Let's make a new SUPER college conference

The Game Room
1

The title pretty much says it all. The Big Ten is inching towards a mega conference, but it is still based out the Midwest. Forget that. You have been given the power to create a SUPER, All-America college conference that will cover the entire US. ESPN is ready to give you a boat-load of money and your own channel based on coming up with the best possible teams (and markets) but you’ll never get it to fly without the school faculties drooling over working with the best minds in the country. You need to create the best possible college conference that will blend athletics and academics in a media rich area.

Forget all about rivalries and conference affiliations, those are yesterday’s news. This will be a conference that everybody else wishes they could join. This will be the elite of the elite and they will be ruling over all the other conferences.

(Of course the SEC will still be the best football conference. I believe that’s in the NCAA rulebook or something.)

Rules:[ol]
[li]Limit 12 schools. I wanted to make this a Top 10, but then there wouldn’t be a conference championship game for football.[/li][li]Private schools cannot outnumber public schools. This is to prevent schools like Northwestern from clogging the list (great academics, great media market, decent but not great athletics).[/li][li]We will use the Director’s Cup rankings (not football or basketball) to determine athletic competence. This isn’t making the best football conference, but the best overall athletic competition conference.[/li][li]We will use the US News College Rankings for academics.[/li][li]We will use the Metro Areas to determine media size.[/li][/ol]

My list will be coming later.

2

No brainers (all around excellence):

Stanford
Virginia
Michigan
USC
Notre Dame
North Carolina
UCLA
California

Academics are a smidgen lower (comparatively):
Texas
Ohio State
Florida

Athletics are a smidgen lower (again comparatively):
Duke

Excellent media market with good to great athletic & academic:
Illinois

While this sounds good in theory, there are way too many California teams on the list (should be cut to 2). I’m also not crazy about 2 teams from North Carolina in this conference (should be only 1).

Where can this list improve?

3

If we’re going for overall athletics and academics, Stanford will have to be in the conference, they always win the Sears trophy. After looking at your link I’m guessing the name has been changed to the Director’s Cup. They don’t have the best media market but they rule the other two categories.

Due to the limit on private schools I’m going to pick UCLA to represent LA although USC would work as well I might come back to them later though.

Working my way across the South I’ll pick up Texas and LSU but the rest of the conferences gets skipped for now, mainly for academic reasons.

Along the East coast the only school that comes to mind immediately is Virginia but I may be back through here in a bit.

In the Midwest there are a bunch of schools which is why I’ve been a bit stingy so far. I’m going to start off with Notre Dame, Michigan and Penn State. Ohio State is a strong competitor but since I dislike them I’m leaving them off, for now.

I’m going to put up a strategical pick for number 9. I’ve left a large portion of the country open by going around the sides and I think I need to at least partially fill the gap unfortunately there aren’t any great programs that jump to mind. Colorado is probably the best bet they are near a major city and are a mid level DI school in a variety of sport and there academics are at least regionally we thought of and not laughed at in the rest of the country.

For another strategic pick I’m going to pick up the University of Washington again major city in an area that I’ve neglected with better academics that CU but not as good of athletics.

For 11 and 12 I’m going to go back through the regions and look at the teams I’ve passed over Since I did better then I’d thought I’d do on private schools I’ll pick up USC that way we can have some quality rivalry going. For my last spot it’s between Florida and OU. As much as people pretend to care about the academics of their conferences no one watches the Ivy League. So I’m going to pick up Florida to round out my conference.

TLDR:

Stanford
USC
UCLA
TEXAS
LSU
Florida
Virginia
Michigan
Notre Dame
Penn State
Colorado
U. Washington

4

LSU is ranked 128 academically. I don’t think they’d make the cut. Colorado’s a little better, but they’re tied for 77.

I do like Penn State, but I don’t know how many eyeballs they bring in eastern Pennsylvania. I want to eliminate Duke and maybe Illinois. Can someone convince me that Penn State is the better choice?

Washington is an excellent choice. I’ll get rid of Cal and add Washington to my list.

New list:

Stanford
Virginia
Michigan
USC
Notre Dame
North Carolina
UCLA
Washington
Texas
Ohio State
Florida
Duke
Illinois

5

Well, Penn state is tied with Texas and Florida academically and ahead of Illinois and Notre Dame athletically. The metro area is one I’m not sure of since I don’t know much about Happy Valley but aside from basketball Duke doesn’t really have any drawing power that UNC doesn’t have so it should be a pretty even swap.

I didn’t realize that LSU was so poor academically. The engineers I’ve met from there have been pretty competent. I knew CU wasn’t really up to par but there is a large hole in the middle of the country with the conference you’ve made and depending on what the goal for the conference is would definitely bring in more viewers.

6

Denver University might be a better choice then CU It’s ranked higher academically and athletically but it doesn’t have a football team so less people have heard of it.

7

I’m not convinced that Denver has to be represented. Theoretically, the sheer awesomeness of the conference will drive eyeballs to it from anywhere. My biggest problem is the Denver schools is that they are the only athletic programs with a Director’s Cup ranking in the 50’s or higher on the list. All the other programs are 21 or lower.

I considered Phoenix and St. Louis because they are bigger markets and can claim some of that hidden middle as well. The problem is the academics for Arizona, Arizona State, and Missouri are in the 100’s.

One big and growing market not represented is Georgia. I think I would kick out Duke and add either Georgia Tech or Georgia. Georgia Tech is the better school (35 to 58 respectively) while Georgia has the better athletic program (18 to 48). I think I would go with Georgia because of the bigger difference in athletics goes in their favor.

I’m keeping Illinois ahead of Penn State because of better academics and media market. They are 19 & 20 on the Director’s Cup rankings so pretty equal there. You could talk me into switching Penn State with Ohio State.

I miscounted. I have 13 teams instead of 12. Goodbye UCLA! You’re too close to USC and the lowest athletic ranking of the California schools.

It’s getting hard now.

Private schools: Stanford, USC, Notre Dame
Public: Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, Washington, Texas, Ohio State, Florida, Georgia, Illinois

West Coast: Stanford, USC, Washington
Southwest: Texas
South: Florida, Georgia
Midwest: Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, Illinois
East Coast: North Carolina, Virginia

Basketball powers: North Carolina though Florida, Texas, and Ohio State have done well recently
Football powers: USC, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Florida, Texas, Georgia.
Everyone else: Stanford, Washington, Illinois, Virginia

8

Your list:

2 ACC schools: UVA, UNC
3 Big 10 Schools: OSU, Mich, Ill
3 PAC 10 Schools: Wash, USC, Stan
1 Big XII School: Texas
2 SEC Schools: UGA, UF
1 Independent: Notre Dame

Big XII, Big East is under-represented, IMO, I would probably add OU, UConn and take out Michigan, Wash.

9

The Directors Cup is a silly criteria for ranking schools. It is heavily influenced by geography (see how many of the top schools are in warm weather locales, and the other few are huge schools in the more temperate parts of the midwest. Baseball? Most cold weather schools either don’t have a team or if they do, they aren’t competitive. While LSU and Stanford are playing games in February, Wisconsin is practicing indoors while it is below zero outside with two feet of snow. [Edit: Used to, when they had a team.]

Women’s water polo??? WTF. Why not skiing and ice hockey for a little balance?

Someone mentioned Colorado upthread. Of the 20 sports used in the rankings, Colorado has no baseball team, no men’s or women’s lacrosse, no rowing, no softball, no men’s tennis, no men’s volleyball and no water polo. They only field a team in twelve of the 20 sports.

10

If you need to add another Big XII team, I’d go with Missouri way before I’d go with OU. It adds a much better set of media markets (do we determine the market by state, or by where the school is? - Mizzou captures KC and St. Louis very well), and doesn’t have that big of a drop in academics or athletics. You could probably swap Illinois out for it as well.

11

You’re probably right, Missouri has better population centers to choose from. But Damn it, I live in Missouri and I can’t stand the Tigers. They seem to be hapless in every sport.

One pro-Mizzou fan even told the reason why they are not ever competitive for Nat’l Championships in CFB and CBB is because they are at a competitive disadvantage because they border 8 different states who have good athletic programs in at least one of those sports. :dubious:

12

Yeah, I hate the Tigers as well - that’s a pretty terrible excuse. Sure, Missouri - that 30 mile border with Oklahoma really cuts into your recruiting. Just look at how terrible Alabama and Florida do sharing such a big border! Or Ohio and Michigan! Or Texas and Oklahoma!

13

some really good ideas. however, i would kick out one of the midwestern schools and add the university of hawaii. this would be coupled with congressional legislation that all of their sporting events must be played at home and that boosters from visiting schools will receive federal stipend travel allowances to attend said sporting event.

14

neta: and the allowance would be only for air fare and say four nights of accomodations as well as the normal per diem for food and sustenance.

but if you want to go parasailing that would be on your own nickel. can’t be frivolous with the taxpayer’s money, dontchaknow.

15

The East Coast is really underrepresented. Is there any solid athletic school that would draw that market? Maybe Boston College? Is that the type of market that Notre Dame does really well in? Is this where we break down and add an Ivy League school (Princeton)? Is the East Coast just drawn to the Winner du Jour enough that they don’t need their own “home team”?

16

Let’s be systematic about this.

Here’s the top 25 schools in the Directors Cup.

Schools in Blue are Top 20 in the US News and World Report list.
Schools in Green are Top 40 in the US News and World Report list.
Schools in Red are Top 50 in the US News and World Report list.

**1 Stanford **
**2 North Carolina **
**3 Florida **
**4 Southern California **
**5 Michigan **
**6 Texas **
**7 California **
**8 Virginia **
9 Louisiana State U.
10 Ohio State
**11 Washington **
12 Arizona State
13 Texas A&M
14 Minnesota
15 Florida State
**16 UCLA **
**17 Duke (N.C.) **
18 Georgia
**19 Penn State **
**20 Illinois **
**21 Notre Dame **
22 Oregon
23 Tennessee
24 Arizona
25 Arkansas

That’s 14 schools. That’s a pretty good conference size right there. They are pretty well distributed across the nation as well and are in pretty excellent markets. They fit your Public/Private breakdown rules too. If you wanted to pair down the final two I’d dump Duke and Notre Dame because they have small enrollments and are redundant with other markets and getting rid of the religious schools has a certain logic to it. Alternatively your could dump Florida and Texas as the lowest ranked academically, but I think the regionality, enrollments and public image boost them to the top. Dumping Penn State and Washington probably makes more sense if you want academics to be the deciding factor. A case could be made to dump Illinois and UCLA as redundant geographically and middle of the pack in athletics while both are outside the top 20 academically.

Here’s my list if 12 is a firm number:

**1 Stanford **
**2 North Carolina **
**3 Florida **
**4 Southern California **
**5 Michigan **
**6 Texas **
**7 California **
**8 Virginia **
**11 Washington **
**16 UCLA **
**19 Penn State **
**20 Illinois **

17

The only complaint I have on Omni’s list is no Northeast exposure.

18

But there aren’t any good athletic teams form the Northeast. Really Penn is about the best you can get in that direction.

19

Part of Ground Rules: (Bolding Mine)

I don’t know if there is a more media rich area than the Northeast Corridor, and the nearest school in Omni’s list is Penn St and that team won’t stir much excitement in the NYC/Boston area

20

I’m not sure what Illinois adds that Notre Dame doesn’t already have in spades, even by the somewhat objective measurements used in this thread. Enrollment size seems trivial, especially since the OP wanted to add exclusivity to the list.