(12-24-2016 09:45 PM)banker Wrote: It's cool that everyone likes to point out Louisville, Utah and TCU as proof that, if given the opportunity and resources, a G5 can compete. To a certain extent, that's true, but it is really glossing things over. The main thing it ignores is that those three teams, the ones held out as examples, have averaged almost 3 less wins per season than in the years preceding their move up. Also, out of those three teams and their 13 combined seasons at the P5 level, they have no out right conference championships and have not appeared in the playoff.
It's cool that you think you are making a point, while glossing over the fact that those three schools had been G5 for decades and you're making comparisons to their final three years of G5 football to their first few years of P5.
In the case of Utah, they joined the Pac 12 in 2011, at the time they had six ten win seasons, three of them were those preceding three years to which they are referring. Oh by the way, they also beat Bama in the Sugar Bowl in that period.
In the case of TCU, they joined the Big XII in 2012, at the time they had twelve ten win seasons(three of which were pre WWI) and three of their six modern era ten win seasons were the preceding three years to which you were referring, oh by the way, they went to a Fiesta Bowl and won a Rose Bowl in that time.
In the caae of Louisville, they joined the ACC in 2014, at the time they had six ten win seasons, two of them were in the three preceding seasons to which you were referring, oh by the way they also won a Sugar Bowl in that time.
So basically you're looking at these schools who spent decades building to be one of the best G5 programs, circled what was arguably the best three year period in program history for all three of them and comparing it to their first three, five or six years as a P5 program where nearly all the advantages they had built up against other G5's are rendered null and void.
Talk to me in a decade or two when these programs have actually had time to completely normalize as a P5, most of their conference mates have decades of a head start.