<p>The bottom of the Pac10 is weaker than the bottom of the Big10.</p>
<p><a href=“http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/12533/tom-izzo-spartan-for-life[/url]”>http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/12533/tom-izzo-spartan-for-life</a></p>
<p>This was a no brainer Sparkeye. College life is:</p>
<p>1) More rewarding
2) More fun
3) Less stressful</p>
<p>Furthermore, the man is a legend at MSU. He is respected and loved there. If he does not do extremely well at Cleveland, he will be reviled, chewed and spat out!</p>
<p>Besides, by staying with the Sparteroons, Izzo can visit Ann Arbor more often…and that’s always a good thing! ;)</p>
<p>^^ “Izzo can visit Ann Arbor more often…and that’s always a good thing!”</p>
<p>Agreed!! lol</p>
<p>Notre Dame: Price of independence</p>
<p>David Haugh</p>
<p>June 16, 2010
Whenever somebody from Notre Dame talks about reasserting the university’s independence during the ongoing college conference realignment discussion, I imagine a thirtysomething bachelor still living in his parents’ basement.</p>
<p>This can’t be the independence anybody envisioned.</p>
<p>Being independent is a worthy goal but harder to achieve and maintain than it used to be. It certainly hasn’t been an easy existence for Notre Dame football the last 22 years.</p>
<p>That’s the last time the Irish won a national championship, 1988, and really the only calendar that matters when weighing whether to join the Big Ten or continue to go it alone.</p>
<p>Nobody would be talking about Notre Dame’s need to join a conference if Irish football wasn’t in the midst of its longest title drought since national championships existed i.e. mediocrity in every Domer’s athletic dictionary.</p>
<p>So stop talking about reasserting independence and go do it. Announce plans for a Notre Dame Network, something similar in size and scope to the Big Ten Network. Something Texas cited in its reasons for maintaining its status quo with the Big 12. Sure, Notre Dame has NBC but even with the network its annual TV payout is about $3-to-5 million less than the $20 million each Big Ten school gets from theirs.</p>
<p>Or go out and win something on the field, anything bigger than a bowl only the local chamber of commerce circles on the calendar.</p>
<p>The only way for Notre Dame to truly reassert its independence is to become college football national champions, period.</p>
<p>Those who say it feels like a lifetime since that happened aren’t kidding. They are enrolled in graduate school.</p>
<p>It is no longer a rule of college football that Notre Dame either will factor into or win the national championship. It is the exception. Institutions that use exceptions to establish their rules to live by live dangerously.</p>
<p>The Big Ten offers Notre Dame’s athletic department security via an increase in annual TV revenue, a compelling, competitive schedule that makes more geographic sense and academic prestige that shouldn’t be dismissed.</p>
<p>From a football perspective joining the Big Ten would help the Irish forge an identity their program has lacked since the Holtz Era. Playing in a league would give Notre Dame’s coaches the advantage of preparing for teams they eventually will come to know, a familiarity they currently don’t enjoy going from Big Ten to Big East to ACC styles of play sometimes in the same month. It’s called stability.</p>
<p>The Irish still could play USC and Navy to sate traditionalists. Would it really miss Pittsburgh or the occasional Pac-10 or ACC foe?</p>
<p>The longer Notre Dame stubbornly clings to a nostalgic ideal such as its independent status, the more it stunts future growth by making momentum something other programs enjoy.</p>
<p>An independent Irish team that loses its second or third game by Halloween potentially loses focus and incentive with the national title and BCS goal gone. But the same Notre Dame team, in the Big Ten, still would have a shot at winning a league title no small goal or achievement.</p>
<p>Each of the last 22 recruiting classes came to Notre Dame with one goal in mind and, by that definition, so far each one has failed. That’s a definition that needs some editing.</p>
<p>You think any players on Northwestern’s or Iowa’s last Big Ten championship team ever heard the word failure associated with their careers?</p>
<p>Some business rankings still list Notre Dame No. 1 overall in terms of value but, without a football national championship, what’s all that really worth? If money is the sole motivation of all moves the athletic department makes to ensure a rich future, then stay independent. But if anybody on the Notre Dame campus can stop seeing green long enough to envision the most prudent path for the football program, then the Big Ten it will be.</p>
<p>I accept the gold helmets still represent the best brand in college football. I also believe those same gold helmets have come to symbolize a team liable to give up 35 points on any given Saturday.</p>
<p>That can’t be ignored when discussing what’s best for the football program.</p>
<p>Indeed the Big Ten could stand pat happily at 12 teams with the addition of Nebraska. Despite premature reports of massive realignment, the only seismic shift that occurred this week involved a Southern Californian earthquake and not Texas joining the Pac-10.</p>
<p>I do have to wonder if Nebraska knew then what it knows now if the Huskers Alumni Club would be Mapquesting State College, Pa. Especially with a looming penalty of possibly $6 million for leaving the Big 12.</p>
<p>Now, many assume Texas staying is the end of the movement. Maybe it is.</p>
<p>But if I’m the Big Ten, as thrilled as I am over getting Nebraska, I consider the realities of adding only the Lincoln, Neb., TV market and remain ambitious. I consider how adding Notre Dame and, say, Rutgers and its East Coast audience would give the conference 14 teams that would comprise the most formidable league in America.</p>
<p>And if I’m Notre Dame, I consider changing course before another 22 long years pass and being independent feels even lonelier. </p>
<p>Link: [Notre</a> Dame: Price of independence - chicagotribune.com](<a href=“College Sports News - Chicago Tribune”>http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-spt-0616-haugh-notre-dame--20100615,0,1669364.column)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Alexandre, if I did not care much for your logic, I would not spend any time reading your posts, trying to understand your viewpoints, and responding when necessary. It so happens that I do not respond often when I agree, and the result is that we seem to disagree all the time. Perhaps I should replace tacit approval with some indication. </p>
<p>However, in this case, I do not follow how you list the schools. Stanford having a slight edge over Cal is not relevant as they are on the same … team, so to speak. We need to look at either the four top schools or make pairings. </p>
<p>It is pretty simple. You can easily interchange USC and UCLA; they still edge UIUC and Wisconsin. Unless you want to establish that Michigan edges Berkeley, there is no way that a single pairing goes to the Big 10. </p>
<p>Pair 1: Stanford > Northwestern
Pair 2: Berkeley > Michigan
Pair 3. USC > UIUC
Pair 4 UCLA > Wisconsin </p>
<p>The only discussion would be about the size of the edge between the schools.</p>
<p>xiggi, if we’re still talking about football, then the wine pairings become:</p>
<p>Pair 1: Stanford <= Northwestern (kinda tough call…but cats > trees)
Pair 2: Berkeley < Michigan
Pair 3: USC > UIUC
Pair 4: UCLA <= Wisconsin </p>
<p>I still think Wisconsin is better than UCLA…for factors I consider important.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In football? Those factors don’t include winning percentage, national titles, conference titles, bowl appearances or All-Americans do they? I guess Wisconsin has an extra Heisman, but if Northwestern > Stanford that can’t be the all-important factor either. So, personal whim?</p>
<p>Well, the last two times UW and UCLA met in the Rose Bowl in the 90’s UW won both. Since that time UW has a better program going than UCLA. Overall they are pretty comparable schools with each having some unique strengths.</p>
<p>^ Not just for football.</p>
<p>Right, but the last decade was the worst for UCLA since the 40’s. The opposite has been true for Wisconsin.</p>
<p>I really don’t get the Northwestern/Stanford comparison though.</p>
<p>Oh well.</p>
<p>Hint about what Alexandre and I were debating:</p>
<p>Overall, I don’t see a difference in overall academic quality between the Big 10 and the Pac 10.</p>
<p>Cal, Stanford,USC, UCLA, Washington vs Northwestern, UM, UW, Illinois, UMinn</p>
<p>Nod to Pac 10</p>
<p>Oregon, WSU, OSU, ASU, Arizona vs OSU, MSU, PSU, Indiana, Purdue, Iowa</p>
<p>Strong nod to B10.</p>
<p>The entire point of the academic difference is that the Big Ten has a formal academic coalition (Committee on Institutional Cooperation) which gives the members academic advantages–the Pac-10 does not have a similar program, as far as I can tell.</p>
<p>In addition, academically, the Big Ten includes the University of Chicago. So really, the comparison would likely go (as undergraduate institutions).</p>
<p>Stanford>Chicago
Berkeley<Northwestern
USC<Michigan
UCLA=Wisconsin
Washington=UIUC
Oregon<Minnesota</p>
<p>And in reality, you could probably put something like an equal sign in all of these places, as they match up well. But when you go to the other half of the conference, as its been noted above, the Big Ten blows the Pac-10 away.</p>
<p>How about this for comparing the Pacific 10 with the Big 10?</p>
<p>Stanford
Northwestern</p>
<p>UC Berkeley = Southern Cal
UCLA = U Michigan = U Wisconsin = U Illinois
U Washington = Penn State
Ohio State
Purdue = U Minnesota
Indiana U = Michigan State = U Iowa = U Colorado
U Nebraska = U Arizona = U Utah
U Oregon
Arizona State = Oregon State = Washington State</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is just a bunch of partisan bullcrap. </p>
<p>The Committee on Institutional Cooperation comprises many schools outside the Big Ten. Chicago has not been a member of the Big Ten since 1946.</p>
<p>Hawkette, you listed UDub twice.</p>
<p>If Hawkette’s positioning is for “undergraduate”, here is mine when taking into context the entire university:</p>
<p>Stanford
Berkeley</p>
<p>Northwestern = U Michigan
U Wisconsin
UCLA = U Illinois = USC
U Washington = Penn State
Ohio State
Purdue = U Minnesota
Indiana U = Michigan State = U Iowa = U Colorado
U Nebraska = U Arizona = U Utah
U Oregon
Arizona State = Oregon State = Washington State</p>
<p>Washington State and Oregon State are much stronger in most sciences that the Arizona schools. Biology, Animal Sciences and Agricultural Sciences at WSU. The WSU Journalism School is one of the best; Marine Biology, Geology and Engineering at OSU. Arizona State may be on par with Geology and has a leg up on Astronomy, but that’s about it.</p>
<p>
I agree wholeheartedly, xiggi. 
Especially this:
</p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>ucb,
I really see very little difference between UCLA, U Michigan, U Wisconsin, and U Illinois and yet you have them on 3 different tiers. I’m talking about undergrad. Are you?</p>