Do you guys have such low self esteem and little self worth that your entire identity is built around the perception of a school you might have gone to?
Seriously if you went to Michigan that doesn't make you better than someone who went to Michigan State no matter how many times you post it on message boards.
That you waste so much of your valuable time debating the academic value of athletic conferences where the actual 'student-athletes' are mostly admitted on their ability to play sports is pretty hilarous if you think about it.
Ooooh we are the Big 10 - you have to be a reseach university for your basketball players to play against our basketball players - even though even at frigging Northwestern the coaches tell you not to waste valuable time on a roadtrip actually studying.
Virginia can't hold their nose to play a school in football that isn't in the top 50 in some bogus ranking - but North Carolina's teams are made up of functional illiterates.
Yet half the threads on this board devolve into academic pi**ing matches between people who if they were really as high minded as they would have you believe should really have better things to do.
What you say has a ton of merit, but it's not just this board. It''s about every board and every fanbase. Heck, it isn't just limited to athletics... there is a snobby culture out there where people thump their chests about the perception of their university because of what ultimately centers around how selective the admissions are.
I will never understand why sports fans feel the need to worry so much about academic ranking(s) but I also don't understand why so much debate is spent on the subjective rankings in any capacity.
