Big 12 Conference

[Pete]

This shows the US News ranking for each school plus their AAU status:

[PhiAlpha]

The Big 12 bringing in 4 new AAU member schools to the conference that Oklahoma State can align with academically will help OSU obtain AAU status itself. There are now 5 AAU members in the Big 12.

LOL. OU hasn’t even been able to achieve AAU status. Due to its admission standards alone, half the country could be nuked and OSU wouldn’t become an AAU school. That will absolutely never happen. Though I am a bit shocked that ASU is an AAU school.

[GoGators]

AAU doesn’t take athletic conference into consideration for qualification. It’s academic and OSU would have to raise its standing considerably. “Associations” have nothing to do with it.

Yea, I actually completely agree with you. This was the response I was looking for. May want to tell Joe Harroz.

[GoGators]

LOL. OU hasn’t even been able to achieve AAU status. Due to its admission standards alone, half the country could be nuked and OSU wouldn’t become an AAU school. That will absolutely never happen. Though I am a bit shocked that ASU is an AAU school.

Wait, OU hasn’t even been able to achieve AAU status? I’m shocked. I had no idea. Maybe once they are in the same athletic conference as Mizzoo and A&M it will put them past the finish line.

[Pete]

Wait, OU hasn’t even been able to achieve AAU status? I’m shocked. I had no idea. Maybe once they are in the same athletic conference as Mizzoo and A&M it will put them past the finish line.

[GoGators]

^^ I basically just copied Joe Harroz statement word for word to show how ridiculous his statement was. Obviously I don’t think playing in a conference with a couple AAU members helps a school academically. When I said so after Joe Harroz made his comment I was an “OSU grad with an ulterior motive.” I wanted to see how many OU fans would think that was a sound argument when it wasn’t coming from their president. Turns out that number is zero.

[Pete]

^^ I basically just copied Joe Harroz statement word for word to show how ridiculous his statement was. Obviously I don’t think playing in a conference with a couple AAU members helps a school academically. When I said so after Joe Harroz made his comment I was an “OSU grad with an ulterior motive.” I wanted to see how many OU fans would think that was a sound argument when it wasn’t coming from their president. Turns out that number is zero.

Sure thing.

You could also go with "I was reading from a play" or "my child got ahold of my phone".

[Rover]

Wait, OU hasn’t even been able to achieve AAU status? I’m shocked. I had no idea. Maybe once they are in the same athletic conference as Mizzoo and A&M it will put them past the finish line.

A couple of things really hinder OU. As mentioned, its admission standards, and two, the research money from the med center apparently isn’t able to be included because of its distance and separateness from the Norman campus. Research money is a big part. If the two could be combined for consideration then OU likely would be close, or in.

[soonermike81]

Big 10 is longer being aired on ABC/ESPN.

Ok. So those big times games would likely be prime time on Fox, CBS, and NBC.

[GoGators]

Sure thing.

You could also go with "I was reading from a play" or "my child got ahold of my phone".

See post 528.

[dankrutka]

As someone who works in higher education, I want to share that in over a decade as a professor interacting with academics from all over the country at conferences, through organizations, applying for grants, and working on projects, I've never heard a single person mention conferences in any capacity as holding any meaning. Literally not even a single sentence. University president's may mention it for political purposes, but it's irrelevant to academia.

[GoGators]

As someone who works in higher education, I want to share that in over a decade as a professor interacting with academics from all over the country at conferences, through organizations, applying for grants, and working on projects, I've never heard a single person mention conferences in any capacity as holding any meaning. Literally not even a single sentence. University president's may mention it for political purposes, but it's irrelevant to academia.

Yea. You would think that would be pretty obvious. Apparently it is not.

[Swake]

A couple of things really hinder OU. As mentioned, its admission standards, and two, the research money from the med center apparently isn’t able to be included because of its distance and separateness from the Norman campus. Research money is a big part. If the two could be combined for consideration then OU likely would be close, or in.

I've long thought OU's simply chasing National Merit Scholars instead of AAU status under Boren was a mistake. I have no idea what they do today.

The University of Kansas is AAU with near universal admissions in-state. KU-Med is included in KU's research money for AAU purposes and KU-Med in Kansas City, KS is about 20 miles further away from Lawrence than OU's Health Center from Norman. I do know that KU had to fight to have KU-Med's funding included. Maybe KU's Edwards campus in Overland Park helped, I don't know.

IIRC Nebraska giving up AAU status was in large part to losing the NU Medical School in Omaha's funding from their total research money. Iowa State just gave up AAU status because they couldn't keep with the increasing required research funding without having a medical school.

[UrbanistPoke]

LOL. OU hasn’t even been able to achieve AAU status. Due to its admission standards alone, half the country could be nuked and OSU wouldn’t become an AAU school. That will absolutely never happen. Though I am a bit shocked that ASU is an AAU school.

Oklahoma State University admission rate: 68.4%
University of Oklahoma admission rate: 85.2%

So yeah, half the country could be nuked and OSU would really be awful still. The ONLY reason OSU doesn't have higher national rankings is simply because of the set up of the medical school plus that it's still very new in terms of medical schools and the fact OSU doesn't have a law school and some additional graduate level programs pulls does rankings by Newsweek and other publications significantly. Almost every major degree program OSU has ranks in the top 50 nationally with many in the top 10. Agriculture research is also completely discounted by AAU.

Frankly both OSU and OU should be AAU if universities like Arizona State are AAU. It's purely a means to discount rural based schools or schools who locate their medical schools in areas of a metro or urban center that actual need it like OU's. You can't tell me that where OU's medical school is located is a detractor to it being a good medical school and should count against OU being able to qualify for AAU status - let alone if OSU's medical school is located in Tulsa, an area that needs a major medical center and research areas.

Frankly, I hope that OSU opens a law school and other programs and goes straight at OU. For decades the two schools have had a solid partnership and allowed each to focus on areas and had a 'none compete' understanding. I say screw that now that OU leadership did what they did. Good luck to them. OSU is a way better managed university system and I hope OSU plays the same way OU does going forward, with no concern for anyone else but their own interest. OU has a massive amount of debt at their own doing and the state legislature and taxpayers better never bail them out either.

[UrbanistPoke]

I've long thought OU's simply chasing National Merit Scholars instead of AAU status under Boren was a mistake. I have no idea what they do today.

The University of Kansas is AAU with near universal admissions in-state. KU-Med is included in KU's research money for AAU purposes and KU-Med in Kansas City, KS is about 20 miles further away from Lawrence than OU's Health Center from Norman. I do know that KU had to fight to have KU-Med's funding included. Maybe KU's Edwards campus in Overland Park helped, I don't know.

IIRC Nebraska giving up AAU status was in large part to losing the NU Medical School in Omaha's funding from their total research money. Iowa State just gave up AAU status because they couldn't keep with the increasing required research funding without having a medical school.

AAU also reduced and removed a large amount of any agriculture research that had been included and was the sole reason Nebraska lost AAU status and is a big part of why Iowa State gave it up. It required a significant reallocation of research dollars to keep it and would have required them to close their agriculture programs and others - which isn't going to happen in either of those states. Why AAU doesn't think being able to feed the global population in a sustainable/better way isn't important research completely blows my mind. Especially given the ways agriculture impacts global warming and other issues too (if it wasn’t for ag research, we’d be having the dust bowl every other decade). OSU's ag school is generally ranked top 3 in the world with Michigan State and Cornell. Schools with massive ag research programs like OSU, Nebraska, Iowa State are critical to our survival, but I get it's an elitist thing for academics on the coasts to look down on people (even OU fans love to talk down to OSU people about it). It's a way to protect other ‘old money’ institutions too and prop up tuition costs for them as well by pretending they are much harder/better schools. I went to grad school at a top 20 university and did undergrad at OSU so none of it surprises me. That school wasn't any more difficult than OSU was when I went there, but certainly had a ton of people who had way more generational money.

[April in the Plaza]

Oklahoma State University admission rate: 68.4%
University of Oklahoma admission rate: 85.2%

So yeah, half the country could be nuked and OSU would really be awful still. The ONLY reason OSU doesn't have higher national rankings is simply because of the set up of the medical school plus that it's still very new in terms of medical schools and the fact OSU doesn't have a law school and some additional graduate level programs pulls does rankings by Newsweek and other publications significantly. Almost every major degree program OSU has ranks in the top 50 nationally with many in the top 10. Agriculture research is also completely discounted by AAU.

Frankly both OSU and OU should be AAU if universities like Arizona State are AAU. It's purely a means to discount rural based schools or schools who locate their medical schools in areas of a metro or urban center that actual need it like OU's. You can't tell me that where OU's medical school is located is a detractor to it being a good medical school and should count against OU being able to qualify for AAU status - let alone if OSU's medical school is located in Tulsa, an area that needs a major medical center and research areas.

Frankly, I hope that OSU opens a law school and other programs and goes straight at OU. For decades the two schools have had a solid partnership and allowed each to focus on areas and had a 'none compete' understanding. I say screw that now that OU leadership did what they did. Good luck to them. OSU is a way better managed university system and I hope OSU plays the same way OU does going forward, with no concern for anyone else but their own interest. OU has a massive amount of debt at their own doing and the state legislature and taxpayers better never bail them out either.

There’s no market for new law schools. Already way too many as it is.

[Rover]

Oklahoma State University admission rate: 68.4%
University of Oklahoma admission rate: 85.2%

So yeah, half the country could be nuked and OSU would really be awful still. The ONLY reason OSU doesn't have higher national rankings is simply because of the set up of the medical school plus that it's still very new in terms of medical schools and the fact OSU doesn't have a law school and some additional graduate level programs pulls does rankings by Newsweek and other publications significantly. Almost every major degree program OSU has ranks in the top 50 nationally with many in the top 10. Agriculture research is also completely discounted by AAU.

Frankly both OSU and OU should be AAU if universities like Arizona State are AAU. It's purely a means to discount rural based schools or schools who locate their medical schools in areas of a metro or urban center that actual need it like OU's. You can't tell me that where OU's medical school is located is a detractor to it being a good medical school and should count against OU being able to qualify for AAU status - let alone if OSU's medical school is located in Tulsa, an area that needs a major medical center and research areas.

Frankly, I hope that OSU opens a law school and other programs and goes straight at OU. For decades the two schools have had a solid partnership and allowed each to focus on areas and had a 'none compete' understanding. I say screw that now that OU leadership did what they did. Good luck to them. OSU is a way better managed university system and I hope OSU plays the same way OU does going forward, with no concern for anyone else but their own interest. OU has a massive amount of debt at their own doing and the state legislature and taxpayers better never bail them out either.

I think you got a bunch of stats from the OSU pr office. I’ll not try to degrade OSU as it is a good public uni for a poor state school. But it isn’t rated 3rd in the world in anything. And the acceptance rate is almost identical to OU’s. The school is rated lower overall by virtually every service that rates universities and colleges.

Btw, the med school at OU doesn’t get excluded because it is in OKC and somehow they are biased against being city vs rural, but because it isn’t part of the main campus and all their research dollars are excluded from aggregation for consideration of membership.

I get it that you are a proud OSU fan, but finding info isn’t hard. Hyperbole isn’t fact.

[UrbanistPoke]

I think you got a bunch of stats from the OSU pr office. I’ll not try to degrade OSU as it is a good public uni for a poor state school. But it isn’t rated 3rd in the world in anything. And the acceptance rate is almost identical to OU’s. The school is rated lower overall by virtually every service that rates universities and colleges.

Btw, the med school at OU doesn’t get excluded because it is in OKC and somehow they are biased against being city vs rural, but because it isn’t part of the main campus and all their research dollars are excluded from aggregation for consideration of membership.

I get it that you are a proud OSU fan, but finding info isn’t hard. Hyperbole isn’t fact.

Oh yeah, OSU definitely doesn't have a top agriculture school. OU fans love to talk down to OSU people about being an 'Ag School' until the idea that it's actually an incredible asset to OSU and our state. There's is a ton of research dollars that flows through that school as well. None of that gets counted by AAU - why? There is an implicit bias by many publications about rural versus urban colleges and certainly Heartland colleges versus coastal colleges. A lot of those 'elite' schools also rig those rankings - there's a lot of stories about that out there in the last few years. For example, University of Oregon and Washington - you can't tell me they are vastly superior to OU. It's a bunch of BS. Certainly Arizona or Arizona state where all you have to have is a pulse and you can get admitted, yet they are AAU and ranked higher. Give me a break. Oregon has an admittance rate of 92% - yet OSU at 68% is bad... right. Yes, I think the idea that discounted medical research because it's not on a main campus is in fact dumb and is proving my point or rural versus urban. There is nothing about the set up, structure, or location of OU Medical that should count against OU in AAU admittance.

Hate to break it to OU people too... OSU is far, far better ran. OSU has a AA rating from Fitch while OU is only an A rating. Debt to cash flow for OSU is ~18% while OU is nearly 50%. OU is going to be drowning in debt payments for a long time unless they do some serious overhauls. They really need to take a step back from the stupid real estate investments.

[UrbanistPoke]

There’s no market for new law schools. Already way too many as it is.

Not even remotely the point of that post. I'm well aware of the market of law schools... you can make the same conclusions for many degree programs and in the broader sense of the university/college market overall.

The point is that OSU never established a law school and many programs because there has been a decades long understanding between leadership and political leaders of how programs would be split between the schools because the state didn't want to fund duplicated programs. OU got a lot of shiny things like a law program that does now help their rankings in publications. Why not open it up to competition and see who can produce a better product, I bet OSU could if they tried. OU gets a ton of law students from OSU undergrad, many who would love to not have to go there. You typically want to go to law school in the state you want to practice so if you want to stay in Oklahoma long-term your options are OU or TU pretty much. Good law schools, not great. Eastern Oklahoma probably could use a law program focused on tribal/federal law issues - why not partner with the tribes similar to what OSU is doing with Cherokee Nation on the medical side. Just saying, OSU should do what is in their own self interest long-term now, because the partnership between the institutions was broken by OU. Law program is just one example, but architecture is another of many. OU has been the school who got a lot of the graduate level programs, while OSU is focused on undergrad. OSU architecture school is better than OU's so why not start more graduate/PhD options for architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, etc. in either Stillwater or Tulsa. Who cares if it damages OU's programs at this point.

[okatty]

Interesting to see how the divisions are broken out for B12 in ‘24 and beyond. Here is an SI take.

https://www.si.com/college/westvirgi...-two-divisions

[BDP]

I didn't realize there was still this much bitterness at OSU over the conference change. It took OU and Texas leaving for the Big 12 to wake up and see the future, but they have since at least stabilized the conference. OSU should be way more competitive in football now, or at least probably win more than one conference title in 26 years and make the playoffs in the 12 team format. OU won more than half of the Big 12 football titles in that time. Objectively, this should be a good thing for OSU, right?

It also would seem very strange, or at least misguided, to use this bitterness to guide academic decisions at the state level. I'm all for anything that improves academics in Oklahoma, and maybe some of these changes could help, but conference realignment has had everything to do with TV contracts and has nothing to do with academics. I'm not even saying that any of this is a good idea from an athletic standpoint, but no one was considering academics when they decided to pay OU and Texas more to play sports in the SEC.

[GoGators]

I didn't realize there was still this much bitterness at OSU over the conference change. It took OU and Texas leaving for the Big 12 to wake up and see the future, but they have since at least stabilized the conference. OSU should be way more competitive in football now, or at least probably win more than one conference title in 26 years and make the playoffs in the 12 team format. OU won more than half of the Big 12 football titles in that time. Objectively, this should be a good thing for OSU, right?

It also would seem very strange, or at least misguided, to use this bitterness to guide academic decisions at the state level. I'm all for anything that improves academics in Oklahoma, and maybe some of these changes could help, but conference realignment has had everything to do with TV contracts and has nothing to do with academics. I'm not even saying that any of this is a good idea from an athletic standpoint, but no one was considering academics when they decided to pay OU and Texas more to play sports in the SEC.

OU’s president literally put out a statement claiming that part of the consideration of joining the SEC was based on academics. Many people took it seriously for some reason.

[UrbanistPoke]

I didn't realize there was still this much bitterness at OSU over the conference change. It took OU and Texas leaving for the Big 12 to wake up and see the future, but they have since at least stabilized the conference. OSU should be way more competitive in football now, or at least probably win more than one conference title in 26 years and make the playoffs in the 12 team format. OU won more than half of the Big 12 football titles in that time. Objectively, this should be a good thing for OSU, right?

It also would seem very strange, or at least misguided, to use this bitterness to guide academic decisions at the state level. I'm all for anything that improves academics in Oklahoma, and maybe some of these changes could help, but conference realignment has had everything to do with TV contracts and has nothing to do with academics. I'm not even saying that any of this is a good idea from an athletic standpoint, but no one was considering academics when they decided to pay OU and Texas more to play sports in the SEC.

Athletics drive academics mainly through brand power amongst potential students and also drive alumni/donor engagement. OSU was stagnant for decades until Boone changed the course of the university. The demand for people wanting to go to OSU is night/day different now versus 20 years ago. 20 years ago OSU's acceptance rate was in the 90% range, compare that today. The engagement of people via football and athletics has driven over $1.5 billion in new gifts to academic programs at OSU over the past 15 years (between new buildings/capital improvements to endowment fund). OSU's endowment has more than doubled since then too. None of that would have happened without that investment from Boone into our athletic programs.

Most OSU people understand why OU made the decision. I personally don't think OU/OSU should be tied together as much as they have been. I have an issue with the manner in which OU leadership did it and then expect OSU to be ok with it all. No thanks... if OU plays like that after decades of coordinated cooperation between both academically and athletic then goodbye. OSU should no longer hold back on expanding or doing anything they want either just because it might not be beneficial to OU. OU better never expect a tax payer bail out over their dumb and irresponsible uses of money either. Ultimately I blame U of Texas - they're the ones who have blown up every conference they've ever been in, good luck to the SEC long-term. UT has already requested that the SEC make it a penalty to do horns down, like they aren't even in the SEC yet and demanding things of them. OU hitching their wagon to UT long-term is a dumb move in my opinion. The PAC used to have the richest TV contract and look where they are now, All it'd take is Alabama to be down again for a bit and Georgia and SEC rating could plummet, it's happened before and can happen again. That's why it seems so dumb to give up on regional conferences. The Big 12 with Mizzou, Nebraska, Colorado, and A&M was just as good if not better than the SEC and Texas was who destroyed that. Just wait until the next SEC TV contract is up for negotiations and UT starts their usual BS. Given the Big 12 has stabilized and that the ACC is likely to be the next conference to fall apart, OSU's athletic potential is probably greater now than is was before. Conference is very solid and competitive and will have a better chance of making it into the playoffs regularly than OU or Texas will in the SEC. I'd rather be top 3 programs in the Big 12 regularly than middle road regularly in the SEC that doesn't make it into the playoffs. I don't know if the extra TV money between the conferences will really make that big of a difference - it really seems the main driver going forward is what schools can put together for NIL deals to get players. So, that is more of a how engaged is your donor/alumni base in comparison to other schools and I'd argue OSU has the ability to be competitive against just about everyone expect a small handful of very large schools like UT, Ohio State, etc. that have alumni and donor bases more than 2x the size of schools like OSU or OU.

[Swake]

I didn't realize there was still this much bitterness at OSU over the conference change. It took OU and Texas leaving for the Big 12 to wake up and see the future, but they have since at least stabilized the conference.

No, you don't get it at all. Texas leaving stabilizes the conference, it was Texas blocking expansion. It was Texas with the Longhorn Network that led to the conference splintering in the first place. It was Texas effectively running everything that drove away Nebraska and A&M. It's going to be Texas that starts to destabilize the SEC. I'm a KU alum and I wish OU had stayed, but I can't blame them for leaving. I think it's stupid to just follow Texas, but I understand it.

In five to ten years I predict the Big-12 payout will rival the SEC's. The next bucket of cash for the schools and conferences to get at is the $2 billion a year generated by the NCAA basketball tournament. The Big-12 already is by far the best basketball conference and just added Arizona. When the ACC flies apart and FSU and Clemson go to the SEC and North Carolina and Notre Dame go to the Big10 look for the Big-12 to pick up Duke, Syracuse, Louisville and UConn. If it wasn't for Texas, Louisville and BYU would have joined with WVU and TCU years ago.

[dankrutka]

Interesting to see how the divisions are broken out for B12 in ‘24 and beyond. Here is an SI take.

https://www.si.com/college/westvirgi...-two-divisions

I think the pod system makes a lot of sense in the new Big 12:

West: BYU, Utah, Arizona, ASU

Central: Colorado, KU, KSU, OSU

Texas: TCU, Baylor, Tech, Houston

East: Iowa State, Cincy, WVU, UCF

In football, schools play pod teams every year and play non-pod teams on a rotation basis of 2 years on and 2 years off (like the old Big 12 North/South).