What sports conferences want when they expand

This is now a game of who's a traitor working undercover in your NCAA conference.

And the answer would be — any school with a chance to move up. Pitt and Syracuse leaving the Big East for the ACC has started not just a rumor of a snowball effect, but a scare of an avalanche.

So there's no prognostications of who's going where in today's post (by the way it's good to see John C is back posting again).

Anyway, if you do start theorizing on new alignments  consider what bigger conferences want when they expand.

1 A University Of, or a  State that's actually named for the state.

2. A good academic institution; there's more to conferences than just football and basketball.

3. Lots of TV sets in your area for advertising-revenue reasons.

The now-Pac-12 expanded with The University of Utah and the University of Colorado.

The Big Ten, which is 12, expanded with the University of Nebraska.

Note that of the 12 Big Ten schools, only two are not University Ofs or the State. Those are Purdue and the academic all-star, Northwestern.

Bringing us to Conference USA. No member of the 12-team league is a University of or a State of the state.

And in UTEP's division, it is the only directional - the University of Texas at El Paso. Others are private schools Tulsa, Tulane, Rice and SMU; along with the University of (not a state) Houston (a city).

Just to finish the litany, here are the other members of C-USA: Marshall, Central Florida, Memphis, East Carolina, Southern Miss and University of Alabama at Birmingham.

So, yes, it would be better, I think, if UTEP somehow got into what will be left of the Mountain West after the avalanche. The MWC is about the last of the major conferences to have some Ofs and States: Colorado State, University of Wyoming and University of New Mexico. Add in Boise State because it is THE major university in the state of Idaho.

Perhaps the biggest conference that isn't mainly all University ofs and States is the ACC, which just took "Citys," Syracuse and Pittsburgh. But nobody's going to criticize its lineup of non University ofs or States: Duke, Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and the University of Miami. There's a lot of academics in that group.

Yes, you posters can poke a lot of holes in the above thinking, but this is just some food for thought.

And some answers to previous posters' posts:
The NCAA still runs college football, not the BCS. It's the NCAA that puts schools like Ohio State on probation, not some BCS.

And my prediction in the previous post is that the new big-four conferences will leave the NCAA, thus being able to make up their own rules and regulations, such as paying players.

That is unless the president steps in. Remember, the NCAA was formed/mandated  by President Teddy Roosevelt when college football had becomed violent and thug-ridden.

Comments

[Joe]

By the way, Purdue (a state college) is essentially Indiana A&M. It carries the name of Purdue because the douche who donated the land wanted the University named after him. As far as academics are concerned Purdue's engineering and science programs are rated at the level of MIT and Cal Tech, and they are one of the top Ag programs in the nation. In other words they are no academic slouch themselves. Go Boilers!

[Sorkh Razil]

East Carolina has recently applied for membership to the Big East. Last I checked, they aren't a "University of" or a "State".

[Stahala]

Your whole "University of" or "State" assessment is, for lack of a better word, retarded. You even point it out by mentioning all the ACC schools. And if I wanted to read about conference alignments I would go to ESPN. How about talking about the UTEP Miners on a UTEP Miner blog? Progress of injuries. What Price has said this week about USF. Your own personal assessment of USF. Anything! You should only blog about last week's game, or the up coming game. Seriously, Joe. Stop. Youre not gonna help UTEP join the MWC(yawn) any quicker. We're playing a ranked team this week, and you still cant stop thinking about UTEP joining the MWC. Disappointed in you, Joe.

[EricInNewYork]

I think the best part of all this drivel is how wrong Joe is. Ex-Big East Head Honcho went on ESPN and essentially said it was money/revenue and football. That, while they say the other publicly, behind closed doors it is a different story.
Everyone knows this.
Joe, you need to grow up a little. Say what you really mean vs. saying what you think gets people riled up. You're old, you have a job for as long as you're alive. Isn't it time to be a journalist?

[electrotherm]

Nice post about Purdue engineering and science programs are evaluated on an equal footing with MIT and Cal Tech, and they are one of the programs Ag above the nation.