FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[jamtod]

What about the University Athletic Association with Emory, Rochester, Wash U, Chicago, Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western and NYU?  Seven of these schools have undergraduate enrollments between 3,700 and 6,600 with an average of 5,250.  NYU is an extreme outlier with an enrollment of 20,950 (not included in above average).

No conference football though, so UST might have to drop football.  Lot's of air travel and hotel stays, but the savings from football would possibly offset the increased travel costs.

Loss of prestige from "no football", but very prestigious schools.  Positive impact on endowment?

Would the UAA even accept UST?

Edit:  5 of the 8 UAA schools play football in other conferences closer to home.  (Liberty, MWC, CCIW, and the PAC.)

Not a chance. Those are top-tier prestigious academic schools. UST academics have improved and I got a great education there, etc etc but it's not anywhere near that tier.

[art76]

So, if the Tommies are out, and there is no turning back, what's that really going to look like? What I am getting at is this - How long will the Tommies be playing in the MIAC - will they be done at the end of the school year, or will they be obligated to stay in the MIAC another full calendar year?

And, if they play football next fall in the MIAC, will the Oles even suit up against them?

[Gregory Sager]

As a possible new conference for UST, what about the University Athletic Association with Emory, Rochester, Wash U, Chicago, Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western and NYU?  Seven of these schools have undergraduate enrollments between 3,700 and 6,600 with an average of 5,250.  NYU is an extreme outlier with an enrollment of 20,950 (not included in above average).

No conference football though, so UST might have to drop football.  Lot's of air travel and hotel stays, but the savings from football would possibly offset the increased travel costs.

Loss of prestige from "no football", but very prestigious schools.  Positive impact on endowment?

Would the UAA even accept UST?

No way. The UAA consists of elite national research universities, all of whom are members of the Association of American Universities, which includes all of the top research universities in the U.S. and Canada. And St. Thomas isn't anywhere close to being any of those things.

The natural peer institutions of St. Thomas, at this juncture in the school's history, are other mid-sized, urban, regional Catholic midwestern universities such as DePaul, Creighton, Dayton, St. Louis, Loyola IL, and Xavier.

[Gregory Sager]

I have been thinking about this and really the big 5 schools of the MIAC are the one's who can save if it they get their ducks in a row. 

Assume St. Thomas wants to stay in Division 3.
Assume SJU, Concordia, Bethel and Gustavus would love to stick together. 

If that is the case the MIAC can be saved. 
1.  Augsburgs big sports are Wrestling and Hockey.  If those five stick together Augsburg only has St. Mary's, St. Olaf and Hamline to play against.  The remaining schools commit to restart wrestling if they don't have a program.  Do that Augsburg will probably stick with those 5.

2. Add St. Scholastica and Northwestern.  Both are good in their current conference and may benefit from a more high profile league.  CSS adds another hockey school to the mix.  All of a sudden you have 8 teams and Bethel gets a rivalry in conference.

Have the 8 teams commit to not playing former MIAC schools in non-conference games for a 10 year period.  What does this do?  It makes Hamline realize that they need to stay in the MIAC (hockey is a big sport to them also).  And with only MAC close by the travel gets to be too much. 

See what happens.  The big 5 really control things and can squash this if they want.

I have a very hard time imagining any league telling its members who they can or cannot play in non-conference competition.

[miac952]

What about the University Athletic Association with Emory, Rochester, Wash U, Chicago, Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western and NYU?  Seven of these schools have undergraduate enrollments between 3,700 and 6,600 with an average of 5,250.  NYU is an extreme outlier with an enrollment of 20,950 (not included in above average).

No conference football though, so UST might have to drop football.  Lot's of air travel and hotel stays, but the savings from football would possibly offset the increased travel costs.

Loss of prestige from "no football", but very prestigious schools.  Positive impact on endowment?

Would the UAA even accept UST?

Edit:  5 of the 8 UAA schools play football in other conferences closer to home.  (Liberty, MWC, CCIW, and the PAC.)

Not a chance. Those are top-tier prestigious academic schools. UST academics have improved and I got a great education there, etc etc but it's not anywhere near that tier.

Yes. All AAU members. UST, in its wildest academic ambitions is a couple decades away from that being a possibility.

The DIII, to DII, to DI path is the only foreseeable route.

[OzJohnnie]

The DIII, to DII, to DI path is the only foreseeable route.

ARC.

[miac952]

There seems to be a common belief among many that the conference would be "much weaker" or worse off without St. Thomas. Maybe the absolute top would be weaker at a national level with that one team in each sport. But I look back to the late 1970s to 1990s when there was no single dominant entity. Each school seemed to have a chance to capture a title now and then in most sports. Heck, if you look at just football which is probably the most difficult to compete in, Carleton, Hamline, St. Olaf, and Gustavus all won titles in that period even though St. Johns and Concordia were the most dominant. Even Macalester challenged with good teams in the 1980s for a brief period.

The MIAC still had nationally relevant teams in the period yet with more balanced conference competition from year to year.

That kind of competitive environment was a hell of a lot more interesting than the current set up. Maybe it's simply not possible to achieve that parity anymore; which would be too bad.

What makes you believe kicking out UST is going to change the athletic ambitions of Carleton, MAC, Augsburg, and Hamline. They aren't going to magically improve. Nor is St Olaf. They've spent the Bette fort of a decade commuting resources to athletics and they are still performing poorly.

SJU will dominate with a modest push from Bethel, Gustavus, and Concordia and in about eight years  the weasel down on the hill will squeeze the John's, with a more put together COL

[sfury]

Rachel Blount and the Star Tribune have obtained an email from Augsburg President Paul Pribbenow detailing his reason for voting to kick out the Tommies.  http://www.startribune.com/augsburg-president-reluctantly-supports-removing-st-thomas-from-miac/509752432/ 

In an exchange with an Augsburg supporter, Pribbenow wrote that several schools have threatened to leave the MIAC in recent years. He said he wants "the MIAC to remain as whole as is possible," even if it means St. Thomas must be expelled.

"My sense is that we have reached a consensus that will keep 12 schools together in the MIAC and that we will support St. Thomas's efforts to find a new conference home," Pribbenow replied to the Augsburg supporter, who wrote to express his opposition to removing St. Thomas. "I can assure you that if we had not reached this consensus, the MIAC would have imploded, leaving all of us in a far less attractive position."

After reading this I would vote to oust UST.  If the issue has been discussed for multiple years and resolution has not been reached, in fact it has become arguably worse, then that's that.  The only way UST could feel aggrieved in this situation is if #TEXIT came out of nowhere, when it hasn't.  UST has had fair warning that this was a possibility and the Tommies chose to not to address the issue (97-0).  It chose football over the conference.  A valid choice, certainly, but a choice the Tommies made.  And now it's done.

So, where to the Tommies go?  ARC is my guess.  None of the remaining Minnesota conferences are an even remote fit.  I'm sure the Johnnie/Tommie game will remain a permanent non-conference game on the schedule, which is nice since that means the Johnnies will only need to find one other non-conference opponent every year.

As for the Johnnies, I don't think there is any worry.  It's not that you win, it's how you win (97-0) that causes these issues.


My last observation is this: There will be a lot of whinging on this board about the "COL" but remember there are about 4000 student athletes that maintain their conference legacy and opportunity while there are about 550 that lose it.  For the sake of one sporting program.  Who really loses in this situation?  The Tommies who don't play football.

Oz, has your Tommie hatred made you take a 180 on this in a month (or, as a Tommie might say, a 360? Gotta get my Tommie shots in while I can in the next year)? Weren't you pretty anti Tommie Toss at the start? Now you're ready to send them fishing, ala the Inside the NBA crew.

Also, we have someone on this board who was actually involved in many of these behind-the-scenes discussions who says that SJU will absolutely eventually be a target. Hard to ignore that type of first-hand insight and just assume the dominance from our lads in red along with the top-flight facilities and commitment to sports is going to be lovingly accepted.

And I know we've beaten this to death here, but the 97-0 outrage still remains absolutely amazing to me. In the very same season, SJU beat someone even worse! Just not an MIAC team. And if it had only been 77-0, none of this happens? It almost seems that way, which makes it even more ludicrous. Three extra TDS means you're expelled after 100 years? Two-point conversions, behind-the-back passes, onside kicks, who gives a flying F. If Caruso had pulled a Bobby Valentine and put on a fake mustache and suited up himself, snuck into the game and plowed in for a 3-yard score to end the game, it still wouldn't be a reason to kick them out of the whole conference.

Also, I think the Tommies did address all of this. I mean, they did finish third in the conference this year!

And as Redtooth noted, giving Fritz the highest honor in the conference at this time is absolutely amazing. Totally deserved. But still amazing.

[57Johnnie]

I heard that U$T beat the Oles 97-0.  Has anyone else heard that?

Oles? I looked through all my Sagatagans and there were no Oles in the MIAC.   

[jamtod]

Rachel Blount and the Star Tribune have obtained an email from Augsburg President Paul Pribbenow detailing his reason for voting to kick out the Tommies.  http://www.startribune.com/augsburg-president-reluctantly-supports-removing-st-thomas-from-miac/509752432/ 

In an exchange with an Augsburg supporter, Pribbenow wrote that several schools have threatened to leave the MIAC in recent years. He said he wants "the MIAC to remain as whole as is possible," even if it means St. Thomas must be expelled.

"My sense is that we have reached a consensus that will keep 12 schools together in the MIAC and that we will support St. Thomas's efforts to find a new conference home," Pribbenow replied to the Augsburg supporter, who wrote to express his opposition to removing St. Thomas. "I can assure you that if we had not reached this consensus, the MIAC would have imploded, leaving all of us in a far less attractive position."

After reading this I would vote to oust UST.  If the issue has been discussed for multiple years and resolution has not been reached, in fact it has become arguably worse, then that's that.  The only way UST could feel aggrieved in this situation is if #TEXIT came out of nowhere, when it hasn't.  UST has had fair warning that this was a possibility and the Tommies chose to not to address the issue (97-0).  It chose football over the conference.  A valid choice, certainly, but a choice the Tommies made.  And now it's done.

So, where to the Tommies go?  ARC is my guess.  None of the remaining Minnesota conferences are an even remote fit.  I'm sure the Johnnie/Tommie game will remain a permanent non-conference game on the schedule, which is nice since that means the Johnnies will only need to find one other non-conference opponent every year.

As for the Johnnies, I don't think there is any worry.  It's not that you win, it's how you win (97-0) that causes these issues.


My last observation is this: There will be a lot of whinging on this board about the "COL" but remember there are about 4000 student athletes that maintain their conference legacy and opportunity while there are about 550 that lose it.  For the sake of one sporting program.  Who really loses in this situation?  The Tommies who don't play football.

Oz, has your Tommie hatred made you take a 180 on this in a month (or, as a Tommie might say, a 360? Gotta get my Tommie shots in while I can in the next year)? Weren't you pretty anti Tommie Toss at the start? Now you're ready to send them fishing, ala the Inside the NBA crew.

Also, we have someone on this board who was actually involved in many of these behind-the-scenes discussions who says that SJU will absolutely eventually be a target. Hard to ignore that type of first-hand insight and just assume the dominance from our lads in red along with the top-flight facilities and commitment to sports is going to be lovingly accepted.

And I know we've beaten this to death here, but the 97-0 outrage still remains absolutely amazing to me. In the very same season, SJU beat someone even worse! Just not an MIAC team. And if it had only been 77-0, none of this happens? It almost seems that way, which makes it even more ludicrous. Three extra TDS means you're expelled after 100 years? Two-point conversions, behind-the-back passes, onside kicks, who gives a flying F. If Caruso had pulled a Bobby Valentine and put on a fake mustache and suited up himself, snuck into the game and plowed in for a 3-yard score to end the game, it still wouldn't be a reason to kick them out of the whole conference.

Also, I think the Tommies did address all of this. I mean, they did finish third in the conference this year!

And as Redtooth noted, giving Fritz the highest honor in the conference at this time is absolutely amazing. Totally deserved. But still amazing.

Not to mention a shift in approach this past year to sit the starters coming into the second half and very directly take the foot off the gas in various situations. Did it cost them in terms of preparation for the big games? Who knows, but it's not totally absurd to speculate that a focus on playing nice instead of taking every play to prepare to be at our best had an impact.

[Mr.MIAC]

Place your bets. After getting the boot, will UST land somewhere in DII or DIII?

[jknezek]

Place your bets. After getting the boot, will UST land somewhere in DII or DIII?

D2

[Gregory Sager]

I'm thinking D2 and the Northern Sun.

I'd be surprised if the ARC wanted to add UST ... and life as an indie is miserable in D3. Just ask our friends up at Finlandia about that.

[BDB]

I'm thinking D2 and the Northern Sun.

Games with Concordia St. Paul would be interesting.

[Texas Ole]

Some of you are little too obsessed with St. Olaf.  Are you going to tell me that a college president who has routinely been ridiculed for mishandling situations is going to convince all the other presidents to vote a certain way based on a football score?  I don't see it.  I am not even sure Anderson knows St. Olaf has a football team, and he lives across street from the stadium.  Please note that Meidt was hired by the previous AD and President.  He and Anderson only overlapped by a year or two.  I understand some of the complaints about Meidt that people have voiced.  Meidt had to score 80 on his team because the defense could give up 70.  That was hugely frustrating to watch.

I am not a huge supporter of many within the administration at St. Olaf.  One of my big frustrations with St. Olaf right now is that I feel we are trying to mirror St. Thomas from an athletic perspective by hiring coaches away from them.  St. Olaf was successful years ago when they did it differently from others.  That was part of going national looking for athletes.  Now that everyone is going national I thought St. Olaf should look more local.  I thought they should have looked for a coach that understands the unique situations at St. Olaf and maybe an alum.

St. Thomas and others have frustrated several members of the MIAC for years.  There is a reason why Mac left for football years ago.  There is a reason why other schools have looked at leaving in recent years.  Many of these issues have been voiced in recent weeks.  You don't take this action based on a single issue.  I have heard rumblings about various issues regarding certain schools within the MIAC for years.  It wasn't just St. Thomas that was mentioned, but routinely the Tommies viewed as the most egregious.  St. Thomas has nobody to blame but themselves for it coming to this action.  I don't blame St. Thomas for pursuing excellence in different areas.  They have garnered more recognition in recent years that has allowed the school to grow.  The problem is this growth has created a division within the conference.  I have read multiple articles over the years that have suggested St. Thomas has grown beyond the MIAC.  It is now that the other schools are willing to take action to remove the Tommies.