I met a UL grad and big fan last week. He admitted half the city and the rest of the state were UK fans.Louisville is the "breakfast sausage on pizza" of universities.
Just watching Louisville vs. Clemson...
No quite trueI met a UL grad and big fan last week. He admitted half the city and the rest of the state were UK fans.
They are regularly ranked in football now with the conference bump and just produced a Heisman Trophy winner. As far as the ACC is concerned, they hit a grand slam and could not have made a better financial move for their conference, as tough as it is to swallow for UConn.
The whole "two team conference" joke is last decade. Top to bottom the ACC is every bit as strong and deep in respect to football as the Big 10 for that 2nd best title after the SEC which will never be dethroned simply due to pure regional culture.I agree with you to an extent but it still feels like a two team conference in football. They're not far enough south of the mason dixon line to tap into the talent you need to compete nationally. Still a huge upgrade over UConn - the ACC was probably looking at another Syracuse or Boston College there, and who knows what kind of butterfly effect that might have had with Clemson and Florida State being restless at the time. This is a long way for me to express the fact that I hate the ACC and conference realignment.
I met a UL grad and big fan last week. He admitted half the city and the rest of the state were UK fans.
I moved to Louisville in 2001. He right about that. But %90 of uofl fans are at poverty level to very low income. Then you have the %10 who are middle to upper middle class and most like alumni or have children enrolled.UK FLAGS rule the trailer parks all the way up to the Mansions in Lexington
Wtf kind of thread is this? You really think the ACC gives a damn about the academics? Did you see the crowd last night?? Electric atmosphere in a huge stadium. They have the Heisman winner, are ranked in the top 25 consistently in like all sports meanwhile we almost lose to FCS schools and currently have a patchwork basketball roster and as a university faces the reality that the well is dry in terms of state and conference funding. Ya really wonder why other fan bases think we're delusional?
The whole "two team conference" joke is last decade. Top to bottom the ACC is every bit as strong and deep in respect to football as the Big 10 for that 2nd best title after the SEC which will never be dethroned simply due to pure regional culture.
FSU and now the surging Clemson give ACC two consistent Top 5 teams and regular mentions in the CFP discussion looking forward. Mix in a very strong and deep second tier with Miami, VT, UNC, GT (when up) and now throw in a very strong Louisville program that has the fan support and desire to be competitive nationally in football, something which we sadly do not have.
In my opinion the ACC is the best all around athletic conference in the most visible sports but it could surely be debated.
Wtf kind of thread is this? You really think the ACC gives a damn about the academics? Did you see the crowd last night?? Electric atmosphere in a huge stadium. They have the Heisman winner, are ranked in the top 25 consistently in like all sports meanwhile we almost lose to FCS schools and currently have a patchwork basketball roster and as a university faces the reality that the well is dry in terms of state and conference funding. Ya really wonder why other fan bases think we're delusional?
But that's the power distribution structure of almost every conference. Like it or not the big dogs stay the big dogs consistently by being ultra-competitive in every aspect of the game, they won't just relinquish their seats as the top dogs to others in the conference for the sake of parity for the fans. What I'm trying to say is that there's limited room at the true tip top of CFB, and currently the ACC has 2. So if the ACC has two truly elites, and there are only 4 CFP spots each season, the numbers bode well for the ACC's presence. To counter your point, you think Bama and OU regularly dip below anything but elite in their conference with any regularity? No, they have a stranglehold on their conferences too, all the P5 conferences are technically "top heavy" when your barometer is a championship in CFB, which is an extremely difficult feat with the insane amount of barriers of entry in that sport's elite.That's sort of my point, though. Those were the two teams that everybody knew had the chance to be nationally relevant even when they weren't. The only other program in the conference with the potential to consistently sit at the big boys table is Miami - everybody else is either geographically wanting or a distant second in their state (Georgia Tech). Sure in any given year their teams can compete top to bottom with everybody, but there is a defined ceiling in place where there isn't for other conferences, meaning that when Clemson and FSU go through their next down cycles, they're essentially going to be the new Big East.
Whereas the other P5's are mostly comprised of large, public state schools, the ACC consists of a lot of smaller schools congregated in smaller areas. The league was founded on tobacco road but obviously four schools in North Carolina isn't the way you draw it up if you're starting from scratch today. Contrast that to the other conferences that have more schools concentrated in fertile recruiting grounds (Texas is the epicenter of the Big 12, California in the Pac 12, Ohio and Michigan in the Big Ten, etc.) and you can see why they have an easier time fetching money in contract negotiations. The ACC is essentially a mish mash of leftover SEC schools and useless northern schools. If they're able to pry Texas and/or Oklahoma from the big 12 obviously that changes things, but I don't think Louisville moves the needle much long term. There is a reason Louisville was on a life raft before the ACC picked them up. Everybody knew they could compete athletically but in reality they're not much different than Houston or Memphis. They were the better of bad options the last time realignment came up - what I'll never understand is how Pitt, BC, and Syracuse ended up there before us.
IntelligentYour handle says it all
Exactly! For years they painted themselves as the academically superior conference, just barely below the ivy league. So I feel justified throwing some shade.They don't give a damn about academics and frankly neither do I, but in fairness the ACC has branded themselves with a degree of righteousness that becomes precious in the context of them adding Louisville. They were desperate and they acted desperately and it paid off for them, but the only reason it was a decision in the first place is because they had boxed themselves into a corner.
But that's the power distribution structure of almost every conference. Like it or not the big dogs stay the big dogs consistently by being ultra-competitive in every aspect of the game, they won't just relinquish their seats as the top dogs to others in the conference for the sake of parity for the fans. What I'm trying to say is that there's limited room at the true tip top of CFB, and currently the ACC has 2. So if the ACC has two truly elites, and there are only 4 CFP spots each season, the numbers bode well for the ACC's presence. To counter your point, you think Bama and OU regularly dip below anything but elite in their conference with any regularity? No, they have a stranglehold on their conferences too, all the P5 conferences are technically "top heavy" when your barometer is a championship in CFB, which is an extremely difficult feat with the insane amount of barriers of entry in that sport's elite.
Perhaps not.The ACC is thanking their lucky stars every night that they took Louisville over us.
The ACC made the mistake by adding PITT instead of UConn. Not Louisville