One Positive Thing About PAC 12

Normally I am a PAC 12 fan - but their snobbery finally got to me with them doing the U in your face thing even though I am normally a U fan second only to Y.



Lately, I have enjoyed their struggles.





One very positive thing about this conference - tems and programs rise and fall. Sure USC rarely falls, but they do on occasion.b Oregon has not always been at the top. It is hard to imagine Colorado coming out of the bottom any time soon - but then they too had occasionally glory in the Big 12.



This year - we have seen Stanford struggle - out of Luck, I guess. WSU may or may not climb out of the basement this year - but with Leach, hope springs eternal.



But Wow. UCLA seems to have begun a resurgence. And Wow - Arizona. Arizona. Is Anae still there. Wasn't he focused on the running game there? And Wow.v Simply Wow. How quickly BYU fans wrote of OSU. These programs seem to be on the rise as U, Stanford, and others fall.



That makes things interesting.



Other than that - If PAC had more brains and less arrogance - PAC 16 - add BYU, BSU, AFA, and UH or UNR or try to coax TCU or another Big 12 team to break rank.

One of the reasons given by the PAC-12 for taking Utah and Colorado over BYU was "academics". I know this really translates to research, because for real "academics" there is no comparison. See this quote from Star L.:



"Once a BYU commit, Lotuleilei simply didn't have the grades to qualify.



"I wasn't close at all," he said of his Bingham High grades and test scores. "I had a low ACT (score) and a low GPA (grade point average). I was just trying to graduate at that point."



It's easier to get a scholarship at the U than it is to GET IN at BYU. If that costs us a few players, I'm OK with that.

Star went to Snow College and was actually going to give up football. The coach at Snow convinced him to play (he may not have even played the entire first year down there while he decided whether to play or not). BYU isn't in the habit of re-recruiting academic non-qualifiers.

The main snobbery about academics - probably heightened by liberal or religious bigotry comes from CAL, Stanford - mainly - and maybe USC, UCLA, and UW to a lesser extent.



U has no undergraduate academic snobbery - no basis for it at an undergraduate level. Pretty good MBA program - but not better than Y. Ditto for Law School.



Med School and PHD programs - U has an edge over Y.



But undergraduate - for most majors - Y wins. U is bottom half of PAC - definitely bottom half. Probably lower quartile.

...Med School and PHD programs - U has an edge over Y....



Was this one of them:

Stanley Pons is an electrochemist and former chair of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Utah. He is best known for his work with Martin Fleischmann, specifically their 1989 media announcement of the discovery of cold fusion. After other scientists failed to replicate Pons and Fleischman’s results (especially an MIT team whose work was much publicized), the pair were ridiculed and their "discovery" was deemed a hoax...

Yep.

Cougarbib wrote:
The main snobbery about academics - probably heightened by liberal or religious bigotry comes from CAL, Stanford - mainly - and maybe USC, UCLA, and UW to a lesser extent.



U has no undergraduate academic snobbery - no basis for it at an undergraduate level. Pretty good MBA program - but not better than Y. Ditto for Law School.



Med School and PHD programs - U has an edge over Y.



But undergraduate - for most majors - Y wins. U is bottom half of PAC - definitely bottom half. Probably lower quartile.

This is what cracks me up. For how little academics count in an ATHLETIC conference, graduate programs and research count even less. From a purely undergraduate focus and undergraduate quality of education , very few schools compare with BYU. That's why BYU is top-10 for grads who get PhDs.



Our total research funding may only be a fraction of Utah's, as well as many other Pac-12 schools, but we have some incredible undergraduate mentored research programs that most schools don't have.



Of course none of that matters because we all know the real reason BYU didn't get the invite...

Cougarbib wrote:
Other than that - If PAC had more brains and less arrogance - PAC 16 - add BYU, BSU, AFA, and UH or UNR or try to coax TCU or another Big 12 team to break rank.

Honestly, I don't see BYU joining the Pac-12. That conference is far too liberal and arrogant--I don't think they will change their mindset. So, unless they change, BYU wouldn't like the environment, and the Pac-12 wouldn't really like having us in there.

tmoney35 wrote:
This is what cracks me up. For how little academics count in an ATHLETIC conference, graduate programs and research count even less.

You'd be surprised about how much academics do count. In the last round of expansion, the Big Ten limited their expansion candidates to AAU schools only, which is why Missouri, Pitt, Rutgers, and Syracuse were mentioned as candidates along with Nebraska (though Nebraska was booted from the AAU after joining the Big Ten, supposedly because their med school is on a different campus).



In Big Ten country, most people believed that when it came down to selecting a conference cozy up to, would Notre Dame give at least some weight to academic considerations. That's why Notre Dame to the ACC over the Big 12 hasn't been too big of a surprise to many--ND would much rather be with schools with strong academic reputations like Duke, UVa, UNC, BC, Wake, and Ga Tech.



The primary concern for Notre Dame of course is that they like to be in control and the ACC would grant them the most control. But I think the academics helped confirm the decision for Notre Dame.

Mingjai wrote:

This is what cracks me up. For how little academics count in an ATHLETIC conference, graduate programs and research count even less.

You'd be surprised about how much academics do count. In the last round of expansion, the Big Ten limited their expansion candidates to AAU schools only, which is why Missouri, Pitt, Rutgers, and Syracuse were mentioned as candidates along with Nebraska (though Nebraska was booted from the AAU after joining the Big Ten, supposedly because their med school is on a different campus).



In Big Ten country, most people believed that when it came down to selecting a conference cozy up to, would Notre Dame give at least some weight to academic considerations. That's why Notre Dame to the ACC over the Big 12 hasn't been too big of a surprise to many--ND would much rather be with schools with strong academic reputations like Duke, UVa, UNC, BC, Wake, and Ga Tech.



The primary concern for Notre Dame of course is that they like to be in control and the ACC would grant them the most control. But I think the academics helped confirm the decision for Notre Dame.

I understand that conferences look at things like that when making alignment decisions, I just think it makes the potential quality of football games suffer.



Of the stated reasons why BYU wouldn't fit in to the PAC-12, from their perspective and ours, ZERO of them have anything to do with football. Personally, I would LOVE being in the PAC-12. We have history against many of those teams. Some from the old WAC and more recently, from our long stretch of Las Vegas Bowls, plus the fact that we play one or two PAC teams every year. The PAC-12 geographically has a MUCH higher LDS population than any other conference, and many us of have family in some those areas, or are at least more familiar with the regions where the PAC schools are compared to other regions of the country.



I couldn't care less about the arrogant, liberal, atheistic, bigot, d-bag administrators in PAC-12 because they're not the ones playing the games (though that does give a pretty funny mental picture).



All the factors that go into deciding athletic conferences that have nothing to do with athletics makes the product on the field suffer.

As a life long west coaster I have always had a soft spot for the Pac 12, but the BYU snub really turned me off.



I got a chuckle out of Ivan Maisel's article on the success of the recent additions to the Pac-12.



Oh by the way, by new additions he means coaches. In an article full of praise for Larry Scott and the Pac 12 Utah and Colorado were not mentioned once.

BYUby40 wrote:
...Med School and PHD programs - U has an edge over Y....



Was this one of them:

Stanley Pons is an electrochemist and former chair of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Utah. He is best known for his work with Martin Fleischmann, specifically their 1989 media announcement of the discovery of cold fusion. After other scientists failed to replicate Pons and Fleischman’s results (especially an MIT team whose work was much publicized), the pair were ridiculed and their "discovery" was deemed a hoax...

Yep.

U certainly whiffed on that one. But, if you ever want a PHD - BYU does not offer nearly as many doctoral programs and has no Medical school. But other than these two things Y > U academics and it ain't close. And since it is undergraduates playing football - for the most part - and not PHD or Med students - these things seem irrelevant.



But remember we are talking about snobbery and bigotry - not fairness, equity, and logic.

tmoney35 wrote:

tmoney35 wrote:
This is what cracks me up. For how little academics count in an ATHLETIC conference, graduate programs and research count even less.

You'd be surprised about how much academics do count. In the last round of expansion, the Big Ten limited their expansion candidates to AAU schools only, which is why Missouri, Pitt, Rutgers, and Syracuse were mentioned as candidates along with Nebraska (though Nebraska was booted from the AAU after joining the Big Ten, supposedly because their med school is on a different campus).



In Big Ten country, most people believed that when it came down to selecting a conference cozy up to, would Notre Dame give at least some weight to academic considerations. That's why Notre Dame to the ACC over the Big 12 hasn't been too big of a surprise to many--ND would much rather be with schools with strong academic reputations like Duke, UVa, UNC, BC, Wake, and Ga Tech.



The primary concern for Notre Dame of course is that they like to be in control and the ACC would grant them the most control. But I think the academics helped confirm the decision for Notre Dame.

I understand that conferences look at things like that when making alignment decisions, I just think it makes the potential quality of football games suffer.



Of the stated reasons why BYU wouldn't fit in to the PAC-12, from their perspective and ours, ZERO of them have anything to do with football. Personally, I would LOVE being in the PAC-12. We have history against many of those teams. Some from the old WAC and more recently, from our long stretch of Las Vegas Bowls, plus the fact that we play one or two PAC teams every year. The PAC-12 geographically has a MUCH higher LDS population than any other conference, and many us of have family in some those areas, or are at least more familiar with the regions where the PAC schools are compared to other regions of the country.



I couldn't care less about the arrogant, liberal, atheistic, bigot, d-bag administrators in PAC-12 because they're not the ones playing the games (though that does give a pretty funny mental picture).



All the factors that go into deciding athletic conferences that have nothing to do with athletics makes the product on the field suffer.

We do not play 1 or 2 PAC teams per year. We play 2 or 3. We get to count U now. They are PAC. Banners to prove it.



Cheating a bit on my numbers U, and UW in 2010 1-1.



Iirc - we played 2 and went 1-1 in 2011. U, OSU,

2012 brings us WSU, U, and OSU. We could go all the way. Too bad we did not schedule U's new rival - Colorado - we might go 4-0.



We compete better in PAC than U does. The only way to keep making that clear is to keep beating PAC teams. If U will not play us - replace them with Colorado.



I would love to see an arrangement - formal or informal - that got us 4 or 5 PAC games per year playing Colorado, Utah, Arizona, ASU, OSU, WSU, UW, CAL, UCLA, or Stanford. Then maybe USC or Oregon in a BCS Bowl.

Colorado would hurt our SOS but the PAC Ads would love a scheduling agreement with us for 3-4 games each year.