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<p>Yeah, but the Ivy League is at least a legit sports conference…</p>
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<p>Ummm no…</p>
<p>
OK, I can understand the rationalization for excluding NESCAC and UAA from consideration, as D3 conferences. But if D1 is the criterion for being “legit”, then the Ivy League and the Patriot League are the #1 and #2 conferences academically. </p>
<p>If the Ivies are “legit” as an athletic league, then there are no grounds whatsoever for excluding the Patriot League (= Army, Navy, Colgate, Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette, Holy Cross, American). Patriot League schools are D1 FCS, no different from the Ivies. Furthermore, they have a close athletic relationship with Ivies, as the schools that most commonly compete with the Ivies in interleague play. Harvard, for example, played 10 football games last year: 7 against the other Ivies, and 3 against the Patriot League. If the Ivy League counts, then the Patriot League has to count as well.</p>
<p>The Patriot League schools, with one exception, are ranked no lower than #36 in the current USN&WR university or LAC rankings. The exception, American, is an outlier at #84 in the university rankings.</p>
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LOL. I had the same idea as you (Ivy, NESCAC, UAA) except I didn’t read your post before I posted my comment. Coincidence i guess? wow.</p>
<p>I forgot about the Patriot league… :D</p>
<p>Why not rework the numbers of the conferences using the US News overall undergrad rankings and the current Sagarin preseason men’s football and basketball team ratings? Then you’d have an academic as well an athletic perspective.</p>
<p>Wow… only on CC would the Ivy League be considered a major athletic conference. lol</p>
<p>The Ivy League is most similar to the UAA. Just compare the UAA schools to the Ivy League schools. Stronger emphasis on academics, no sports scholarships, etc. So while, yes, the Ivy League is technically a D1 conference, its general athletic performance isn’t in the same galaxy as the ACC, Big 10, Pac 10, etc. It has much more in common with the UAA.</p>
<p>Patriot League is D1 like the Ivy League and plays Ivy League
(School, USNews ranking)
USMA -14
USNA - 19
Colgate - 19
Bucknell - 30
Lafayette - 35
Lehigh - 35
Holy Cross - 36
American - 84</p>
<p>If you’ve been following ivy league athletics in recent years… you’ll know that ivy league hasn’t exactly been focusing on academics, they have been getting more and more high profile recruits. I think going by usnews, ACC wins over Big10, but in terms of the actual academic quality of the schools, Big10 is better. There’s simply no bad school in the Big10.</p>
<p>The Ivy League doesn’t not AT ALL fit the description of a league “whose athletes sweat on national TV and in 70,000 seat stadiums.” No one would consider it a “major” athletic league…</p>
<p>
Well, at least one person apparently does, because the title of this thread is:</p>
<p>“What is the smartest major athletic conference after the Ivy League?”</p>
<p>
ACC beat the SEC head to head
Furthermore, Duke beat Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>In terms of Academic Reputation (smartest?) for Major Athletic Conferences, Big Ten > ACC & PAC-10 imho!!</p>
<p>So, after a few days of inquring PA scores for my beloved Big Ten schools to no avail on CC, I swung by the bookstore after church to check out the scores myself and found that ave. PA score for Big Ten Institutions is ~3.8 > ACC & PAC-10 both at ~3.5. Sorry, I did not feel the magazine worth ~$10, so I did a rough ave. PA score estimation on-site while glancing through the numbers and did the math for Big Ten, PAC-10 & ACC from the top of my head. (So, please double check the accuracy of these numbers as I can now only recall the PA scores for the Big Ten!!) Though only worth 25% and subjective, I believe PA score can also be used as an indicator in terms of the general academic quality for the particular school and conference as a whole. Here is what I recall for the Big Ten:</p>
<p>Big Ten</p>
<p>Northwestern 4.3
Michigan 4.4
Wisconsin 4.1
Illinois 4.0
Penn State 3.8
Ohio State 3.6
Minnesota 3.6
Purdue 3.7
Indiana 3.6
Iowa 3.5
Michigan State 3.4</p>
<p>–> Ave. PA Score: 3.82</p>
<p>*I did not include UChicago 4.6 (CIC), otherwise, the Ave. PA would be 3.88 when divided by 12 instead of 11 for Big Ten.</p>
<p>P.S. I did not stay long at the bookstore, so I didn’t get a chance to check out other major conferences such as the SEC, Big East, Big 12…etc.</p>
<p>Patriot League would be next after the Ivy League. Of the smaller schools, NESCAC could compete academically; of the larger schools, the PAC-10 has a few excellent universities in its midst.</p>
<p>The Big Ten (11) has never won an ACC/Big Ten Challenge in basketball, and the ACC has a 10-0 record. Within the challenge, Duke boasts a perfect 10-0 record. The ACC has 7 teams whose win percentages are above .500, while the Big Ten (11) only has 1 school who can make the same claim…</p>
<p>The Pac 10 clearly loses because its bottom isn’t ranked. ACC and Big Ten are a tie. If one did want to argue, I’d give the edge to the ACC. The Big Ten has HUGE undergraduate schools. Even the public schools in the ACC are much smaller than their Big Ten counterparts. Plus the top academic schools in the ACC have the self respect not to cheat unlike Michigan (Fab 5), UCLA (1970’s basketball), and USC (Bush and Mayo) do.</p>
<p>PA scores have a huge bias towards research which is irrelevant towards undergrad athletics. The Big Ten wrote the rule book on skewing PA scores way before Clemson’s president (many put the Big Ten above the Ivy League). Even FSU has had a lot of Rhodes scholars lately.</p>
<p>Patriot League schools play many games with the Ivy League. Also Colgate and Holy Cross have strong alumni networks with alumni giving rates of 50%.</p>
<p>The Big East has 16 schools. It is as diverse as it is big. Some of the Big East schools were left out of an earlier post. This is a little more complete. </p>
<p>Notre Dame - 20
Georgetown -23
Pitt - 56
Cuse - 58
Rutg - 66
Conn - 66</p>
<p>Some Big East schools are not listed among the National Universities, but are reported under Masters Degree, and these schools are rated by region. The Big East has the top two rated schools in the North</p>
<p>1 - Villanova
2 - Providence</p>
<p>The Ivy League is a terrible conference. All the teams are trash in major sports. Big Ten and ACC both have a combination of good athletics and academics.</p>
<p>The Big East has six schools without phi beta kappa chapters, so its depth is lacking.</p>