Baseball is a top 3 professional sport in America Sam but it is far less popular in college. Its considered a 2nd tier sport after Football/Basketball and tied with Hockey and Lacrosse. Duke Football is also on the upswing and I expect it to routinely post records of 7-5 or better from here on out with Cutcliffe at the helm and strong recruiting classes coming in.</p>
<p>You are cherry picking sports that you feel like deserve praise here. Tennis and Soccer have much larger spectator followings than Swimming or T&F in college so its absurd to suggest that the latter have more relevance since they are Olympic sports.</p>
<p>Duke has been top 10 in the Directors Cup five times in nineteen years the competition has been held and is routinely in the top 20. If you don’t think Duke is an athletic powerhouse, then you must feel like only Stanford, UCLA, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, and maybe USC or Michigan deserve that moniker.</p>
<p>Yeah Sparkeye and Tsdad, the lawsuit over Maryland’s exit fee is going to create some very sour grapes, both along the Chesapeake and in Tobacco Road.</p>
<p>While being ranked 21st is remarkable, it remains that when it comes to athletics Duke’s peers are Princeton (17th) Tulsa (18th) Virginia (19th) Maryland (20th) and none of them could be considered powerhouses as opposed to … very good programs. </p>
<p>Fwiw, this goes back to the many threads we used to see from a prolific poster whose main point was that Duke was Stanford’s closest peer in terms of academics, athletics, and social life. I always felt that this based on a microscopic view taken from … Mars, and that it was wrong on all counts. And for one very simple reason, when it comes to combining athletics and academics, Stanford does not have real peers as it stands well above the schools that have perenially had to follow it in the related rankings. </p>
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<p>Fwiw, Michigan is ranked second in the latest preliminary rankings. Better news in Ann Arbor than in Durham. Rjkofnovi is getting his maize and blue pompons out to the despair of our Duke friend! ;)</p>
<p>Thanks for the shout out xiggi. If Michigan wins at Illinois on Sunday, the pompoms will be out for the new number one team in college basketball. (Well at least for a week)</p>
<p>It seems to me it’s much easier to build a winning basketball team than a winning football team. I can think of many top primarily football schools that have also been good in basketball for extended periods of time. I can hardly think of any programs that were primarily traditional basketball schools that have excelled in football over extended periods of time.</p>
<p>well notre dame will not be in the acc for basketball though,
there building the catholic super conference with the catholic big east schools with dayton and butler</p>
<p>I don’t think Brady Hoke cares Sparkeye. There is no difference between the top 10 classes. Alabama, Florida, LSU, Michigan, OSU, Notre Dame, Ole Miss and USC all did very well. </p>
<p>It is impossible to tell how those kids will evolve. Many 5 and 4 star recruits never pan out. If Derrick Green and Shane Morris do not work out at Michigan, this class would not be considered that good. If they turn out to be as good as advertized, this class could well be the best in the nation. </p>
<p>Another thing to take into consideration is need. Michigan needed OL, QB and RB. Hoke recruited what many consider one of the top 3 OL, one of the top 5 QB (Morris) and one of the top 5 RB (Derrick Green). Hopefully, they will turn out well. </p>
<p>Clearly, Meyer can hang with Hoke on the recruitment trail, but I doubt he is any better. Hoke is not ruthless, but he is very respected by the parents of prospects because of his down-to-earth, no nonsense approach. Given the quality of the last two classes at Michigan and OSU, it appears that the rivalry is once again relevant. Big 2, little 12?!</p>
<p>By the way, 5 of Ohio’s 11 highest rated prospects signed with Michigan! ;)</p>
<p>Truer words have never been spoken! While I am not sure how he performed during his senior year, Will Campbell should be an example of unmet expectations. Perhaps, the people who actually watched more than a few minutes of a Michigan game might have a different opinion, but he seems to have been a big bust. If that does not work, let’s settle on Dayne Crist at our beloved Notre Dame. Even the almighty could not help that one! </p>
<p>The recruiting classes tell only part of the story. For years, Texas had some of the very best classes, and the results did not follow. In other years, the lesser players emerged and we had great seasons. Then, take a look at Stanford, when did they get acclaimed for a superior recruiting class? Even its class of 2008 appeared so-so to the national scene. Take a look at the players and some of those names turned out! </p>
<p>As the services have grown and have more money to spend on scouting HS players and there are more summer showcases for HS players the quality/accuracy will get better and better.</p>
Uh please Xiggi, Duke’s best sports are yet to be tabulated: Men’s Basketball, Women’s Basketball, Men’s Lacrosse, Women’s Lacrosse, Men’s Tennis, Women’s Tennis, Men’s Golf, Women’s Golf, and Fencing.</p>
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Xiggi, how many national championships in College Football and College Basketball does Stanford have in the past 50 years? Zero! Duke’s got 4.</p>
<p>But hey, hope you enjoy those annual Water Polo and Synchronized Swimming national championshiops. Stanford gets its glory indeed…every 4 years in the Olympics that is!</p>
<p>Duke Basketball is primetime every Spring on ESPN and CBS. You can’t miss it…its forced down your throat. Stanford Football will always play second fiddle to Big 10 and SEC Football in the media spotlight.</p>