If you don’t know this about me, I’m a huge nerd.
This morning I saw a Buzzfeed article on Facebook titled, The Most Academically and Athletically Dominant Colleges in America, and I thought, Wow, that sounds pretty cool. So, I checked it out, and lo and behold, one of my alma maters, The University of Michigan was ranked #1. While at first at thought this was awesome, I quickly realized that it was also bullshit. Because I know for a fact, that my other alma mater, Stanford, should be ranked #1, because we kick ass.
Okay, now I just sound like an asshole, but seriously, this ranking is nonsense in general because it doesn’t include private schools. The should at least title it “The Most Academically and Athletically Dominant Public Schools in America For Which We Have Data.”
Here’s how they describe their methodology:
“BuzzFeed plotted Forbes’ academic rankings of colleges and universities against USA Today’s tally of total athletic expenses (which doesn’t include private schools like Stanford or Notre Dame, FYI) to determine which schools value both athletics and academics. Then we weighted both ranks equally and tallied them up for our top 10″
So, not only does this not include private schools, but it uses Forbes’ ranking of schools (Forbes’ ranking lists tend to use dubious statistics) and athletic expenses, which in no way indicate a school’s dominance. Dominance is flatly measured in wins.
Here’s where I nerded out hard. Tony’s methodology:
Tony plotted the US News and World Report’s 2013 rankings of colleges and universities (the de facto standard) against The Director’s Cup 2013 final rankings (if you are unfamiliar, the Director’s Cup measures the overall success of NCAA schools in ALL sports each year, thus measuring overall athletic dominance) to determine which schools kick ass at both athletics and academics. Then he weighted both ranks equally and tallied them up for a top 159 (I know it’s a weird number, but I had my reasons).
How does it look? Check out the Top 10 below, and you can see my entire spreadsheet here.
Top 10 Most Athletically and Academically Dominant Universities in America
1. Stanford
2. Duke
3. Notre Dame
4. UCLA
5. Michigan
6. Princeton
7. USC
8. California
9. North Carolina
10. Virginia
Go Card! Go Blue! #nerdation
Okay, I also put together a bonus and ranked the major conferences:
Top 7 Most Athletically and Academically Dominant Major NCAA Conferences
1. Ivy League
2. Big Ten
3. ACC
4. PAC-12
5. SEC
6. Big 12
7. Big East
Sorry Big East, you fail. Also, had to include the Ivy League, because they really kicked the most ass on average when you look at all sports plus academics, but we all know they can’t do anything in sports that matter.
Be Like Water 