(01-30-2014 08:47 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(01-30-2014 08:07 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  I'm not much of a fan for the 'eggs in one basket' style of flagship. OSU has dominated Ohio forever, and it's at the expense of the other state schools that are cut to the bone when the budget gets tight (for reference, only 8% of Miami's funding is from the state). Having such an influential state school (in the capital no less) really makes the higher education system unbalanced in Ohio.

Ohio believe it or not gets more money per student than Ohio State.

The state has played a major part in making Ohio University what it is. The state money, medical college, state highway money. Army Corp of Engineer redesigned campus in the 60's. The attention is partially because they've wanted a strong school to help lift up the economically depressed southern portion of the state.

Good point, and I think Ohio's relative rise has had a bit to do with the fact that OU is the only school in southern Ohio besides dinky Shawnee State. Besides OSU, they're the only significant state school that has a geographic region to themselves (albeit a far less populated one). I remember someone saying on the MAC board that if Miami had SW Ohio to itself and received UC's research/grad school funding, we'd be like a UVa-level school (as it is our undergrad is ranked third in the nation). It makes some sense, making the two of us compete for students and funding hurts us when OSU sucks so much of it up.

(01-29-2014 04:23 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  What should have happened if university leaders knew many years ago how public education, athletics, and conference affiliation would look and work today? Here is what I see (this is just for fun, guys... don't beat up on it too much):

The Pacific Athletic Conference

1) The states of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico took a cue from Big 10 states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois and established only one major international university where almost all of their high level academic, athletic, and branding efforts were focused. With that narrow focus, those states could now have that one school with every bit the resources, potential, and results of the University of Utah (top 125 academics, solid following, over half a billion in endowments, and over $50 million annual athletic revenue). The flagship for Idaho would have been in or near Boise, and Nevada would be in Las Vegas. The rest are fine as-is.

2) Having used the same strategy, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and Utah are even more powerful and are on or near the same off-the-field level as Cal and UCLA. Considering where Washington now stands, they could be the top dog of the conference under such circumstances. All of the western states except California have less than 7 million residents, so there is no need for more than one power conference school.

3) Encourage collaboration with Hawaii and Alaska as associate members and use them as incredible road trip recruiting tools.

4) Wyoming had the right idea to only have one 4 year university, but they need some time to grow the population. They are your future expansion project. If the conference wants a good chunk of Texas for network and recruiting purposes, there is a school in Lubbock that fancies themselves as true westerners. I'm sure they'd listen. Heck, let's throw them in there to make 14 schools.

PAC members:

Stanford University
Texas Tech University
The University of Arizona
The University of California - Berkeley
The University of California - Los Angeles
The University of Colorado
The University of Idaho
The University of Montana
The University of Nevada
The University of New Mexico
The University of Oregon
The University of Southern California
The University of Utah
The University of Washington

Affiliate Members:

The University of Alaska
The University of Hawaii

Potential Future Members:

Brigham Young University (after a bit of secularization... never say never)
The University of Wyoming

Population in member state footprint: 100,011,995 (with a big asterisk for the 26 million people included from the state of Texas)

Actually, Colorado State University should have been made the University of Colorado when it was established going by your logic. CSU was established in 1870, CU was established in 1876. Likewise New Mexico State University should have been made the University of New Mexico because it was established in 1888, whereas UNM was established in 1889. Idaho should have had a campus in Boise. The state of Montana should have decided to have both the flagship and the land grant college at Missoula. IMO, in the past, people from Reno looked down on people from Las Vegas and vice versa much like how people from the San Joaquin Valley view the people of San Francisco as being too spoiled, and the people of San Francisco viewing people from the San Joaquin Valley as being too backwards and uneducated. (This is also the case in the state of South Carolina where the people from the upstate, i.e. Clemson, loathe people from the lowlands, South Carolina) So I doubt you could have brought the two (UNR & UNLV) together. UNR & UNLV are the western equivalent of S. Carolina & Clemson, IMO. Still good post though.

(01-31-2014 12:23 AM)Love and Honor Wrote:  

(01-30-2014 08:47 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(01-30-2014 08:07 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  I'm not much of a fan for the 'eggs in one basket' style of flagship. OSU has dominated Ohio forever, and it's at the expense of the other state schools that are cut to the bone when the budget gets tight (for reference, only 8% of Miami's funding is from the state). Having such an influential state school (in the capital no less) really makes the higher education system unbalanced in Ohio.

Ohio believe it or not gets more money per student than Ohio State.

The state has played a major part in making Ohio University what it is. The state money, medical college, state highway money. Army Corp of Engineer redesigned campus in the 60's. The attention is partially because they've wanted a strong school to help lift up the economically depressed southern portion of the state.

Good point, and I think Ohio's relative rise has had a bit to do with the fact that OU is the only school in southern Ohio besides dinky Shawnee State. Besides OSU, they're the only significant state school that has a geographic region to themselves (albeit a far less populated one). I remember someone saying on the MAC board that if Miami had SW Ohio to itself and received UC's research/grad school funding, we'd be like a UVa-level school (as it is our undergrad is ranked third in the nation). It makes some sense, making the two of us compete for students and funding hurts us when OSU sucks so much of it up.

Speaking of Shawnee State, that started as an OU branch campus that was spun off in the 1980's. I'm not sure about the decision behind that move.

Ohio has built up its capacity in the sciences since the 70's. Today 21% of students at OU are majoring in the Science & Engineering vs. 14% nationally. Virtually all the PhD programs now are in the sciences. Its become a very solid state school across the board in a state with a lot of weak state schools. Campus and Athletics are also very solid. All of it has driven up demand for more competitive students.

Miami was the William & Mary of the 50's and 60's MAC and made the original public ivy list. Unlike the CAA where the schools with football potential moved up individually (Georgia St, ODU, UMass) the entire MAC moved up together in the early 80's. Six Ohio MAC schools isn't so bizarre when you consider that 5 state schools from Virginia (W&M, VCU, GMU, ODU and JMU) all were playing in the same Division 1 conference.

Peden was 17,500 seats back in 1985 so OU didn't belong at the time at the top level but was grandfathered into it with the MAC.

Northern Illinois
Ball State
Western Michigan
Central Michigan
Toledo
Bowling Green
Miami

Those are the only MAC programs that deserved to be at the top level in 1985. There was a plan to expel EMU and KSU in the early 80's from the MAC. OU should have been dropped too but it was the charter/founding member. Coach Peden was the catalyst for founding the MAC.

(01-29-2014 10:05 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Fascinating alternative history.

I'd like to point out that Cincinnati, Louisville, and Pitt did not start out as state schools. They were municipal schools (along with Houston, Wichita, Memphis, Toledo, Akron, and many others), meaning they were sponsored by their cities. The municipal schools didn't get rolled into the state systems until the 60s or even the 70s in some cases.

So is your alternate history saying that the munies should have never existed? Or that Pitt and UC became state-sponsored schools 80 years earlier?

Actually in the 1800's Pitt was known as The Western Pennsylvania University.