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CU has rejoined the Big 12 and broken college football - talking out asses continues
- Thread starter InTheBuff
- Start date
If Kansas Football said that they would invest everything humanly possible to be relevant to along with their blueblood basketball program, I hate to say it, but the Kansas City market and KU makes a lot of sense for the B1G
KC market is #33 (919k) with Denver #17 (1.63M). https://www.lyonspr.com/latest-nielsen-dma-rankings/amp/
Kansas population is 2.9M while Colorado is twice that at 5.8M. Further, KS grew at 2.97% from 2010-2020 while CO grew at 14.8%. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
KU's endowment is $2.2B while CU's is $2.1B with KU having 27.6k students and CU having 37.9k students. KU's academic staff is 2,663 while CU's is 3,547. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Kansas
University of Colorado Boulder - Wikipedia
CU is in a much larger metro within a much larger state with a much higher growth rate. CU is also a significantly larger university.
Both AAU and similar on academic prestige.
KU has a significantly better basketball program and the brand/following from that. Lawrence, KS, is also a more drivable road trip for original B1G members than Boulder, CO.
Conclusion: KU only beats CU for B1G membership if basketball and contiguous geography are what is driving conference expansion decisions.
Lol KU doesn’t matter at all
My point was that KU's football was such an embarrassment that they were such a one-legged possibility, but with a football program waking up, and any level of massive commitment to it, then who knows? Pay Liepold like $9 million a year and put them in the B1G and yee hah. Kansas Basketball is at a top 5 level all the time, and thus it has more value throughout the marketing stratosphere for ESPN and others.KC market is #33 (919k) with Denver #17 (1.63M). https://www.lyonspr.com/latest-nielsen-dma-rankings/amp/
Kansas population 2.9M is while Colorado is twice that at 5.8M. Further, KS grew at 2.97% from 2010-2020 while CO grew at 14.8%. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
KU's endowment is $2.2B while CU's is $2.1B with KU having 27.6k students and CU having 37.9k students. KU's academic staff is 2,663 while CU's is 3,547. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Kansas
University of Colorado Boulder - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
CU is in a much larger metro within a much larger state with a much higher growth rate. CU is also a significantly larger university.
Both AAU and similar on academic prestige.
KU has a significantly better basketball program and the brand/following from that. Lawrence, KS, is also a more drivable road trip for original B1G members than Boulder, CO.
Conclusion: KU only beats CU for B1G membership if basketball and contiguous geography are what is driving conference expansion decisions.
This is where an irrelevant CU Football drops us below a KU, but I would normally still put us above the Stanfords, Cals, and even Washingtons. Oregon is the only one that has enough positive variables that makes it even a slight tad above KU and CU
Wonder behind the scenes how much the money Nike pumps in college sports influences the future of their focused program, Oregon?
The University of Washington has a nearly $5 billion endowment, 49,000 students, and in a larger state with a larger media market than CU, and KU.
Oregon is the actual outlier in all of these schools. It is far and away the weakest academically, has a relatively small media market, 22,000 students, and a $1.3 billion dollar endowment. It has Phil Knight. Otherwise, it’s meh.
Exactly. UW is the top remaining prize west of the current B1G based on all the fundamentals. UO inflates to a similarly valuable level due to Nike marketing muscle. I think that pair is a slam dunk if/when the B1G further expands.
When you say Oregon is the weakest academically, what are you basing that on?
The B1G and P12 presidents put a ton of stock in ARWU (Shanghai rank).
ShanghaiRanking-Univiersities
The ARWU that Buffnik linked is one good ranking. I think you also need to look more at research budgets. If you see the below link, you will see CU Boulder as #54 on the list (and that excludes Anschutz Medical Center, which is ranked independently unlike, say, other places like Michigan which incorporate their med school). Oregon is ranked #154.
In fact, Oregon State is higher on the list than Oregon, and that’s been a running theme in the state since I lived in Oregon many years ago. A lot of residents there value OSU more. And the dollars flowing into OSU is actually widening over UO.
Part of the issue, too, is that Oregon doesn’t really do anything really well on the departmental level. And where it does have some prestige, these tend to be in liberal arts areas, like creative writing, psychology, anthropology for example. Now, I hold a liberal arts degree from CU and am not a basher of liberal arts degrees, but some of these departments are really struggling to attract students these days, since it’s hard to drop $100,000+ on an anthropology degree.
More anecdotally, and something that I’ve mentioned on this board several times, is that I attended UO after receiving my undergrad degree at CU. My now wife was in her final year there, and I took a few finance related courses to buttress my application to graduate school in finance. The school, at least at that time, was ridiculously easy. My wife transferred there for their historic preservation department, with a 1.9 gpa (she partied a lot at Tulane culminating in a 0.0 semester, haha). In any case, I received a 4.0 in four course there, and she graduated in 18 months with a 3.9.
In any case, I’m one of those people that thinks you can get a good education anywhere if you just apply yourself and be involved and interested in your subject. However, my response was to the claim that Oregon was somehow better than UW, or Kansas, or Maryland. That is simply not true.
I actually got my graduate degree at Maryland, which was the most challenging of any of the schools I attended. And Maryland students are far more mature and worldly than I found in either Eugene or Boulder. Generally speaking, Maryland student body will chew your ass up. I was glad to spend those idyllic years in Boulder.
Anyway, just my two cents from my experiences over the years.
Non Mtn version: CU has a world class faculty and research program with a mediocre student body.
That is a surprisingly accurate summation. And I whole heartedly place myself in the center of that mediocrity. Still better than UO where I was a star baby.
My wife has this coffee cup.
I am the walking, talking embodiment of a mediocre white man. CU was just my speed. My parents were like, "With you test scores you could get into Cornell!"
And I was like, "Eff that."
I've struggled for years to properly encapsulate the ethos of the CU student body (myself included). Thank you.
I had posted this in the FirePhil thread a few weeks ago. Another impressive/shocking ranking. But we have dropped significantly in the last 10 years.
www.timeshighereducation.com
World University Rankings
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023 include 1,799 universities across 104 countries and regions, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date.
Read it and weep, Ulm.I had posted this in the FirePhil thread a few weeks ago. Another impressive/shocking ranking. But we have dropped significantly in the last 10 years.
World University Rankings
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023 include 1,799 universities across 104 countries and regions, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date.
I had posted this in the FirePhil thread a few weeks ago. Another impressive/shocking ranking. But we have dropped significantly in the last 10 years.
World University Rankings
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023 include 1,799 universities across 104 countries and regions, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date.
I don't have the time or inclination to go back and look, but I'm pretty sure we were top 100 pre-Phil, though that might have been pre-Byyny and Buffalo Betsy, too.
RetainedGecko98
Well-Known Member
Hi All. I posted in the basketball forum, but I've been a longtime lurker and finally signed up a few weeks ago. I figured I'd jump into this discussion as I used to work in higher ed and I'm interested in the topic.
As we're comparing CU with other universities, it's important to remember that CU is a public school for a mid-sized state in a fairly sparsely populated region of the country. As a result, it's inevitable that some "mediocre" students will be included, and CU will never compete with the flagship institutions of much larger states like California, Michigan, or even Washington. That isn't a shot at CU, it's just the reality of the situation.
On the whole, I think CU is a good public university, and any student who applies themself will get a quality education. That's fine. What isn't fine is the way the administration holds the AD to far stricter standards and admission policies than our peer institutions do.
As we're comparing CU with other universities, it's important to remember that CU is a public school for a mid-sized state in a fairly sparsely populated region of the country. As a result, it's inevitable that some "mediocre" students will be included, and CU will never compete with the flagship institutions of much larger states like California, Michigan, or even Washington. That isn't a shot at CU, it's just the reality of the situation.
On the whole, I think CU is a good public university, and any student who applies themself will get a quality education. That's fine. What isn't fine is the way the administration holds the AD to far stricter standards and admission policies than our peer institutions do.
Apparently Thomas Cech (Nobel Laureate) dropped into my daughter's o-chem class a couple of weeks ago to talk about his research. As a freshman, she said that was super cool. So there are still some smart people hanging around campus.
I get the larger population argument, it makes a ton of sense.
But, to go to the specific example noted above (Maryland) - CO and MD have essentially the same size population, so that "excuse" is eliminated in terms of the actual example.
My hypothesis as to what ultimately drives that difference is that MD funds the **** out of its schools, starting with pre-k and rolling right through to the universities. Of course, there are much higher tax rates in MD than CO to, you know, actually pay for that.
But other note: @Creebuzz, did you get the finance degree from Smith? That's a world class B-school, so not too fair to compare to the broader university.
That said, I know someone with a MFA in Poetry from Maryland, who yeah - runs intellectual circles around everyone I know with an MFA from CU. (Also: she later got an MBA at Smith, so probably a better validation of being smart than my observation...)
RetainedGecko98
Well-Known Member
True. And at the same time, CU consistently ranks higher than the flagship schools of Arizona, Missouri, and Tennessee, despite Colorado having fewer people than those states. So population certainly is not the only factor, but there is a general correlation if you compare the list of US states ranked by population with where each state's flagship schools are ranked by US News and Forbes. You can find individual exceptions (UW-Madison is another), but the trend is there.
I do agree that Colorado does a poor job of funding its public education system. The state does a lot of things right, but that's a surprising weakness IMO. Colorado is typically ranked highly on all sorts of livability metrics, but then is way down near the bottom on that one.
With all that said - I also don't think anyone on this forum would be talking about CU's academic rankings if the football team was winning. I think people are justifiably upset with leadership and taking it out on the institution more broadly. Hopefully we can see some new blood and energy soon, particularly if the rumors about Phil's retirement and Rick's interest in other jobs are true.
Pac-12 expansion update, and media rights deal believed to be happening soon - Sports Illustrated All Cardinal News, Analysis and More
The Pac-12 needs to make a move and some experts think that move will happen very soon
www.si.com
If we did add all 4, that would actually be a lot of fun until the next realignment happens.Pac-12 expansion update, and media rights deal believed to be happening soon - Sports Illustrated All Cardinal News, Analysis and More
The Pac-12 needs to make a move and some experts think that move will happen very soon
SDSU, SMU, UNLV, BSU
Assuming it did happen and the Pac-14 went to 3-5-4 scheduling like the ACC, who would you all want our 3 annual games to be?
(3-5-4 is 3 conf rivals you play every year, half the rest of the rest of the conference you play 2 years on/2 years off, and 4 non-con opponents.)
I'd pick SMU, Utah and ASU.
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Here in lies the problem.I had posted this in the FirePhil thread a few weeks ago. Another impressive/shocking ranking. But we have dropped significantly in the last 10 years.
World University Rankings
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023 include 1,799 universities across 104 countries and regions, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date.
It's hard to take pride in having $1 million when you started with $2 million.
In the time that Dr. Phil has been Chancellor CU Boulder has not become a below average school. It has though had a notable drop compared to where it was when he came in.
You can blame it on cuts in state funding but almost all of those cuts came well before he come into his current position. There are also schools in other states that had similar cuts in state funding that managed to maintain or even improve their standing.
And again I will ask the question, in his time as Chancellor in what areas has CU become a better school. Which departments provide a higher quality education than they did, how has the schools status in research improved. What one area would people in the know say that CU has become a leader, is now a standout?
i don't totally hate this idea. the talking heads seem to be aligning on the idea that the pac is done getting raided by the big. for now. if one believes that to be true, then the pac members are incented to do the best tv deal that they can do, individually or collectively. and, despite all the oregon bluster, they and uw are still better off from a money perspective with the pac than going independent. and no one wants to go to the big 12 unless they have to.
and, there is access to the playoffs and it will probably be easier for a pac or b12 team to get there than the sec or big.
if you buy off on the idea of "for now" then there are worse outcomes than this version of the pac. altho i think the conference and the cal regents should go to war to force ucla to stay if there is any possibility of that. one of the 4 above would have to get dropped but not getting locked out of the la market would be huge. i know it probably won't happen.
is there some other texas school besides smu that might be lured?
From the B12, it would be tough. I don't think even if the P12 surprised with a deal that was more per member than the B12 that it would be enough to justify changing conferences.
That leaves UTSA for the San Antonio market & the Alamodome/ bowl tie-in. I don't think anyone else brings much. Rice is former SWC & the Houston market, but it's such a tiny school with a minuscule following.