Louisville-West Virginia Grudge Match

Huh.

Not nearly as different as I thought in football. Perception is a funny thing, isn’t it? I still prefer West Virginia. We cannot make this a basketball decision.

Both of these schools have a better resume than Texas A&M in football.

SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC!

Something tells me this particular fight is somehow going to lead to a massive release of 2-4-5 Trioxin* into the atmosphere.

The geography works, as does the calendar.

(* You non-nerds can Google it)

For whatever it’s worth, Louisville is not an idyllic pastoral setting surrounded by horse farms. It’s a shitty looking urban commuter campus not much different from Memphis or U of H. The town itself is a weird mix of Old South and industrial Midwest. Not an unpleasant place, just a little odd.
 
WVU just sounds better for reasons I can’t rationally explain.
 
I think it’s because I prefer whitewater rafting over horse racing.

Louisville, KY pop. 741,09 metro rank = 31
Morgantown, WV pop. 111,200
Columbia, MO pop. 108,500

Market wise Louisville is an upgrade for the conference.

Morgantown metro rank = 332
Columbia metro rank = 241

Louisville only looks that good from the Petrino days. They have not been shit since he left, and will not be shit ever again. WVU is by far the smarter play

WVU. They WANT to be big time and have the attitude to do so.

Learning a second language could be a problem, though …

This is like the desperate 2 AM choice between the only unattached ladies still at the bar. Do I want to take home the fat one with the lazy eye, or the one with six toes and raging halitosis?

I’m on the West Virginia side as well.

But I looked all this info up and thought it best to share with you, dear readers.

I wish people would stop posting population stats and TV market demographics. And if they do they need to be prepared to explain how Alabama is a huge draw and Syracuse is not.

Ooh, oooh! Dibs on lazy eye!

(I have a sensitive nose)

Charlie Strong is a solid coach and has recruited some good athletes to Louisville. He just signed a new deal and is year two of rebuilding the program.

They are playing a great deal of young players including the quarterback position.

Holgerson might have more flash about him, but we all know there are some series red flags about the guy heading a program and I am not so sure he will do a better job of building and maintaining a program over Strong.

BrickHorn -
 
Listerine and a scalpel will solve that problem quickly.

Scipio, or an extra large pair of socks.

No fatties.

Scip,

Listerine and a scalpel will solve that problem quickly.

There are 170,000 living WVU alumni. We’re going to need a shit ton of Listerine.

And if they do they need to be prepared to explain how Alabama is a huge draw and Syracuse is not.

That’s a straw man fallacy. The difference between Alabama and Syracuse are obvious, those between Louisville, W Va, and Missouri are not so-Huckleberry’s post makes that pretty clear.

haven’t been keeping up. why is it they want 10 instead of 12?

“That’s a straw man fallacy. The difference between Alabama and Syracuse are obvious, those between Louisville, W Va, and Missouri are not so-Huckleberry’s post makes that pretty clear.”

No, it’s not.

If your population/TV market stat mattered as much as you think it did why would Louisville sell 10% fewer tickets than West Virginia? Or lose money versus making money in athletics?

Football relevance is a more complex concept than number of people living in a region. Tradition, the following of the fan base, dedication by the fans both financially and in terms of attendance and viewership and on the field success matter as much if not more than the TV market share.

isterine and a scalpel will solve that problem quickly.

There are 170,000 living WVU alumni. We’re going to need a shit ton of Listerine.

No need for a dentist though.

How does the Austin metro area compare to Boston?

Boston has the edge in guys named “Sully” and clam chowder, while Austin has milder winters and is cheaper. They’re both nice but I like Austin better.

If your population/TV market stat mattered as much as you think it did why would Louisville sell 10% fewer tickets than West Virginia?

Yet another straw man. If you combine ticket sales figures you would see that West Virginia sells less tickets than Louisville does. If the point you make about ticket sales correlating to potential viewership is true , then as an advertiser I get more exposure with Louisville than with Wa Virginia.

Huckleberry said:

October 26th, 2011 at 3:44 pm

How does the Austin metro area compare to Boston?

By height.

Scipio Tex said:
October 26th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
It’s a shitty looking urban commuter campus not much different from Memphis or U of H.

Scip, I go to U of H and truer words have never been spoken! I fucking hate that campus!

How is it that every argument I make is straw man? If I combined ticket sales? Why the hell would I do that? Now you are throwing out straw man arguments.

West Virginia has a better football program with a better national and local following. They would be better for the Big 12 for that reason.

I think it’s because I prefer whitewater rafting moonshine over horse racing.

I can’t read the words ‘straw man’ without thinking of echeese.

Blaze Pascal said:

October 26th, 2011 at 3:18 pm

And if they do they need to be prepared to explain how Alabama is a huge draw and Syracuse is not.

That’s a straw man fallacy. The difference between Alabama and Syracuse are obvious, those between Louisville, W Va, and Missouri are not so-Huckleberry’s post makes that pretty clea

It is not the size of the college town, but its popularity within the state and the size of the state. Based on your math UH > UT by 3 or 4 times.

From a pure market/alumni standpoint Missouri > than WV or Louisville

In my opinion from a national football name WV > Missouri > Louisville

In the State of Kentucky:

UK = UT
Louisville = Houston

Louisville is all about basketball.

In Texas, Moosehead is a beer. In West Virginia, it’s a misdemeanor.

The more important current numbers are probably the viewership numbers that WVU has the obvious advantage in.

I think the important question might be how do those numbers change when WVU/Lousiville is in a better conference playing bigger names? Playing OU or UT would become the biggest game on the schedule. I think OSU and Ttech would probably be an upgrade over the majority of the rest of the big east as far as eyes on the TV go.

Would Louisville be able to take advantage of the upgrade in schedule to get more attention from the large TV market they are in? Would more people watch Louisville when 2 of UT/OU/OSU/Ttech came to town every year? Would more people watch UT (which is really what the poeple here care about)?

If you think that Louisville does get a big boost with the upgrade in conference, you want to go with them. If not, based on the current numbers, WVU is the pick. Also, comparing them to Houston isn’t the best idea. UT doesn’t need help grabbing the Houston market. We might however do well there with Louisville on the schedule every year.

Why not just take both and be done with it?

I actually favor expanding the conference to 12 or more teams and have no qualms about adding both schools as part of an eastern division.

However, I thought that I’d throw in that while Louisville has a larger local population/television market that in my research of potential schools to target I found West Virginia outsold Louisville in merchandise last year.

Texas took the top spot again on the CLC list, but WVU was at 16, while UL was at 35. I believe that ranking at least shows that there is genuine interest in the Mountaineers in spite of any misgivings people might have about the size of their market. Now if you take issue with their geography or accents…I’ve got nothing for you. Wait! Do you like Bill Withers tunes?

If Louisville gets an invite at some point, I look forward to the Rick Pitino quotes chiding their administration about abandoning the teat of the Big East. I’d find that funny, anyway.

Vasherized-

You missed a throw back echeese thread on 24 7 this week. He was in rare form again.

I just saw on the ESPN crawl under another pathetic Thursday nite Big East game that the Big 12 told WVU that expansion has been put on hold. WTF?

It’s not even close. West Virginia has been nationally relevant with many TV appearances since the early ’80s. Their success has transcended a single coach.

Louisville has only been relevant during the BCS era, and even then only for about 5 years.

If you look at current trajectories of the programs, WVU continues to thrive and compete for conference championships, while Louisville’s short lived heyday seems to have faded to consistent mediocrity in a poor conference.

I’ve yet to see a hypothetical 12-team B12 that isn’t absurdly dominated by the Texas-OU side. I love the 10 team B12 of today and I want to keep it at 10. WVU, in spite of chewing through coaches, has consistently been dynamic on offense (entertaining) and they schedule good OOC match-ups. The two WVU fans I regularly talk shit to are good people. They’d mentioned that Louisville is pumping money into their program and your number back that… and they absolutely hate the bubble screen. There’s obviously the chance that the B12 could blow up in a few years, so you have to go with the team that brings the most immediate national respect in the polls.

WVU’s near future OOC:
2012: Marshall, @ Florida State, James Madison, Maryland
2013: Florida State, Maryland, East Carolina
2014: Michigan State, Towson, @ Maryland, @ ECU

If conference expansion continues, who is the SEC going to take next? I think Louisville will be there if we need to go to 12.

The answer is you take both. Either is a geographical outlier and if Texas really cares about the long-term viability of the conference, you need to strengthen this very politically weak conference. Also, you can’t maroon one team on an island, especially one that doesn’t have a unbelievable national following (BYU can stand alone geographically because of it’s LDS following nationally). Your asking either to 1965 Cuba. The travel would ultimately be a detractor and if they were to get an invitation down the road from a conference more geographically suitable (ACC or SEC) and we make no inroads or effort to bring their fan base and culture into our conference then there is no loyalty and they’ll bolt.

After today’s events, there has to be a pretty healthy dislike b/w the two. Natural rivals. They’re fairly close regionally and an addition of ND (unlikely) or Cincinnati (yuck but possible) would create a de facto eastern pod that could well make the transition much easier for the schools. If Texas doesn’t care about the survival of the Big12, by all means, take WVU and let’s live it up for a few years until we bolt and join another conference, where our political influence would be usurped by being the new kid in town. All in what we want. But if you are to believe Deloss on that we would prefer to retain being the Master of our Domain (thank you, Seinfeld), then the Big12 is our best bet and you take both to give a death blow to the BE thereby leveraging ND into possibly letting us feel her up, and also taking two of the four most attractive (albeit not really close) options that our up for the taking. The other two being BYU (possible) and ND (pipe dream)……

You missed a throw back echeese thread on 24 7 this week. He was in rare form again.

He’s the reason I never subscribed to 24/7. I’ll never pay to post on a site where that dipshit posts, again.

Alright. I take back everything I’ve said the last couple of days about the Big12 having a future. It’s doomed. And it’s not because of the WVU/Louisville crap. It’s this….Oklahoma Confused

After all the shit this conference has been through the last couple of months you would of thought that the ones trying to keep it together would have finally learned to shut their f***ing mouths and try to work together.

But no. David Boren is confused. It seems the announcement that there are discussions of a Big12 network confused and displeased him. Apparently he has difficulty understanding the concept that everyone not named Texas and OU might want to bundle their 3rd tier rights. That’s some f***ing complex shit.

But it gets even better, because T.Boone has decided it’s time for him to straighten us out on some things. First it seems that T.Boone is confused about Boren being confused.

Even better, it seems T.Boone had a LONG conversation with Sen. Mitch McConnell. T.Boone says “he’d have to "be convinced on West Virginia" as a potential new member of the conference.” Ex-f***ing-cuse me?!?!?! Your a f***ing booster, not a university president. Nobody has to convince you because you have no say.

T.Boone then goes on to clarify that the real problem continues to be Texas of course!!!

“I still believe we can save the Big 12, but I still say that Texas is going to have to look like the rest of us in the Big 12 instead of looking like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I don’t like that.”

“Just get the same contract for everybody. Everybody’s equal," Pickens said. "If you’d have had that, you wouldn’t have lost the (Texas A&M) Aggies, you wouldn’t have lost Nebraska and Colorado and it looks like Missouri’s going. But it’s because things are not equal is what it is.”

I thought the schools that were going to stick together had gotten past using the debunked propoganda about big bad Texas causing unequal revenue sharing all by ourselves (explain to me again how our 1 vote trumped the other 11?). And yeah NU and A&M consistently voted against equal revenue sharing and yet somehow that would have kept them here.

F*** you Boren, and double f*** you in the ass with an 18" dildo T.Boone, and f*** this whole group of worthless dysfunctional schools. The Big12 is indeed doomed.

This is probably a moot argument.

Mitch McConnell (R-KY) – Senate Minority Leader; Louisville grad

Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) – chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee – the committee that overseas college sports; West Virginia fan

John Boehner (R-OH) – Speaker of the House; represents a congressional district in Cincinnati

How many carrots can these guys offer? Maybe it could be worthwhile to expand back to 12.

Scip,
You may like rafting better than horseracing, but do you realize a trip to Louisville means that a 20 minute drive drops you in the heart of bourbon country rather than moonshine stills. You can even seal your own bottle of Makers if you choose. As you might guess, I would recommend handpicking a bottle of small batch at Woodford Reserve.

Nunna Yo Bizness,

Glad to see your conference realignment IQ rising. Yes, the Big 12 is dead. These are just the death spasms towards rigor mortis. This is about tv money, period. Not about how many wins a football team has, or how exciting it is.

T Boone Pickens has no say? Wrongo. He has almost as much money as God, and every US Senator is on his cell phone contact list. Same for Boren, who served in the US Senate. You think Deloss has every US Senator in his cell phone contacts? Hell no. So when Senators wade into football realignment, the ADs are clueless and the Presidents freak out, because federal academic research dollars distributed by Congress DWARF football tv dollars. Ask the Big 10 schools, they know.

OU and OSU are going to leave the Big 12. And the high-powered money and political moves behind the scenes are beyond what typical college football fans are even aware exist.

T Boone Pickens has no say? Wrongo. He has almost as much money as God

I understand that. My point is what a corrupt piece of shit he is.

OU and OSU are going to leave the Big 12.

Sorry but I don’t believe this. They made their play and it fizzled. If they had another what are they waiting for.

Deloss (a Kansas St guy) is going to cling to the Big 12 until he finds he’s put UT’s head under water (ie, OU and OSU leave for another conference). Stoops is already using some of the same subtle language that the Aggies and Pinkel were using. Everyone’s ready to throw us under the bus.

Powers (a Cal guy) likes the PAC and also the ACC. LHN is currently killing any deal with those conferences.

When OU and OSU leave, then we will be forced to leave for another conference as well, but by then, some conferences won’t have a slot open for us. So we’ll have fewer choices (maybe only one choice), and every choice we have left will insist on us dropping our individual network and revenue share in their conference network.

The national money dynamics are running over Deloss, the LHN, and the Big 12. Mark it down.

Nunna-

Pickens is 83. Boren is 71. You won’t have to put up with their shit much longer.

Sell the encyclopedias. T Man knows fucking everything.

Freshman Profile:

WVU: Average ACT of 23.7 and SAT Math + Critical Reading 1055; high school GPA of 3.36.
Missouri: Average ACT 25.7
Louisville: Average ACT: 24.5, 3.46 average GPA

Established:
WVU; 1867
Missouri: 1839
Louisville: 1798

2010 Beef O’Brady’s Bowl – Louisville vs. Southern Miss drew a rating of 2.29
2010 Champs Sports Bowl – West Virginia vs. NC. State drew a rating of 2.46
2010 Insight Bowl – Missouri vs. Iowa drew a rating of 2.24

2006 Orange Bowl Louisville vs. Wake Forest = 6.98
2005 Gator Bowl Virginia Tech vs. Louisville = 3.93
2004 Liberty Bowl Louisville vs. Boise State = 4.6
2003 GMAC Mobile Miami (Ohio) vs.Louisville = 1.48
2002 GMAC Mobile Marshall vs. Louisville = 2.3

Best rating Missouri could muster was against 4.6 against Northwestern(08). West Virginia did score a 9 in the ‘09 Sugar bowl against Georgia-lowest rating among BCS bowls, I wonder what the Orange bowl numbers would have been if Louisville played a traditional SEC power. Other than that West Virginia tv ratings in bowl games are no better than Louisville’s, despite the advantages people point to. Missouri also has comparable ratings in bowl games than Louisville.

I don’t see where Missouri or West Virginia are vastly superior than Louisville as far as eyeballs go. Given that football is not UL’s forte, those numbers are fairly impressive.

Statesman arrticle on federal funding.

The University of Texas System got $25.9M last year in federal funding, which went to research but also other ends. According to the article, $5.5M went to research at the Austin campus. That doesn’t exactly dwarf TV money.

Huckleberry -

Does that number refer to total federal funding or just earmarks?

Can’t wait for TMan’s next prediction. Where is it that OU and OSU are going? What conferences are going to fill up without us and what teams they are going to take to fill those slots up?

I’m assuming it’s earmarks, but I’m even less inclined to believe that any other sort of federal funding would be affected by conference affiliation.

From SportsByBrooks, if this is true then put it in the column under West Virginia.

Beasley really sold out Huggins. Good case to see if the NCAA is totally worthless or just partially worthless.

1st off, Louisville will be a good program in the near future. Charlie Strong is a damn good coach and Mike Sanford is a real good OC.

but i still like WV.

anyone know the academic and r&d comparisons between the schools?

Good lord….Boren is 71, Pickens is 83, DeLoss is 74 and Nienas is 79….Doesn’t anyone DIE anymore?

PVogel,

The two are rated as equal in the below link, though I think one website I looked at suggested UL does a bit more research.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges

Nunna,

I share your sentiments that those two seem to lack reading comprehension or the good sense to keep quiet about ongoing conference matters, but I wouldn’t get too worked up about it. Boren is confused by many things, and Pickens is tilting at windmills. He thinks of them as investments too. The OU and OSU regents would be wise to put a gag order on that nonsense, but I doubt that’s coming. Big XII should smile, nod, and then resume actual plans among those that have read them.

Louisville.

We have to be careful we don’t turn into a conference of ’tards. Personally I would have gone with BYU, despite their obvious idiosyncrasies they just seem like a good fit for quality sports, and if you can see past the Mormon doctrine they actually have a strong academic reputation. We already have two religious schools in our conference so I see no problem

WVU’s fans are really just rural Philly fans.

@ Scipio Tex

“I think it’s because I prefer whitewater rafting over horse racing.”

Cue the banjos

I understand that market size is part of the decision making process for the powers that be. I get that. Aside from predictive uses (because somehow you think you can predict the random world of conference realignment), why do fans care? It seems like people here and elsewhere are using market size to partially determine their preference.

Wimenz, fun trips, fun games, even academic reputation if you’re an alumn (a stretch, but there’s some logic behind it) all make sense for a fan to care about. This market size bidness makes no sense to me.

Can someone who care explain why you care?

I would imagine travel to Morgantown is an issue. I bet you have to fly into Pittsburgh and then drive down. Not a big deal for football because it’s only every other year. However, it would be the shits for non-revenue sports.

I hate both options, but at least WVU is a “desitnation” university – albeit a “destination” for moonshine-drinking, snake handling, toothless and shoeless freaks the likes of which Oklahoma has never seen.

U of Louisville is just somewhere you end up when UK or tOSU doesn’t work out. It’s one step up from DeVry or the University of Phoenix.

This would be a far better country without Mitch McConnell in it….

WVU gives us an entire state’s TV market although I don’t know how many of those sets get cable.

Why not take both, move to 11 and leave a spot for ND?

As I look around the landscape, there is no tier 1 program available for picking. Louisville and WVU are both good, but not great options. Having both of them gives us a stronger geographical footprint and provides 2 close travel games for Notre Dame in the event they can be convinced to join for all sports.

I’m fine with a 10 team league, but if we hope for ND later, might as well grab the best 10 and 11 on the board now. VaTech and FSU are not going to open up to us, and I refuse to believe one Florida directional school is a good move.

One of these places is 4 hours from my house.

One of them is not.

You’re welcome.

Why not take both, move to 11 ?

10 satisfies TV and is easier to explode when 40% of the conference leaves for the Pac. That’s my guess as to why the Big 12 biggies prefer 10. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

More on Nunna’s “Oklahoma Confused” link:

"To me, you go out of here to West Virginia, you’re going to go a long way," Pickens said. "I didn’t like the Pac-10 for that reason. That’s the only reason."

He sure didn’t have a problem w/ Okie State traveling a long way when the Pokes were hanging on to the Sooners’ skirts on their failed attempt to get into the Pac-12.

And I"m sure the Pac-12 saying, “We don’t want you guys unless you bring Texas with you” wasn’t the “only reason” either.

Is this what realignment has turned into? US Senators sniping at each other over the propriety of lobbying for your state institutions?!? Brickhorn has convinced me, this is a clusterf*** of epic proportions. So the Big XII was convinced and united enough for WVU that they told them they were in, then Mitch McConnell calls, and suddenly OU and some others decide it’s a bad idea?!?How do you DE-invite a team when you’ve already approved their application?

And not for nothing, but the friggin’ reporting of realignment issues has been atrocious. I mean, it’s just absolutely ridiculous.

Can someone who care explain why you care?

Other than trying to predict which one gets in, I don’t.

Boren is a thorn in the Big 12 side.

http://dennis-dodd.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/6270202/32959597

Nunna, you can’t let the T. Boones and Borens of the world get under your skin. It’s human nature to blame someone else for your problems. Politicians around the world, to varying extents, have been blaming the USA for their countries’ problems for like half a century now. Helps keep the magnifying glass off your own ineptitude if you can scapegoat someone big and powerful.

Even if we do end up in the Pac, ACC, Big 10, a new superconference or whatever, in the near- or long-term, you’re going to be hugely disappointed if you expect the blame game to stop. Texas would instantly become the scapegoat of choice for any real or perceived mismanagement within a new conference. Cal/Oregon/ASU AD quote from the year 2020: “well, we could have done X, Y, and Z if only Texas hadn’t come in and starting pulling all the strings here in our good ol’ Pac 16/18/20.” Those who can, do, and those who can’t, bitch about it. The world goes round and round.

Honestly at this point I’m wondering why we even bother any more. What is really in the Big 12 for us besides constant instability and finger-pointing games? Why are we so opposed to going independent? Cut a deal with ESPN or Fox or whoever for our 1st and 2nd Tier rights, tell OU and all the little kids in the Big 12 that if we’re so evil they’ll be better off without us anyway, get a Notre Dame deal with the BCS, and play whoever we want. Every jealous AD, retard journalist, and average fan who lacks critical thinking skills has already placed the black hat on our head, we might as well wear it at this point.

Why not take both, move to 11 ?

10 satisfies TV and is easier to explode when 40% of the conference leaves for the Pac. That’s my guess as to why the Big 12 biggies prefer 10. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

First part about why 10 is true. Eleven is no-man’s land. Too big for a round-robin in football and basketball, too small for a CCG.

Now that the BE is in death spiral and the Pac has turned away OU and Ok State without Texas, I’d be hard-pressed to find a scenario under which four (more) teams end up leaving.

I think Texas (and OU, now that Boren has found other ways to damage the B12) have made it clear that they don’t want a CCG. And they want to maneuver with ND, and maybe BYU. Taking both WVU and UL hurts that.

T Man is so full of win.

“When OU and OSU decide to leave….”

They tried that already. Like just a few weeks ago. How did that turn out?

“I think Texas (and OU, now that Boren has found other ways to damage the B12) have made it clear that they don’t want a CCG. And they want to maneuver with ND, and maybe BYU. Taking both WVU and UL hurts that.”

I think Patrick Bateman made a pretty convincing argument. If WVU is out on an island, what’s stopping the SEC from poaching them from the B12 if/when they go to 16? If the B12 is to survive and potentially thrive, WVU needs some partners in crime — Louisville and Cincinnati. That brings us to 12… The ACC and SEC are each going to be at 14. Being at 12 doesn’t, in any way, prevent us from going after ND and BYU. That’s a damn strong 14 team B12… A 10 team B12 isn’t sustainable unless we take a school the SEC will pass on next round (Louisville).

I was told that the Big XII has soured on BYU because we don’t want to expand to both the west and the east of our core area, and we can’t find a second team to the west that interests us. Hence the sudden discussion of WVU, Cinn, UL, etc.

Anyone else heard this?

LosHorns,

There were two things I heard for BYU being out of the picture. The one I think is least likely is the whole not playing (or traveling) on Sundays. I suppose the late Saturday travel could be an issue, but haven’t they always dealt with this? Otherwise, I don’t think we play a lot of Sunday games in any sport or not enough to make this an insurmountable problem.
The other is that BYU’s current TV contract gives them 5 or 6 Tier one football games and that the Big 12 couldn’t match that, so BYU passed.