be a part of it. I wouldn't waste a single second trying to conform the mission of our school to the now whimsical criteria of the AAU. If anything, I'd think being part of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA), formerly the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), would be more valuable. And I imagine that getting invited to the B1G athletic conference would allow for membership in this organization, but I really don't know much about it. I just heard it's big time research and research dollars. So...let's get good at football again, fill our stadium for every game, become nationally relevant again, and maybe the B1G will invite us. Let's earn it on the field. Anyway, when it comes to conference realignment, I'm a straight up football meritocracist™.

If VT had, say, invested in a med school/hospital 50 years ago, it would almost certainly be an AAU member. Period.

They left the AAC and then won the NCAA men's basketbal championship as a member of the P-6 Big East (in men's hoops). UConn should only the join the Big 12 for full membership. What conference would UConn join for all the other sports if they only played men's basketball in the Big 12? I'm sure the Big East wouldn't want them. Do they play in the Northeast Conference, Patriot League, CAA, ...? Do they join the MAC? Men's basketball only option makes no sense to me. As for AAU membership, I think too many are making too much of the recent additions. The Big 10 would take Notre Dame in a second without AAU status. As we all know, Notre Dame cherishes their football independence. South Florida athletics isn't as good as UCF athletics. USF may excel in research and development but it still has the commuter campus reputation thta the Big 10 would enver accept. Miami's Big 10 stock went up with AAU membership but they have this thing called the ACC GOR preventing them from exiting. Arizona State probably makes the most sense for the Big 10 of all the new AAU additions but does Arizona have the higher academic reputation of the two?

remain Indy. Non-revs would be welcome. UConn FB losses truckloads of money. I'm surprised that they continue the program.

#3. Add Gonzaga and UConn for hoops.

Not exactly Big Ten standards. That being said, I'd take them in a heartbeat. Mostly because I think conference realignment should be about football and fans.

are concerned, many use that against Tech, even schools like NC State and Clemson. The difference is Tech decided to increase undergraduate enrollments which increased the acceptance rate but the number of applications have exploded recently (something like 46,000/year) which has driven down the acceptance rate by 10 points in a few years. I know folks in North Carolina who complain about how much harder it's becoming to get into NC State. Well, NC State needs to simply increase undergraduate enrollment by 25%. That will likley in the long run decrease tuition costs or at least slow them down. Bring in out-of-state students who'll pay more to get in or bring in foreign students who come from wealthy families. A healthy acceptance percentage would be something like 67% in-state and 33% out-of-state.

In my life I have lived in Northern Virginia, Upstate New York, and Central Florida. I would say when I lived in Northern Virginia there was a medium level of interest in college football. Upstate New York interest in college football was very low. Central Florida interest in college football is very high.

If you are wondering about the percentage of viewers in the market that are college football fans, I would say that the percentage of people watching a college football game is lower than in say Atlanta. If you are talking about raw numbers of viewers, then there would be more people watching in Boston or New York than in Atlanta. It's kind of like the 2020 Presidential election, Trump got more votes in California than in any state, but he got a lower percentage of the vote there than in all but 5-6 states.

in the Boston area (big pro sports area), and basically the same for NYC for the most part, except the Lamers seem to have fair viewership there.

I've asked people but get know answer about what Rutgers addition to B1G has done for B1G ratings. There is little interest in college sports here and it is not covered on the news until it is BB NCAAs or Rutgers is in a bowl. Most I see is the RU scores in a scroll on the news.

then the AAU is the biggest fraud, ( it's probably not), going in College academics today.

But why would every other non-Big 10 go along with it? ND faculty have coveted the AAU affiliation.

I’ve been in the academic research industry for decades and I’ve only had one conversation where the AAU came up. And that was by me when I saw that Nebraska had gotten the boot. That’s it. NOBODY else cares (except here for some odd reason). NOBODY is awarded research dollars because they are at an AAU institution. NOBODY collaborates with another researcher because they are at an AAU institution. Research dollars go to where the best research proposals are generated and the stronger research with the best facilities in that discipline. Research collaborations happen between researchers who can best contribute to the project goals (although sometimes geographical proximity and past academic connections - just like hiring asst coaches - can influence that decision as well). And the same goes for conference affiliation. Nobody at VT is collaborating with someone because they’re at an ACC school.

I didn't realize ND was a huge research school. Also didn't realize ND had a huge research hospital either.

First of all, it is now, and has always been, entirely subjective. They claim they have begun to value research, especially medical research, while de-emphasizing ag research. That's a preference, not an absolute. They leave themselves room for deviation. Next, consider, in the case of Notre Dame, the particularly influential alumni base. The ND network is a very tightly woven fabric. If I had been predicting, I would have included UAB ahead of USF or ND. But who can say what happens behind closed doors?

Seems like AAU is an exclusive club. The members are able to say, "Look at us, aren't we special".

criteria, the less serious (and prestigious) the institution becomes.

needed a small bump from a B1G/PAC bloc. My impression of The AAU has been that they were too serious to allow this kind of manipulation. But these days we talk financial terms that did not enter the discussion back in the day.

ain't one of them. They are probably as political, opportunistic and corrupt as so many other institutions today. The list of schools just named is perplexing to say the least. I'm not saying the B1G schools were pulling the strings here, but people who think this certainly have a point.