Key tweets, and it's all gone to Hell.

[billybud]

This is what I've been saying. If you go past 14, it isn't really a conference anymore. It's a conglomerate.

Swofford, at the recent Media Days, said that the ACC would only expand if Notre Dame decided to come on board, he doesn't expect expansion beyond 14 for football. He stated that was unless there is a national push to go to 20 team associations.

 

[huskyrob1]

I'm not disputing your numbers, just interested in a link which shows these comparisons. I know UCin has $200-million-plus/year in pediatric research alone. Cincinnati Children's Hospital, ranked #3 in the country, the UCin's pediatric department.

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools/primary-care-rankings/page+3

 

[Western PA]

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools/primary-care-rankings/page+3

Thanks. That explains the ranking for primary care training area in medical schools. And research/clinical?

 

[CL82]

Dennis Dodd‏ @dennisdoddcbs 5m 5 minutes ago
Delany: "We didn't mean to," upset, "the world," in expansion.

Dennis Dodd‏ @dennisdoddcbs 5m 5 minutes ago
Delany: ACC expansion made B10 feel "cramped." "More risk in staying where we were." Maryland, Rutgers "sleeping giants."

Dennis Dodd‏ @dennisdoddcbs 3m 3 minutes ago
"If you go much beyond where we are, it's more like an association," Delany on further expansion. Hearing this more and more.

Dennis Dodd‏ @dennisdoddcbs 2m 2 minutes ago
More and more administrators telling me really hard to go beyond 14. We may have reached peak expansion, super conferences.

 

[SubZero]

The "expansion" attempt by the Big 12 proves that there are no more worthy candidates for expansion that would bring in the necessary money. If there were, the Big 12 would have definitely expanded. Potential no longer matters - you do bring in the money or you don't.

 

[SubZero]

The only thing sleeping about Maryland and Rutgers is watching them is so boring that they put everyone to sleep.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

When will Rutgers ever get that damn alarm clock fixed?

 

[CL82]

The "expansion" attempt by the Big 12 proves that there are no more worthy candidates for expansion that would bring in the necessary money. If there were, the Big 12 would have definitely expanded. Potential no longer matters - you do bring in the money or you don't.

Could not disagree more. The "expansion" attempt by the Big 12 proves that it is the most dysfunctional of the P5 conferences and not much more than that.

 

[upstater]

I'm not disputing your numbers, just interested in a link which shows these comparisons. I know UCin has $200-million-plus/year in pediatric research alone. Cincinnati Children's Hospital, ranked #3 in the country, the UCin's pediatric department.

There is a huge difference between peer-reviewed competitive grants and research conducted under the auspices of running a hospital. This is often missed when posters in this thread are touting schools like USF and UAB. Teaching hospitals have huge budgets, and part of teaching is research conducted in those hospitals, but that is a very different thing than research funding secured through competitive grants and the national foundations.

At the end of the day, the AAU is much more interested in the latter, and also having a broad range of strong disciplines, and also faculty productivity, rather than some aggregate amount reported by universities like UAB or USF.

 

[upstater]

The "expansion" attempt by the Big 12 proves that there are no more worthy candidates for expansion that would bring in the necessary money. If there were, the Big 12 would have definitely expanded. Potential no longer matters - you do bring in the money or you don't.

It doesn't prove that at all. There was no reason for them to expand the conference geographically. UConn doesn't fit in the B12.

 

[dayooper]

There is a huge difference between peer-reviewed competitive grants and research conducted under the auspices of running a hospital. This is often missed when posters in this thread are touting schools like USF and UAB. Teaching hospitals have huge budgets, and part of teaching is research conducted in those hospitals, but that is a very different thing than research funding secured through competitive grants and the national foundations.

At the end of the day, the AAU is much more interested in the latter, and also having a broad range of strong disciplines, and also faculty productivity, rather than some aggregate amount reported by universities like UAB or USF.

This. The AAU is very selective in what they are looking for and over all research dollars isn't it.

I know that many claim the reason UNL was voted out of the AAU was not having a med school on campus, and that was part of the issue. Bigger yet was the fact that the AAU stopped using many agricultural grants from the USDA. Many of these grants are not competitive so it brought down the metrics for UNL. Whether not counting those grants was the way to remove UNL or not, I don't know.

 

[chicago312]

There is a huge difference between peer-reviewed competitive grants and research conducted under the auspices of running a hospital. This is often missed when posters in this thread are touting schools like USF and UAB. Teaching hospitals have huge budgets, and part of teaching is research conducted in those hospitals, but that is a very different thing than research funding secured through competitive grants and the national foundations.

At the end of the day, the AAU is much more interested in the latter, and also having a broad range of strong disciplines, and also faculty productivity, rather than some aggregate amount reported by universities like UAB or USF.

Cincinnati has a decent medical school because that was the one area of the university that the civic leaders in Cincinnati invested in when UC was a metropolitan (rather than state) university. For the rest of it, they were quite content to allow it remain a rather undistinguished regional commuter school. If you really bear down into some of the National Research Council's rankings of doctoral programs, you find that Cincinnati is an AAU quality medical school attached to a MAC level university. They don't have a single member of the National Academies of Engineering or Science on their faculty, and their undergraduate reputation and selectivity are garbage. All these things matter to the AAU. They mattered in Nebraska being kicked out, and they matter in schools like Cincinnati and UAB having no shot at an invitation.

 

[buddy]

None of this matters anymore. The B1G is not expanding according to Mr. Delany. They are happy at 14. UConn needs to take a page out of the Louisville and North Carolina playbook. Do anything to win and make it look like you are right in doing it. Only then might they become attractive to the last P5 with room to expand. Academics and morals are meaningless.

 

[huskyrob1]

Academics and morals are meaningless.

Tell that to the AAU.

 

[chicago312]

For those interested in the AAU metrics, this annual report by the Center for Measuring University Performance does a pretty good job of sketching out the broad numbers. Schools are grouped together by how many metrics in which they rank in the top 25 or top 50. And then ranked either publics only (pg 20), privates only or publics and privates together (pg 14).

https://mup.asu.edu/sites/default/f...rican-research-universities-annual-report.pdf

These would be some of the hard metrics used by the AAU. Softer metrics would be undergraduate reputation, and strength and reputation of "core academic departments" i.e. arts & sciences.

 

[Slasher]

For those interested in the AAU metrics, this annual report by the Center for Measuring University Performance does a pretty good job of sketching out the broad numbers. Schools are grouped together by how many metrics in which they rank in the top 25 or top 50. And then ranked either publics only (pg 20), privates only or publics and privates together (pg 14).

https://mup.asu.edu/sites/default/f...rican-research-universities-annual-report.pdf

These would be some of the hard metrics used by the AAU. Softer metrics would be undergraduate reputation, and strength and reputation of "core academic departments" i.e. arts & sciences.

And you can have as big of rose colored glasses in the world and see that Cincy is leaps and bounds ahead of Connecticut (when combining the medical center) when looking at pretty much any research item in that document.

 

[upstater]

And you can have as big of rose colored glasses in the world and see that Cincy is leaps and bounds ahead of Connecticut (when combining the medical center) when looking at pretty much any research item in that document.

I looked at this the other day and was not convinced it was close to AAU metrics at all. I compared Cincy to some of the schools currently in the AAU -- not UConn. And the internal AAU documents I've seen are night and day different than this study.

I can't tell you why there's such a discrepancy, but even in UConn's case, the $86m research budget is really small compared to the actual numbers. But it's not just research dollars. The lack of faculty in the national academies at Cincy plus the low SAT averages of the students (Cincy is ranked 362, UConn 34) makes this a mixed bag.

No one has said Cincy or USF or UAB for that matter dont spend a lot of money on research. They do. We're discussing though the actual stats that the AAU values.

Personally I think Cincy is up there as an AAU candidate, but when you look at these studies, it is well above current AAU members, and that right there is a red flag not to take the studies that seriously. Internally to the AAU, Cincy isn't up to par with CURRENT members.

 

[Guapo]

I'm not really that interested in these sorts of discussions but here comes my input;

Why are we talking about the AAU? Because that's considered a very important "metric" for the Big 10, right?

I don't believe that there is a hard and fast metric that is required for Big 10 membership.

I think it's something much more like a smell test.

If this is a debate about who would pass a hypothetical smell test with big 10 presidents, I don't think there's any doubt UConn is more of a "Big 10 type" school than UC.

UConn is a major land grant, flagship university. UC is not. The impression I've always had, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, is that UC is a commuter school. That is a major cultural difference between the Big 10 schools and UC. UConn's public Ivy culture and high academic standards (look at incoming freshman stats and alumni earnings) means that UConn fits the Big 10 profile better by leaps and bounds.

That is why Nebraska got in and Michigan State got in back in the day and why Notre Dame had a standing invitation; those schools just have a big 10 "feel," they pass the smell test. It just so happens that the profile of school that the big 10 is looking for often times overlaps with what the AAU is for.

You guys are going to drive yourself crazy (if you already havent) trying to nail down some rubric that the big 10 uses, but it doesn't exist.

Anyway, having said all that, I don't think either school is going to the Big 10.

 

[Guapo]

TL;dr you all are trying to apply objective reasoning to a decision that will be completely subjective, should it ever come

 

[huskyrob1]

And you can have as big of rose colored glasses in the world and see that Cincy is leaps and bounds ahead of Connecticut (when combining the medical center) when looking at pretty much any research item in that document.

All Cincinnati did was buy itself a decent medical center which attracted research dollars to prop up an otherwise crappy school. The undergraduate metrics really suck big time. If you think the Cincinnati shell game is going to hoodwink Jim Delaney or John Swofford you're out of your mind.

 

[chicago312]

I looked at this the other day and was not convinced it was close to AAU metrics at all. I compared Cincy to some of the schools currently in the AAU -- not UConn. And the internal AAU documents I've seen are night and day different than this study.

I can't tell you why there's such a discrepancy, but even in UConn's case, the $86m research budget is really small compared to the actual numbers. But it's not just research dollars. The lack of faculty in the national academies at Cincy plus the low SAT averages of the students (Cincy is ranked 362, UConn 34) makes this a mixed bag.

No one has said Cincy or USF or UAB for that matter dont spend a lot of money on research. They do. We're discussing though the actual stats that the AAU values.

Personally I think Cincy is up there as an AAU candidate, but when you look at these studies, it is well above current AAU members, and that right there is a red flag not to take the studies that seriously. Internally to the AAU, Cincy isn't up to par with CURRENT members.

You're right. The CMUP report gives a good snapshot of the hard metrics--research funding, financial resources, faculty quality and breadth of doctoral programs. It doesn't take into account the soft metrics at all such as NRC rankings of doctoral programs or undergraduate reputation (other than the median SAT metric). UC is not a serious candidate. They score well on total research and federal research (driven almost solely by the med school), and are an utter non-starter elsewhere. There is no chance that schools like Chicago or Princeton (or even the top public flagships) vote in Cincinnati any more than they vote in UAB.

And like others have said. A potential public candidate needs to be more than just better than the lowest ranked current members. It probably need to be somewhere around the median for publics, and I don't think UC manages close to that even in research funding.

Too many UC followers put too much stock in what their recently departed President had to say. He was a real snake oil salesman and sunshine pumper. He was going to get UC into the AAU. He was going to get them designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center (literally an impossibility since Ohio already has three). He was going to get them into a P5. He was going to have the state of Ohio designate them as a co-flagship to Ohio State. He promised to stay ten years to make it happen. He bailed out after only three leaving a legacy of nothing more than 40,000 tweets.

 

[Ldandy]

I'm not really that interested in these sorts of discussions but here comes my input;

Why are we talking about the AAU? Because that's considered a very important "metric" for the Big 10, right?

I don't believe that there is a hard and fast metric that is required for Big 10 membership.

I think it's something much more like a smell test.

If this is a debate about who would pass a hypothetical smell test with big 10 presidents, I don't think there's any doubt UConn is more of a "Big 10 type" school than UC.

UConn is a major land grant, flagship university. UC is not. The impression I've always had, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, is that UC is a commuter school. That is a major cultural difference between the Big 10 schools and UC. UConn's public Ivy culture and high academic standards (look at incoming freshman stats and alumni earnings) means that UConn fits the Big 10 profile better by leaps and bounds.

That is why Nebraska got in and Michigan State got in back in the day and why Notre Dame had a standing invitation; those schools just have a big 10 "feel," they pass the smell test. It just so happens that the profile of school that the big 10 is looking for often times overlaps with what the AAU is for.

You guys are going to drive yourself crazy (if you already havent) trying to nail down some rubric that the big 10 uses, but it doesn't exist.

Anyway, having said all that, I don't think either school is going to the Big 10.

This was more a discussion of The AAU Membership Potential of UC vs. UCONN for the sake of membership in the organization. You can't really discuss how that would pertain to potential B1G Membership because Cincy would never be admitted into the conference AAU or not.

As for passing the smell test, that one is pretty simple. There is only one smell test that matters. Do you smell like money? AAU, Land Grant, contiguity, a sterling academic reputation, they're all great. That said if you possess all of those characteristics but can't increase the conference's take you aren't getting in. OTOH if you lack some of these elements but stand to increase the conference's payout by a great deal you probably have a shot. Sometimes things really are what they seem.

 

[NEforceUConn]

Been awhile since I've posted here. Yes Uconn has had hard chips and Rule #1 seems to always hose us.

But I got to think at some point our situation (luck) will change. But damn its a long road. And if the journey is a dead end then lord help me. I will probably have to die in a steel cage match with some PC/Cuse/RU fan or hopefully Fishy will end my misery.

 

[Guapo]

This was more a discussion of The AAU Membership Potential of UC vs. UCONN for the sake of membership in the organization. You can't really discuss how that would pertain to potential B1G Membership because Cincy would never be admitted into the conference AAU or not.

As for passing the smell test, that one is pretty simple. There is only one smell test that matters. Do you smell like money? AAU, Land Grant, contiguity, a sterling academic reputation, they're all great. That said if you possess all of those characteristics but can't increase the conference's take you aren't getting in. OTOH if you lack some of these elements but stand to increase the conference's payout by a great deal you probably have a shot. Sometimes things really are what they seem.

Yeah I understand that, but the reason they're debating AAU metrics is because they're really debating big 10 metrics, no?

 

[chicago312]

I think it matters because there is an academic component to expansion both on the qualities that some (essentially the B1G) conferences are looking for as well as what conferences benefit the school from an academic standpoint. I think it's pretty obvious that Oklahoma could get an invite from the SEC tomorrow and probably be allowed to let OSU tag along, yet Boren is holding out for the B1G for a reason.