good idea I would rank University of Toronto and University of British Colombia (Santa's last school) ahead of McGill. All schools have playing football for 100+ years, but Toronto and UBC are bigger (Toronto has an enrollment of 70,000!) are comparable academically, and have better football programs (marginally in Toronto's case).
Adding Univ of WA and UBC sounds good to me. Add Univ of Oregon and Stanford and we have a nice 6 teams on the West Coast.
We also lock up all the best Chinese food.
Darn it. Now I'm craving Chef Chu's lemon chicken.
What if we just added the SEC?