P5 Conferences, out of control

[Bald Husky]

I am so sick of the conversations about P5 teams being better than the rest of us. Power 5 conferences came about because of the disparity of most teams in football, nothing else. So again, college football is screwing up the collegiate landscape for everyone. P5 means nothing in basketball, nothing in college hockey, volleyball, golf, field hockey, and on and on. Unfortunately, we keep hearing about how great P5 teams are, but in reality, except in football, most P5 teams lag behind the accomplishments of schools in non-power5 teams. The Big East, Conference USA, West coast, just to name a few, have accomplished much nationally in the other non-football sports. Money, TV ratings again are the deciding force, but please, don't buy into the P5 is best overall, because they are not.

 

[Cornell Lt]

Sounds like an inferiority complex issue to me

 

[nwhoopfan]

volleyball,

In the early days true, but for quite a while now the P5s have absolutely dominated womens volleyball. Basically the Big 10 or Pac 12 produces the Champion every year (and most of the Final 4), with an occasional interloper like Texas or Kentucky. Softball is similar.

 

[TerpWomenFan]

The only sport where this is a legitimate argument is men basketball.

All the other sports, all you have to look at who is in the Final 4 of each season. You rarely see a mid major there.

 

[Stymie]

Unfortunately, P-5 football money greatly funds the athletic departments of those schools.
I can’t imagine the cost of funding a football program in those schools, but I’m sure there’s a ton of $$$ that trickles down to other sports.
Let the Tourney results do the talking.

 

[UcMiami]

P5 conferences are not homogeneous within their conferences or across all five. What they do have is a lot more money devoted to their athletics program from football revenue, but even there, the money varies from conference to conference quite significantly. How those dollars get allocated varies, but in general the sports facilities are significantly better than average.

Where real variation comes is in sports performance - some of the P5 football programs are pretty terrible and have been consistently terrible for quite a while. The schools with those programs would be hard pressed to get invited into a P5 if they hadn't already been grandfathered into the conference.

The same wide range of performance exists for all of the other NCAA sports - some consistently dreadful some consistently great. The difference in the other sports is that they require less investment, generally less costly facilities and support staffs, and much smaller teams. That allows less well endowed conferences to more easily compete at the top end of the sports and being a P5 school means less.

One issue that is concerning with NIL and free transfers is that P5 schools will find it easier to 'buy' great players from other conferences that emerge at those smaller schools during their first few seasons.

 

[bballnut90]

In the early days true, but for quite a while now the P5s have absolutely dominated womens volleyball. Basically the Big 10 or Pac 12 produces the Champion every year (and most of the Final 4), with an occasional interloper like Texas or Kentucky. Softball is similar.

West Coast Conference usually produces a couple of good teams (BYU is usually strong and made the Final Four in 2018 and 2014, USD is #2 in the country this year) but besides that it is very P5 dominated and is transitioning to becoming a Big Ten/southern US dominated sport with so many strong west coast players opting for beach.

 

[nwhoopfan]

West Coast Conference usually produces a couple of good teams (BYU is usually strong and made the Final Four in 2018 and 2014, USD is #2 in the country this year) but besides that it is very P5 dominated and is transitioning to becoming a Big Ten/southern US dominated sport with so many strong west coast players opting for beach.

WCC definitely is very good in women's volleyball. Maybe not so much in the last few years, but St. Mary's and Pepperdine used to be about equivalent to USD. There are usually quite a few matches between WCC and Pac 12 schools, and the top WCC teams often go toe to toe with them in those head to head match ups.

Hawaii was a powerhouse for a long time, but they've faded somewhat in recent years.