You have three degrees and are working on a doctorate?
Umm, what?
Outside of that hodgepodge of English, some of your points are valid while others seem to disregard statistical relevance and logic. Obviously the Pac-10 looked at more than just athletics when considering expansion schools. Utah is liberal and prominent research institution with elite athletic facilities and no religious affiliation. BYU has the facilities, but otherwise doesn't fit the mold. BYU is a strong school in it's own right and in it's own way, but not in the way of the other Pac-10 schools. Nothing wrong with that. The Big 10/12 is a better fit for them, and I for one hope they get there.
However, disregarding the recent success of Utah's football program as having little to nothing to do with the Pac-10 invite is nothing short of ignorant. Previous to 2003, where was Utah on the national radar? I'll answer my own rhetorical question, nowhere. What team in the Pac-10, outside of USC, has had the same success as Utah in recent years? Plain and simple, football drives college athletics. It's the sport that pays for all of the scholarships for all of the other athletes, and it's the sport that pays for the new athletic facilities when they are built. It's the only sport that generates revenue (unless you're one of the elite few basketball programs like Duke, UNC, etc). Where was the consideration for college basketball when the 16 team super-conferences were being discussed?
BYU is 25th in that same list, and more than half of their score is from the 1980's when they were indeed a very powerful program. Quantitatively, if you were to give them the same score for the 80's as they had in the 90's or 2000's, their rank would be right with Utah's. I realize that's a bad argument because you could just as easily take Utah's last 10 years out.....but still
While we're on historical rankings, how about the next most significant college sport--basketball. Utah is ranked 18th out of 330 all time. BYU (rather surprisingly) is ranked 41st. Utah's basketball program has struggled in recent years, but playing against UCLA/Stanford/ASU/AU and other basketball powerhouses will help recruiting and hopefully help build the program back to where it was when Majerus was there.
I can't find a historical rank for gymnastics, but the Ute's would have to be top five there. They have what, eight national championships?
Sure, over time Utah will have a more difficult time in the Pac-12 than the MWC. But, what will rank higher--a Pac-12 school at 11-1 or 10-2 or a MWC school at 11-1 or 12-0? While the bottom half of the Pac-10 would typically run all over the bottom half of the MWC (SDSU--fantastic climate for recruiting BTW
), is the top tier that much better? USC has obviously been really good (and apparently too good to be true), but do you think 1-4 of the Pac-10 is any better than BYU/Utah/TCU/BSU? I doubt it. Utah will have less easy games, but they won't have any more really tough games. Also, with USC down for the foreseeable future, who is that frightening in the Pac-10 right now?Utah takes it's BCS success with them, so when it comes to determine AQ conferences the MWC won't have that success to help them. Hopefully BYU/TCU/BSU will continue to have success and continue to put pressure to get rid of the silly BCS formulas.
Obviously I hate BYU. Scratch that, I respect BYU as an institution of higher learning and for their athletic success. I HATE BYU fans. When they have success it's not a sense of pride in themselves, it's a sense of "look at what we did and you didn't". They never let anything go (continue to bring up 30 year old football dominance), and they would rather rub Utah's face in their failure than have any success of their own. It's pathetic.
