(05-21-2017 07:33 PM)ken d Wrote:  An interesting study done in 2012 sheds a little light on how academics (i.e. University presidents and administrators) view Oklahoma (and vice versa). In the study, school leaders were asked to list the schools they consider to be their peers.

In that study, Oklahoma listed 20 P5 schools they considered academic peers. Only one (Colorado) was from the PAC. Two (A&M and Missouri) were from the SEC. OU did not list any ACC schools as peers.

They listed six of their nine Big 12 mates: Iowa St, Kansas St, Oklahoma St, Texas Tech, Kansas and Texas. Interestingly, of these six, all but Texas also named Oklahoma as a peer.

On OU's list were a whopping 11 Big Ten schools. The only ones not on their list were Rutgers and Maryland (who were not yet B1G members) and the only private school in the B1G, Northwestern.

One wonders if they were trying to send a signal to the B1G about their interest in making a move. The only B1G school that listed OU as a peer was Rutgers (who almost doesn't count since they named a whopping 97 schools as "peers"). They may have been fishing for a conference home as well.

The only ACC school that named the Sooners was Florida State. Nobody in the PAC mentioned them.

Three SEC schools named OU: Auburn, Alabama and Arkansas.

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Texas didn't name as many peers as OU. The only ACC school they named was UNC (who also had Texas on their list). They listed no SEC schools. Three were from the PAC (Cal, UCLA and Washington), none of which reciprocated.

The other seven schools were all from the B1G: Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin who also had named the Horns, and Michigan St, and Ohio St which didn't.

Seven SEC schools named UT: Auburn, Texas A&M, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.

Five other ACC schools had Texas on their list: Florida St, Georgia Tech, Pitt, Virginia and Virginia Tech.

Not surprisingly, none of the ACC privates listed Texas. That shouldn't be taken to mean those schools don't respect Texas' academics - only that their institutional missions are very different.

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This study was not meant to shed light on how any schools or conferences might view other schools as athletic conference mates. I just found it interesting.

I don't recall perfectly, and you didn't mention it, but I don't think Texas listed any of its Big 12 brethren as peers either.