A large number of alumni are ashamed of their fan base in the case of Alabama. They do not want to be grouped with the Wal-Mart Tshirt fans. Self loathing amongst several SEC schools is real. UGA too though not as bad. It’s why some of those guys pay $185 for a polo with the logo on it. It helps them tell themselves they are a different kind of elite fan.
The sooners should be terrified not because of Alabama or Georigia , but in 2024, they have to take on that powerful Phillip Montgomery offense !
Yet they’re currently the top ranked academic school in the state checking in ten spots above TU.
That has more to do with recent changes in the way the ranking is calculated than the actual value of the school. There’s been a dip, for sure, in reality. But not below OU. And that mostly is driven by some disastrous admissions decisions between 2016 and the start of CoVid. Who went to school at TU 6 years ago doesn’t really affect faculty/admin peer ranking which is about a third of the score and is widely considered significantly better than OU and unchanged over the years.
I don’t disagree with any of this. My comment was a bit tongue in cheek regarding OU being a poor academic school. Which I don’t believe is true.
It’s a solid mid tier state school that gets down looked due to its geographic location and state legislative mandate commitment to fossil fuel research.
There's a big gap between schools in states that care about education and schools in states that don't. OU is one of the better schools in states that don't care about education. Which is kind of like being one of the best players on the Washington Generals.
That Monty offense destroyed OU's defense in 2016 when Monty had the personnel and he called the plays like he had nothing to lose.
So I'm going to call you out about OU having kids with a 12 ACT on campus. In talking with an admissions person at TCC who is in the know, students at OU must have a minimum 22 on the ACT. OSU may be a bit lower. By contrast, TCC requires a minimum of 13 on the ACT and at that a lot of those kids are taking remedial classes to prepare them for college coursework. Had this conversation last week when we were discussing dual enrollment HS kids and what classes transfer in and not. Actually most of the discussion centered on ORU and how they take kids with a 13 ACT and admit them to a dual enrollment class and those kids still can't pass HS algebra and the kids wonder why their college algebra class at ORU won't transfer for credit. Well, you got a 13 on the ACT and the math part was atrocious. You're still taking that class at your next stop. She said ORU does it because ORU will take their own classes for credit if the student matriculates there.
Well, they are getting in on waivers because I know of several students lately, one of whom graduated, who were in the 12-15 range ACT.
It’s higher than a few. OU is truly test optional. If they think they will score below the preferred score based on practice tests, some don’t take it at all.
I remember that day quite well, I was there 😂
That certainly has never been true in engineering. OU is the lowest in the state.
Those numbers are accurate, but still somewhat skewed due to TU’s small size and the methodology used. TU only offers 4 PhD s in engineering and for reasons nobody has been able to adequately explain to me, pretty much abandoned pursuing federal research grant opportunities in the late 80’s. Two of the biggest drivers of those rankings are the size of the graduate programs and their respect in the research community. We only have niche graduate work so people polled sometimes aren’t familiar with us, they know we don’t have their program, they see the paltry research performance in terms of federal dollars, and grade us accordingly. If you think those ranking numbers are bad, you should look at who is ranked above us in Physics.
Looking at the rankings, small enrollment size doesn’t appear to be a negative factor in most cases. Small private schools like Rice, Tulane, SMU are all top 75 schools. In fact, most of the top schools are in fact small private universities. Why has TU’s small size affected it in such a negative fashion and not our piers as far as the new ranking criteria ?
It’s not the number of students when I say size. It’s the number of PhD graduate programs and research faculty in those programs. SMU’s is roughly twice the size, with every major engineering discipline. TU is not R1 and not AAU. Tulane is R1, and has decades of political ties funneling money to them. Rice is R1. Heck, Houston is too, Tulane is very much our peer in some contexts. But in this context it’s like comparing apples to basketballs. And comparing TU to Rice in this context is like apples to an aircraft carrier.
I assure you that OU is not a better academic institution than TU as a whole.
That's like saying that OSU has a better baseball team than ORU because OSU is ranked higher and seeded higher. That's "reality" only in our post-fact world where "reality" is defined by the opinion of whoever has the most followers
There isn't an objective measure of better, that's the fiction. OU is like Starbucks. They might get a little better or worse but it's not going to vary a lot. It's better than gas station coffee (OSU) but you're never going to get a great scone or latte there. But a lot of people think Maxwell House is good so Starbucks is fantastic to them, and a blast of sugar and processed flavorings is what they prefer. Does that mean Starbucks is "better"? I don't know. But either way, if my coffee shop had great ratings, I'd advertise with it even if I used Maxwell House.
Yet we advertise, validate and publicize that objective standard when it favors us and claim it’s nonsense when it doesn’t. That is my issue with this entire discussion. Can’t have it both ways.
With the recent changes favoring other types of institutions in the rankings, we have a right(at the moment) to crow in the past at our rankings, and bitch at the new rankings. The new 'rules' of the game do not favor us.
Well yeah, who wouldn't? Of course you advertise your good ratings. Your point is that it's a bad long-term strategy because we validate the ratings, but no single place will impact what people think of the ratings so what's the point of tilting at that windmill? The system is unchangeable by us alone, so you live within it the best you can.
That's like saying that OSU has a better baseball team than ORU because OSU is ranked higher and seeded higher. That's "reality" only in our post-fact world where "reality" is defined by the opinion of whoever has the most followers
That's my point. The ratings all said that OSU was the better baseball team. So much for ratings.
I was kind of shocked to see a prediction thread on one of the preseason prediction threads for Oklahoma on Facebook , it had each game marked as either a win or a loss except Tulsa, it just said “ close game “. You would think after so many games of taking a “ big boy “ to the wire like Ohio State , Ole Miss, Oklahoma State, some of these bigger schools would take Tulsa a little bit more seriously. All it would have taken was a decent head coach /offensive coordinator to have won at least half of those games , and I believe we have that now . Tulsa could become very dangerous if things go right
We need to win some of those games to get respect. No one remembers the games were close. They only remember the W or L.
Agree 100 percent , if we would have had a decent coach who knew how to manage those close games , we would have won half of those , probably both games against Oklahoma State
