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As part of SB Nation's Conference Re-Draft project, we -- as commissioners of a yet-to-be-named conference -- will be tasked with creating a new college athletics conference that provides the most value to its members. However, as representatives of Boston College, we might get snatched up by another conference and also be charged with building out their conference too. This will create a rather odd conflict of interest for the BC Interruption community.
My question to you is where do you think Boston College will end up getting drafted?
Once schools like USC, Texas, Florida, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Alabama come off the board, it's not hard to imagine BC high on the draft board along with similar schools like Stanford, Northwestern, Virginia and North Carolina.
Commissioner of Commissioners Samuel over at Cowboys Ride For Free has compiled a handy draft kit providing school rankings on many of the different factors that go into this sort of re-drafting project. BC actually stacks up quite well on many of these metrics. Let's take a closer look:
Athletics Revenue. Based on data from the Equity in Athletics data set, Boston College ranked 30th in athletics department revenue from 2005-2009. Only three other ACC programs -- Virginia, North Carolina and Duke -- brought in more revenue over the four-year span.
TV Ratings. Playing in the greater Boston DMA has its advantages if you are looking to establish your own conference TV network a la the BTN. The Eagles play in the seventh largest TV market in the country, and don't have to share the spotlight with another Division I-A program. The only other TV markets that are larger than Boston are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas/Fort Worth and the Bay Area.
Academics. This year Boston College's undergraduate programs were ranked #31 nationally by US News & World Report. That's 13th best in the BCS behind Stanford (5), Duke (9), Northwestern (12), Vanderbilt (17), Notre Dame (19), Cal (22), Southern Cal (23), UCLA (25), Virginia (25), Wake Forest (25), Michigan (29) and North Carolina (30).
Historic Success. While BC doesn't officially have a National Championship in either football or basketball (edit: though we do claim one National title in 1940), the program still has the 32nd best all-time winning percentage in college football history -- 631-435-37 (.589). Plus we have Flutie and only 36 other programs can claim at least one Heisman Trophy winner.
Rivalries. A few years ago Newsweek ranked the Boston College vs. Notre Dame rivalry as one of the 12 best in all of college sports. This must be true then since Newsweek reported it.
Other Factors. A National Championship-calibre men's ice hockey program may be appealing to one or more of the handful of schools that field both a I-A football program and a men's hockey program. If, say a Wisconsin and a Michigan get paired together, they could sway their other conference members to pick BC. National Championship sailing? I suppose if Navy gets drafted.
What do you think? Which round will BC get drafted in this SB Nation Conference Re-Draft project (there are at least 12 rounds and 6 conferences)? Which programs do you think BC should be drafted over (e.g. what is the peer group of schools we will be competing against)? Which programs would you not want to associate with under any circumstances?