Delany: AAU Membership Required For Admission

[Ldandy]

Personally, I liked the old 10 team conferences. 12 was already pushing it, but 14 makes it near impossible to schedule other conference schools in the current setups. And you sound like someone who dislikes the word "pod," so I'll call it a division. If the ACC added 2 more schools (say WVU and UConn and completely forget ND), that would create the much dreaded 4 division conference with 4 teams per division. But if the ACC could concede with a 9 game conference schedule, those divisions would allow teams to play one another much more often.

Let's say Div 1=UConn, SU, BC and UL. Div 2=VT, UVa, WVU and Pitt. Div 3=UNC, Duke, Wake and NCSU. Div 4=GT, Clemson, Miami and FSU. Clemson would play GT, Miami and FSU every year. Clemson would also get to play 2 teams per each division every year. This arrangement would allow for Clemson (and every other ACC school) to play other schools every 3rd and 4th year OR every 2nd and 4th year with a gap in between. That means Clemson would only miss seeing a fellow ACC foe no more than a 2 year stretch. Heck, even at an 8 game conference schedule, teams would see one another more often.

And this would also work for the B1G and SEC. But 2 divisions within a 14 team conferences is very cumbersome. I think Slive, Delany and Swofford have gone past the point of no return.

Good post +1

The genie is out of the bottle. No conference is going to voluntarily contract, and no school would be dumb enough to walk away from hundreds of millions of dollars in TV Revenue. 14 is an untenable number for major conferences. It creates unbalanced divisions, and causes teams from opposite divisions to meet less frequently. That is where the idea for 16 or 20 member conferences comes from. Sure it failed in the WAC, but no one cared about it on a national level. What if the P5 pushes through an initiative to allow a semi final round within conferences? What would TV pay for that?

 

[Pat125]

The WAC was also ahead of its time. The rest of the NCAA, including its own member institutions weren't ready for it yet. Twelve was the magic number ten or so years ago, because it meant a CCG for football. The whole NCAA has been trending towards 16. This includes Division II as well. The minimum membership has gone up from six to ten, but no one wants to stay at just ten, in case a member or two leaves. Conferences also want to be able to sponsor as many sports as possible without having to rely on affiliate members. I get that 14 doesn't work well for football, but it isn't to bad for other sports.

Sixteen can make football scheduling a little better, but p o d s can also make things unwieldy. To make it better you can join two p o d s together to form temporary 8 team divisions and rotate which to pair up. With a 9 game schedule, you can play each time every two years. So 16 seems to be an optimal number.

But trends can change back. I could see after a few years schools getting tired of it with schools splitting off to form new smaller conferences again.

 

[pj]

12 was just a way-station. 10 team conferences were great, you could play a round robin. 12 already diluted the product; old rivalries dissipated as teams saw each other less. Once they went to 12, they might as well go to 16. As Calamitous says, 16 is really easy to schedule. And the 4 pod structure works great if you have a semifinal and final conference championship. This would restore conference rivalries - if you didn't see a good team in the regular season, you could see it in the postseason.

 

[clmssun]

To make it better you can join two p o d s together to form temporary 8 team divisions and rotate which to pair up.

This is precisely the issue with pods that nauseates me

But trends can change back. I could see after a few years schools getting tired of it with schools splitting off to form new smaller conferences again.

Bingo! I strongly believe this would happen if 16+ school conferences come into reality. At the risk of projecting, I think Slive and Delany and company are cautious about this.

I will also add to this whole discussion that eliminating the "champions of two divisions (wherein each division plays round robin) play for conference championship" rule, would really help the scheduling concerns... much more than this tripe (not directed at you, Pat25) about 4 pods wherein you reconstitute the two "divisions" ever year by rotating the four pods.

If/when conferences can merely select "top two" to play for conference championship, then they can eliminate divisions and pods entirely. Recall that, even in the good ol' days of the SEC-10, B1G-10, and Pac-10, those conferences did NOT play full round robin schedules; while the ACC-9 and Big8-8 (and Big East, too, yes?) did play full round robins. I do think full round robins are the best, but the three most "established" conferences lived for years only playing 6 or 7 of the 9 conference opponents. Without divisions (or even pods), one could (theoretically) have a 16-team conference with each team playing a 9-game schedule where each school has 2 or 3 annual rivalry games (but those rivalries need not be boxed into 4-team pods [because sometimes A&B are big rivals and B&C are big rivals, but A&C mean little to one another]) and then have 6 or 7 games to cycle through the remaining 12 or 13 conference members every two years)

I personally thought 12-team conferences with two 6-team divisions where divisions play full round-robin and teams play 3 or 4 teams from other division was the "sweet spot" to maintaining/building intradivisional rivalries and keeping familiarity/unity with the other division's schools... while "expanding the footprint" and reaping greater revenues.... but Slive, Delany, and Swofford see otherwise.

 

[kyleslamb]

The problem isn't with 16 teams necessarily, it's just if you expand too quickly and you take too many teams from different cultures, you wind up having a hard time keeping people happy. There are too many people with differing ideas how to function.

For leagues like the Big Ten and SEC that have been together for so long, by carefully hand-picking teams and expanding slowly, they can assure they have like-minded institutions that want what they want. So I wouldn't really agree that there's an inherent problem with 16-team leagues, it's just that it needs to be put together very methodically.

 

[Ldandy]

Everything is driven by dollars. We are not going back to smaller regional conferences of 8-10 teams. A number of conferences are already at 14 teams(an unwieldy number IMO), is it really a stretch to go to 16 when you are only 2 teams away?

 

[btstimpy]

Personally, I liked the old 10 team conferences. 12 was already pushing it, but 14 makes it near impossible to schedule other conference schools in the current setups. And you sound like someone who dislikes the word "pod," so I'll call it a division. If the ACC added 2 more schools (say WVU and UConn and completely forget ND), that would create the much dreaded 4 division conference with 4 teams per division. But if the ACC could concede with a 9 game conference schedule, those divisions would allow teams to play one another much more often.

Let's say Div 1=UConn, SU, BC and UL. Div 2=VT, UVa, WVU and Pitt. Div 3=UNC, Duke, Wake and NCSU. Div 4=GT, Clemson, Miami and FSU. Clemson would play GT, Miami and FSU every year. Clemson would also get to play 2 teams per each division every year. This arrangement would allow for Clemson (and every other ACC school) to play other schools every 3rd and 4th year OR every 2nd and 4th year with a gap in between. That means Clemson would only miss seeing a fellow ACC foe no more than a 2 year stretch. Heck, even at an 8 game conference schedule, teams would see one another more often.

And this would also work for the B1G and SEC. But 2 divisions within a 14 team conferences is very cumbersome. I think Slive, Delany and Swofford have gone past the point of no return.

I like this and wish it would happen. WVU might be too contractually bound by the Big XII for now. So go ahead and invite UConn now to the ACC, and invite either Navy or BYU as an associate member in football only with a contract ending at the same time as the Notre Dame football contract. Then the ACC can get to 16 team scheduling, not have to go to 17 members, and can revisit WVU or ND as full time in 2027. Navy or BYU would like to have football in a P5, one would think, even if only guaranted for 12 years or so. There are postives and negatives for each, but they both have other homes for non football, and they would consider a football only situation. Flip a coin as to which one.

But I think that the ACC wants this championship game requirement relaxed so that it can do the 3 designated rivals and schedule rotation format with 14. That would reduce the interest in 16. It would also keep the Big XII happy at 10. It is supposed to be voted on in August. We will have to see what happens with this before anything is done. It's only 2 months away.

 

[Plains&Lakes]

Everything is driven by dollars. We are not going back to smaller regional conferences of 8-10 teams. A number of conferences are already at 14 teams(an unwieldy number IMO), is it really a stretch to go to 16 when you are only 2 teams away?

Being in the AAU is a strategic advantage for entrance into the Big Ten. If a schools has enough other advantages outside of being in the AAU, the Big Ten will weigh those. On many academic/demographic metrics, UConn is ahead of candidate AAU schools Buffalo and Kansas. I think that Delany's statements on AAU and Big Ten entrance are a largely-true, boilerplate answer in a court case. Any potential acquirer is mobile and flexible. I still think that we at least need an AAU school at 15 or 16 with UConn.

 

[UConn9604]

This deserves its own thread. Put the question to bed, here it is straight from the source while under oath, AAU membership is required for admission to the B1G:

Andy Staples ‏@Andy_Staples 24m
Delany said Big Ten requires AAU (American Association of Universities) membership upon admission. Nebraska was, but isn't anymore.

Remember when the ACC insisted that it had high academic standards? Then it invited Louisville.

This B1G statement by Delany is no different. It's a rule until it isn't a rule.

 

[Sea Goat]

I don't think there's anything there.

The Big Ten is free to decide on whatever qualifications they'd like to enforce on potential members and whatever exceptions they might make.

The B1G knew Nebraska was on its way out of the AAU when they were added - don't think this is an impediment. In so many other respects UConn has excelled academically and moved passed many current B1G members. So the B1G would find us attractive. The more positive news is that a 14 member conference is unwieldy, so let's see if the P-5 jump to 16 - if so we'll be fine.

 

[Kolumbo]

Let's say the SEC and Big 12 merge to form a 24 team conference. They create two separate divisions of 12 each. 12 is the ideal number. They essentially operate as two 12 program conferences but they are a 24 program conference for the all-important television purposes. A simple affiliation made permanent for stability purposes. Next thing you know you have two mega-conferences with three divisions each for a grand total of 72 programs. Then there is turmoil and they all split up again. Greed will always find a way to foster change.

 

[pj]

Let's say the SEC and Big 12 merge to form a 24 team conference. They create two separate divisions of 12 each. 12 is the ideal number. They essentially operate as two 12 program conferences but they are a 24 program conference for the all-important television purposes. A simple affiliation made permanent for stability purposes. Next thing you know you have two mega-conferences with three divisions each for a grand total of 72 programs. Then there is turmoil and they all split up again. Greed will always find a way to foster change.

They are close to that now - just move Texas A&M and Missouri back to the B12, and change the name of the SEC/B12 "Champions" bowl to SEC championship.

 

[B1GOSU]

*If* being an AAU member is mandatory to join the B1G, here are the only non-B1G AAU schools that currently play D1 football..........

Arizona
Buffalo
California
Colorado
Duke
Florida
Georgia Tech
Iowa State
Kansas
Missouri
North Carolina
Oregon
Pittsburgh
Rice
UCLA
USC
Texas
Texas A&M
Tulane
Vanderbilt
Virginia
Washington

AAC (1) - Tulane
ACC (5) - Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Virginia
Big 12 (3) - Iowa State, Kansas, Texas
Conference USA (1) - Rice
MAC - (1) Buffalo
PAC 12 (7) - Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, UCLA, USC, Washington
SEC (4) - Florida, Missouri, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt

 

[Adios]

The B1G can survive without UConn, Oklahoma and Nebraska being members of the AAU. Either Texas or North Carolina are the end goals and Texas (and Oklahoma) seems to be the more likely possibility, especially if you want to strengthen football. You'd strengthen basketball more with Kansas and UConn than UVA and UNC.

 

[pj]

Great summary B1GOSU. Shows the slim pickings. Either they're poor at sports (Tulane, Rice, Buffalo) or tied up in major conferences. Most of the major conference schools are either unattractive to the B1G because of overlapping markets (Pitt, Iowa State) or distance (Arizona, Cal, Oregon, UCLA, USC, Washington) or not a public flagship (Duke, Vandy). The major conference schools attractive to the B1G - Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri; Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia Tech, Florida if they got a bridge -- would take major disruption to obtain. Kansas looks like the best bet. And even they could lose AAU status, like Nebraska.

Either the B1G is stopping at 14 until the ACC or B12 releases teams, or they will have to drop the AAU requirement.

 

[Calamitous]

Sure it failed in the WAC, but no one cared about it on a national level.

Exactly! The WAC was more watered down (no offense to their past member schools) than the B1G or SEC big name programs. The ACC is perched fairly close to the "watered-down" edge of P5 quality school criteria with all the private schools, but even those ACC schools have money to make it work. The PAC and B12 may become watered down if 16 becomes a target number. I often wonder if the PAC and B12 will grow in the foreseeable future, especially if the NCAA grants the B12 a championship game at 10. The PAC seems happy where they are.

I think the PAC would be wise to stop at 12 and maybe B12 wise to stop at 10 (or grow 2 more if forced). Swofford and the aTm administration created this mess IMO, but now the ACC, SEC and B1G are entrenched with 14 schools apiece. As weird as it sounds, they have to go to 16 if they want to keep regional rivalries and play member schools more often. That likely makes the B12 and ACC a target of more poaching in 10 or 12 years, as there aren't many desirable non-P5 choices outside of UConn, Cincinnati and BYU (and there needs to be 3 more desirable schools outside of the P5 to stave off further B12/ACC poaching). FWIW, UConn is probably the only non-P5 school the B1G would go after. The SEC wouldn't be interested in any of them, I don't think. The ACC and B12 might bite though.

 

[HuskyHawk]

If you work in business, medicine or law, you're absolutely right. But it really depends on your line of work. In my line of work (civil/environmental engineering), Ivy league schools don't matter very much. Stanford, Cal-Berkeley, Cal-Davis, Georgia Tech, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer Poly, Tufts, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Illinois, Texas, Michigan, Purdue and even Virginia Tech are the ones grabbing the best job titles and telling me what to do.

It helps most getting into a grad school or professional school. After that, it helps land your first job, and maybe your second. Once you've been in the workplace a few years, it becomes irrelevant. As you correctly point out, schools are evaluated by field of study as well...whether engineering, business etc. The Ivy leagues help most if you plan to pursue a useless liberal arts major and still hope to work someplace other than retail...or to get a next level degree. My UConn degree is irrelevant at this point, and even my Kansas law degree is mostly irrelevant.

 

[Calamitous]

It helps most getting into a grad school or professional school. After that, it helps land your first job, and maybe your second. Once you've been in the workplace a few years, it becomes irrelevant. As you correctly point out, schools are evaluated by field of study as well...whether engineering, business etc. The Ivy leagues help most if you plan to pursue a useless liberal arts major and still hope to work someplace other than retail...or to get a next level degree. My UConn degree is irrelevant at this point, and even my Kansas law degree is mostly irrelevant.

Yup. After your first job, 90% don't even verify your degree and take you at your word. But your degree is good for water cooler banter during football and basketball season.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

Yup. After your first job, 90% don't even verify your degree and take you at your word. But your degree is good for water cooler banter during football and basketball season.

Good post +1

The genie is out of the bottle. No conference is going to voluntarily contract, and no school would be dumb enough to walk away from hundreds of millions of dollars in TV Revenue. 14 is an untenable number for major conferences. It creates unbalanced divisions, and causes teams from opposite divisions to meet less frequently. That is where the idea for 16 or 20 member conferences comes from. Sure it failed in the WAC, but no one cared about it on a national level. What if the P5 pushes through an initiative to allow a semi final round within conferences? What would TV pay for that?

The only reason for P5 conferences to expand is avoid, litigation or at least bad publicity ,by pretending that it is open to all.

 

[upstater]

It helps most getting into a grad school or professional school. After that, it helps land your first job, and maybe your second. Once you've been in the workplace a few years, it becomes irrelevant. As you correctly point out, schools are evaluated by field of study as well...whether engineering, business etc. The Ivy leagues help most if you plan to pursue a useless liberal arts major and still hope to work someplace other than retail...or to get a next level degree. My UConn degree is irrelevant at this point, and even my Kansas law degree is mostly irrelevant.

 

[whaler11]

Shocking revelation that the academic guy is out of touch with reality.

 

[upstater]

Shocking revelation that the academic guy is out of touch with reality.

100% wrong in that post. For one, grad admission committees don't take much stock of either academic pedigree or GPA or GRE. As for what's useless, it's business. Not only over your career, but in the short-term as well, as studies have shown there's very little learned, or added. But go on with your idiotic conventional wisdom.

 

[HuskyHawk]

100% wrong in that post. For one, grad admission committees don't take much stock of either academic pedigree or GPA or GRE. As for what's useless, it's business. Not only over your career, but in the short-term as well, as studies have shown there's very little learned, or added. But go on with your idiotic conventional wisdom.

So I should have gotten into Yale law after all? Who knew? If you don't think professional schools look at undergrad institution and grades, I don't even know what more to say. Now, if you are talking sciences, you might be closer to the mark.

 

[whaler11]

100% wrong in that post. For one, grad admission committees don't take much stock of either academic pedigree or GPA or GRE. As for what's useless, it's business. Not only over your career, but in the short-term as well, as studies have shown there's very little learned, or added. But go on with your idiotic conventional wisdom.

I was commenting on how once most people start working people stop giving a damn where anyone went to school. 95% of careers, once you've had a job or two you stand on your own, nobody cares where you went. It doesn't even come up in the recruiting or interview process.

As for most grad schools I have zero care or respect for what they do. The MBA programs around here are laughable - they give you the grades to get your corporate reimbursement to keep you coming.

 

[upstater]

So I should have gotten into Yale law after all? Who knew? If you don't think professional schools look at undergrad institution and grades, I don't even know what more to say. Now, if you are talking sciences, you might be closer to the mark.

Yes, you're right about professional schools, not all of them, but certainly Med. and Law, perhaps Business too. But elsewhere they are looking at your work and research, perhaps your project.

 

[upstater]

I was commenting on how once most people start working people stop giving a damn where anyone went to school. 95% of careers, once you've had a job or two you stand on your own, nobody cares where you went. It doesn't even come up in the recruiting or interview process.

As for most grad schools I have zero care or respect for what they do. The MBA programs around here are laughable - they give you the grades to get your corporate reimbursement to keep you coming.

The post he made was about a lot of different things. Not only about the irrelevancy of where you went to school (which I agree with, and most of the people I work with would agree with that too). My eyeroll was about what admissions committees care about (they don't care much about pedigree either, even law schools or med. schools). It was also about what constitutes the uselessness of certain degrees.

 

[whaler11]

The post he made was about a lot of different things. Not only about the irrelevancy of where you went to school (which I agree with, and most of the people I work with would agree with that too). My eyeroll was about what admissions committees care about (they don't care much about pedigree either, even law schools or med. schools). It was also about what constitutes the uselessness of certain degrees.

Well then for once we are on the same page.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Yes, you're right about professional schools, not all of them, but certainly Med. and Law, perhaps Business too. But elsewhere they are looking at your work and research, perhaps your project.

Agreed. I am also told that it is less a factor now (due to declining applications for law, med, MBA) than it was in my time (1990 roughly, when I applied). Law school was very hot then, my class was the biggest ever at KU. If you work between undergrad and grad school, that changes everything. It's common for MBAs, and would carry much more weight I expect. Most law students went straight from undergrad, so there was nothing else to evaluate.