I know, I know, academics and football go together as well as Alabama fans and IQ points, but today the U.S. News released its rankings of the top colleges in America.
You can see all the rankings here.
You'll recall that the Texas Longhorns famously cited academics as a reason why they didn't fit in the SEC. And one of the big reasons why Missouri received an SEC bid over West Virginia was, in fact, academics. (There were other reasons as well -- Missouri is the much bigger state for instance, which makes more sense for the SEC Network -- but given that presidents vote on expansion, the SEC could argue that expansion actually made them a better conference than before expansion).
So it got me wondering, how do the realigned conferences stack up in terms of overall academic prestige?
So I checked out every football school's overall ranking and then computed them as a conference average. Voila, the results:
1. ACC -- 51.2
2. Big Ten -- 57.5
3. Pac 12 -- 81.75
4. SEC -- 98.7
5. Big 12 -- 113.1
6. Big East -- 130.6
It probably won't come as any surprise that the ACC's 14 schools -- I included Pitt and Syracuse -- averaged a 51.2 -- which is downright amazing -- but how about the top level strength in the Pac 12? Four schools in the top 25? Wow. And how about the bottom half of the Pac12? Ouch.
The SEC's 14 team average is better than the Big 12's 10 team average -- in fact, if you put the top ten of the SEC against the top ten of the Big 12 to equalize the conference sizes, the SEC's average is 80.28, which demolishes the Big 12's 113.1 even more substantially. Even if you remove the top two SEC schools from the tally, Vanderbilt and Florida, the bottom 12 SEC schools are still better than the Big 12's top ten. So that Texas academics argument? Yeah, like most things trotted out by the Longhorns, it's complete crap.
As for the worst of the major BCS conferences, that honor belongs to Memphis, a school that isn't even ranked among the top national universities. (Boise State is ranked as the 62nd best regional school in the West, which probably makes it better than Memphis too.) If you don't even think it's fair to include the Big East as a major conference then West Virginia and Texas Tech are tied at 165 as the two worst academic schools in the top five conferences.
Here's how all the conferences rank with the inclusion of their individual schools. (Please stop with your emails about how the U.S. News rankings are biased against your school. I'm sure these rankings aren't perfect, but they're infinitely better than having to listen to Texas fans talk about how their academics are too strong for the SEC. Newsflash, Longhorns, you'd be the ninth highest ranked school in the state of California and you're ranked below Miami, which would make you the 8th best ACC school. Hook'em.).
ACC -- Average of 51.2
8. Duke
24. Virginia
27. Wake Forest
30. North Carolina
31. Boston College
36. Georgia Tech
44. Miami
58. Syracuse
58. Maryland
58. Pittsburgh
68. Clemson
72. Virginia Tech
97. Florida State
106. North Carolina State
Big Ten: Average of 57.5
12. Northwestern
29. Michigan
41. Wisconsin
46. Penn State
46. Illinois
56. Ohio State
65. Purdue
68. Minnesota
72. Michigan State
72. Iowa
83. Indiana
101. Nebraska
Pac 12: Average of 81.75
6. Stanford
21. Cal
24. UCLA
24. USC
46. Washington
97. Colorado
115. Oregon
120. Arizona
125. Utah
125. Washington State
139. Arizona State
139. Oregon State
SEC -- Average of 98.7
17. Vandy
54. Florida
63. Georgia
65. Texas A&M
77. Alabama
89. Auburn
97. Missouri
101. Tennessee
115. South Carolina
125. Kentucky
134. LSU
134. Arkansas
151. Ole Miss
160. Mississippi State
Big 12 -- average 113.1
46. Texas
77. Baylor
92. TCU
101. Iowa State
104. Oklahoma
106. Kansas
139. Kansas State
139. Oklahoma State
165. Texas Tech
165. West Virginia
Big East -- Average of 130.6
58. SMU
63. UConn
68. Rutgers
125. Temple
139. Cincinnati
160. Louisville
165. San Diego State
170. South Florida
174. Central Florida
184. Houston
Memphis (unranked)
Boise State (#62 regional western college)
To be fair Navy also isn't ranked and would likely be a top 25 caliber school.
