If it were me, I’d let the craziness play out and wait until the dust settles and we have new, separate divisions and some geographical sense comes back, for the Power 4 and the G5 or however how many leagues remain. It’s tough not to see the NFL model coming to the Power 4, there’s too much money there once they figure out the particulars.
It’s not even going to be a P4. Sorry Bearcats, but it’s going to be two P2 Super leagues; the only question is will they go to 20…22…or 24. It’s NFL lite coming.
What I’m about to write is all hearsay and conjecture, so take it for that and feel free to correct me if anybody has more accurate information. From what I’ve heard, the governor of Ohio of about 20 years ago (whose name escapes me) was an OSU grad and wanted the main state school to be the flagship university in the state. It does make sense that the school with the highest enrollment and the most name recognition become the face of the state in terms of being an elite academic school. So, he took away some amount of funding from all the universities in the state and gave it all to OSU. OSU used that money to give scholarships to the best students in Ohio, and to increase scholastic activities. Miami was the worst hit as they were receiving on the higher end of state money per student and had a lot cut. As happens when an entity faces a budget shortfall, spending has to get cut. From here, it is pure conjecture.
Miami’s cuts:
more classes taught by TA’s and adjunct prof’s rather than regular profs
fewer regular profs or larger class sizes
eliminate some research grants
privatize the meal plans
scholarship reduction that were used to draw high level students
raising more money by bringing in more foreign/out of state students who are perhaps lower quality but pay more in tuition
Add all of those things up, and you get a big drop in the rankings. When I applied to schools many years ago, Miami was much more difficult to get into than OSU. That is not the case any longer, and likely never will be again, sadly. Any up and coming state politicians who graduated from Miami we can vote into the governor’s mansion?
There’s a Miamian in the governor’s mansion now. What’s he done?
They’ve never been FBS.
Basically zip.