LOL - Great blog on FSU to Big 12, hilarious espeically this

May 10, 2012, 1:49 PM

part:

If you're one of the many who doesn't think academic reputation matters to
conference expansion, let me enlighten you.

Why were Texas A&M and Missouri invited to join the SEC? There were many
reasons and one of the biggest was the membership of those two schools in
the prestigious Association of American Universities. The SEC not only
wanted to improve its collective television markets with the addition of the
Aggies and Tigers, it wanted to improve its academic clout.

Why was neither the SEC nor ACC interested in adding West Virginia
University despite its strong athletic department? Why has the University
of Louisville been left behind in this recent round of expansion? Neither
WVU nor UL possesses a strong enough academic reputation to be courted by
any conference aside from the scholastically puny Big 12.

Chadd Scott -

If you're reading this you've heard the "FSU (and Clemson) to Big 12"
rumors. I'm typically able to ignore similar nonsense which breeds on
college football's scum-covered basement of message boards. The difference
here is that I've made a name for myself being right about conference
realignment due to my ability to understand the multi-faceted nature of
these moves and feel a duty to end this foolishness.

With that in mind, here are reasons Florida State University (and Clemson)
will NEVER join the Big 12:

.Academics. The people spreading these rumors don't possess degrees from
the universities whose futures they want to determine. To them, these are
"teams," not "universities." Florida State is first and foremost a
UNIVERSITY, not a football team. The individuals who ultimately would make
a decision of this gravity - the university president and board of trustees
- are highly educated people, many FSU graduates, who understand athletics
is a piece (an important piece, but not the whole purpose) of an overall
university mission.
In the 2012 U.S. News and World Report rankings of American colleges and
universities the ACC stood head and shoulders above all other BCS
conferences with an average ranking of 43.25. That ranking stands almost 30
places higher than the next highest for any conference and a country mile
ahead of the Big 12 whose average placement was 100.3. In language as
simple as I can make it, NO UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT OR BOARD OF TRUSTEES WILL
EVER LEAVE AN ASSOCIATION WITH SCHOOLS LIKE DUKE, UNC, WAKE FOREST, MIAMI,
GEORGIA TECH, BOSTON COLLEGE AND VIRGINIA IN FAVOR OF ONE WITH TEXAS TECH,
OKLAHOMA STATE, WEST VIRGINIA AND KANSAS STATE.

If you're one of the many who doesn't think academic reputation matters to
conference expansion, let me enlighten you.

Why were Texas A&M and Missouri invited to join the SEC? There were many
reasons and one of the biggest was the membership of those two schools in
the prestigious Association of American Universities. The SEC not only
wanted to improve its collective television markets with the addition of the
Aggies and Tigers, it wanted to improve its academic clout.

Why was neither the SEC nor ACC interested in adding West Virginia
University despite its strong athletic department? Why has the University
of Louisville been left behind in this recent round of expansion? Neither
WVU nor UL possesses a strong enough academic reputation to be courted by
any conference aside from the scholastically puny Big 12. With its athletic
excellence, industry-leading facilities, brand value, resources, charm and
ownership of a medium sized TV market if it weren't for academic reputation
the University of Louisville would have joined the SEC, ACC or Big 10 long
ago. (This is not to say UL is a bad school; it's a fine school whose
mission has been largely about service to non-traditional college students
which accounts for its lower rankings. This is a long story I won't get
into here.)

Never was the influence of academics on conference expansion made more clear
than the Pac 12's refusal to add four Big 12 schools in the Fall of 2011.
Remember when it was a "done deal" that Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and
Oklahoma State were joining the Pac 12? They all wanted to go and Pac 12
Commissioner Larry Scott wanted them in, but the presidents at his member
institutions told him "no" - emphatically. Despite the new TV markets it
would have opened up, despite the cash windfall it would have presented,
despite the power of the Texas and Oklahoma brands, the presidents of great
academic institutions like Cal-Berkley, Stanford, UCLA, USC and Washington
said we're not letting Texas Tech and Oklahoma State into this conference.
Period.

Conference expansion involves multiple factors. Academics plays a larger
role than fans recognize. This is the number-one reason FSU will never join
the Big 12 and it's such a strong reason none others are needed.

.Big 2 Little 8. When fans discuss FSU moving to the Big 12 they often talk
about the excitement of football games and road trips to Texas and Oklahoma.
True enough. Texas and OU are two of the most powerful , prominent and
well-respected brands in all of college sports. These fans fail to
acknowledge there are eight other members in the league. Do road trips to
Lubbock and Waco, TX, Ames, IA and Morgantown, WV stack up favorably to
Atlanta, Boston, Charlottesville, and Chapel Hill? Fact is, once you get
past the Longhorns and Sooners the Big 12 is a stinker. In life you are the
company you keep and FSU's brand and reputation is vastly improved keeping
company with the current members of the ACC.
The Big 12 hasn't lost four of its best schools over the past two years
because it's a great place to be. Elite universities are fleeing the Big
12; why would FSU want to join it? If the Big 12 wasn't good enough for
Colorado, Nebraska, Texas A&M and Missouri - universities who lived in the
Big 12 for years, competed in it for years, recruited in it for years,
intimately understood the culture and political climate and are actually
located in its footprint - then it can't be good for Florida State. No
one's leaving the ACC despite what you read. The ACC is bedrock solid and
has been for years while the Big 12 in each of the past two summers has been
on the brink of extinction. Is it that hard for you to imagine something
similar happening during the next round of conference expansion in five or
six or eight or 10 years and seeing the Seminoles stuck in a Big 12 without
Texas? It isn't for me.

.Culture. Florida State is a Southeastern university. Despite the diversity
of its students and faculty, despite its national athletic brand, FSU is
Southern. The Big 12 is Western, Texas, Great Plains. Culturally, those
states, those people, those institutions and fans are vastly different from
Seminole fans. Different values, different ethics, different points of
view. Culturally, FSU is much more ACC than it ever would be Big 12. "Fit"
matters in life and conference affiliation.
The SEC and Big 10 are the two most powerful conferences in college football
and their power doesn't come from good football or big TV markets, it comes
from unity. Their power is derived from a shared set of beliefs, an "all
for one, one for all" mentality. A mentality the Big 12 has never shared
and never will. The disparate nature of the Big 12 schools and locations,
the imbalance of power between the Longhorns, the Sooners and the rest of
the league, its lack of a shared vision of the future or shared culture
makes the Big 12 weak in its bones. FSU (and Clemson) joining the Big 12
only creates more hodgepodge, more incongruity, less shared cultural values
and less cohesion and brotherhood. The ACC has divisions between its
membership, but they pale in comparison to those present in the Big 12.

FSU leaving the ACC for the Big 12 forever alters the course of the
University away from the Southeast and toward Texas and the Great Plains not
only in athletic competition, but in recruiting, student body composition
and a dozen other areas. Taking FSU out of the Southeast and dramatically
altering its culture, future and nature would be a terrible decision.

.All other sports. Big 12 football is better than ACC football. The ACC as
an overall athletic conference is today and always has been better than the
Big 12. In the 2010-2011 Learfield Sports Directors' Cup, a broad
measurement of a universities' overall athletic success for men's and
women's sports, the ACC had five members in the top 30 (Duke, North
Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Florida State) while the Big 12 had only
two (Oklahoma and Texas - Big 2 Little 8). Football stands as the most
important of all college sports in any way you want to measure it, but if
you're going to compete in other sports - and FSU is - you should seek to
compete at the highest level.
FSU's overall athletic success across all of its teams has never been
higher. Recently, FSU was the ONLY athletic department in the nation to
place all of its teams - 19 - into postseason play. Maybe FSU's recent
men's basketball tournament title, its track and field national
championships, its College World Series appearances, it's Olympians (all
achieved competing in the ACC) mean nothing to you; they mean a great deal
to many Seminole fans who have not yet lent their voices to this
conversation.

Join the Big 12, begin competing against inferior completion and watch the
best prospective student-athletes you bring on campus choose somewhere else
to play. A move to the Big 12 surely and in swift fashion leads to the
devaluation of every team on campus.

.Fan disengagement. If FSU moves to the Big 12 it faces the prospect of
its nearest conference rivals (aside from Clemson - making the huge
assumption they'd follow the Noles into this folly) being West Virginia 840
miles away and Texas 870 miles away. Additionally the Big 12 has a
nine-game conference football schedule. So does the ACC. I believe the SEC
will soon. This means a move by FSU to the Big 12 kills either the Miami or
Florida rivalry.
Put this all together: the academic devaluation, the collapse of the total
athletic department's success, the loss of rivalry games and cultural
discomfort generates massive fan disengagement. This disengagement results
in fewer fans at football, basketball and baseball games - home and away.
It results in long-time FSU fans becoming less connected to the University.
It results in FSU sports generating fewer dollars in the community. These
suddenly disengaged fans donate less money creating a funding void no beefy
football-driven TV contract can fill. Booster donations account for the
majority of money at the biggest athletic departments - FSU included, where
contributions accounted for $19.3 million in revenue while combined NCAA and
conference distributions accounted for just $13.8 million in 2010-2011.
Join the Big 12, disengage your fans, have your booster donations dry up and
FSU will find out what hard times really mean.

I am not against change. If FSU were presented an invitation to a better
conference than the ACC, namely the SEC, I would advise the Seminoles take
it. That invitation is not coming. I am also not blindly in love with the
ACC. I think the league needs fresh leadership. I think the conference
needs to address its shortcomings in football from dreadful officiating to a
lack of on-field success to a cockamamie divisional alignment immediately.
I think the ACC needs to be more ambitious, aggressive and innovative
telling its story and promoting its brand. Those changes would be best made
by FSU working from inside the conference, partnering with like-minded
institutions to steer the league on a more contemporary, football-minded
course.

Changing conferences is a generational decision. Its impacts are felt for
decades on both the athletic department and university at-large in a
multitude of ways few can envision. The message-boarders treat it with the
casualness of switching channels on TV. While not perfect, the ACC remains
an infinitely better athletic home for Florida State University than the Big
12 is now or ever will be.

Later this week I'll explain to you how the arguments of those promoting FSU
to join the Big 12 are based on false premises

Message was edited by: josephg®