Louisville’s place in the new conference alignment
by HendoCard on Apr 20, 2010 1:41 PM EDT
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PrintI have a hard time believing that if any Big East school were offered by the Big Ten, they wouldn’t go. It looks like they are looking for (at least) three schools. Best case scenario for the BE, we lose two schools (Rutgers, Syracuse, Pittsburgh).
So, that leaves the BE with five or six members trying to add more, while at the same time the SEC and ACC looking to expand. What happens to Louisville?
UConn is gone to the ACC. WVU fits the profile of the SEC (if they don’t try to pick up two from Texas). I don’t think either one would rather be in a conference with Memphis, ECU and Southern Miss. I would not be very excited about CUSA 2.0 myself. No offense to them, but I just don’t see Cincy or USF getting and invites at this time.
That maybe leaves a spot for us in the ACC or the SEC.
Would we be better off in the ACC, the new Big East, or the SEC?
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ideally...
we are a better fit in the sec. geographically it works. but we aren’t a land grant school. we know one school would be against us.
what scares me is what happens if wvu goes. a core of uc, wvu, uofl, and usf could survive if they brought in a couple more schools. bottomfeeders even. but wvu is the keystone in any conference survival.
by jcarti01 on Apr 20, 2010 2:34 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
speaking personally....I would love to see you guys get into the SEC........
And I honestly would believe more UK supporters than not would like to see it happen as well……It really is a natural fit in terms of geography, TV Markets, and what you guys bring to the table. Up and coming Football, with established Basketball….Bringing in you guys and WVU would be a nice addition…..if it could happen
I AM THE CAT......The Cat In The Hat!!!
Absolutely agree
If WVU stays, we have a good shot at holding this thing together. But if the Big Ten goes to 14 or more, the SEC and ACC can’t be far behind. You know where they will go first.
I wouldn't assume Kentucky would be against Louisville
When Florida State was considering the SEC their biggest supporter was Florida.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
"But How will I know limits from lies, if I never try."
by geoffissiffoeg on Apr 20, 2010 7:35 PM EDT up reply actions
For real
2 Kentucky-Louisville games a year potentially? Plus the fans willingness to travel would mean the SEC Tournament would be made up of a highly vocal number of Kentuckians.
There are only three options I think we could be satisfied with
1. Big East stays together in some form & doesn’t lose BCS membership (no one knows yet)
2. We join the SEC (seems unlikely)
3. We join the ACC (seems even more unlikely)
I think we might be fucked/heading back to C-USA
Fuck the Big 10(11).
the 16 basketball conference is what is screwing the football conference over. We have room to add a team or 2 in football, but unless we kick a few teams out because of basketball, it won’t happen.
Tough spot
I was happy to see UofL move to the Big East, because believe it or not, but not all Kentucky fans hate Louisville and Louisville deserves better than C-USA.
Personally, I think UofL has a better chance of getting into the ACC than the SEC. Geographically the SEC is a better fit but in the end it all comes down to money. When expanding a conference one of (if not the primary) concern is TV dollars. The conferences want to expand into new and bigger markets to increase their haul from the networks and right now Kentucky already dominates the television market in the state. Adding UofL to the SEC doesn’t bring a larger TV market to the SEC.
It is a tough spot you are in.
I agree but
ESPN has changed the equation. It is now all about market share.
If Vanderbilt wasn’t a founding member of the SEC, I believe they would get the boot.
Louisville is actually a very profitable program
and with the new arena coming into play, as well as the very positive reaction to hiring Charlie Strong, I doubt that we would be a school that gets left out in the cold. ACC or SEC, if the Big East disbands, we will not be back in C-USA. Not with what we have to offer. Profit wise and Ratings wise.
Worst case
Big Ten takes Pitt, Rutgers and Missouri(?).
Big East adds Memphis and ECU.
SEC gets big state school WVU and one from Big 12 (A&M or OSU?).
Big East adds Southern Miss.
ACC wants 14 and takes ‘Cuse and UConn.
Getting desperate, Big East adds UCF and Marshall?
Louisville, Cincinnati, USF, Memphis, ECU, Southern Miss, UCF, and Marshall
Tell me this conference deserves a BCS bid.
Best case, three go to Big Ten and we still have a lifeboat from this sinking ship.
We could grab
Boise State out of the WAC if it weren’t way out in Idaho.
by REALISTICCARDSFAN on Apr 20, 2010 9:47 PM EDT up reply actions
How ever it all goes down we will be alright....
Were a solid sell to any of the other power conferences… We hover around the top when in comes to bringing in revenue, Our facilities are just as nice or better than any school in the nation, we have a tradition rich basketball program and we have Tom Jurich who can sell sand to the beach so will be alright. The teams that should be worried are Cincinnatti and South Florida.
I personaly thing when everything said and done....
The ACC will pick up us and West Virginia on its way to becoming a 16 team super conference
Seems like a better fit
I grew up an SEC fan. Still follow my parents’ alma mater. That said, the ACC just feels like the better place for Louisville.
PJCS is a nice big stadium that most schools would love to have, and tailgating in Louisville is great. However, anyone who has been to Neyland stadium or to "The Grove" to tailgate knows that it is just plain not the same. We are talking about teams that have 90,000 plus come out for a SPRING game.
No one in the SEC respects UK because no one cares about basketball. Why do you think they have won so many conference championships? I don’t want to be another UK. I think we would be happier in a more balanced ACC.
According to the CJ article
1. No Big East team can leave for like 27 months after they declare they want to leave. Or 24, can’t remember. But it gives us PLENTY of time to come up with a contingency plan.
2. SEC and ACC aren’t looking to expand right now. If Big 11 snags some teams, that might change, but for right now, going to the SEC and ACC aren’t an option.
Just dreaming here, but wouldn’t it be awesome to be in SEC and play Kentucky 2 times a year with much more hype? I feel like then we could rightfully have our rivalry compared to Duke-UNC
by Chris Redman is my hero on Apr 20, 2010 4:35 PM EDT reply actions
I disagree
Personally, I think the rivalry is strengthened by only playing once a year.
As I heard someone state about the Duke-UNC rivalry, “If Duke loses to UNC, the students just shrug their shoulders and watch some more Battlestar Gallactica because they know they will get another shot at it.”
If either of our teams lose, you have a whole year to let it stew.
I would rather see UofL in the SEC instead of C-USA for UofL’s sake, but I don’t think it would be good for the rivalry.
Anybody else bored
with all this? Every decade it seems there’s some ridiculous shake down of conferences. It’s just about making $2 instead of $1. At this point I long for the days we were in the Metro in basketball and a ‘major’ independent in football..and I don’t believe those were the good ol’ days either.
Maddie in Portland, Oregon
A little of subject but if any of you haven't seen the video of new Louisville commit Robert Terrell I have one posted in the fan shots.....
6"1 250 linebacker/fullback…….This kid is an absolute beast…..
Here's what I've heard/seen repeatedly...
If the Big Televen goes to 16, they’ll take in ND, UConn, Syracuse, Rutgers, and Pitt.
The ACC might see it beneficial to them to go up to 16 and maybe start a tv network ala Big Televen Network and take in WVU, Cinci, UofL, and USF.
Now this is in an ideal world but I think we’ll have to wait for the Big 10, Pac 10, Big 12, SEC, and ACC to make their moves or non-moves before we know anything.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
"But How will I know limits from lies, if I never try."
Big 10(11) isn't taking ND.
Because ND will say no. Their TV contract, national schedule, and their BCS arrangements are too good to dumb for the Big 10(11).
by CardinalDude on Apr 20, 2010 7:45 PM EDT up reply actions
They're strongly considering it
and would be willing to go tothe Big 10 due to their TV contract. Their TV deal runs through 2015 but can likely be terminated or amended to cover other Big Te-whatever they’ll be named games.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
"But How will I know limits from lies, if I never try."
by geoffissiffoeg on Apr 20, 2010 8:04 PM EDT up reply actions
wrong here I think
Notre Dame can double it’s TV revenue by going to Big ten Best case scenario is a Big 12 team, Notre Dame, and a Big East team, we can pick up East Carolina, or Memphis and still be OK. Any more than 1 team and Big East is in trouble
I just don't understand the Rutgers talk...
because…
Rutgers Football – They’ve literally done nothing in the history of their program. Sure they’ve won 4 straight bowls, the best being the Papajohns.com Bowl and they ALMOST won the Big East in 2006. Their all time record is only 9 games above .500 all time. That’s not Big Ten quality football. I’m not saying UofL is the greatest program of all time or a great match for big ten football but at least we’ve won a BCS game, Won the Fiesta Bowl and have had more than five years of winning football in our schools history.
Rutgers Basketball – One Final Four in 1976 which also happens to be their only sweet 16 appearance too. They’ve were the NIT runner up 5 years ago. They’ve only been to the Tourney six times.
Rutgers Women’s Basketball – Okay, they’re pretty good. But still, they aren’t UConn or Tennessee, so who really cares. They’re more famous for being called Nappy Headed Hoes by Don Imus than they are for their basketball playing abilities.
Rutgers Baseball won the Big East tourney in 2007… Still, they’re not very good.
OVERALL – I would currently give the Rutgers athletic program a C-… all time a solid D.
Rutgers Academics – Not terrible but doesn’t seem to be anything special really.
Okay so that really leaves one thing…
The New York/New Jersey Market… Sure, the largest market in the United States… but I must beg the question… do that many people in New York City really care that much about Rutgers athletics. If anything I would assume that many people in NYC would root for Syracuse over Rutgers. I bet Rutgers Athletics isn’t exactly a ratings monster by any means. NYC is a pro-sports town, and always will be.
Them considering Rutgers has nothing to do with the perfomance on the field and the court....
Its all about money for there t.v network… Bringing in Rutgers will give them a New Jersey, New York T.V market
I know that
which is why i mentioned that in the bottom paragraph of my post.
I get the idea behind it but how many of those New Yorkers actually watch Rutgers Athletics. If I were the Big Ten, I’d go for Maryland, Boston College or Pitt… Three large markets… two of them absolutely huge and at least people watch college athletics in those markets.
by AllHailUofL on Apr 20, 2010 11:28 PM EDT up reply actions
No one in New York watches Rutgers sports
I am UofL fan and graduate, but born and raised in New York. One of the reasons I came to UofL because no one in New York cares about college sports. St. Johns has poor numbers for basketball, and there is little love for college football in the area. Pro Sports dominate New York and New Jersey. Even the avid college football fans do not follow Rutgers. We grew up watching Notre Dame because they are on tv every Saturday or watching Big Ten teams.
I’d be shocked if Rutgers TV ratings in the area are good at all.
by CardinalSin2 on Apr 21, 2010 10:13 AM EDT up reply actions
Do they need to watch it, though?
All the Big Ten network needs is for the NY cable providers to be forced to add their network to the cable package. I can’t imagine there are a ton of IU fans interested in watching the Big Ten network in Louisville, for example, but apparently there were enough that Insight had to add that to the cable lineup.
You don’t need millions of people watching the conference teams to make the TV money that can come with them.
by CardinalEmpire.com on Apr 21, 2010 4:15 PM EDT up reply actions
The ACC would be !!!NICE!!!
Its like no matter who we beat or what we do there’s always some talking head knocking the cards. Really would be nice to dominant the likes of Duke and Carolina. We’d be knee deep in the mix.
by bjack357 on Apr 20, 2010 8:52 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
ACC and Big Ten Very Unlikely
Every time Louisville gets floated as a possible candidate for the ACC or the Big Ten, people familiar with both conferences raise an argument against our candidacy that we cannot seem to rebut: academic standards. Whether this is justified is another matter, but the top brass in both the ACC and the Big Ten feel that U of L’s undergraduate academic credentials do not measure up to their standards. Personally, I think this argument is overblown, and that these two conferences have an inflated opinion of themselves. Both the Big Ten and the ACC have some excellent schools, but Clemson is not exactly Harvard, Yale, or Stanford, and neither is Michigan State.
Money drives a lot, and we obviously have the facilities and the fan base to attract interest from any conference, but the Big Ten and the ACC are not going to call as long as they consider academics an issue. I’m not saying this is fair, but that’s the way it goes.
By the way
I would love to be wrong about this. I am just summarizing the same old argument I have seen from numerous media outlets over the last few years.
Here is a quote from an article by Forde a few years back. Full article here: http://a.espncdn.com/ncf/columns/forde_pat/1574888.html
“As for issue No. 2, the ACC: Forget about it. Louisville fits the ACC academic profile the way a thong fits Nate Newton. According to NCAA academic reports, Louisville’s average general-student graduation rates over its most recent four classes is 10 percent in four years and 31 percent in six years.
Simply put, the urban commuter school’s academic mission has nothing in common with the missions at Duke, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Virginia.
Now, it could be argued that Florida State was hardly a Harvard-level addition to the ACC, and that Miami and Virginia Tech were lesser academic institutions than the spurned twosome of Boston College and Syracuse. It’s true that academics is not driving the ACC expansion bus, but at some point presidents at the league’s ivy-walled institutions will put on the brakes.
Louisville is that point."
Right On
Overall graduation rates is one of the key drivers in student recruitment. It’s how they (ACC/Big 10) get out of state students to pay big bucks to attend. It’s how they position the brand for research dollars. This is a big problem for administrators to grapple with when looking at the potential revenues that UofL could bring to the table. At the end of the day I believe their brand is just fine without the cards and they will act accordingly.
True Story
as a former member of SGA at UofL, I can tell your our graduation rate is terrible. Half of it is because undergraduate advising is a joke. No one knows what classes they have to take or how many they need to take at one time to graduate in 4 years. By the time most kids figure it out what they need, they also realize they’ll have to stay an extra year or so it get it. I blame the state government, who has put a ton of money into UofL to make it a premier “research institution” but largely neglected the undergrads, primarily the largest group of undergrad, Arts and Sciences, who’s tuition money actually nets profit for the school, except it goes elsewhere to pay for the other school that don’t support themselves.
I tried to work on a solution to this problem by telling the administration that they should make the backboard shells for majors and give students online checklists to keep up with what classes they need to take, but it was during budget cuts and no one really listened to me. Also, they had a program called “Backpack” in the works, which should be released very soon, which should give students a more clear path to graduation (i.e. what classes they need to take to graduate with a major and degree), unless this has been canceled or further postponed since I graduated (in May 2008 they were telling me it would be released in 2010 or 2011).
by REALISTICCARDSFAN on Apr 20, 2010 10:08 PM EDT up reply actions
I could not agree with you more.
My advisor liked to tell me to take a certain class, then when trying to sign up for said class I learned that it wasn’t available that semester.
by CardinalDude on Apr 21, 2010 7:30 AM EDT up reply actions
Speed has checklists
Those checklists and semester advising really helped me determine when I could graduate, esp when I was “out of phase” from normal students due to my Army reserve training.
I love your idea with an actual checklist you can see completed online (though you could do that with an excel sheet yourself)… seems like something they could do on ulink now that registration is all online now.
Yeah
A lot of the other school have better advising. Even the honors student and athletes do. The “Backpack” program is supposed to work through ulink and automatically check off student’s classes after they take them. It’s also supposed to let students see what classes they’d have to take if they switched major. It actually sounded and probably will be pretty awesome if they ever implement it. I suggested the blackboard thing as a bridge to use until then, but I think they were worried it’d somehow upset that plan.
by REALISTICCARDSFAN on Apr 21, 2010 10:02 AM EDT up reply actions
cant argue
i graduated from business school and they seemed to have their stuff together. We had the same advisor the whole time we were there and she kept a copy of a checklist that we went over every year as to how many and what classes i need to take next.
but you’re right arts & sciences is a joke.
Conference Affiliation
I do not believe the SEC or the ACC will invite Louisville to join. However, no one should discount the Big 12. If the Big 12 loses Missouri (possible) and Colorado (likely), Louisville could be a reasonable addition. Louisville’s sports programs are stronger than the remaining MWC universities (Utah will depart for the Pac-10/12). Playing Kansas regularly in basketball and Texas in football could be exciting.
Not saying this is a likely scenario
but if the other option is C-USA 2.0, do you really think travel expenses wouldn’t be worth joining the Big 12
Neither case
If we didn’t join the ACC or SEC, I actually think we might be independent until a BCS conference picks us up. I don’t see CUSA as a realistic option.
between the two, the furthest west in c-usa is el paso, texas. the furthest west in the big 12 i believe is boulder, co. unless cincy goes to the big 12 as well, i think the best option may well be stay independant because c-usa is a step down and with the big 12, the closest conference member would either be missouri or iowa state, which is a bit of travel. no member in the big 12 is in the eastern time zone.
I dont think travel expenses would be a problem...
Look at the places we travel now….Rutgers, UCONN- Syracuse, Seaton Hall, Providence Villanova etc ….. I actually think geographically the big 12 make little more sense… Outside the Texas teams travel wouldnt be that bad due the fact u got quite a few midwestern teams in there
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