(02-01-2014 07:10 AM)SeaBlue Wrote: (02-01-2014 01:34 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote: I've been in academia and academic research for years. If you really want to know what your so called "AAU socialites" think, you can start by stopping the regurgitation of athletic conference press releases and similar PR firm hyperbole.
I've been careful here to try to avoid sounding like I'm just repeating the company line. Sometimes the hyperbole is fun for conversation or thrown out there mostly out of exasperation to counter hyperbole from those that really want to trash the Big Ten here above all else.
If Syracuse or a similar institution (granted, a short list) was near the top of the wish list, why would the Big Ten issue "press releases and similar PR firm hyperbole" that would require a bit of retraction if Syracuse became available. I don't see how all this AAU talk could be a product of the athletic departments and PR people and not really representative of what presidents and chancellors were thinking. Why go through the trouble and risk some embarrassment if it really didn't mean much (and with Nebraska I think there's wiggle room there)?
Clearly some smart person in the Big Ten thought through the AAU statements in the context of Syracuse, and they did it anyway. That is not consistent with your position unless you believe that Syracuse was never going to find there way to the Big Ten, in which case this becomes a very Notre Dame-like discussion.
"I don't see how all this AAU talk could be a product of the athletic departments and PR people and not really representative of what presidents and chancellors were thinking."
It's a dumb selling point. The fact that SU doesn't have a med school and has a science department HEAVILY subsidized by the state of NY via SUNY ESF speaks nothing to it's academics, but it creates a major research dent. However, research expenditures are an easily quantifiable number and they sound "academic" to those who have never gone to college (i.e.
all high school perspective students). Given that the B1G was comprised of 10 massive state schools and NW (who is a MASSIVE outlier), they all happened to have a ton of research, as is expected when virtually every school fields med schools, science departments, and engineering schools, and there are a ton of professors. So, it was an attractive bit of PR. The B1G could claim "we're better at research," and then show research budgets to "support" that claim, leading the masses to assume a connection between that an academics, even though almost no connection exists. Clearly they knew what they were doing, given a number of posters seemed to have bought into it completely.
That just highlights the silliness of conversations about the CIC and AAU status. The reality is that athletics and academics are two very different things, and academics and research are two different things. These are all FAR less related than people pretend. When I was doing research at PSU, we were working with a professor from WVU. So much for the CIC, AAU, and virtually every other organization/ranking.
"If Syracuse or a similar institution..."
I think that SU would have preferred the B1G over he BIG EAST, but I think that the ACC is our ideal home. That's evidenced by the fact that we were involved in expansion talks with the ACC every 4-5 years between 1991 and when we joined in 2011.
I also think that the B1G would have preferred SU, given that PSU was the one pushing for expansion, and PSU-SU is MUCH more meaningful than PSU-RU. Objectively, it was once a rivalry. Subjectively, I went to PSU and don't know soul who isn't annoyed about having to share a conference wit RU. Much like UMD, most B1G people that I know see RU as a NYC game, and nothing else. Don't get me wrong, that's important, given he B1G alumni base in NYC (and DC), but SU has proven a willingness to play in NYC and an ability to get games on TV there. SU also brings an athletic dept. that is vastly superior in both quality and following.
However, if you're happy in the B1G, we're happy in the ACC, so let's just be happy. Live and let live, man.