If the Ivy League had to expand, who'd join?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more interesting thing would be for a big conference to poach from the Ivy League. Would one of ancient 8 think about investing in their football program?

Which school would be most attractive to a football-first conference? Harvard might be most attractive but would larger Cornell actually consider a jump?

OMG. This thread is bonkers.

In what way?

If Harvard actually wanted to move to a "real" conference (they wouldn't), why couldn't they? Leaving the Ivy League would free them from scholarship and AI restrictions -- they could basically become the Stanford of the east (football-wise).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Ivy League should consider dropping to D3. The athletic departments are burning through money and D1 athletic excellence isn't a top priority for the universities. The half in and half out approach just means a lot of teams are expensive to operate but not very good! Trying to compete in D1 without athletic scholarships doesn't make sense in wins and losses or in mission. D3 aligns much better.

No it doesn't, you nerd. The Ivy League competes just fine in plenty of non-football sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ivy League should consider dropping to D3. The athletic departments are burning through money and D1 athletic excellence isn't a top priority for the universities. The half in and half out approach just means a lot of teams are expensive to operate but not very good! Trying to compete in D1 without athletic scholarships doesn't make sense in wins and losses or in mission. D3 aligns much better.

No it doesn't, you nerd. The Ivy League competes just fine in plenty of non-football sports.

Stanford has more non-football NCAA team championships than the the entire Ivy League! It is also a school that everyone would consider a peer institution academically. These days, the Ivy League strives for academic excellence but athletic mediocrity (comparatively, anyway). They could go all-in on athletics and compete with Stanford, take a step back and be very strong D3 athletic departments like high-academic schools MIT, Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Swarthmore, and WashU have been lately, or continue spending just as much to be "just fine" or get crushed in pretty much everything not done at an exclusive club. It is strange for great schools to allocate a lot of resources (and admissions sway) but be fine with not being very competitive at a national level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ivy League should consider dropping to D3. The athletic departments are burning through money and D1 athletic excellence isn't a top priority for the universities. The half in and half out approach just means a lot of teams are expensive to operate but not very good! Trying to compete in D1 without athletic scholarships doesn't make sense in wins and losses or in mission. D3 aligns much better.

No it doesn't, you nerd. The Ivy League competes just fine in plenty of non-football sports.

Stanford has more non-football NCAA team championships than the the entire Ivy League! It is also a school that everyone would consider a peer institution academically. These days, the Ivy League strives for academic excellence but athletic mediocrity (comparatively, anyway). They could go all-in on athletics and compete with Stanford, take a step back and be very strong D3 athletic departments like high-academic schools MIT, Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Swarthmore, and WashU have been lately, or continue spending just as much to be "just fine" or get crushed in pretty much everything not done at an exclusive club. It is strange for great schools to allocate a lot of resources (and admissions sway) but be fine with not being very competitive at a national level.

I said that they "compete just fine," and they do. Harvard clearly doesn't want to be Stanford, or it'd, well, be Stanford.

Again, the Ivies are quite happy where they are. Stepping back to D3 would be a huge overall prestige loss, so that will never happen (imagine playing Swarthmore or MIT in anything, lol). The only people on here who push for this sort of thing are parents still angry that their "super smart" kids ended up at Hamilton or UMD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(I have posted several times in this thread. Just trying to promote discussion.)

Thoughts about a merger between the Patriot League and the Ivy League ? Two divisions: Ivy & Patriot. Scholarships for football, basketball, and ???

Ah, here's the parent/grad (or both) of a Patriot League school. Lmao. 99.9% of people don't even know what the Patriot League is, let alone which schools constitute it. Definitely not on par with Ivy.

I think the Patriot League was formed in part to provide the Ivy League with non-conference schools in the major sports that it could defeat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ivy League should consider dropping to D3. The athletic departments are burning through money and D1 athletic excellence isn't a top priority for the universities. The half in and half out approach just means a lot of teams are expensive to operate but not very good! Trying to compete in D1 without athletic scholarships doesn't make sense in wins and losses or in mission. D3 aligns much better.

No it doesn't, you nerd. The Ivy League competes just fine in plenty of non-football sports.

Stanford has more non-football NCAA team championships than the the entire Ivy League! It is also a school that everyone would consider a peer institution academically. These days, the Ivy League strives for academic excellence but athletic mediocrity (comparatively, anyway). They could go all-in on athletics and compete with Stanford, take a step back and be very strong D3 athletic departments like high-academic schools MIT, Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Swarthmore, and WashU have been lately, or continue spending just as much to be "just fine" or get crushed in pretty much everything not done at an exclusive club. It is strange for great schools to allocate a lot of resources (and admissions sway) but be fine with not being very competitive at a national level.

I said that they "compete just fine," and they do. Harvard clearly doesn't want to be Stanford, or it'd, well, be Stanford.

Again, the Ivies are quite happy where they are. Stepping back to D3 would be a huge overall prestige loss, so that will never happen (imagine playing Swarthmore or MIT in anything, lol). The only people on here who push for this sort of thing are parents still angry that their "super smart" kids ended up at Hamilton or UMD.

I don't dispute they are happy with where they are. Harvard being fine with such expensive mediocrity is what is so surprising about their athletic decisions. They do seem excited to just make the NCAA tournament in soccer and NIT in basketball and maybe do slightly better in something like lacrosse.
Would competing for titles across numerous sports at a lower level be worse? Most people on this board don't even seem to realize that the Ivy League is really just a low-level D1 athletic conference. It could just be a top-level D3 conference. No one would think less of them prestige wise. The sport Harvard has been best at lately, women's squash, isn't an NCAA sport and they regularly compete against other top 10 programs like Trinity and Amherst (D3 in most sports).

If you are going to compete, at least play to win! Harvard hardly seems fine with being just okay at anything other than competitive sports.

[Anonymous]

I mean is this thread a joke? The comments are hilarious, did some dope actually say Harvard could compete in the Big 10? FFS this place is filled with delusional loons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean is this thread a joke? The comments are hilarious, did some dope actually say Harvard could compete in the Big 10? FFS this place is filled with delusional loons.

I mean, they could if they wanted to, but they clearly don't want to.

[Anonymous]

The athletic leagues are all about $, right? Specifically, TV rights. Not academics or prestige. No school is going to want to join a new league unless they are going to make more $, even if it meant they could call themselves "Ivy League."

I don't see any Ivy League School in the Top 100 at
https://graphics.wsj.com/table/NCAA_2019

[Anonymous]

I went to a Patriot League school and we frequently competed (in sports, at least) against Ivy teams. It makes sense since the programs are generally on par and the schools are clustered in the northeast. Army, Navy, Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell, Holy Cross... If you're looking for a slightly higher academic caliber but lower athletic caliber (generally speaking), go for Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, Bowdoin, etc.

[Anonymous]

Army and Navy. They already have Ivy League championships https://ivyleague.com/sports/2018/7/11/GEN_0711185653.aspx

The League is steeped in tradition and the ten schools have maintained strong relationships in both sports and academia, relationships that have survived Vietnam and FBS/FCS splits. Army and Navy were amongst the most prominent football teams in the 1950s - they didn’t want to give up notable dates with USC, Notre Dame, Penn State to play Brown and Dartmouth. Despite this they competed in the league regardless in a number of sports - this mostly stopped with the advent of the Patriot League, which they joined, but continues to this day (EARC for rowing). Outside of HYP, Army and Navy were the biggest deal of the remaining 7; you can see the value of being associated with the League because that perception doesn’t exist today. Regardless, MIT, Duke, Chicago, Stanford are not joining for a mixture of D3/D1, Geography, and historical reasons.

[Anonymous]

The Ivy League already explored this in the 80s. West Point and Northwestern were the two top contenders, with Annapolis in consideration as well.

[Anonymous]

Given recent events, I think Brandeis is a longshot.

[Anonymous]

Given its history, and current events, I think Harvard would have a huge problem associating with Brandeis.

[Anonymous]

The solution is right under everyone nose: Northeastern. New England location. Check. Low acceptance rate. Check. High prestige. Check. No super competitive sports and TV money to loose. Check. Commuter school no more. Check. It even has a US news ranking scandal to match Columbia! What is not to like? Surprised why no one got to the right answer!