(06-03-2016 06:54 AM)Tigersmoke3 Wrote:  Frankly I'm tired of this realignment bickering, but I can't help but wonder what is it that makes random fans of random competing schools come out of nowhere to bash U of Memphis's academic standing. Do they have an underlying insecurity that Memphis is a really threat to get one of those coveted spot? Funny I've rarely if ever seen Memphis fans start threads or go to other boards to bash any contending schools status.

To be fair I haven't seen anyone here bashing Memphis athletics. At least not in the malicious or trolling senses that would constitute bashing as you've put it.

(06-03-2016 12:41 AM)HamiltonJames Wrote:  

(06-03-2016 12:28 AM)Kittonhead Wrote:  Academics can always be fixed.

Not easily. And very expensively. And a lot of time.

There is a difference between fixing academics and fixing academic reputation. It is primarily the latter that Memphis needs to improve. Simply joining a "P5" conference will provide an immediate boost (see Louisville to the Big East) because you suddenly have an advantage in "peer recognition". USN&WR is seriously flawed by (1) overemphasizing the importance of 4-year graduation rate and (2) not adjusting for regional differences in cost of living. I trust that Big 12 leadership recognizes the mission that UofM serves and that we are making rapid progress toward the goal of becoming a premiere metropolitan research university. Athletics is far from the only way FedEx is helping.

As far as Big 12 hopes are concerned, I would rather have our academic reputation wart than the problem of being in Houston, a city which the Big 12 already owns as a TV market and recruiting ground (except for the competition of Texas A&M and pro sports).

(06-03-2016 06:50 AM)TopperCard Wrote:  Academics are very important to conferences, but at the end of the day, these are sports decision, otherwise the Ivy League would be a P5 conference.

To be fair, if the Ivy Leagues decided they wanted to compete with the P5 today, in ten years they would be one of the top three conferences. Every Ivy League school has more money than all but 3-4 of the P5 schools, and their top 3-4 schools have more money than EVERY P5 school. If they decided they wanted to compete, and invested in it, they'd be competitive like they were earlier in the last century.

(06-03-2016 06:54 AM)Tigersmoke3 Wrote:  Frankly I'm tired of this realignment bickering, but I can't help but wonder what is it that makes random fans of random competing schools come out of nowhere to bash U of Memphis's academic standing. Do they have an underlying insecurity that Memphis is a really threat to get one of those coveted spot? Funny I've rarely if ever seen Memphis fans start threads or go to other boards to bash any contending schools status.

As a Louisville fan I can tell you firsthand: You just got to get a thicker skin. And let your program do the talking for you on the field, on the court and on the balance sheet...JMHO
CJ

(06-03-2016 02:37 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(06-03-2016 02:20 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  But the amount of money to significantly raise academics is staggering. Consider: Connecticut is regarded by some people as a better school than Cincinnati. But Cincinnati has a $1.2 billion endowment, while UConn only has $430 million. If it were so easy to purchase academic quality, wouldn't Cincinnati be able to spend $800 million to easily surpass UConn?

If the earnings on the endowment was 10%, and $800m difference in endowment would be a maximum $80m difference in annual income ... if 5%, a maximum $40m difference. And actually less than that, since you ought to be setting aside some of your endowment income as a rainy day fund.

Quote: # of academic faculty:
Memphis: 930
UConn: 4,624
Oklahoma: 2,937
Cincinnati: 5,928
Kansas: 2,623

It's not so much the number of faculty as the research output per faculty member that drives a lot of academic status games. But it is also true that a larger institution will have a research presence in more fields, and since academics tend to be very parochial about status in our own field of study, the more fields where your institution is making a name for itself, the easier it will be to get broader recognition for its academic standing.

It definitely costs more to build reputation than it costs to hold onto it, since if you are building reputation, you will have to be offering tempting salaries to established and promising researchers in a range of fields of study, while if you already have a reputation, that gives you an advantage in attracting them even at the same salary level.

most endowments pay out 4.5% to 5% of a 3 to 5 year rolling average of the endowment

so if in 2014 the endowment was $100 million, in 2015 they had a good return on investment and had a large donation and the endowment was now $155 million and then in 2016 they had a modest return and it was $160 in 2017 it would be paying out (($100 + $155 + $160) / 3) X 5%

or it would pay out $6.9167 million

this same 4.5% to 5% applies to individuals with retirement investments as well it was called "the rule of 5" although lately some are going with a "rule of 4" when they advise clients

that is the amount you can take out of an investment account annually (really you should probably average it over several years of amounts like above) and still have your investment portfolio grow with inflation

this of course because you do not want to start your retirement at 65 taking out pretty much most of your annual investment returns and then when you are 95 you are either broke because of market downturn periods through the years you did not recover from because you had been taking too much out or the amount you were taking out at 65 (even if you are able to take out the same amount at 95) no longer guarantees you the same quality of life at 95 because of inflation and cost of living increases

(06-03-2016 03:34 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  From Jeremy Fowler at CBS:

"A prominent official from an ACC school told me Louisville and UConn both have something to offer but stressed academics will matter to presidents. This favors UConn, widely considered a top-75 national university. The Hartford area also is larger than Louisville's, but the Cardinals have a strong football/basketball product and aggressive AD Tom Jurich"

This was reported a few days before Louisville was invited to join The ACC.

http://www.theuconnblog.com/2012/11/26/3...in/3431031

All true. But: 1) the ACC was just raided by the Big 10 and 2) BC was blackballing UConn.

Completely different situation.

(06-03-2016 09:06 AM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(06-03-2016 06:50 AM)TopperCard Wrote:  Academics are very important to conferences, but at the end of the day, these are sports decision, otherwise the Ivy League would be a P5 conference.

To be fair, if the Ivy Leagues decided they wanted to compete with the P5 today, in ten years they would be one of the top three conferences. Every Ivy League school has more money than all but 3-4 of the P5 schools, and their top 3-4 schools have more money than EVERY P5 school. If they decided they wanted to compete, and invested in it, they'd be competitive like they were earlier in the last century.

What exactly are you basing that off? Endowment?

(06-03-2016 09:29 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  

(06-03-2016 03:34 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  From Jeremy Fowler at CBS:

"A prominent official from an ACC school told me Louisville and UConn both have something to offer but stressed academics will matter to presidents. This favors UConn, widely considered a top-75 national university. The Hartford area also is larger than Louisville's, but the Cardinals have a strong football/basketball product and aggressive AD Tom Jurich"

This was reported a few days before Louisville was invited to join The ACC.

http://www.theuconnblog.com/2012/11/26/3...in/3431031

All true. But: 1) the ACC was just raided by the Big 10 and 2) BC was blackballing UConn.

Completely different situation.

Also, Louisville was to appease FSU and Clemson. It added both to Football and Basketball. UCONN was viewed only helping Basketball at the time. My opinion, Texas will be the next state to join the ACC, if B10 explodes probably TCU which fits in with Duke, Wake, Miami, and BC. If G5, Houston would be the obvious choice. Nothing happens until ND joins or the ACC forces their hand by saying join full or these two teams will make the 16 team league. Earliest would be 2024.

(06-03-2016 06:34 AM)Hank Schrader Wrote:  

(06-03-2016 06:33 AM)back2vinyl Wrote:  

(06-03-2016 03:34 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  From Jeremy Fowler at CBS:

"A prominent official from an ACC school told me Louisville and UConn both have something to offer but stressed academics will matter to presidents. This favors UConn, widely considered a top-75 national university. The Hartford area also is larger than Louisville's, but the Cardinals have a strong football/basketball product and aggressive AD Tom Jurich"

This was reported a few days before Louisville was invited to join The ACC.

http://www.theuconnblog.com/2012/11/26/3...in/3431031

The pattern seems to be give lip-service to academics prior to announcing, then pick the school with the best athletic department.

Which unfortunately for the Tiger fans still does not favor Memphis in this case.

Except that expansion is about football, geography, and fan support which doesn't favor Uconn... You can have academics, but I don't watch college sports because my team won the spelling bee.

Is Texas going to further alienate their fans? They already do not play TAMU anymore. Now we're cavalierly stating they will leave and no longer play the Oklahoma, Baylor and Texas Tech.

(06-02-2016 11:32 PM)IAH Wrote:  

(06-02-2016 10:40 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  If it makes a Houston guy feel better about himself, then yes, Memphis was a long shot. It's going to be UC and UConn, or BYU football only. That's really the only play. If I were a president, I stay at 10 and go with the status quo.

Rutgers got in the Big10 ... I guess anything is possible

This. LOL.

(06-03-2016 09:41 AM)Insane_Baboon Wrote:  

(06-03-2016 09:06 AM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(06-03-2016 06:50 AM)TopperCard Wrote:  Academics are very important to conferences, but at the end of the day, these are sports decision, otherwise the Ivy League would be a P5 conference.

To be fair, if the Ivy Leagues decided they wanted to compete with the P5 today, in ten years they would be one of the top three conferences. Every Ivy League school has more money than all but 3-4 of the P5 schools, and their top 3-4 schools have more money than EVERY P5 school. If they decided they wanted to compete, and invested in it, they'd be competitive like they were earlier in the last century.

What exactly are you basing that off? Endowment?

What are you questioning? Are you questioning how much money Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Penn have? If they wanted to compete in P5 athletics, they have more money, no matter how you quantify it, than any P5 school (well maybe except for stanford), and if they chose to be competitive in it, they could, they could spend their money, raise more, or whatever, and financially speaking, they would have whatever was needed, and being competitive, plus the value of their degrees, would allow them to get just about anyone they wanted, should they choose (keep in mind, if they wanted to "compete," they could simply choose to relax their entrance standards). I said ten years, because they would give them time to upgrade facilities as needed, and five years for their recruiting classes to reflect their changed strategy.

Two things can change a school's academic standing quickly, out of the park huge donation to boost the endowment or final four/major bowl run which will cause more applications.

(06-03-2016 09:41 AM)Insane_Baboon Wrote:  

(06-03-2016 09:06 AM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(06-03-2016 06:50 AM)TopperCard Wrote:  Academics are very important to conferences, but at the end of the day, these are sports decision, otherwise the Ivy League would be a P5 conference.

To be fair, if the Ivy Leagues decided they wanted to compete with the P5 today, in ten years they would be one of the top three conferences. Every Ivy League school has more money than all but 3-4 of the P5 schools, and their top 3-4 schools have more money than EVERY P5 school. If they decided they wanted to compete, and invested in it, they'd be competitive like they were earlier in the last century.

What exactly are you basing that off? Endowment?

I'm sure its endowment and if so that's definitely true outside perhaps Stanford, whom I believe is right there in the mix. These are schools with tens of billions of dollars in endowments. I doubt they'd be a top 3 conference within 10 years, but they could be one of the major conferences in a hurry if they chose to reestablish high level athletics in the revenue sports. Fortunately for the existing northeastern schools in major conferences (or with major conference quality athletic departments) that's not happening. Remember the Ivies outside of football, men's and women's basketball and baseball/softball already have some highly competitive teams.

(06-03-2016 10:03 AM)bluesox Wrote:  Two things can change a school's academic standing quickly, out of the park huge donation to boost the endowment or final four/major bowl run which will cause more applications.

(06-03-2016 10:07 AM)brista21 Wrote:  Remember the Ivies outside of football, men's and women's basketball and baseball/softball already have some highly competitive teams.

That is sort of the point, because in those sports, most schools don't really fund them (outrageously), so they are on even playing fields there, with the value of their education being the deciding factor (since most non-revenue sports don't have high paying professional leagues). Hence why the Ivy's, and schools like ND, Stanford, Duke, the California system, etc. tend to kill it in those sports

(06-03-2016 01:42 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The Cincinnati Enquirer's takeaway from Boren's interview is:

"The combination of all of the factors he mentioned seems to point to UC, Connecticut and BYU. The conference most likely would add two schools if it decides to expand this year."

And from the Texas AD, it would have to be Houston, Memphis or Cincinnati. UConn, UCF, USF and most likely BYU would be out. He doesn't want to enter a new region and he wants to go where there are Big 12 alumni.

(06-03-2016 09:06 AM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(06-03-2016 06:50 AM)TopperCard Wrote:  Academics are very important to conferences, but at the end of the day, these are sports decision, otherwise the Ivy League would be a P5 conference.

To be fair, if the Ivy Leagues decided they wanted to compete with the P5 today, in ten years they would be one of the top three conferences. Every Ivy League school has more money than all but 3-4 of the P5 schools, and their top 3-4 schools have more money than EVERY P5 school. If they decided they wanted to compete, and invested in it, they'd be competitive like they were earlier in the last century.

No. They couldn't hide the "student"-athletes in their programs. They would be like Northwestern, Vanderbilt and Stanford. Sometimes success. But with all 8, it would thin out that pool of athletes who were also outstanding at academics.

Got to think there are lots of big 12 alumni in Denver which helps Col State. I like adding Col state and byu to form a 7 team division with the 5 old big 8 members. Than i could see texas wanting houston for 5 texas school's + WVU in a division. Team 7 in that texas centric division would be 1 from memphis, cincy and uconn for a big 14.

(06-03-2016 06:54 AM)Tigersmoke3 Wrote:  Frankly I'm tired of this realignment bickering, but I can't help but wonder what is it that makes random fans of random competing schools come out of nowhere to bash U of Memphis's academic standing. Do they have an underlying insecurity that Memphis is a really threat to get one of those coveted spot? Funny I've rarely if ever seen Memphis fans start threads or go to other boards to bash any contending schools status.

I don't know Memphis fan, but maybe you can tell me why random fans of random competeing schools see fit to bash UCONN's football program as terrible, despite evidence to the contrary.