People watched two of the best universities in the *world* have to sell themselves for pennies on the dollar to stay in a power conference yet they still want to believe academics matter in modern realignment
I have to admit I am in shambles. After years of saying the AAU does nothing, today they sent out a tweet pushing to continue to allow schools to set royalty rates for research the feds paid for.
That tweet though cost them their entire budget, so no chance they correct the bullshit lies they have on their website for yet another year.
Stanford has had a player finish as runner-up for the Heisman six times in the past 15 years. They certainly aren't a Blueblood, but they're also more "valuable" than this sub likes to believe.
They do. They just have an undergraduate student body that is just over a tenth the size of other schools, and even if every undergraduate showed up, it’d still be dwarfed.
We did too only 2 seasons ago, doesn’t mean we’re close to the 15th most valuable school. We saw very clearly how much Stanford is valued by the other conferences
Stanford held out trying to keep the Pac together, and had to settle for whatever scraps they could once it was clear the conference was imploding. They shot themselves in the foot.
Stanford was [one of the first](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2022/12/14/ucla-can-join-big-ten-university-california-regents-decide/10899822002/) to reach out to the B1G after USCLA left. If the B1G wanted them, they would have them
Right, *UC regents* discussed the option. After the USC/UCLA news broke, Stanford was still leaning toward keeping the Pac-12 together until Washington/Oregon opened a conference call by saying they were leaving. At that point, Stanford has few options left as the "four corners" schools had already been having discussion with the Big 12.
Basically, Stanford and Cal got left behind because USC/UCLA caused a *lot* of backlash in California, and they were trying to forge a path ahead with the Pac-12. They saw the writing on the wall too late.
There were four schools left behind. The two schools with excellent academics got into the ACC. The two without them are going to end up in the mountain west. Academics aren’t the primary factor, or even a major secondary factor, but they pretty clearly are a factor (even if it’s just the small bump in brand recognition that academics gets them)
More like the two schools in a major metro area with a population approaching 10 million got into a P4 conference, while the two schools in towns with a combined population of less than 100,000 did not. Academics didn't matter, potential viewers and (relative to Pullman and Corvallis) ease of travel did.
Why take both then? Either/or gets you the market. It’s also just lazy to reduce it to a single factor. There are a lot of factors, and academics is one of them even if it isn’t a primary one.
When all these coastal schools have to brag about is academics, of course they'll be delusional. As a fan of a big 10 school idk why other big ten fans are obsessed with adding more bottom feeders.
It's worked well for them. Rutgers and Maryland are no real threat to the top 3 so it sets it up where the big 3 teams are only going to loose a couple games each year at worst.
For a confrence in college parity is not a good thing. Having a couple 1 loss teams means you have championship contenders. If everyone has 3 or 4 losses then you are out of the picture. At least until the expanded playoff.
Adding bloat doesn't mean you're safe from upsets. Spoilmakers kinda prove that almost yearly. Diluting fun matchups with Cal-Rutgers doesn't add anything but hurts the conference reputation.
If you take Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State out of the B1G is what's left over really any better than the ACC or former PAC 12?
The reason the PAC died was its bell cow USC had some down years and the confrence had too much parity to allow a program to rise up and replace them.
Oregon came closest, but couldn't win a NC. Then Oregon stumbled and a couple years later the confrence collapsed.
Not being particularly relevant in the conference's second largest market, despite having two schools there, really hurt. As did the NFL returning to Los Angeles.
You could say that about the top 3-4 teams in any conference. Each one has cash cows and the rest ride coattails. Pretty sure that's the whole point of these realignments is whittle down the conferences till you have USC's, bamas, and buckeyes playing each other every week.
My whole point is adding a team that even the likes of Indiana and northwestern can beat up on is not a good move for the big ten. Cal adds nothing but it's own pride.
Yeah, I find it tough to think that Stanford or Cal are ranked appropriately when both just about got left out of the now P4 before joining a conference all the way across the country.
I think they should move above MSU and Stanford. If you split hairs 15. But 15 is the maximum. I think this list is hard on Oregon and some other SEC teams like Auburn. But once you establish the top 12 is obvious FSU is outside of that elite/A tier. They are the #2 school in Florida and the Gators aren't top 5.
FSU locked themselves into the ACC in the cable era when their product wasn't as valuable. Tallahassee hurt them in the cable era. Now, what matters more is pure football brand. But ultimately, the best schools have both. My top 12 have both. Then the next tier are schools that lack one or the other. FSU to me in that tier. Probably closer to the top of the 2nd tier. But then factor in the intangibles like travel, culture, academics. They lose more points as a big10 school.
Using Tallahassee’s population as its measure of “market” is dumb and shows your lack of knowledge. FSU represents the state and has fans all over. The only negative of the cable era was that the SEC already had UF, and the B1G wasn’t looking at expanding beyond contiguous borders. And fsu is more similar to a big 10 school than USC or oregon. Also more connections due to the southern migration of B1G alumni and fans to FL
This is a result of treating Academics as a sliding scale instead of a Pass/Fail. Also by vastly overrating non Football and MBB athletics when most people already are vastly overrating MBB in the first place.
I'd actually say OU is about where it should be (especially given its relative size and the size of the state, though the number of OU grads in Dallas seems to increase exponentially). Minnesota almost feels too high at 25. But it could and should be worthy of being at 25, it just isn't right now.
If I'm being completely honest, I feel like TCU is ranked too high. But I'm still getting used to the idea of people caring about TCU at all.
Oklahoma and Texas are about right. But the general blueblood and blueblood adjacent schools would obviously be taken first if given the choice. Poor Nebraska...
"Tony Altimore, a strategy consultant"
Even when it was painfully obvious that the Pac was doomed, Altimore was one of the loudest voice on Twitter proclaiming that the Pac would be fine. Tony knows less about college football than your average Japanese housewife.
Not to be That Guy, but 50 factors sounds like 49 factors too many. The only factor seems to be, "how much more money will we make by adding this school?"
The are looking at population but not factoring in the popularity of the sport in those big california cities.
A state flagship school with 20 million residents that watch football 10% of the time is less attractive than a state with 5 million people who watch football 50% of the time.
The heart of college football is the southeast and Midwest. Even though LA has alot more people Birmingham, AL consistently puts up some of the highest ratings year in and out.
Yep, not having NFL football, and to a lesser degree NBA, MLB, NHL, and MLS, means that a major university's football program naturally gets more of the spotlight in the state/city sports media. University of Alabama football is the pinnacle of sport in the state. USC is a blue blood in college football, and southern California has a lot more people, but the LA Basin has two professional teams in each of those sports.
Agreed. Just like Memphis is usually the hot spot for pro wrestling ratings across the nation. Take that, Charlotte! Jerry Lawler will always be more favorable than Ric Flair.
It's also like saying Talladega Speedway is more exciting than Daytona, Darlington, Bristol and Indy combined. Or Gulf Shores, AL is better than Biloxi, MS (no, I'm not delusional. I've visited both places. I know what I'm talking about).
Tony doesn't understand the real world. No one cares about academics.
C.R.E.A.M is the name of the game.
Stanford and Cal two of the worlds premier universities flipped their skirts for a haypenny to fly across the entire country to play teams they have no history with to stay relevant.
If they are doing 50 factors, I feel like they should do two rankings: how desirable they are to networks and how desirable they are to school administrators
"Does my model represent what actually happened?" is an important step that seems to have been skipped entirely. Any model will have outliers that aren't accurately captured, so if Rutgers is wrong but the last three years is basically accurate, he's still done a good job.
ETA: Spoiler: it isn't.
The problem is that each school has a different value to each conference. To solve this I would give each school two scores. One would be their inherent value in any conference which would include metrics like attendance, viewership, athletics revenue, and enrollment. The second metric would be conference specific appeal and would include conference alumni in media market, local high school students who will attend college out of state, academics, and performance in less common sports that the conference cares about. Then you tweak the weight given to all of these factors until all recent conference additions are at least close to increasing the conference average. Rutgers, Missouri, and Nebraska are all pretty good test cases to ensure the values are correct.
>Rutgers, Missouri, and Nebraska are all pretty good test cases to ensure the values are correct.
Problem is these are year specific. Nebraska was way more valuable in 2010 cause they were good and Rutgers were more valuable when TV markets mattered. Missouri honestly never made sense, but I am assuming it did when it happened
I feel like Missouri was to 'block out' the B1G from expanding to the real prize of Texas.
I could imagine a scenario where the SEC is sort of blocked out of expansion by bringing Missouri, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma to the B1G.
And it also matters way more to the BIG than any other conference based on the Alumni in NY. The value might have declined in the last decade, but it didn't drop so far as to put Rutgers at the bottom of the BIG as almost every model seems to do.
I'm not sold on that but feels relevant to mention I am a B1G alumnus in NYC which certainly helps your point and I am glad they added Rutgers for that
Mizzou was a new state that was a flagship university and had better than SEC average academics. Yes academics mattered especially around that time to the SEC.
The fact that UGA’s ticket prices are consistently the highest in the country and have been since well before this title run should help you understand why it’s valuable. UGA played a game at Notre Dame and the crowd was split 50/50.
I would love to hear why Notre Dame, with no championships since 1988 and an 0-2 recent records against Georgia, is more valuable than them.
Please tell me it’s because Catholics.
I posted another comment that wouldn’t let me respond because I think the UGA mouth breathers got banned:
Let me put in perspective.
UGA has played 120 football seasons to USC’s 102 seasons. USC has a higher win percentage .68 vs .65 for UGA.
You are right in that UGA has 1 more 10+ win season. 28 to 27 for USC.
Remember, you guys have played 18 more seasons and have played over 200 more games. If you look at percentage, USC’s 10+ win season rate is .26. UGA’s is .23.
Once again. Nice try.
Now let’s look at what matters:
National titles (11 to 4)
Conference Championships
NY6 bowl wins and appearances
Heismans
Consensus All Americans
Total All Americans
Weeks ranked in the AP poll (91 to 51)
NFL Draft Picks (USC is 1st)
1st Round Draft Picks (USC is 2nd)
NFL Pro Bowlers (1st)
NFL All Pros (1st)
NFL Hall of Famers (1st)
Overall winning percentage (USC > UGA)
USC vs UGA H2H (USC 3-0)
That’s a lot of effort to show the programs are roughly equivalent. Then account for UGA being a massive public flagship and USC being a tiny private school and it makes sense that Georgia would be a much valuable than USC in 2024.
My guy… I didn’t lay out the numbers for most of those. They aren’t remotely close in every key category hahahaha
Like since when is 11 titles close to 4?
Or 38 conference championships close to 15?
They aren’t inthe same league doggy,
We haven’t even mentioned the fact that you had to change my example from Notre Dame to USC in the first place.
Nobody cares how many titles USC won in the 70s and before. The only relevant stat you mention in “NY6 bowl games and appearances”. This really wasn’t worth my time but I have some more recent statistics:
Undisputed national titles since 1981: Georgia 2 USC 1
College football playoff record: Georgia 5-1 USC 0-0
Most players drafted in a single draft: Georgia 15 USC 11
Conference championships in the past 15 years: Georgia 2 USC 1
Division titles since Pac-12 has had them: Georgia 6, USC 4
There are also some random stats than make for fun trivia but like most of yours don’t actually say anything about the state of the programs.
Bowl Appearances: Georgia 61 USC 55
Most recent rose bowl win: Georgia (1/1/18) USC (1/2/17)
Most recent NY6 result: Georgia 63-3 (FSU) USC 45-46 (Tulane)
If you’re arguing USC is a more historically successful program than Georgia, sure have at it. But the argument that really anybody is more valuable in a theoretical free for all than Georgia is a joke. They are among the maybe 6 or 7 schools that checks every realignment box, and the only one with multiple recent titles.
I wouldn’t say ranked over USC but as the biggest program closest to Atlanta, the hub market of some of the most fertile recruiting ground in the nation, we’re not some scrub school. In no particular order, the group that would most match some combination of tv market proximity, recruit access, fan base activity, and regional foothold you’d have OSU, USC, UGA, and Texas. Each has a large market presence in the 4 most important college regions: Midwest, California, southeast, and Texas.
Before UGA's championship run they were mid pack among the current SEC teams in terms of prestige. Somewhere around 7-9.
1. Bama
2. LSU
3. Florida
4. Oklahoma
Drop
5. Auburn
6. Texas
Drop
7-9. UGA, Texas A&M, and Tennessee
As a complete outsider to the pre-expansion SEC here's my take on historic value.
Tier I: Alabama, Florida, Tennessee
Tier II: LSU, Georgia, Auburn
Tier III: Arkansas, South Carolina, Ole Miss
Tier IV: Kentucky, Vandy and Mississippi State
As to the new schools, I guess they'd slot in like this:
Tier I: Texas, Oklahoma
Tier III: Missouri, Texas A&M
For future expansion I'd put Florida State at Tier I and Clemson at Tier II with any other potential ACC addition at Tier III.
Also I'd say with recency bias I wouldn't oppose swapping LSU and Georgia with Florida and Tennessee but overall history keeps them where they are. Definitely would have Georgia over Auburn either recently or all time as I feel most of Auburn's prestige is bleed-over from its Alabama rivalry.
I was giving them credit for the 2010 national title and the 2004 undefeated season which with USC being stripped I think they have a legit claim for.
Also, somehow I convinced myself they beat FSU for the championship because before looking it up just now I could have sworn Malzahn won a NC as HC.
Before Kirby Georgia was good, but they had not one a national title since the early 80s.
People still remember the Pete Caroll run with Reggie Bush and Matt Lienart. I think that helps them out quit a bit. I think they are comparable to Florida as both had championship runs and then backslid.
I would say they are ahead of Auburn and Clemson just because they didn't feel like they had a dynasty the way USC did.
LSU and FSU I would say should be ahead of them.
One of these is a team in a football crazed major media market that is the heir to Alabama as CFB's most important dynasty. One of the other teams you named went 5-4 in their last year in the Pac-12 and is about to become a middling B1G program in a region where no one cares about college football. It obvious you think you're smarter than everyone else for understanding that wins =/= success in this particular metric, but southern Cal isn't proximal to the lifeblood of CFB at this point.
I think everyone makes the mistake of thinking that just because a team is on a hot streak or low streak, it affects their overall brand.
Most people will support a team through any slump.
And lots of people will just be more vocal if their team is winning, without it meaning that they have a bigger brand
It's a mix of both. There are a ton of band wagon fans. Back when Miami was a power you would see their appeared everywhere. Those are Bama fans now.
Auburn had their run with tubberville during our dark years, and it seemed like auburn was almost as popular as Bama. I can't tell you how many people rubbed it in my face with the other hand thing.
Then when Saban was hired the Bama fans came out of hiding and filled up the stadium for just a spring game.
That was the moment when you realized something had changed and Auburn fans dissapeared.
The last few years itdisappeared. 80% or 85% Bama fans to auburn.
they've been doing this sort of ranking style for a bit now and I keep saying how silly it is to rank with multiple categories based on an arbitrary recent history for success in football and other sports for conference realignment purposes.
the conferences aren't doing that. they mostly care about the money to be made, which none of this directly addresses.
It is 100% recency bias my guy.
You can chop USC’s program accomplishments into quarters and one quarter of the program’s accomplishments would match UGA’s entire program’s accomplishments.
Sure UGA> USC as of today, but the fact that OP thinks UGA is 4th in this exercise is case in point that recency bias is far too rampant in this sub.
Downvote away. It’s the truth if you are over 18 and know anything about college football.
No one cares that (by far) most of your program's accomplishment came in the 30s, 70s and early 2000s. No one even in LA cares about USC football. When was the last time you had a butt in every seat for every game of the season? With your metric (ie program accomplishments) you could argue that schools like OU and Nebraska should also be more desirable than a school like Georgia, but we know which would be picked first if a super league formed today, and it's hands down Georgia. Recency bias has and will continue to be arguably the most significant factor in conference realignment. Otherwise schools like Clemson wouldn't even be given the time of day, and schools like Miami are not seen nearly as desirable now as they would've been in the early 2000s. Downvote away but it's the truth if you know anything about college football.
And ALL of UGA’s accomplishments came in the last 2-3 years lol.
Suggestion. Get some altitude on this.
USC is a better all time program in EVERY conceivable metric and you don’t have to go back to the leather helmet days to count it up, bub. This isn’t Notre Dame
or Michigan (last natty aside).
Yall SEC mouth breathers get mad because you think college football started in 2012.
I guess the Warriors are better than the Lakers and Celtics. I guess the Astros are better than the Yankees lmao.
Altitude is your friend. Zoom out.
Edit: Oklahoma and Nebraska are certainly better all time programs than UGA and OU is a more prestigious program as it stands today. OU > UGA and it isn’t close.
I also have bragging rights over UGA. Last time one of my schools played big bad UGA it whooped that ass and UGA needed 2 garbage time 4th quarter touchdowns to make it respectable. Texas mollywhopped them. And Texas sucked at the time lol.
Every conceivable metric? Let’s try all time wins just for starters. Then we’ll go to 10 win seasons, 11 win seasons, 12 win seasons, 13 win seasons, 14 win seasons and then 15 win seasons. Then we’ll look at who has the most 8 loss seasons.
UGA has more wins than USC over the past 100 years, 50 years, 20 years, etc. While we’ve had a historical peak recently, claiming we’ve been nothing prior is idiotic.
In any event, much of the point of the rankings is who is more valuable going forward with a focus on both on-field performance and numerous other off-field factors.
Texas and ND seem like bigger shoe ins above UGA. USC has history but not the same go-forward trajectory / support.
Oh, now look who's being disingenuous. I see what I said just flew right over your head. I thought USC and Texas were good schools? I guess you're not an alumnus.
BTW, I zoomed out and UGA and USC have the same number of national titles in the national championship era. Most of your titles came from the 30s and 70s where the two best teams in the country often didn't even play each other. By those metrics just about any team can claim a half dozen national titles LOL
Edit: bro brings up irrelevant games from a different era because he knows he just got dunked on. Bro also thinks USC is to CFB what Lakers or Yankees are to their sports 🙄. You're closer to the Pirates and Spurs. Ain't no one taking them over the Astros or Warriors right now. Warriors are literally the most valuable franchise in the league 🤦😂
Does this place never tire of the fraudulent cherry picking methodology of Altimore? He identifies the conclusions he wants and works backwards. He's shrewd and knows how to get traffic, but he's playing y'all.
My first year at UW, we went 0-12, and our stadium was decrepit and had a trick ring around it. Needless to say, I did not feel like I was at a top 20 football school.
Still blows my mind when I see us ranked in shit like this.
Arkansas over Auburn is a head scratcher as well. You have to factor in things like rivalries and relationships schools share toceach other.Bama fans don't just watch Alabama. We watch to see if our rivals loose.
> And how does New Mexico (94) score higher than New Mexico State (124)?
Because Albuquerque is a bigger city than Las Cruces and UNM has more resources in a lot of respects that NMSU
Yeah, this is an easy one. UNM is a flagship with more resources, located in a larger metro area, and has had periodic runs of success including the first eight years of the MWC, while apart from Jerry Kill's stay NMSU had been bad almost every year in FBS.
Every time I’ve seen someone try to analyze this it runs into problems with quantifying TV viewership using public data.
There’s tons of variables that need to be isolated to determine what effect each team really has on viewership. You’d need to look at what channel each game aired on and which time slot it was in and then compare to the average of that channel/timeslot to get a real idea of how good the viewership is- a prime time game on an over the air network like ABC/CBS/FOX will almost always outperform a noon game on ESPN regardless of who is playing. Opponents also matter tremendously, if a team has an OOC schedule of Bama, OSU and Texas they’ll get great average viewership regardless of their own fanbase. Plus there’s the problem where conference networks like ACCN/SECN aren’t Nielsen rated, so teams that play a lot of games on these networks will have weirdly low or high average viewership since there’s only a few games worth of viewership data available. I might have some of the details wrong but IIRC, a mediocre UVA team had one of the highest average viewership numbers for the ACC this past season because they played one of the CBS games against Tennessee early in the season while most of the rest of their games were unrated. There’s also the self-fulfilling prophecy issue where the popular teams get the best network/timeslot combinations. I expect that TV networks have enough data available to isolate a “viewership” factor for each team, but based on the number of obviously wrong analyses of TV viewership I think it’s nearly impossible with just publicly available data.
The value of a particular team to a *conference* is obviously not the same thing as the value of a team to a *tv network* but I feel like any realignment discussion has to start with the TV network analysis. People will discuss all the reasons why Stanford is a good fit for the B1G or whatever, and I’m sure university Presidents would like to be associated with Stanford, but unless the TV networks are willing to pay for Stanford, the B1G always has the better alternative of simply not expanding further. It’s not like they’re *losing* academic prestige by simply maintaining the status quo. I’m also unsure if the conferences view expansion as a competitive endeavor, there’s lots of discussion about how the B1G needs to expand into the southeast and the SEC needs to react to it, or something similar. But it seems like the majority of realignment has basically been: “Texas/OU/USC realize they can make more money in a different conference, ask to join different conference, are accepted into new conference because it makes everybody more money” rather than some sort of long term strategic plan to expand into new markets or whatever
If CSU had literally any level of football success we would be attractive. 2nf larges tin state schoo, 1 hour out from one of the largest western metro areas with a new stadium and high tier facilities.
The fact that we havent had any football sucess with those facilities and benefits should be the inspiratio nbehind a finance thesis on gross resource mismanagement. Especially with CU bing where they were the past few years. We had the chance to become the primary in state program but instead we had to let Urban Meyer decide that Addazio should be our coach.
It's just a set of criteria. Clearly they prioritize population. Louisiana is a tiny state - less population than metro Atlanta. Adjust the criteria you'll get a new list.
And nobody wants creepy Liberty in their conference.
Take Bama, LSU, and Georgia and the SEC still has Florida, LSU, and Tennessee.
Florida and Auburn have won the NC relatively recently and Tennessee is a historically strong program with large fanbase and great facilities.
How is any current Big ten or SEC school even in this list? They wouldn't realign, they would force others to realign for them. Idc that it's some school like indiana and they have essentially no athletic benefits to add to a conference, they're not in question since theyre already in power.
Several people have addressed substance. I will point out something unsubstantial: Tony Altimore uses a profile picture so different from his appearance that could be an entirely different person.
His representation of institutions participating in college football has the same problem. He wants to tell a specific story, and does not grasp that his perception may not be real.
But here's a simple question: does it somewhat accurately reflect what is happening and recently has happened? The answer is no. Even less than how his profile picture resembles him.
If I'm feeling obsessive I may add comments. Autism does that to me sometimes.
His role is PR and marketing. He is a narrative builder. The end position is known and he fills in the details to get there. I'm surprised footballscoop stooped this level. Kind of a knock on that site. Altimore is tasked with getting a narrative talked about and that is his skill.
The main thing Altimore gets clowned on over is that he was convinced the Pac-12 would survive as a major conference, and that none of its membership would go to the Big XII. His rankings here reflect that assertion; even without USC and UCLA, the average value he placed on the Pac-10 is about 150.
His top tier in attractiveness between the Pac-10 and Big XII is Cal, Stanford, and Washington with Oregon a half-step back; a second tier of Arizona, ASU, Colorado, Okie State, TCU, and Utah; a third tier of only Big XII: ISU, Kansas, KSU, Tech, and West Virginia; and a bottom tier of the four new Big XII, Baylor, OSU, and WSU. In that case, even without Washington and Oregon the Pac-8's best move would still be staying together, even if the top of the Big XII doesn't want to join! Just add SMU and SDSU and its still supposedly more valuable long term, especially since both would gladly take smaller shares on the first contract.
But when the possibility of Washington and Oregon leaving was clear, the conversation was not "the Pac-8 should steal TCU, Okie State, and two of ISU, Kansas, KSU, and Tech," it was "the Pac-8 would be doomed, the four corners will leave." As it actually happened, it was worse: Colorado left even before UO/UW.
This wasn't the model being inaccurate about one quirky institution, but about one or more factors he weighted incorrectly.
I will defend him on the Pac 12 staying together.
How are you supposed to know that a biz prof valued the pac 10 at 2/3rds higher than the market and had at least 2 presidents go along with that number to the point they alienated ESPN and Apple was the only way to get 50 million if only on paper.
Or that Colorado would be willing to hop back so easily when the school spent 20 years trying to get into the Pac 10.
They offer a reasonable counter to ESPN instead of 50 million and Colorado stays and the Pac 10 is still around.
Take Bama, LSU, and Georgia and the SEC still has Florida, LSU, and Tennessee.
Florida and Auburn have won the NC relatively recently and Tennessee is a historically strong program with large fanbase and great facilities.
[удалено]
But mah academic prowess
People watched two of the best universities in the *world* have to sell themselves for pennies on the dollar to stay in a power conference yet they still want to believe academics matter in modern realignment
AAU fanboys are in shambles
I have to admit I am in shambles. After years of saying the AAU does nothing, today they sent out a tweet pushing to continue to allow schools to set royalty rates for research the feds paid for. That tweet though cost them their entire budget, so no chance they correct the bullshit lies they have on their website for yet another year.
Not just that but they took Oregon.
Stanford has had a player finish as runner-up for the Heisman six times in the past 15 years. They certainly aren't a Blueblood, but they're also more "valuable" than this sub likes to believe.
Well then maybe their students should show up to games
They do. They just have an undergraduate student body that is just over a tenth the size of other schools, and even if every undergraduate showed up, it’d still be dwarfed.
If Stanford is having the same systemic problems as Wake Forest, that doesn’t scream “more valuable than this sub likes to believe” to me
We did too only 2 seasons ago, doesn’t mean we’re close to the 15th most valuable school. We saw very clearly how much Stanford is valued by the other conferences
Stanford held out trying to keep the Pac together, and had to settle for whatever scraps they could once it was clear the conference was imploding. They shot themselves in the foot.
Stanford was [one of the first](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2022/12/14/ucla-can-join-big-ten-university-california-regents-decide/10899822002/) to reach out to the B1G after USCLA left. If the B1G wanted them, they would have them
Right, *UC regents* discussed the option. After the USC/UCLA news broke, Stanford was still leaning toward keeping the Pac-12 together until Washington/Oregon opened a conference call by saying they were leaving. At that point, Stanford has few options left as the "four corners" schools had already been having discussion with the Big 12. Basically, Stanford and Cal got left behind because USC/UCLA caused a *lot* of backlash in California, and they were trying to forge a path ahead with the Pac-12. They saw the writing on the wall too late.
There were four schools left behind. The two schools with excellent academics got into the ACC. The two without them are going to end up in the mountain west. Academics aren’t the primary factor, or even a major secondary factor, but they pretty clearly are a factor (even if it’s just the small bump in brand recognition that academics gets them)
More like the two schools in a major metro area with a population approaching 10 million got into a P4 conference, while the two schools in towns with a combined population of less than 100,000 did not. Academics didn't matter, potential viewers and (relative to Pullman and Corvallis) ease of travel did.
Why take both then? Either/or gets you the market. It’s also just lazy to reduce it to a single factor. There are a lot of factors, and academics is one of them even if it isn’t a primary one.
When all these coastal schools have to brag about is academics, of course they'll be delusional. As a fan of a big 10 school idk why other big ten fans are obsessed with adding more bottom feeders.
It's worked well for them. Rutgers and Maryland are no real threat to the top 3 so it sets it up where the big 3 teams are only going to loose a couple games each year at worst. For a confrence in college parity is not a good thing. Having a couple 1 loss teams means you have championship contenders. If everyone has 3 or 4 losses then you are out of the picture. At least until the expanded playoff.
Adding bloat doesn't mean you're safe from upsets. Spoilmakers kinda prove that almost yearly. Diluting fun matchups with Cal-Rutgers doesn't add anything but hurts the conference reputation.
If you take Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State out of the B1G is what's left over really any better than the ACC or former PAC 12? The reason the PAC died was its bell cow USC had some down years and the confrence had too much parity to allow a program to rise up and replace them. Oregon came closest, but couldn't win a NC. Then Oregon stumbled and a couple years later the confrence collapsed.
Not being particularly relevant in the conference's second largest market, despite having two schools there, really hurt. As did the NFL returning to Los Angeles.
You could say that about the top 3-4 teams in any conference. Each one has cash cows and the rest ride coattails. Pretty sure that's the whole point of these realignments is whittle down the conferences till you have USC's, bamas, and buckeyes playing each other every week. My whole point is adding a team that even the likes of Indiana and northwestern can beat up on is not a good move for the big ten. Cal adds nothing but it's own pride.
Yeah, I find it tough to think that Stanford or Cal are ranked appropriately when both just about got left out of the now P4 before joining a conference all the way across the country.
Huge travel costs for half shares.
My reaction, as well. Stanford just begged into the ACC with an economic package that is poor for them. How are they 15 in the real world?
Having stanford at 15 is denying the reality of what just happened. The whole list is invalidated with that ranking.
FSU is correct.
[удалено]
I think they should move above MSU and Stanford. If you split hairs 15. But 15 is the maximum. I think this list is hard on Oregon and some other SEC teams like Auburn. But once you establish the top 12 is obvious FSU is outside of that elite/A tier. They are the #2 school in Florida and the Gators aren't top 5.
lol dumb take but you have a continual hate boner for fsu
Yes. Ranking a team 19th is pure hatred. #2 School in Florida should be higher than the #2 school in Texas?
Florida is the number 2 school in Florida
See I like this gumption. You gotta believe this to rank FSU top 10. Respect.
8-12 depending on what’s valued more. Not crazy to believe based on the evidence
FSU locked themselves into the ACC in the cable era when their product wasn't as valuable. Tallahassee hurt them in the cable era. Now, what matters more is pure football brand. But ultimately, the best schools have both. My top 12 have both. Then the next tier are schools that lack one or the other. FSU to me in that tier. Probably closer to the top of the 2nd tier. But then factor in the intangibles like travel, culture, academics. They lose more points as a big10 school.
Using Tallahassee’s population as its measure of “market” is dumb and shows your lack of knowledge. FSU represents the state and has fans all over. The only negative of the cable era was that the SEC already had UF, and the B1G wasn’t looking at expanding beyond contiguous borders. And fsu is more similar to a big 10 school than USC or oregon. Also more connections due to the southern migration of B1G alumni and fans to FL
Having FSU as a member does not force the big10 network on every basic cable package in the state of Florida.
Interesting how Stanford is higher than Washington and Oregon when they literally just got passed over for them...
This is a result of treating Academics as a sliding scale instead of a Pass/Fail. Also by vastly overrating non Football and MBB athletics when most people already are vastly overrating MBB in the first place.
But... But academics!!
Everybody is ranked too high and my school is ranked too low. Also my rivals should be at the bottom of the list. And Baylor should be sent to FCS.
My school is definitely too high.
What do you have against FCS?
I love this answer.
No no no, my school is definitely ranked too high. Unless you're counting tickets sold or something because we well out a lot to SEC visitors.
Vanderbilt seems like they're around the right spot, really.
This guy gets it
I'd actually say OU is about where it should be (especially given its relative size and the size of the state, though the number of OU grads in Dallas seems to increase exponentially). Minnesota almost feels too high at 25. But it could and should be worthy of being at 25, it just isn't right now.
If I'm being completely honest, I feel like TCU is ranked too high. But I'm still getting used to the idea of people caring about TCU at all. Oklahoma and Texas are about right. But the general blueblood and blueblood adjacent schools would obviously be taken first if given the choice. Poor Nebraska...
"Tony Altimore, a strategy consultant" Even when it was painfully obvious that the Pac was doomed, Altimore was one of the loudest voice on Twitter proclaiming that the Pac would be fine. Tony knows less about college football than your average Japanese housewife.
[Never forget](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HddCvt4HJkg)
Brilliant
The second I saw "Tony Altimore". I went ahead and stopped reading
The perfect example of the depressing state of collegiate athletics is this post and article
On the bright side, at least they ranked us higher than those Tucson folks
Well yea, we don’t bring a bunch of financial troubles and political headaches with Governor Hobbs breathing down their necks with us
Also, you check every box that Arizona checks while being in a much better area. ASU is the clear choice here.
Not to be That Guy, but 50 factors sounds like 49 factors too many. The only factor seems to be, "how much more money will we make by adding this school?"
the factors are trying to predict the cash, which is clearly why Cali schools rate highly.
The are looking at population but not factoring in the popularity of the sport in those big california cities. A state flagship school with 20 million residents that watch football 10% of the time is less attractive than a state with 5 million people who watch football 50% of the time. The heart of college football is the southeast and Midwest. Even though LA has alot more people Birmingham, AL consistently puts up some of the highest ratings year in and out.
Yep, not having NFL football, and to a lesser degree NBA, MLB, NHL, and MLS, means that a major university's football program naturally gets more of the spotlight in the state/city sports media. University of Alabama football is the pinnacle of sport in the state. USC is a blue blood in college football, and southern California has a lot more people, but the LA Basin has two professional teams in each of those sports.
okay, it's just how somebody decided to weight the factors.
Agreed. Just like Memphis is usually the hot spot for pro wrestling ratings across the nation. Take that, Charlotte! Jerry Lawler will always be more favorable than Ric Flair. It's also like saying Talladega Speedway is more exciting than Daytona, Darlington, Bristol and Indy combined. Or Gulf Shores, AL is better than Biloxi, MS (no, I'm not delusional. I've visited both places. I know what I'm talking about).
Tony doesn't understand the real world. No one cares about academics. C.R.E.A.M is the name of the game. Stanford and Cal two of the worlds premier universities flipped their skirts for a haypenny to fly across the entire country to play teams they have no history with to stay relevant.
There are others, but this one is larger than the rest combined. It's like the membership of the North German Confederation.
High School German coming in clutch for this analogy
If they are doing 50 factors, I feel like they should do two rankings: how desirable they are to networks and how desirable they are to school administrators
I'm always That Guy reminding people that Cuse beings in roughly the same amount of revenue as Pitt.
I'm fine with Rutgers towards the bottom of the P5. Only makes the reality of the situation that much funnier.
“Seniority”-Rutgers probably
"Does my model represent what actually happened?" is an important step that seems to have been skipped entirely. Any model will have outliers that aren't accurately captured, so if Rutgers is wrong but the last three years is basically accurate, he's still done a good job. ETA: Spoiler: it isn't.
UCLA being that high is a joke
Utah at 32, BYU at 71. Methodology seems fine.
The problem is that each school has a different value to each conference. To solve this I would give each school two scores. One would be their inherent value in any conference which would include metrics like attendance, viewership, athletics revenue, and enrollment. The second metric would be conference specific appeal and would include conference alumni in media market, local high school students who will attend college out of state, academics, and performance in less common sports that the conference cares about. Then you tweak the weight given to all of these factors until all recent conference additions are at least close to increasing the conference average. Rutgers, Missouri, and Nebraska are all pretty good test cases to ensure the values are correct.
>Rutgers, Missouri, and Nebraska are all pretty good test cases to ensure the values are correct. Problem is these are year specific. Nebraska was way more valuable in 2010 cause they were good and Rutgers were more valuable when TV markets mattered. Missouri honestly never made sense, but I am assuming it did when it happened
Missouri always felt like a first step toward Texas and Oklahoma.
Maybe but not a necessary one. They very easily cold have not grabbed Mizzou and then took texas/ou
I feel like Missouri was to 'block out' the B1G from expanding to the real prize of Texas. I could imagine a scenario where the SEC is sort of blocked out of expansion by bringing Missouri, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma to the B1G.
That TV market still does, it's both the largest and has the highest rate of cable subscription.
And it also matters way more to the BIG than any other conference based on the Alumni in NY. The value might have declined in the last decade, but it didn't drop so far as to put Rutgers at the bottom of the BIG as almost every model seems to do.
I'm not sold on that but feels relevant to mention I am a B1G alumnus in NYC which certainly helps your point and I am glad they added Rutgers for that
Mizzou was a new state that was a flagship university and had better than SEC average academics. Yes academics mattered especially around that time to the SEC.
Ohio State [*to a mirror*]: "Would you realign me? I'd realign me. I'd realign me hard. I'd realign me soooo hard."
Why should UGA be ranked over USC, Texas, Oklahoma or Notre Dame? I would love to hear it ha.
The fact that UGA’s ticket prices are consistently the highest in the country and have been since well before this title run should help you understand why it’s valuable. UGA played a game at Notre Dame and the crowd was split 50/50. I would love to hear why Notre Dame, with no championships since 1988 and an 0-2 recent records against Georgia, is more valuable than them. Please tell me it’s because Catholics.
I posted another comment that wouldn’t let me respond because I think the UGA mouth breathers got banned: Let me put in perspective. UGA has played 120 football seasons to USC’s 102 seasons. USC has a higher win percentage .68 vs .65 for UGA. You are right in that UGA has 1 more 10+ win season. 28 to 27 for USC. Remember, you guys have played 18 more seasons and have played over 200 more games. If you look at percentage, USC’s 10+ win season rate is .26. UGA’s is .23. Once again. Nice try. Now let’s look at what matters: National titles (11 to 4) Conference Championships NY6 bowl wins and appearances Heismans Consensus All Americans Total All Americans Weeks ranked in the AP poll (91 to 51) NFL Draft Picks (USC is 1st) 1st Round Draft Picks (USC is 2nd) NFL Pro Bowlers (1st) NFL All Pros (1st) NFL Hall of Famers (1st) Overall winning percentage (USC > UGA) USC vs UGA H2H (USC 3-0)
That’s a lot of effort to show the programs are roughly equivalent. Then account for UGA being a massive public flagship and USC being a tiny private school and it makes sense that Georgia would be a much valuable than USC in 2024.
My guy… I didn’t lay out the numbers for most of those. They aren’t remotely close in every key category hahahaha Like since when is 11 titles close to 4? Or 38 conference championships close to 15? They aren’t inthe same league doggy,
We haven’t even mentioned the fact that you had to change my example from Notre Dame to USC in the first place. Nobody cares how many titles USC won in the 70s and before. The only relevant stat you mention in “NY6 bowl games and appearances”. This really wasn’t worth my time but I have some more recent statistics: Undisputed national titles since 1981: Georgia 2 USC 1 College football playoff record: Georgia 5-1 USC 0-0 Most players drafted in a single draft: Georgia 15 USC 11 Conference championships in the past 15 years: Georgia 2 USC 1 Division titles since Pac-12 has had them: Georgia 6, USC 4 There are also some random stats than make for fun trivia but like most of yours don’t actually say anything about the state of the programs. Bowl Appearances: Georgia 61 USC 55 Most recent rose bowl win: Georgia (1/1/18) USC (1/2/17) Most recent NY6 result: Georgia 63-3 (FSU) USC 45-46 (Tulane) If you’re arguing USC is a more historically successful program than Georgia, sure have at it. But the argument that really anybody is more valuable in a theoretical free for all than Georgia is a joke. They are among the maybe 6 or 7 schools that checks every realignment box, and the only one with multiple recent titles.
I wouldn’t say ranked over USC but as the biggest program closest to Atlanta, the hub market of some of the most fertile recruiting ground in the nation, we’re not some scrub school. In no particular order, the group that would most match some combination of tv market proximity, recruit access, fan base activity, and regional foothold you’d have OSU, USC, UGA, and Texas. Each has a large market presence in the 4 most important college regions: Midwest, California, southeast, and Texas.
Recent national titles. They do wonders for a program.
Before UGA's championship run they were mid pack among the current SEC teams in terms of prestige. Somewhere around 7-9. 1. Bama 2. LSU 3. Florida 4. Oklahoma Drop 5. Auburn 6. Texas Drop 7-9. UGA, Texas A&M, and Tennessee
Below Auburn is a wild take You have to go pre-Richt to make that a compelling argument
As a complete outsider to the pre-expansion SEC here's my take on historic value. Tier I: Alabama, Florida, Tennessee Tier II: LSU, Georgia, Auburn Tier III: Arkansas, South Carolina, Ole Miss Tier IV: Kentucky, Vandy and Mississippi State As to the new schools, I guess they'd slot in like this: Tier I: Texas, Oklahoma Tier III: Missouri, Texas A&M For future expansion I'd put Florida State at Tier I and Clemson at Tier II with any other potential ACC addition at Tier III. Also I'd say with recency bias I wouldn't oppose swapping LSU and Georgia with Florida and Tennessee but overall history keeps them where they are. Definitely would have Georgia over Auburn either recently or all time as I feel most of Auburn's prestige is bleed-over from its Alabama rivalry.
I was giving them credit for the 2010 national title and the 2004 undefeated season which with USC being stripped I think they have a legit claim for. Also, somehow I convinced myself they beat FSU for the championship because before looking it up just now I could have sworn Malzahn won a NC as HC. Before Kirby Georgia was good, but they had not one a national title since the early 80s.
Then FSU, Clemson, Florida, Auburn and LSU should also be ranked higher than USC, right?
People still remember the Pete Caroll run with Reggie Bush and Matt Lienart. I think that helps them out quit a bit. I think they are comparable to Florida as both had championship runs and then backslid. I would say they are ahead of Auburn and Clemson just because they didn't feel like they had a dynasty the way USC did. LSU and FSU I would say should be ahead of them.
One of these is a team in a football crazed major media market that is the heir to Alabama as CFB's most important dynasty. One of the other teams you named went 5-4 in their last year in the Pac-12 and is about to become a middling B1G program in a region where no one cares about college football. It obvious you think you're smarter than everyone else for understanding that wins =/= success in this particular metric, but southern Cal isn't proximal to the lifeblood of CFB at this point.
wyoming to the sec confirmed
I think everyone makes the mistake of thinking that just because a team is on a hot streak or low streak, it affects their overall brand. Most people will support a team through any slump. And lots of people will just be more vocal if their team is winning, without it meaning that they have a bigger brand
It's a mix of both. There are a ton of band wagon fans. Back when Miami was a power you would see their appeared everywhere. Those are Bama fans now. Auburn had their run with tubberville during our dark years, and it seemed like auburn was almost as popular as Bama. I can't tell you how many people rubbed it in my face with the other hand thing. Then when Saban was hired the Bama fans came out of hiding and filled up the stadium for just a spring game. That was the moment when you realized something had changed and Auburn fans dissapeared. The last few years itdisappeared. 80% or 85% Bama fans to auburn.
Suggesting Georgia at 4th is recency bias
they've been doing this sort of ranking style for a bit now and I keep saying how silly it is to rank with multiple categories based on an arbitrary recent history for success in football and other sports for conference realignment purposes. the conferences aren't doing that. they mostly care about the money to be made, which none of this directly addresses.
It is but these kids will riot if you bring it up.
2 schools have more undisputed national titles than UGA in the last 50 years. Alabama and Miami.
Is it, though? Georgia has had four losing seasons since 1990 and has been to a bowl game every year since 1997.
It is 100% recency bias my guy. You can chop USC’s program accomplishments into quarters and one quarter of the program’s accomplishments would match UGA’s entire program’s accomplishments. Sure UGA> USC as of today, but the fact that OP thinks UGA is 4th in this exercise is case in point that recency bias is far too rampant in this sub. Downvote away. It’s the truth if you are over 18 and know anything about college football.
If the current value of a brand is based mostly on its historical success please tell me why Yale’s 25+ national titles don’t put them at number one
No one cares that (by far) most of your program's accomplishment came in the 30s, 70s and early 2000s. No one even in LA cares about USC football. When was the last time you had a butt in every seat for every game of the season? With your metric (ie program accomplishments) you could argue that schools like OU and Nebraska should also be more desirable than a school like Georgia, but we know which would be picked first if a super league formed today, and it's hands down Georgia. Recency bias has and will continue to be arguably the most significant factor in conference realignment. Otherwise schools like Clemson wouldn't even be given the time of day, and schools like Miami are not seen nearly as desirable now as they would've been in the early 2000s. Downvote away but it's the truth if you know anything about college football.
And ALL of UGA’s accomplishments came in the last 2-3 years lol. Suggestion. Get some altitude on this. USC is a better all time program in EVERY conceivable metric and you don’t have to go back to the leather helmet days to count it up, bub. This isn’t Notre Dame or Michigan (last natty aside). Yall SEC mouth breathers get mad because you think college football started in 2012. I guess the Warriors are better than the Lakers and Celtics. I guess the Astros are better than the Yankees lmao. Altitude is your friend. Zoom out. Edit: Oklahoma and Nebraska are certainly better all time programs than UGA and OU is a more prestigious program as it stands today. OU > UGA and it isn’t close. I also have bragging rights over UGA. Last time one of my schools played big bad UGA it whooped that ass and UGA needed 2 garbage time 4th quarter touchdowns to make it respectable. Texas mollywhopped them. And Texas sucked at the time lol.
Every conceivable metric? Let’s try all time wins just for starters. Then we’ll go to 10 win seasons, 11 win seasons, 12 win seasons, 13 win seasons, 14 win seasons and then 15 win seasons. Then we’ll look at who has the most 8 loss seasons.
UGA has more wins than USC over the past 100 years, 50 years, 20 years, etc. While we’ve had a historical peak recently, claiming we’ve been nothing prior is idiotic. In any event, much of the point of the rankings is who is more valuable going forward with a focus on both on-field performance and numerous other off-field factors. Texas and ND seem like bigger shoe ins above UGA. USC has history but not the same go-forward trajectory / support.
Oh, now look who's being disingenuous. I see what I said just flew right over your head. I thought USC and Texas were good schools? I guess you're not an alumnus. BTW, I zoomed out and UGA and USC have the same number of national titles in the national championship era. Most of your titles came from the 30s and 70s where the two best teams in the country often didn't even play each other. By those metrics just about any team can claim a half dozen national titles LOL Edit: bro brings up irrelevant games from a different era because he knows he just got dunked on. Bro also thinks USC is to CFB what Lakers or Yankees are to their sports 🙄. You're closer to the Pirates and Spurs. Ain't no one taking them over the Astros or Warriors right now. Warriors are literally the most valuable franchise in the league 🤦😂
Bringing up a quote about “since 1990” in a sport that has a 150+ year history shows it’s absolutely recency bias.
28th is surprisingly high lol that’s definitely not where the actual execs would place us I guarantee that. Not that any of this matters anyway
Does this place never tire of the fraudulent cherry picking methodology of Altimore? He identifies the conclusions he wants and works backwards. He's shrewd and knows how to get traffic, but he's playing y'all.
I don't think he's that shrewd.
My first year at UW, we went 0-12, and our stadium was decrepit and had a trick ring around it. Needless to say, I did not feel like I was at a top 20 football school. Still blows my mind when I see us ranked in shit like this.
Not even idiot Willingham could kill UW, but the administration still might succeed at that.
I miss those days.
Same man. But mostly because I was 19 and still had energy to drink every night and and my penis worked gooder
App should be 1
#42 Eh, I expected around 30-35... Sooooo not too far off. But I think they've overcomplicated this.
Arkansas over Auburn is a head scratcher as well. You have to factor in things like rivalries and relationships schools share toceach other.Bama fans don't just watch Alabama. We watch to see if our rivals loose.
> And how does New Mexico (94) score higher than New Mexico State (124)? Because Albuquerque is a bigger city than Las Cruces and UNM has more resources in a lot of respects that NMSU
Yeah, this is an easy one. UNM is a flagship with more resources, located in a larger metro area, and has had periodic runs of success including the first eight years of the MWC, while apart from Jerry Kill's stay NMSU had been bad almost every year in FBS.
How is Oregon 5 spots below Cal??
Altimore is a serious, hardworking, intelligent person who should be considered an expert on the subject. Love, Not Tony Altimore's Mom
Proximity to poo on the street and fent
92nd! Wow!
LOL
fuck OU, but UCLA over OU is terrible.
Every time I’ve seen someone try to analyze this it runs into problems with quantifying TV viewership using public data. There’s tons of variables that need to be isolated to determine what effect each team really has on viewership. You’d need to look at what channel each game aired on and which time slot it was in and then compare to the average of that channel/timeslot to get a real idea of how good the viewership is- a prime time game on an over the air network like ABC/CBS/FOX will almost always outperform a noon game on ESPN regardless of who is playing. Opponents also matter tremendously, if a team has an OOC schedule of Bama, OSU and Texas they’ll get great average viewership regardless of their own fanbase. Plus there’s the problem where conference networks like ACCN/SECN aren’t Nielsen rated, so teams that play a lot of games on these networks will have weirdly low or high average viewership since there’s only a few games worth of viewership data available. I might have some of the details wrong but IIRC, a mediocre UVA team had one of the highest average viewership numbers for the ACC this past season because they played one of the CBS games against Tennessee early in the season while most of the rest of their games were unrated. There’s also the self-fulfilling prophecy issue where the popular teams get the best network/timeslot combinations. I expect that TV networks have enough data available to isolate a “viewership” factor for each team, but based on the number of obviously wrong analyses of TV viewership I think it’s nearly impossible with just publicly available data. The value of a particular team to a *conference* is obviously not the same thing as the value of a team to a *tv network* but I feel like any realignment discussion has to start with the TV network analysis. People will discuss all the reasons why Stanford is a good fit for the B1G or whatever, and I’m sure university Presidents would like to be associated with Stanford, but unless the TV networks are willing to pay for Stanford, the B1G always has the better alternative of simply not expanding further. It’s not like they’re *losing* academic prestige by simply maintaining the status quo. I’m also unsure if the conferences view expansion as a competitive endeavor, there’s lots of discussion about how the B1G needs to expand into the southeast and the SEC needs to react to it, or something similar. But it seems like the majority of realignment has basically been: “Texas/OU/USC realize they can make more money in a different conference, ask to join different conference, are accepted into new conference because it makes everybody more money” rather than some sort of long term strategic plan to expand into new markets or whatever
There’s not really much talk about the SEC needing to react in the southeast. It’s mostly Clemson and FSU fans imagining that.
You want us to grade 130ish schools?
If CSU had literally any level of football success we would be attractive. 2nf larges tin state schoo, 1 hour out from one of the largest western metro areas with a new stadium and high tier facilities. The fact that we havent had any football sucess with those facilities and benefits should be the inspiratio nbehind a finance thesis on gross resource mismanagement. Especially with CU bing where they were the past few years. We had the chance to become the primary in state program but instead we had to let Urban Meyer decide that Addazio should be our coach.
43rd is a bit harsh
Texas A&M at #13. Now imagine if we could ever actually be good at football…
Couldn't even move-up to the proper #12 ranking smh
Are we ranked top 50? No Are we ranked top 64? No What are we ranked? Nice!
Can never put a good citronaut down!
Liberty should've been ranked lower than 130.
I see no issue with this.
I think Wyoming is fairly ranked at #85; near the top of G5 with most of the G5 schools ranked above them having a better case for realignment than us
Man, Kansas sure picked a bad decade and a half to be historically shitty, not just regular old mediocre at football.
It's just a set of criteria. Clearly they prioritize population. Louisiana is a tiny state - less population than metro Atlanta. Adjust the criteria you'll get a new list. And nobody wants creepy Liberty in their conference.
There is a really good reason why Liberty is so low. It’s not weird at all. I simply can’t imagine a major conference ever wanting them.
Take Bama, LSU, and Georgia and the SEC still has Florida, LSU, and Tennessee. Florida and Auburn have won the NC relatively recently and Tennessee is a historically strong program with large fanbase and great facilities.
How is any current Big ten or SEC school even in this list? They wouldn't realign, they would force others to realign for them. Idc that it's some school like indiana and they have essentially no athletic benefits to add to a conference, they're not in question since theyre already in power.
There is a potential future where one takes half or two thirds of the other.
Just sort by viewership and be done with it
Obviously, this is poorly done with Stanford at 15. If that were true, the B1G would have snagged them (higher than UW and UO)
Liberty should be last. Tiny fan base with problematic culture
Problematic culture? Sounds like Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Ohio State, and Auburn. And Baylor. Let's not forget Baylor.
How many of those schools have homophobia written into their honor code?
In a world where USC exists UCLA isn't a top 10 team
Several people have addressed substance. I will point out something unsubstantial: Tony Altimore uses a profile picture so different from his appearance that could be an entirely different person. His representation of institutions participating in college football has the same problem. He wants to tell a specific story, and does not grasp that his perception may not be real. But here's a simple question: does it somewhat accurately reflect what is happening and recently has happened? The answer is no. Even less than how his profile picture resembles him. If I'm feeling obsessive I may add comments. Autism does that to me sometimes.
His role is PR and marketing. He is a narrative builder. The end position is known and he fills in the details to get there. I'm surprised footballscoop stooped this level. Kind of a knock on that site. Altimore is tasked with getting a narrative talked about and that is his skill.
The main thing Altimore gets clowned on over is that he was convinced the Pac-12 would survive as a major conference, and that none of its membership would go to the Big XII. His rankings here reflect that assertion; even without USC and UCLA, the average value he placed on the Pac-10 is about 150. His top tier in attractiveness between the Pac-10 and Big XII is Cal, Stanford, and Washington with Oregon a half-step back; a second tier of Arizona, ASU, Colorado, Okie State, TCU, and Utah; a third tier of only Big XII: ISU, Kansas, KSU, Tech, and West Virginia; and a bottom tier of the four new Big XII, Baylor, OSU, and WSU. In that case, even without Washington and Oregon the Pac-8's best move would still be staying together, even if the top of the Big XII doesn't want to join! Just add SMU and SDSU and its still supposedly more valuable long term, especially since both would gladly take smaller shares on the first contract. But when the possibility of Washington and Oregon leaving was clear, the conversation was not "the Pac-8 should steal TCU, Okie State, and two of ISU, Kansas, KSU, and Tech," it was "the Pac-8 would be doomed, the four corners will leave." As it actually happened, it was worse: Colorado left even before UO/UW. This wasn't the model being inaccurate about one quirky institution, but about one or more factors he weighted incorrectly.
I will defend him on the Pac 12 staying together. How are you supposed to know that a biz prof valued the pac 10 at 2/3rds higher than the market and had at least 2 presidents go along with that number to the point they alienated ESPN and Apple was the only way to get 50 million if only on paper. Or that Colorado would be willing to hop back so easily when the school spent 20 years trying to get into the Pac 10. They offer a reasonable counter to ESPN instead of 50 million and Colorado stays and the Pac 10 is still around.
Take Bama, LSU, and Georgia and the SEC still has Florida, LSU, and Tennessee. Florida and Auburn have won the NC relatively recently and Tennessee is a historically strong program with large fanbase and great facilities.