Okay dead,
Can you point me to one article that talks about how Rutgers up’s the conferences profile due to it’s superior academics? Try not twisting what I said. What I said was that everything that is talked about in regards to why the Big 10 wants Rutgers is because it can deliver the New York City TV market for it’s Big 10 network.
I’m glad that they are graduating their football players. That’s a good thing. But that doesn’t point to good academics for it’s school. In your list you have Rutgers ahead of Northwestern and Duke. Do you really think that Rutgers is better than Northwestern and Duke academically?
PISCATAWAY — The timing couldn’t be better for Rutgers University to have its football program lauded for academic achievement.
Four days after Michigan State President Lou Anna K. Simon emphasized that academics – not just athletics — would play a large role in determining what schools would be a good fit to join the Big Ten, Rutgers’ marquee program achieved the NCAA’s highest academic honor.
“”I think Rutgers has always had a great reputation academically — I know they have – not only here in New Jersey but nationally,” Rutgers football coach Greg Schiano said after his program topped all Football Bowl Subdivision members with a score of 992. “”I think as we do this as a football program and as an athletic department, then it also gives our athletes a great reputation. That I think is important as well.”
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Michigan State’s Simon, who chairs the Big Ten Council of Presidents/Chancellors, stressed that academics would play a large role in determining what schools would be a good fit to join the Big Ten.
“”This is more than teams playing teams,” she said. “”I can’t emphasize that enough about the Big Ten and the approach the Big Ten is taking.”
If academics is key a criteria for admission, Rutgers fits the Big Ten profile in that, like each of the 11 current Big Ten institutions, it is a member of the Association of American Universities. The Big Ten, the only Division I conference to have all its schools affiliated with the AAU, is reportedly looking at institutions that are members of the association consisting of 63 leading research universities.
“”With much more sophisticated analysis of the sense of ‘fit,’ but academics has not been much of the conversation (by the media),” Simon said. “”Most of the people in the room were provosts before they were presidents, so it’s a group that is perfectly capable of making very sophisticated judgments on academics. If anything, we obsess about that.”
That may be good news for Rutgers, which is widely believed to be on the shortlist of schools under consideration by the Big Ten.
You're right about that, but you also don't understand the big picture. Rutgers gets ratings when they're winning and they don't when they're not. Like most sports teams.
But the key for the Big 10 is the fees they'll collect if they can get on the basic television packages in the NY metro area. It could amount to tens of millions of dollars for the conference.
Can you list the non-monetary reasons any of these realignments are taking place? Is Oklahoma moving to improve its academic credentials? Is the Big Ten after Notre Dame because of its historical significance to the game?
College football is about money. Has been for about the last thirty or forty years.