Colleges list their peers
chronicle.com/Who-Does-Your-College-Think/134222
Every year, colleges submit to the US Department of Education a list of those other schools they consider to be “peer” institutions. These are pretty subjective lists, and they also tend to be “aspirational” in nature. That is, schools will often list as peers schools they admire, and would like to emulate.
I wondered whether these lists could shed any light on potential realignment moves in the future. There is no athletic department input into these lists – only academic. It’s not possible to tell how much input or influence university presidents have over the data. But a quick search provided what I thought are some interesting insights.
BYU’s name is tossed around often as one of the few plums not yet in a P5 conference. BYU may be encouraging some of that. While a typical school lists about 16 peers, BYU mentioned 52. They listed 10 B1G schools, 9 SEC schools, 8 from the PAC 12, 7 from the Big 12 and 5 from the ACC.
They listed only 3 of their former MWC partners (Colorado St, New Mexico and Utah State), and only 2 from the AAC (UConn and Houston). They didn’t list any private schools, even though they are themselves private.
What I thought was even more interesting, though, was the list of schools that chose BYU as one of their peers, thinking that this could give insight into which P5 conference might be most likely to get enough votes to invite them. That list is a lot shorter than BYU’s was. It consists entirely of BYU-Idaho and Pepperdine. Maybe that tells us something.
Another G5 school lusting openly after a P5 invite is UConn. Of the 21 peers on their list are 16 from P5 conferences. I was surprised to see that only 3 of them are in the ACC. Instead, UConn lists 7 B1G schools as peers. That could suggest that the Huskies would prefer an invite from the B1G even though (and maybe because) many of its former BE partners went to the ACC.
Discouraging news for UConn is that none of the schools they listed reciprocated by naming them on their lists. Only FSU from the ACC and Rutgers from the B1G mentioned them (and Rutgers listed a staggering 97 schools). Three Big 12 schools named them – Iowa State, Texas Tech and West Virginia – and none of these are Big 12 power brokers.
Texas is often cited as a linchpin for the Big 12 – the school whose defection could trigger chaos and possibly dissolution. Everybody speculates about what their end game could be. They are often mentioned as a candidate for the ACC, either as a full member or a quasi-member a la Notre Dame. The Horns list 11 peers. UNC is the only ACC school on their list. There are 3 PAC 12 schools – Cal, UCLA and Washington – none of which reciprocated.
Significant is that they list 7 B1G schools, 5 of which also listed the Horns as a peer. In all, 8 B1G schools have UT on their list, more than any other P5 conference. Second, surprisingly, is the SEC (7) followed by the ACC (6) their own Big 12 (6) and the PAC 12 (3).
It is generally assumed that if the B1G were to invite Texas, they would want to add a 16th member at the same time (though they were happy to stay at an odd number for years before inviting Nebraska). Notably, Oklahoma was only named as a peer by one B1G school – Rutgers. Both Kansas and Missouri were listed by 5 B1G schools (including Rutgers).
I don't know if any of the above will have any impact on realignment, but I found it interesting.
(This post was last modified: 09-30-2014 01:20 PM by ken d.)
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Colleges list their peers
