OT: James Madison joining the American

[RUChet]

Oregon in their defense has Daddy Phil giving the school a cool billion with a B to start their own engineering school. So they may actually improve academically down the road.

Mehhh. They have a long road up to match the rest of B1G. They literally got in because of football success

And one may say “well UCLA got in and they haven’t really been frat in football for a long time” but they didn’t get in because of academics, it’s because they are in LA.

otherwise B1G takes the 2 best academic P12 schools in Stanford and Cal

 

[RUDiddy777]

Mehhh. They have a long road up to match the rest of B1G. They literally got in because of football success

And one may say “well UCLA got in and they haven’t really been frat in football for a long time” but they didn’t get in because of academics, it’s because they are in LA.

otherwise B1G takes the 2 best academic P12 schools in Stanford and Cal

Should have taken them anyway and continued with an East and West division, IMO.

 

[Knight Shift]

Mehhh. They have a long road up to match the rest of B1G. They literally got in because of football success

And one may say “well UCLA got in and they haven’t really been frat in football for a long time” but they didn’t get in because of academics, it’s because they are in LA.

otherwise B1G takes the 2 best academic P12 schools in Stanford and Cal

UCLA academics- they are regularly in the top 3 (this year #2) public Universities in the US, often just behind Berkeley. They are the best public University in the B1G, ahead of Michigan.

 

[RUDiddy777]

UCLA academics- they are regularly in the top 3 (this year #2) public Universities in the US, often just behind Berkeley. They are the best public University in the B1G, ahead of Michigan.

Great school. Everyone I’ve met from there is pretty bright.

 

[M.Sherrane]

App State (western NC) may be the next to move to the AAC, joining conference members East Carolina (eastern NC) and Charlotte (central NC), to cover the state from the mountains to the sea. Interesting that App's valuation was significantly more than JMU's. Based on reported 2022–24 football media valuation: App is $116.6 million; JMU is $86.6 million. And, after all, it's all about media $$$.

Georgia State makes a little more sense in my opinion. The student body is more than twice the size of App State (56K -- 21.5K), Neither school has an existing rivalry with either ECU or Charlotte, but both have Georgia Southern as a rival. GSU is located in Downtown Atlanta vs Boone, NC gives them a much better TV market. Adding GSU gives the American Conference football contiguous states from NY to FL:
New York -- Army
Pennsylvania -- Temple
Maryland -- Navy
Virginia -- James Madison
North Carolina -- ECU and Charlotte
Georgia -- Georgia State
Florida -- UCF, Florida Atlantic

While App State has the #2 media valuation behind JMU, Georgia State is #4 and has much more potential growth. Georgia State also recently embarked on a 5-year project to expand their athletic facilities