cares about it except for when Florida State and Clemson strong armed Louisville into the ACC by threatening to leave for the B12 when they had Texas and Oklahoma. If all the ESPN writers with SEC close connections are correct, UNC and UVA are now their top targets because of their Academics and basketball. So you can choose the Turkey or the Egg, but right now if you want to get into a P2, your Academics definitely matter according to prior actions and people that have access to the University Presidents that vote who gets in the conference.

wants UVA IMHO to appease their Academic staff. UVA is a much better fit for the B1G IMHO. I still hope that UVA and VT end up in the same conference for Olympic Sports. The football and basketball can be scheduled OOC, but the Olympic Sports are fun and create competition for the overall cup. It just means more if they play in all sports.

football aside - they offer a lot of reasons for the B1G to take them... The day they actually start putting big money into football it will be game over.

of college football that many in Academia hate!! @RandomAsianGuy has it, it is a Brand Image thing. Research shows that many people want to associate with a certain image. We have a handful that post here that don't think that way, but why do so many advertisements have well known people speaking about their product or service? ** Edited by Stech at 9/24/2025, 7:21:08 PM

You mentioned WVU. Yes their ranking is lower but they also have an 80%+ acceptance rate. And I think that is a good thing because they are offering opportunity for people to get a college degree. But that leads to more people who likely do not graduate (16% of score) or drop out after freshman year (5% of score) or have lower performance against predicted grad rates (10% of score). And because they are in a state with a smaller economy and not near big cities like LA or NYC, they are probably lower for earnings 5 years after graduation (5% of score). So right there we have 36% of the score is going to be impacted by WVU offering opportunity to a wide range of people. And I think that offering that opportunity is a good thing. They still have good faculty. They still have good campus life. They still have graduates who do very well (I know a dentist who went to WVU that is very well off). I know why people like to compare and rank everything. But to me, if you like a school and they teach what you are interested in then it’s a good choice. Especially with the easy access to information online now, a good education is only limited by the effort of each student. And athletic conference doesn’t really matter outside of the social aspect. ** Edited by HokieAl at 9/24/2025, 12:09:35 PM

Across big state U's, whether #20 or #120. ** Edited by Pylons at 9/24/2025, 5:28:47 PM

Being in the ACC gives VT faculty a lot more chances to team up with Duke, UNC, and Georgia Tech on research, and it also helps them land bigger grants since multi-school projects carry more weight. There are leadership and teaching programs through the ACC that let professors sharpen their skills and swap ideas. The ACC name itself adds some extra academic prestige, which makes it easier for Tech to hire and keep top faculty. On top of that, professors get more opportunities to present, collaborate, and get noticed at conferences and academic showcases. All in all, being in the ACC creates a stronger academic network that really supports faculty growth, research, and teaching. So it is a good thing for sure.

Rice, Tulane, and Davidson come to mind.

schools will tell you sports has helped grow their academics, especially in student applications in quality and quantity.

Frankly in business LSU dominates the state, while Tulane and Rice are niche programrs. There is a big difference in branding and academics between the niche smaller academic schools(i.e wm and mary) and the Penn States Ohio State USC Ga Tech Texas. to name a few. . Like atheltic programs the big schools power is to hire the best in faculty and rresearch and are second to none. Its bidding for the best in all seords. The key for athletics is the community and meetings to network in building corporations and experts to enjoy a weekend and by the way, we have a great financial deal. Same as the NFL.

I know of considers the MAC a premiere academic conference. Hell, no one considers them a premiere athletic conference either. Would either of those institutions consider an invite to the ACC as a step up in prestige? Would either of those institutions get better academically if they were invited? More importantly, would their enrollment and application numbers rise if they were? It could be argued that academic donations could rise, but is there a direct correlation? Why then would a UMass as an example, move up to FBS? I have no doubt they see the MAC as a stepping stone, but to what, where, and for the life of me, why?

elevate their athletic program into receiving a full member invitation from either the Big East or ACC (as a backup plan). Remember UMass made the switch early in 2000s when the moratorium was lifted and the new FBS requirements were put into place.

Now if the ACC was interested in sponsoring Ice Hockey, then UMass could be considered. BC would fight that one. The one the ACC should invite is UConn. But we've talked about that many times.

The ACC could bring them into a scheduling agreement and put their home games onto the ACCN. Maybe there is a way to get us and them some more money that way? UConn home games on the ACCN might be worth something to ESPN, especially if they host a couple of ACC teams each year. They host Duke this year, and play Syracuse and BC. Heck, isn't ESPN from Hartford? Maybe they like the idea of throwing a bone to UConn?

leave the ACC, I still think the ACC and Big East merge. College football in the northeast is second to the NFL, but College basketball in the northeast pulls some great numbers. I think ESPN saves the ACC and their 50% owned Channel by doing that. I stand by my prediction that the NCAA tournament will expand enough to pay the Sweet 16 like the eventual football playoff 16.

plans. So from UMass' standpoint, it may not have been redundant. Plus, I think UMass was more worried about the fate of its basketball program being "trapped" in the Atlantic 10 than redundancy.

with for prospects.

We could do it over BC's, too, if need be.

of the Conference is entirely different. Everyone thinks Clemson, FSU and UNC are gone eventually, so they don’t have the influence they once had in the ACC. This isn’t vote wise the All Carolina Conference anymore.

on their basketball program, then who would BC fight against to stop that from happening? Remember I said the ACC wasn't UMass' primary goal because basketball drives their bus.

And thinking about what the ACC would do for either school is about is useful as thinking about how joining the Ivy League would impact VT. Neither scenario is remotely realistic.

like it or not (and most don't), is driven by grad programs and the research of their faculty and students...where it's even harder to tie athletics or conference membership in than to something like undergrad applications. Most college grads have only had the undergrad experience, so they naturally tend to focus on that. Going through a doctoral program and working in academia lends a different perspective.

undergraduate reputation.

tell me where athletics conference membership impacts the factors in their ranking methodology:

not only peer assessment but also SAT scores, graduation rates, and more, by attracting more high quality students. People say college sports are big business, but I think undergraduate admissions is an even bigger business. Students pay a lot of money for not only education and networking opportunities but also experience and brand. Watching big-time football in person is an EXPERIENCE, and playing in a high-profile athletic conference is part of the BRAND. Of course, not every student cares about these things, but I think many do. Again, it’s just my thought. Maybe someone should do academic research to explore whether there’s a relationship between college sports, conference membership, and the profile of enrolled students. LOL.

Don't even bother talking about the Ivy League...that's a completely different animal...there was an Ivy League before there was an Ivy League athletics conference. No other conference has that history. Cornell doesn't benefit from playing sports in the Ivy League. Cornell was an elite, Ivy League school before Ivy League athletics was a thing...that's *why* they *are* Ivy League. I contend that conference membership doesn't really matter to academics overall. It's nonsensical to me having spent a lot of years in academia in my life/career. There's really no logical reason that it would matter. People love to point to applications as below...where the link is debatable at best, but even if there's a link, as I've noted a couple places below, applications are not *that* big of a deal in the grand academic scheme...they're just very visible numbers for John Q. Public. To buy that conference membership matters, you have to be able to describe why it would. I've yet to hear a convincing argument, but I'm all ears.

I just think the impact overall to academics is negligible. Sure, big things can cause a bump in applications...like our MNC run in 99...and that bump was just that...applications were already rising, we got a 2-year bump, and then returned to the previous trend. Anecdotally, I grew up playing a lot of sports and a being a huge PSU fan in a PSU family...going to lots of games and a few basketball camps there. I chose VT, the independent/Metro, not-known-for-sports school over PSU anyway.

It is public perception that being in an "academic conference" changes... University Of Georgia is in the SEC...many would not credit Georgia as being ranked higher in USNWR National Universities...than VT, Penn State, Minnesota, Michigan State, UConn, Indiana, Syracuse, Rutgers, etc. When the FSU trustees were looking at the Big 12 in 2012, FSU President Barron wrote "The faculty are adamantly opposed to joining a league that is academically weaker --"

I truly have no idea why any faculty member would adamantly hold that opinion. I was late in my doctoral program at VT when we joined the ACC...I never had the thought that it was going to help VT academically. There was no reason it would. And I certainly never heard any faculty (and I worked with many who were certainly sports fans) express anything about the impact to them of the ACC beyond fandom.

Many Professors desired the cachet of rubbing elbows with "peers" and many were alumni of ACC institutions...there was a desire to be associated with well regarded schools like UNC, Duke, Virginia...and not just be seen as a football factory.....in 2012, when the FSU President polled them, FSU was ranked UNWR #101 as a National University...there has been a push to hire better staff...The number of staff who are National Academy members has doubled...the USNWR Ranking has moved up 50 places...Sure, the conference that you play sports in may not have had an effect...but the ACC has been good for FSU.

Since no faculty elbows actually rub due to conference, but ok. I get it for sports fan alums of ACC schools, but I can't see how playing sports against high profile academic schools adds prestige in the eyes of an academician (or at least not many of us).

I don’t have concrete evidence, but this is my theory. Conference association doesn’t affect actual teaching or research, but academic “prestige” is essentially about branding and marketing. If a school is associated with elite institutions (whether through academic or athletic affiliations) it signals that the school is worthy of being among elite peers, which should help its perception and reputation. Schools spent money in branding and advertising, so why would they do that if it didn’t matter? I’m not sure if U.S. News still uses peer assessment as a criterion, but reputation and perception may influence that metric. Again, I don’t have a concrete evidence but this is why I think the conference association matters.

1. There are a ton of people who don't care one bit about college sports, or even sports in general. I wouldn't be surprised that if you asked applicants what conference VT is in, half or more wouldn't know. 2. For people who do care about sports and conferences, I just can't really see how many people make the jump of "oh, you play basketball with Duke, UNC, and Wake Forest now, you must be more like them academically than I thought." I mean, obviously no one would say that, but even in some weird subliminal way, that's a weird connection to make...and even if it is made by some subset of people, the impact has to be very small. 3. I'm not saying branding and advertising isn't important, but if you wanted to brand yourself as a high-quality academic institution, where on your list of things to do would "Let's go play sports well. Ooh, and do it against schools that have a better academic reputation than us" be? That's a pretty inefficient path to the goal isn't it? You don't even reach a large portion of the population and for those that you do, the connection...see #2...is flimsy. I mean, any advertising is only going to reach a subset of people, but how much sense does it make to target sports fans (and of those who watch/pay attention to VT...many/most are already quite familiar with VT) to pump up academics? 4. Peer assessment is in there (see the link I posted in my other reply)...and it's a big component. Not sure how they do that, but I would assume it's surveys of academic people. Do you think *academic* people at say...Purdue or NC State or whatever peer...changed their minds about what kind of school VT is when we joined the ACC? Not a chance. I've been that academic person in lots of different roles...that's not how academics see things. ** Edited by Pylons at 9/24/2025, 12:36:51 AM

A nothingburger for many. Might even be a negative for some. Is $20 million/year of academic money best spent on helping athletics to somehow indirectly impact academics? Or could it be put to better use more directly marketing/branding the university's academic merits? Or otherwise helping academics? Debatable for sure. Would $30 million/year of increased donations be better spent on athletics to help attract sports fan students or on increased need- or merit-based aid for all regular students (obviously not that all that many donating parts of that $30MM, if it even happens, would actually make that trade, but still)? It's also not helping that many (certainly including parents of prospective students) are getting increasingly fed up with the big time athletics landscape. I was a season ticket holder for 20+ years and had been a fairly significant donor over that period (including Golden Hokie Champion way back when that was a thing). That stopped mostly because of moving far away, but my interest in supporting what this has become in any way has certainly waned significantly. ** Edited by Pylons at 9/24/2025, 1:34:30 PM

Years after years of people hearing VTs name affiliated and associated with Duke Wake UNC GT UVa and now Stanford and Cal as opposed to say ECU South Carolina UCF WVU etc does have some effect on perception, rightly or wrongly. ACC membership has been very good for VT as a whole. We can debate whether that will continue if the athletic profile of the conference were to continue to fall behind the other P4s.