(08-05-2016 06:02 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 04:10 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  It looks like drugs are being passed around.

Houston and SMU have been looked at in the past by the PAC12. Somehow denial is thick on this thread mostly by TCU fans, who absolutely detest the idea of SMU being a P5 member.

SMU may not be the best research match, but neither are Oregon St or Wash St. SMU brings the Metroplex, which is more important than much of the PAC12 media.

As I said, drugs.

(08-05-2016 04:38 PM)00yyz Wrote:  SMU a religous school (Berkley and Stanford will love that) that is NOT a tier 1 research school is going to join a conference that is somewhat of a research consortium???

And the UA and ASU will vote for something that will get them less CA exposure???
These schools get 1,000s and 1000s of CA students each..
72 students per year @ 35k out of state tution add up to 10 mil a year...
Student money is far more valuable than athletics money...

Dude we are as religious as USC is (same Methodist origins). The only difference is we didn't drop the Methodist in the name and actually wanted to be Southwest Universty (like Northwestern too). The school is more Catholic than anything. You might not spend time to research these things, and that's fine, but ADs and President are aware of this stuff.

(08-05-2016 06:50 PM)00yyz Wrote:  OSU and Wazzu might not be AAU members but they are tier 1 research schools...

What weird criterion to get stuck on. SMU is one of the better academic schools in the G5. Per US News rankings SMU out ranks (by a lot too) the following: UC Boulder, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, ASU, Oregon State, Washington State. There are tons of reasons why SMU to the Pac 12 is a hilarious proposition, academics isn't it. If it were an issue for admissions into a conference the school could flex its close to $2 billion endowment to spur that research.

Sorry I only gave it the wiki effort which states "SMU is owned by the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church". Silly me for thinking that means they are a religous school.

Every member of the B1G is an AAU member except for Nebraska who lost the status a couple of years ago. That was a big enough deal that the B1G actualy stated they would not be kicked out. Eight of the 12 PAC schools are AAU except for Wazzu, OSU, Utah and ASU. Utah is actively persuing it.

Being a high ranked and high quality school is different than being a top research instution.
Being a research school is not a weird criteria for the PAC or the B1G and is most likely a big big must. For the other conferences it does not matter so much, but good luck flexing your 2 billion endowment.

(08-05-2016 10:51 PM)00yyz Wrote:  Sorry I only gave it the wiki effort which states "SMU is owned by the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church". Silly me for thinking that means they are a religous school.

Every member of the B1G is an AAU member except for Nebraska who lost the status a couple of years ago. That was a big enough deal that the B1G actualy stated they would not be kicked out. Eight of the 12 PAC schools are AAU except for Wazzu, OSU, Utah and ASU. Utah is actively persuing it.

Being a high ranked and high quality school is different than being a top research instution.
Being a research school is not a weird criteria for the PAC or the B1G and is most likely a big big must. For the other conferences it does not matter so much, but good luck flexing your 2 billion endowment.

I could be wrong but I thought I remembered hearing that the AAU is good on members and that they won't add anyone new unless they kicked someone out. I also heard the closest school to membership was Cincinnati.

That may be I read about Utah working on it a couple of years ago.

(08-05-2016 11:46 PM)00yyz Wrote:  That may be I read about Utah working on it a couple of years ago.

utah with its medical school is nearing aau status last I checked

(08-05-2016 09:39 PM)Comet Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 06:50 PM)00yyz Wrote:  OSU and Wazzu might not be AAU members but they are tier 1 research schools...

What weird criterion to get stuck on. SMU is one of the better academic schools in the G5. Per US News rankings SMU out ranks (by a lot too) the following: UC Boulder, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, ASU, Oregon State, Washington State. There are tons of reasons why SMU to the Pac 12 is a hilarious proposition, academics isn't it. If it were an issue for admissions into a conference the school could flex its close to $2 billion endowment to spur that research.

the amount of research and the high number of phd programs and post grad students is big to the pac. SMU does not fit that high phd and high research model. heck stanford and usc have more graduate students then they do undergraduate students.

(08-05-2016 10:51 PM)00yyz Wrote:  Being a high ranked and high quality school is different than being a top research instution.

One way to avoid conflating the two is to avoid "high school student marketing guides" ratings like the USNWR and focus on academic research rankings instead.

SMU #142 in the world in the CWUR 2016 rankings. Perhaps they are not STEM centric, since they are unranked at the AWRU 2015 list (among 500), but their CWUR ranking suggests that they are not entirely unthinkable for the PAC on academic grounds.

SMU's problem is, rather, that there is no particular reason that the PAC-12 would want to invite them, so the question of whether they have any disqualifiers is a completely moot point.

Indeed, the PAC-12 is not pining after Houston, which is what makes the entire premise of this thread so laughable. "Wait, the Big12 might be taking Houston off the table ... what can we do to respond?"

In Fantasy Conference Realignment Risk: "Offer to take BOTH Houston and SMU!!!"

In the Real World: "Why would we respond? We have no interest in Houston."