The SEC needs Missouri more for image than for football
Former Mizzou man Sean Weatherspoon, now a Falcon. (AP photo)
Missouri’s curators voted Tuesday to ponder the school’s Big 12 exit. Put simply, Missouri’s curators voted — unanimously, FYI — to bail on the Big 12. At issue now is what the school would bring to its new home, which is apt to be the SEC.
Here were pause to note that some folks see Missouri as a better fit in the Big Ten — the Tigers already have a heated basketball rivalry with Illinois — but the Big Ten hasn’t been overt in its ardor to expand. The Big Ten might be happy as is. The SEC needs a 14th member to offset Texas A&M.
The SEC also needs Missouri for another reason: This whole round of conference-hopping has given big-time college sports the look of me-first-and-everybody-else-last Wall Street, and that’s not the look you want in the year 2011. (It’s reality, but it’s still an unseemly image for institutions of supposed higher learning.) Missouri plays pretty good football and good basketball, but that’s not its greatest lure for the SEC.
Missouri is a state school in a state — heck, a region — where the SEC doesn’t have an outpost, and it would also deliver the St. Louis and the Kansas City television markets. (That’s an upgrade over A&M, which delivers the less-prestigious College Station market.) Those are nice things to have, but they’re not essential. Of greater importance: The SEC views Missouri as another vehicle in its quest to spruce up its academic image, which could use sprucing.
If it adds Missouri, the SEC will count four schools among the high-minded Association of American Universities. That’s double from a month ago. Texas A&M is an AAU member, and so are Florida and Vanderbilt. Both the Aggies and the Tigers play good enough football that they won’t sully the SEC’s brand, and the SEC doesn’t need an Oklahoma or a Texas to burnish its standing as the best football league. (Check the latest Associated Press poll: SEC teams are ranked first, second, 10th, 15th, 17th and 18th.)
The SEC has been measured in its approach to School No. 14. It didn’t fall over itself when Texas and Oklahoma were making eyes at the Pac-12. It didn’t so much pursue Texas A&M as it allowed itself to be pursued. Adding a 13th member just sort of happened. Adding a 14th will be a considered choice.
Adding Missouri would do more for the SEC’s image off the field than on, and that’s a consideration a lot of us missed when this whole round of choosing-up got going. The SEC is often regarded as the root of all collegiate evil, but this is one time when the league ruled by football is trying not to act as if football is the only thing that matters.
By landing Syracuse and Pittsburgh, the ACC all but destroyed the Big East. The SEC doesn’t need to destroy anything to ensure its survival; it’s the biggest conference today, and it’ll be the biggest 20 years from now. Mike Slive, the SEC’s commissioner, didn’t always carry water for King Football. He was the AD at Cornell and assistant AD at Dartmouth; he was also commissioner of the Great Midwest and Conference USA.
Slive is 71. He’s at an age where thoughts of legacy loom largest. (Indeed, at the SEC Media Days in Birmingham this summer the hot rumor, quickly refuted, was that Slive would announce his retirement.) He has presided over a decade of massive SEC growth, and now he wants to make sure that growth won’t be regarded, in the cold eye of history, as rampant pillaging.
When Mike Slive leaves this conference, he wants to be able to say, “We tried to do it the right way.” Others will quibble over the definition of “right,” but if the SEC pairs Missouri with Texas A&M it will be harder to make the case that the biggest league was utterly craven in its desires. Those are two good schools. They’ll broaden the base without rendering the league top-heavy. They’ll make the SEC not just bigger but better.
And that’s the key. As fascinating as the notion of the SEC with Texas and/or Oklahoma would have been, it would also have given rise to the charge of overkill. At some point the best league has to realize, “We’re good enough.” Slive and his associates have come to that quiet conclusion. If Missouri is indeed No. 14, the SEC will have done something the SEC doesn’t often do: It will have made a subtle splash.
By Mark Bradley
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506 comments Add your comment
Browncoat
October 5th, 2011
12:08 pm
Culturally the Mason-Dixon line is irrelevant. The question is which side were you on. If your state joined the Confederacy, if not you are a Yankee (although most make an exception for Kentucky). The state of Missouri sided with the North during the War of Northern Agression, so you are considered a Yankee.
Jim
October 5th, 2011
12:09 pm
SEC needs GIT and GIT needs the SEC even more
Ted M
October 5th, 2011
12:10 pm
Will there now be more conference games and less non-conference games?
Atlanta Gator
October 5th, 2011
12:11 pm
“Nonsense. Missouri is also an AAU member.”
Huh? I never said that Missouri wasn’t an AAU member. Please try to read more carefully next time. In fact, I’ve extolled Missouri’s AAU credentials as a virtue in their potential SEC membership in this very blog (feel free to check). My point was that Nebraska has a history of big-time football, but would probably not have been accepted by the Big Ten unless it was an AAU member. As of 2011, Nebraska is no longer an AAU member, but Missouri is. That’s called irony.
“Nonsense. The AAU makes no apologies for the fact that they do not consider agricultural research to be legitimate “research” for their purposes. That is why Nebraska lost their membership and that is why (aside from being a Southern school) Georgia doesn’t qualify for membership.”
Thanks for playing, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. The problem with Nebraska’s graduate research, apart from the fact they don’t rank among the top 70 research universities by any objective measure (please see the link I provided above), is that a heavy percentage of their agricultural research dollars come from the federal government based on various U.S. Department of Agriculture formulae, and not based on academic peer review. The relative lack of academic peer-reviewed research is why Nebraska is no longer an AAU member. And Nebraska was aware of this problem for over a decade. Nebraska’s lack of a medical school didn’t help, either.
IL Jacket
October 5th, 2011
12:13 pm
Browncoat is right. Tech’s mission has changed dramatically since 1964 and there is no looking back. There are some old alums, primarily in Atlanta, that pine for the “old days” with Bear and Shug, but the majority of alums, and definitely the administration, are very happy where we are.
Triple Lindy
October 5th, 2011
12:15 pm
Oh boy… welcome Alabama to the SEC East.
Atlanta Gator
October 5th, 2011
12:15 pm
“Culturally the Mason-Dixon line is irrelevant. The question is which side were you on. If your state joined the Confederacy, if not you are a Yankee (although most make an exception for Kentucky). The state of Missouri sided with the North during the War of Northern Agression, so you are considered a Yankee.”
Browncoat, you really need to do some reading before you lecture others about Missouri history. Missouri’s secession convention actually passed an ordinance of secession that was recognized by the Confederacy in July 1861. The state, however, was occupied by Union troops (as were Kentucky and Maryland), and that was that.
Expert Opinion
October 5th, 2011
12:17 pm
“It’s more than a little ironic, because Nebraska’s AAU membership was a big selling point when Nebraska was selected over Missouri to become the twelfth member of the numerically-challenged Big Ten.”
Stop embarrassing yourself. You obviously aren’t familiar with the subject matter.
falcon fred
October 5th, 2011
12:20 pm
nice pimp slap…
$
October 5th, 2011
12:23 pm
Missouri has a 6 million population with two major cities suburbs extending into neighboring states.
aka: tv dollars for the sec
YoungDawg
October 5th, 2011
12:24 pm
This Mizzou talk may all be smoke & mirrors. They want in the B1G & the SEC prefers NC for # 14. For the SEC Mizzou would work as # 14 but might be even better as #15 or 16.
falcon fred
October 5th, 2011
12:26 pm
this whole uga/aau debate is a waste of time…will never happen…while schools like florida and emory are working on groundbreaking medical research, i can only imagine what is on the research schedule in athens…1. develop an aerosol room deodorizer that smells like your favorite uga star athlete from the past…2. develop a weedeater-resistant skirting material for mobile homes…wow…
LMAO
October 5th, 2011
12:33 pm
dap01 – YOUR AN IDIOT
murfdawg
October 5th, 2011
12:36 pm
Browncoat,
You may be right. But I think that would be like Brad Pitt asking out Susan Boyle and Boyle turning him down.
jim f.
October 5th, 2011
12:39 pm
“Missouri is a state school in a state — heck, a region — where the SEC doesn’t have an outpost, and it would also deliver the St. Louis and the Kansas City television markets. (That’s an upgrade over A&M, which delivers the less-prestigious College Station market.)”
that is an incredibly dumb comment. in case bradley wasn’t in school the day they covered geography, mizzou is in neither kcmo or st. lou. it is hundreds of miles from either. now that we’ve got that cleared up, he might want to take a shot at texas. a good half dozen of the nation’s major metroplises are located there and it is the second most populated state. missouri has roughly the population as tennessee. and no, before a & m, the sec had no school in that eden of football. if he still thinks that getting mizzou is a slightly better deal than a & m, he’s beyond hope.
IL Jacket
October 5th, 2011
12:39 pm
While thinking of a 14 member conference, why not reorient the division affiliations. Make it North vs South, with any school in a city on or south of I-20 in the Southern division ( have to include UGA to make it work numerically) and north of I-20 in Northern division. Think of the marketing possibilities!!!
Or will Miss. and MSU object to being part of the North?
Atlanta Gator
October 5th, 2011
12:39 pm
Anonymous “Expert Opinion,” you are a horse’s patoot.
Let me explain it to you in simple terms, terms that you might be able to understand. The AAU is a very selective organization. The AAU presently has 63 member institutions that include both public and private universities. Nebraska is not among the top 70 research universities, and isn’t even among the top 60 public research universities. It’s that simple. Enjoy the link:
http://mup.asu.edu/research2010.pdf
As for agricultural research, it’s no impediment for either Florida or Texas A&M’s membership in the AAU and both rank among the top 30 research universities, public or private. But both institutions emphasize academic peer review research, not federal government formula dollars. As I stated above, UGA was ranked 65th among all American research universities in 2010, which means UGA is one of the most likely candidates for joining the AAU in the near term. For the record, however, UGA research funding is far less than the half-billion-plus dollars of Florida and Texas A&M.
BTW, among Southern universities, Emory, Duke, Florida, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Rice, Texas, Texas A&M, Tulane and Vanderbilt are AAU members. That’s ten of 63 total AAU members. Clearly, there’s a bias against Southern universities—-oh, wait, Nebraska and Syracuse, both booted out of the AAU, are located in the Midwest and New York.
Idiot. You are argue like Thomas Brown/BuLLdawg/Ole 39.
DawgFan
October 5th, 2011
12:43 pm
Jim – We get it, you really want Georgia Tech in the SEC. Sadly, adding the Jackets to the SEC would basically be subtraction by addition. They add nothing to the conference in terms of new viewership (same goes for FSU and Clemson) and they already were in the conference once and left of their own accord. I doubt highly that the SEC will beg them back in.
I really don’t get all the “Missouri isn’t southeast” arguments. Just read up on some history and culture and see just how “southeast” they are.
Then again, as YoungDawg said, Mizzou may be posturing for a spot in an expanded Big Ten (for the love of God, change the name of your conference. Same goes for you, Big XII). If that is the case, then the door may reopen for an NC State. The argument for NC State being that they might be tired of being considered the number three school in North Carolina, stuck behind UNC and Duke. Adding NC State would add nearly a million new viewers in just Charlotte and Winston-Salem alone, plus it gives the SEC a foothold in North Carolina, which could eventually bridge the gap to adding VaTech.
Atlanta Gator
October 5th, 2011
12:46 pm
“this whole uga/aau debate is a waste of time…will never happen…while schools like florida and emory are working on groundbreaking medical research, i can only imagine what is on the research schedule in athens…1. develop an aerosol room deodorizer that smells like your favorite uga star athlete from the past…2. develop a weedeater-resistant skirting material for mobile homes…wow…”
UGA received over $350 million in graduate research in 2010, and ranks among the top 65 research universities in the country. AAU membership is only a matter of time.
Enjoy your tomfoolery.
DawgFan
October 5th, 2011
12:49 pm
jimf.- Inferring from your argument, you seem to be saying that no one in St. Louis or KC will watch a Mizzou game, just because Mizzou is not located in either town. I guess no one in Atlanta watches UGA games, eh? No one in Orlando watches Florida games?
Columbia is actually more centrally located in the state as a whole than most SEC schools now. Athens is in the northeast part of GA, Gainesville is in the northeast of Florida. There is no SEC school in western Tennessee. Fayetteville is in extreme northwest Arkansas. Columbia, MO, though? About 5/8 of the way up from the southern border and just to the east of the state’s centerline. But you’re right, they aren’t in KC or StL, so screw ‘em.
Gig' em Aggies!
October 5th, 2011
12:50 pm
Glenn, You are of course correct. College Station is just a relatively small college town – but there are untold thousands of Aggies living in Houston, Dallas & Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio (not to mention Lubbock, El Paso, Waco, Galveston, etc.) – collectively a WAY bigger market than Kansas City and St. Louis. Adding Texas A&M makes the SEC of interest to pretty much the whole state of Texas.
falcon fred
October 5th, 2011
12:53 pm
i stand by my post…
Atlanta Gator
October 5th, 2011
12:54 pm
“Adding Texas A&M makes the SEC of interest to pretty much the whole state of Texas.”
Exactly.
Mark Bradley has already acknowledged that his ridiculous comment about the College Station television market was an inept attempt at humor that misfired. Enough said.
Anonymous Dawg
October 5th, 2011
12:56 pm
falcon fred: “i stand by my post…”
Fred, I gotta tell you that it’s tough to tell the difference between you and your post. You’re about as a dumb as a post, too.
falcon fred
October 5th, 2011
1:00 pm
gig ‘em, these uga dawg fans heve no idea what you are talking about…el paso, galveston…they may as well be colonies on jupiter as far as the dawgs are concerned…75% of them have never been out of their home county..
Steve
October 5th, 2011
1:03 pm
Browncoat @11AM
WV may be close to Pittburgh, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t closer to other SEC opponents.
According to Rand McNally milage calculator
Distance from Columbia, MO to Atlanta, GA 677 miles
Distance from Morgantown, WV to Atlanta, GA 634 miles
Now for distance to their closest SEC school
Distance from Columbia, MO to Fayetteville, AR 314 miles
Distance from Morgantown, WV to Lexington, Ky 268 miles
Now for distance to their furthest SEC school (U of FL)
Distance from Gainseville, FL to Columbia, MO 1010 miles
Distance from Morgantown, WV to Gainesville, FL 825 miles
Browncoat
October 5th, 2011
1:21 pm
Atlanta Gator, Missouri never joined the Confederate State of America and is not considered to have left the Union. Ask any Southerner which states joined the Confederacy, and not even 1 in 100 would mention Missouri.
Lt Col Razorback
October 5th, 2011
1:25 pm
Add the Missouri Tigers to the SEC? Unuh, never, and no way! Why not you ask? The answer is mascot-related. With Missouri in the SEC, name recognition would be a humongous problem. The cheers from the stadium seats with 50-100 thousand screaming fans shouting, “Go Tigers”, would more than likely confuse our rural America fans from Alabama; Mississippi; and even my alma mater; – Arkansas because of their somewhat lesser schooling. I can imagine their faces as they contemplate the obvious question – “Is that the Auburn Tigers, the LSU Tigers, or the Missouri Tigers”? Or could I possibly be, for some, our inter-conference rival the Clemson Tigers? My head is already starting to spin because of the effect of all of those black and orange stripes passing before my eyes in a whirl that could turn them into pancake butter; like happened to Little Black Sambo.
Browncoat
October 5th, 2011
1:26 pm
Steve look at a map. Morgantown WV is closer to places like Cleveland, Akron, Piittsburg, Erie and Detroit than Lexington.
Delbert D.
October 5th, 2011
1:37 pm
Atlanta Gator – Georgia Tech was invited to join the AAU when it’s endowment reached and sustained $1 billion. That was mentioned in news reports at the time. The endowment was $1.3 as of March 2011. These numbers fluctuate with the performance of the investments. Emory’s endowment was $4.6 billion for the year ending June 30, 2010. Georgia’s endowment is approximately $572 million.
An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education dated May 2, 2011 discussed Nebraska’s ouster from the AAU after 102 years of membership. Google that for details on why.
Expert Opinion
October 5th, 2011
1:37 pm
@Atlanta Gator
Your arrogance greatly exceeds your knowledge. That, alongside the irrelevance of your alma mater’s football program, renders you a laughingstock on this blog.
QED
GTBob
October 5th, 2011
1:42 pm
AAU membership is only a matter of time.
It’s pretty naive to say its only a matter of time when speaking of an organization that has only added one member in the last 10 years.
Delbert D.
October 5th, 2011
1:44 pm
CBS Sports reported in September that West Virginia was rejected for membership by both the SEC and ACC.
Expert Opinion
October 5th, 2011
1:47 pm
I highly recommend reading the article previously referenced by Delbert D. for those wishing to understand the true nature of the private club known as the AAU and the inherent bias that this organization maintains against institutions involved in agricultural research.
http://chronicle.com/article/Ouster-Opens-a-Painful-Debate/127364/
Atlanta Gator
October 5th, 2011
1:52 pm
“Missouri never joined the Confederate State of America and is not considered to have left the Union. Ask any Southerner which states joined the Confederacy, and not even 1 in 100 would mention Missouri.”
Browncoat, the Missouri Legislature voted to approve an ordinance of secession on June 14, 1861. The Confederate government in Richmond acknowledged it on October 30, 1861. As a practical matter, the Missouri never left the Union because it was occupied by Union troops under the command of Gen. Nathaniel Lyon. Pro-Confederate governor Claiborne Jackson was subsequently removed from office, and a new pro-Union governor and legislature were elected. As a result of its split character, Missouri experienced some of the most brutal neighbor-on-neighbor guerrilla warfare of the Civil War.
Please Google it. I’m not inclined to further argue about the well-established facts of Missouri history.
Expert Opinion
October 5th, 2011
1:54 pm
@Delbert D.
That is true. These rejections have been reported. Yet neither the SEC, nor the involved universities have made public any such overtures or rejections. It is, however, quite possible that these reports accurately portray informal, off-the-record discussions.
SEC Graduate
October 5th, 2011
2:01 pm
Would like fries with that?
Boyz From N. Ave.
October 5th, 2011
2:05 pm
SEC will get Houston market from A/M as well Mark…..comon…..
Browncoat
October 5th, 2011
2:06 pm
Atlanta Gator, the truth is the “Official” Missouri legislature never voted to leave the Union. However a splinter group of legislators did meet to vote on succession in Southern Missouri (as they were headed out of the state). Noticeably, at the end of the war, Missouri did not have to be readmitted to the Union (as Georgia did). ‘Nuff said.
Browncoat
October 5th, 2011
2:08 pm
And Atlanta Gator, if you are going to discuss history, actually read books, don’t rely on the internet.
Boise Dawg
October 5th, 2011
2:09 pm
I have been slow to warm up to the Missouri to the SEC idea, but it is quickly growing on me. Initially I thought a school like West Virginia made more sense… but I think the Missouri move makes more sense and not for the reasons you mention.
First, Missouri boarders other SEC schools, so it is not the geographic stretch that West Virginia is. Second, they could begin SEC play fairly quickly where as the SEC would likely have to wait on West Virginia for several years.
Missouri will boost basketball for the conference and fit in just fine football wise. They certainly are a better football program than Ole Miss, Miss St. Vandy and Kentucky.
Boyz From N. Ave.
October 5th, 2011
2:11 pm
I wanna know why we are ranked 13th in the nation, lead the FBS in 4 offensive categories….and u twerps get all the press….Go figure.
JimD
October 5th, 2011
2:13 pm
Steve, WV has not been invited to the SEC because of driving distances. It is because of a combination of television sets, population, total sports programs, academics, amd timing with the Big 12 imploding. It probably didn’t hurt (at least initially) that MU chancellor Brady Deaton has SEC connections and history. That doesn’t mean that WV may not eventually be offered. Maybe it will, but it doesn’t look like now is the time, if Missouri were to apply.
And just for the record, you left out the longest drive for WV to SEC schools, College Station TX, where the drive is 1356 miles, according to Rand McNally.
Delbert D.
October 5th, 2011
2:20 pm
Since these are long-term commitments, it is useful to look a few years down the road. Missouri may benefit from SEC membership in recruiting, and Texas A&M as well. Both of those schools should have much higher visibility among potential recruits in Florida and Georgia. Conversely, existing SEC schools get expanded visibility in Texas, Missouri and Kansas.
coloradobulldog
October 5th, 2011
2:22 pm
Mizzou would be a great add. I’d drive to Columbia to see the Dawgs play. And its not just the TV markets of KC and St Louis that SEC would add but its the prime recruiting ground of St Louis. Lastly, some of you need to better understand your history when you say Missouri is a ‘Yankee’ state.
Atlanta Gator
October 5th, 2011
2:23 pm
“AAU membership is only a matter of time.
“It’s pretty naive to say its only a matter of time when speaking of an organization that has only added one member in the last 10 years.”
GT Bob, the University of Florida was invited to join the AAU in 1985, after 10 years of concerted effort. Since then twelve other universities have been invited to join: Arizona (1985), Brandeis (1985), Rice (1985), Rutgers (1989), SUNY-Buffalo (1989), Emory (1995), UC-Santa Barbra (1995), UC-Davis (1996), UC-Irvine (1996), SUNY-Stony Brook (2001), Texas A&M (2001), and Georgia Tech (2010). That’s a lot more than one in the last ten years implies. And, for the record, four of the last twelve invited are Southern universities
Over that same time frame, four other universities have either resigned their AAU membership or been removed for failure to satisfy the AAU’s membership criteria. The schools dropped from AAU membership include Catholic University, Clark, Nebraska and Syracuse, all of which are northern universities, and only one of which is located in predominantly agricultural state.
The AAU presently includes 61 members (after Nebraska and Syracuse were dropped). The University of Georgia received over $350 million in graduate research funding in 2010, which makes UGA one of the five largest research universities by dollar volume that is not already an AAU member.
BTW, I find it a little disgusting that an alumnus of the very last university (Georgie Tech) to be admitted to the AAU would suggest that the AAU close its doors to its sister state research university (UGA). If that is really the attitude of the Georgia Tech administration, I think the Georgia General Assembly and the Board of Regents would probably like to have a conversation with those same Tech administrators. At the end of the day, AAU membership is too big a deal to allow it to be manipulated by petty in-state rivalries.
UGAmutt
October 5th, 2011
2:29 pm
@DAWGFAN
How would Alabama, Auburn, UGA, Tenn, Kentucky, Florida, S.Carolina EAST, LSU, Ark, Ole Miss, Miss St, Texas A&M, Mizzou, Vandy WEST make the alignment equal? The east would then have 5 of the league’s top 6 teams (college football moves in cycles…Fla, UGA, Tenn are in down years and Ark is having an up year, but this won’t be the rule…its the exception). Over the past ten years (recent history) the league’s top 6 teams have been Florida, Alabama, LSU, UGA, Auburn, and Tennessee…that’s the historical trend over the full body of these insitutions as well. How does trading Alabama and Auburn for Mizzou, Vandy, and A&M make the league more balanced? The east would then become a flat-out melee and the west would be dominated by LSU. Makes no sense.
Delbert D.
October 5th, 2011
2:31 pm
For driveability and flying, Cincinnati would be better than West Virginia. Yeah, that sounds ridiculous, but Cincy is further south than Morgantown. It’s very convenient for Lexington, and not too bad for Nashville and Knoxville.
Bhorsoft
October 5th, 2011
2:32 pm
I’ve never been a fan of the SEC, and, as a Mizzou grad, I would hate to see Mizzou join the SEC. Instead of Mizzou elevating the SEC, I would fear that the SEC would be a downgrade to Mizzou.
Atlanta Gator
October 5th, 2011
2:41 pm
“An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education dated May 2, 2011 discussed Nebraska’s ouster from the AAU after 102 years of membership. Google that for details on why.”
Thanks, Delbert. I’ve already read the Chronicle’s article. The bottom line is that federal agricultural research dollars distributed on the basis of federal formulae, and not on the basis of peer-reviewed research, are not given the same weight in the AAU’s membership criteria as peer-reviewed research funding. This was made clear to Nebraska over a decade ago. Moreover, as I’ve already said above, Nebraska is not currently rated among the top 70 public and private universities by any objective measure, and doesn’t even break the top 60 public research universities—-even when no distinction is drawn between peer-reviewed research dollars and federal agricultural formula dollars. (Please see the link I have already provided twice above.)
The AAU currently has only 61 members, and two of those are Canadian. If you’re not in the top 70, you probably don’t have a chance of being invited any time soon. Nebraska was not in the top 70, and their membership was withdrawn.
And for the record, Florida and Texas A&M have two of the largest and best-funded agricultural research programs in the country. Again, it’s not about ag research being treated equally; it’s about peer-reviewed research vs. non-peer-reviewed research.
The Chronicle article cited by you does not discuss the peer review issues in any serious way, and reveals the lack of any depth of coverage. I will, however, quote it in one respect:
“What put Nebraska at a particular disadvantage within the AAU is that the university’s medical school is part of the statewide system, but not part of the flagship Lincoln campus. So the medical school’s research dollars do not count toward Lincoln’s AAU numbers. In an analysis conducted last year by The Chronicle, Nebraska’s system as a whole outpaces at least 11 current AAU members.”
I believe I made that point about the medical school above.