Frank the Tank Wrote:

Hoquista Wrote:

firmbizzle Wrote:

Hoquista Wrote:

firmbizzle Wrote:[Duke and Northwestern] are in their conferences for their academics.

I am curious as to why do you say this?

It sure ain't cuz of their football.

Because their FB stinks? That's the reason they are there?

Gotta think deeper than that.....

I'm not sure there's much else other than the fact that Northwestern and Duke are original members of the Big Ten and ACC, respectively. They each joined their conferences from the very beginning in meetings with other schools in their respective geographic regions with similar academic reputations. For Northwestern, they originally also had the University of Chicago as a fellow private school member of the Big Ten (U of C dropped athletics shortly after WWII, but the school is still is part of the academic consortium with rest of the Big Ten), while Duke has always had Wake Forest as a fellow private school member. If you've been in a conference for 111 years (in the case of Northwestern) or 58 years (in the case of Duke), it's probably safe to say that you're going to stay there forever regardless of how your football team performs from year-to-year. Lest we forget in our focus on football that Duke is essentially to college basketball what Notre Dame is to college football - everyone either loves them or hates them (which means that lots of people across the country watch them).

Thank you. It's idiotic to say that Northwestern and Duke are in their conferences simply because of academics.

Frank the Tank Wrote:

Hoquista Wrote:

firmbizzle Wrote:

Hoquista Wrote:

firmbizzle Wrote:[Duke and Northwestern] are in their conferences for their academics.

I am curious as to why do you say this?

It sure ain't cuz of their football.

Because their FB stinks? That's the reason they are there?

Gotta think deeper than that.....

I'm not sure there's much else other than the fact that Northwestern and Duke are original members of the Big Ten and ACC, respectively. They each joined their conferences from the very beginning in meetings with other schools in their respective geographic regions with similar academic reputations. For Northwestern, they originally also had the University of Chicago as a fellow private school member of the Big Ten (U of C dropped athletics shortly after WWII, but the school is still is part of the academic consortium with rest of the Big Ten), while Duke has always had Wake Forest as a fellow private school member. If you've been in a conference for 111 years (in the case of Northwestern) or 58 years (in the case of Duke), it's probably safe to say that you're going to stay there forever regardless of how your football team performs from year-to-year. Lest we forget in our focus on football that Duke is essentially to college basketball what Notre Dame is to college football - everyone either loves them or hates them (which means that lots of people across the country watch them).

Further to my last post, Vanderbilt has a similar situation as a charter member of the SEC when the conference was founded in 1932. These prestigious private schools have been in these conferences long before people had any concept of media markets for college sports (heck, the Big Ten was around before invention of radio and airplanes, much less TV), so there probably wasn't any thought as to the size of these schools compared to their fellow public universities.

Frank the Tank Wrote:

Hoquista Wrote:

firmbizzle Wrote:

Hoquista Wrote:

firmbizzle Wrote:[Duke and Northwestern] are in their conferences for their academics.

I am curious as to why do you say this?

It sure ain't cuz of their football.

Because their FB stinks? That's the reason they are there?

Gotta think deeper than that.....

I'm not sure there's much else other than the fact that Northwestern and Duke are original members of the Big Ten and ACC, respectively. They each joined their conferences from the very beginning in meetings with other schools in their respective geographic regions with similar academic reputations. For Northwestern, they originally also had the University of Chicago as a fellow private school member of the Big Ten (U of C dropped athletics shortly after WWII, but the school is still is part of the academic consortium with rest of the Big Ten), while Duke has always had Wake Forest as a fellow private school member. If you've been in a conference for 111 years (in the case of Northwestern) or 58 years (in the case of Duke), it's probably safe to say that you're going to stay there forever regardless of how your football team performs from year-to-year. Lest we forget in our focus on football that Duke is essentially to college basketball what Notre Dame is to college football - everyone either loves them or hates them (which means that lots of people across the country watch them).

Frank,

Not much else... that's pretty much it what you said. I was getting the impression that there are historical reasons for conference memberships that firmbizzle wasn't aware of. As Omnicarrier once said, time and circumstance often is the reason that conferences have a certain membership.

In this case, neither the Big 10 or ACC have undergone signficant membership changes to the core of the conference. Of course most ACC members were part of the SIAA and then the Southern conference before becoming the ACC but the core 7-8 schools have been together for a LONG time. Also, look at what happened with the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) that eventually evolved into the Pac 8 and then Pac 10. Idaho and Montana used to be in the PCC.

Hoquista Wrote:

Frank the Tank Wrote:

Hoquista Wrote:

firmbizzle Wrote:

Hoquista Wrote:

firmbizzle Wrote:[Duke and Northwestern] are in their conferences for their academics.

I am curious as to why do you say this?

It sure ain't cuz of their football.

Because their FB stinks? That's the reason they are there?

Gotta think deeper than that.....

I'm not sure there's much else other than the fact that Northwestern and Duke are original members of the Big Ten and ACC, respectively. They each joined their conferences from the very beginning in meetings with other schools in their respective geographic regions with similar academic reputations. For Northwestern, they originally also had the University of Chicago as a fellow private school member of the Big Ten (U of C dropped athletics shortly after WWII, but the school is still is part of the academic consortium with rest of the Big Ten), while Duke has always had Wake Forest as a fellow private school member. If you've been in a conference for 111 years (in the case of Northwestern) or 58 years (in the case of Duke), it's probably safe to say that you're going to stay there forever regardless of how your football team performs from year-to-year. Lest we forget in our focus on football that Duke is essentially to college basketball what Notre Dame is to college football - everyone either loves them or hates them (which means that lots of people across the country watch them).

Frank,

Not much else... that's pretty much it what you said. I was getting the impression that there are historical reasons for conference memberships that firmbizzle wasn't aware of. As Omnicarrier once said, time and circumstance often is the reason that conferences have a certain membership.

In this case, neither the Big 10 or ACC have undergone signficant membership changes to the core of the conference. Of course most ACC members were part of the SIAA and then the Southern conference before becoming the ACC but the core 7-8 schools have been together for a LONG time. Also, look at what happened with the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) that eventually evolved into the Pac 8 and then Pac 10. Idaho and Montana used to be in the PCC.

Exactly. Remember Tulane being members of the SEC at one point, and South Carolina being a member of the ACC, and Georgia Tech in the SEC. Arizona and, I believe, Arizona State, were in the WAC. The problem is, there are some people who have a hard time accepting that Cincinnati (or even South Florida) have moved into a Big Six conference. Now we don't have to deal with the crap from nearby "BCS" schools like Ohio State, and it's nice.