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T.J. Beck's avatar

Great stuff John! She seems like a great person! But she needs to look at OSU’s endowment (smallest in the pac 12 at $819.6 million). She needs football and basketball to be a university at the D1 level going forward. In other words, money/football makes it that and the small endowment level states that fact glaringly. I get the prestige of being an academic first university league. But, as an engineering and ag school she needs to really really focus on athletics to maintain that “academic” prowess at the D1 level. She literally can’t afford not to. She needs to run it like a business. “We share a culture of academics”. Ok. But going broke won’t help share those values. Pay attention to the straw that stirs the drink… a lot more, and little less about the kumbaya of shared values.

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Feb 28, 2023
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John Canzano's avatar

You may be right. 30 years from now... it will be dramatically different. Maybe even 7-8.

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The Miami Ute's avatar

My dad used to say that everything has an expiration date and I firmly believe that's going to apply to the current state of college football. I think that eventually, you'll have a 30-40 team Super Conference and that the academic blue-bloods will tap out. Oh, places like Stanford, Cal, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, etc...will still play football but most likely at the NAIA or club level. So, instead of having football players that are students, you'll have students that occasionally play football.

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SonoranJeff's avatar

The framework that you outlined is probably correct. But just so we know the actual reality of what you just said, let’s put some real numbers to your 30-40 team Super Conference (s), and see the ramifications it holds.

Presently, the athletic divisions of NCAA are split into D1 FBS, D1 FCS, D2 and D3.

D1 FBS has 134 teams in 10 conferences, further split into two clusters: Power 5 & Group of 5. 69 teams and 5 conferences are in Power 5, 64 schools in Group of 5 with 5 conferences. These schools get 85 scholly players. Division 1 FCS has 125 teams with 15 conferences. D1 FCS schools can offer 63 schollies.

D2 is 169 teams playing in 17 conferences. They can offer up to 36 schollies, frequentlysplit into partials to cover more players. D3 has 246 teams with 28 conferences. There are no athletic scholarships in D3 ball. Many D2 teams are not readily recognizable to many college fans. Most assuredly the D3 schools are pretty incognito for the most part. Texas high school football may well have better fields and facilities than D3 colleges.

Now the question becomes “What will happen to the 29 or so teams in D1 FBS Power 5 ball that do NOT go into the Superconference?” Logic would dictate that they would join the now called Group of 5 schools and add 2 additional conferences which means that D1 FBS Group of 7 would have 93 schools playing with 85 scholarship players. Some of the schools could drop down to D1 FCS (like Idaho) but in all liklihood they stay put.

As for what divides these programs… money and scholarships.

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MichPop's avatar

You do realize that Stanford (along w/ USC and ucla) are in the top 10 of overall championships in NCAA as well as top 25 academics. Also, Northwestern and Vandy are in strong athletics conferences and are not going anywhere. It is more likely that the remaining PAC and BIG 12 schools not named Stanford or maybe UW, without elite overall athletics or academics, will fade into a second tier while the top tier will consist of an academically elite power B10 vs the more athletic focused SEC. If you watch the Olympics, both USC and Stanford typically perform within the top 5 countries in medal counts

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