I'm sort of warming to the idea of Louisville in the ACC, because personally I've always thought of the ACC as mainly a southern conference rather than an eastern one. So while I find Notre Dame's presence still a bit unsettling, a school in the state of Kentucky seems to work.
Like last year with the three new additions, we need to profile this one, especially since they're UVa's default rival for no other reason than they're Maryland's replacement. I don't care for this, by the way. It's nothing personal, Louisvillians. You guys seem so darn happy to be here, I can't begrudge it, and who can blame you when this is basically a lifeboat to the big time? It's just that I'm a little annoyed at the laziness of the league; Louisville is not a school for whom I can work up as healthy a hatred as I had (have) for Maryland, and would prefer they juggle things a bit to make the rivalries a little more traditional. That said, I think this is a very temporary situation, at least in football. Do not be surprised if, by the end of the year, a new scheduling model comes out.
I digress, though. Last year we looked at each newcomer's prowess through the lens of the Director's Cup, and we'll do the same again. As an added bonus, we'll also compare to Maryland. It's only natural, really. There's a feeling, in general, that Louisville is actually an upgrade athletically, so we'll find out if it's true.
First, the general profile. 16,151
Enrollment (undergrad):
1. Florida State - 31,851
x. Maryland - 26,826
2. NC State - 25,176
3. Virginia Tech - 22,824
4. North Carolina - 18,579
5. Pittsburgh - 18,427
6. Clemson - 16,931
7. Louisville - 16,151
8. Virginia - 16,087
9. Syracuse - 15,097
10. Georgia Tech - 14,558
11. Miami - 11,044
12. Boston College - 9,110
13. Notre Dame - 8,475
14. Duke - 6,495
15. Wake Forest - 4,815
The ACC loses a large flagship institution, which is going to a conference comprised of almost nothing but large flagship institutions. Louisville is no flagship, but is practically UVa's twin in terms of size.
Academic rank (USN&WR):
1. Duke - #7
2. Notre Dame - #18
3(t). Virginia - #23
3(t). Wake Forest - #23
5. North Carolina - #30
6. Boston College - #31
7. Georgia Tech - #36
8. Miami - #47
9(t). Clemson - #62
9(t). Syracuse - #62
9(t). Pittsburgh - #62
x. Maryland - #62
12. Virginia Tech - #69
13. Florida State - #91
14. NC State - #101
15. Louisville - #161
So about that. Louisville was originally considered sort of an outside option at best, because of academic rankings that fall a long way outside of the usual standard for ACC schools. The words "commuter school" have been bandied about, and while there's likely a ring of truth to that, it's largely unfair. (Louisville claims about 6,000 residents of its dorms and various on-campus living, which is probably not very different from UVa.) Cooler heads eventually prevailed - ones more interested in the preservation of the conference than preservation of conference-killing standards - and Louisville's ranking ceased to be a factor. (Look, it's not like UVa is any less of a school for being in a conference with one in the triple digits.) For the record, UConn (widely considered to be the other "finalist") fits in somewhere between Miami and the four-way tie - but then, Louisville hasn't been banned from the NCAA tournament for never graduating its basketball players. So there's more than one side to the academics coin.
Directors' Cup average:**
1. Florida State - 8.4
2. North Carolina - 8.6
3. Virginia - 9.8
4. Duke - 10.4
5. Notre Dame - 14.8
x. Maryland - 29.6
6. Louisville - 35
7. Virginia Tech - 38.2
8. Syracuse - 52
9. Clemson - 52.2
10. NC State - 53.6
11. Miami - 60.6
12. Boston College - 65.6
13. Georgia Tech - 67.8
14. Wake Forest - 77.4
15. Pittsburgh - 112.2
**average finish in the last five years, including 2014
In terms of straight average, Louisville comes in a little less than Maryland, but it's not like the difference is huge. Maryland took a drop recently that coincides a bit with chopping programs and losing money (the ACC has been withholding revenue-sharing from them to pay for their exit fee) while Louisville has been very steadily in the 30s the last four years, and #41 in 2010. They got to #30 this year, just nipping Maryland at #32. Anywhere in the top 40 or so, you can pat yourself on the back for a pretty strong program in general. If the general conjecture is true, both Maryland and Louisville should see a bump in their performance in a few years; the fact that the Cardinals have been doing this without the benefit of major-conference money is reasonably impressive, and they were the only top-40 team outside the big five conferences this year.
Sports we play that they don't
Men:
Lacrosse
Wrestling
Women:
none
Sports they play that we don't
Men:
none
Women:
none
Pretty simple list here, and if I hadn't standardized it the last three times I did this, I wouldn't have done it here, either. Our women's sports are exactly the same as theirs. Our men play lacrosse and rasslin', and there exists a small bit of hope that the extra money coming into the Louisville program will be incentive enough to fix that issue when it comes to lacrosse.
Common sports
**Note: The numbers after each year are the Director's Cup points scored in that season.
Men's cross country
2009-2010: 28 (Md. 0; UVA 45)
2010-2011: 18 (Md. 0; UVA 40)
2011-2012: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2012-2013: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 61.5)
2013-2014: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 63)
Totals: 46; 0; 209.5
Women's cross country
2009-2010: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 45)
2010-2011: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 32)
2011-2012: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 34)
2012-2013: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2013-2014: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 69)
Totals: 0; 0; 180
We begin with a sport where there won't be much threat to whatever it is that UVa's doing. Maryland's cross-country teams always ran at the back of the ACC pack - and they no longer have a men's team - and Louisville will be an improvement, but no threat to win ACC titles.
Field hockey
2009-2010: 0 (Md. 90; UVa 83)
2010-2011: 0 (Md. 100; UVA 83)
2011-2012: 0 (Md. 100; UVA 0)
2012-2013: 0 (Md. 83; UVA 60)
2013-2014: 0 (Md. 83; UVA 25)
Totals: 0; 456; 251
Interesting dynamic here, really. Maryland is by far the most successful team of the past decade-plus. In the last ten years they've missed the final four once and won five national titles. UVA is something of a perennial bridesmaid in the ACC. We don't have a single ACC title in the history of the competition; someone, usually Maryland or UNC but sometimes Duke, is always getting in the way.
Louisville, on the other hand, is essentially an NIT-level team. In men's lacrosse, think Fairfield or Drexel, except without even the rare tournament appearance. They're constantly losing to UConn or ODU in their conference semifinals. They'll probably be at least respectable to start. In the long-term, a move to the obvious "it" conference could give them that boost they need to get over the hump; within the first couple of years, though, the likely upshot is that UVA's path to a conference championship just got a little easier. (But then, so did UNC's.)
Football
2009-2010: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2010-2011: 45 (Md. 50; UVA 0)
2011-2012: 25 (Md. 0; UVA 25)
2012-2013: 63 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2013-2014: 60 (Md. 25; UVA 0)
Totals: 193; 75; 25
Always a little bit of a sleeping giant, Louisville rode Charlie Strong damn near to the top of the football world, culminating in that big Sugar Bowl win over Florida and following that up with a 12-1 season last year. Strong in turn rode that success to another pinnacle of the football world with a bid to coach at Texas, and so Louisville brought back a guy who they'd had a lot of success with, but whose name became total mud since he'd left: Bobby Petrino. Dude's a sleaze, but he was also 41-9 at Louisville.
This matters, since UVa will have to play them for the foreseeable future. Louisville enters the Atlantic Conference and only makes it tougher at the top, adding themselves to the mix with FSU and Clemson. Whether Randy Edsall was going to make Maryland a threat in the conference is now a moot point; the Cardinals are an upgrade in any case.
Men's soccer
2009-2010: 25 (Md. 73; UVA 100)
2010-2011: 90 (Md. 73; UVA 25)
2011-2012: 73 (Md. 64; UVA 25)
2012-2013: 73 (Md. 83; UVA 50)
2013-2014: 50 (Md. 90; UVA 83)
Totals: 311; 383; 283
The numbers tell the story here. Traditionally, Maryland is among the strongest teams in men's college soccer, but Louisville is no slouch at all. UVA, Maryland, Louisville; all three have made appearances in the national championship game in the past five years, and in that time the teams have combined for five Colleg Cup appearances. The ACC merely replaces one top team with another.
Women's soccer
2009-2010: 0 (Md. 64; UVA 64)
2010-2011: 0 (Md. 50; UVA 64)
2011-2012: 64 (Md. 64; UVA 73)
2012-2013: 0 (Md. 50; UVA 64)
2013-2014: 25 (Md. 0; UVA 83)
Totals: 89; 228; 348
In the women's game, though, things are a little different; they're more like field hockey here. Again, the ACC is the undisputed 800-pound gorilla of the sport, and Louisville's Big East/AAC results have been up and down. Maryland could usually hold their own in the conference but wasn't a major contender; Louisville will probably be a downgrade. Since the last three years saw UVa blow the Terps out of the conference tournament, the change isn't likely to make it any easier to win the conference title for ourselves.
Volleyball
2009-2010: 25 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2010-2011: 50 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2011-2012: 50 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2012-2013: 50 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2013-2014: 25 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
Totals: 200; 0; 0
Louisville volleyball had a habit of blowing through the Big East like a knife through wet paper and then bowing out of the NCAAs in the first or second round. This still makes them a hell of a lot better than our team, which is only just working its way onto the plus side of the standings, and also a hell of a lot better than Maryland's team, which hasn't even made it that far. It is a long climb to an ACC title for UVA, and getting longer with the addition of another contender.
Men's basketball
2009-2010: 25 (Md. 50; UVA 0)
2010-2011: 25 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2011-2012: 83 (Md. 0; UVA 25)
2012-2013: 100 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2013-2014: 64 (Md. 0; UVA 64)
Totals: 297; 50; 89
Um, Rick Pitino, y'all. Let's just add him to a conference with Coach K and Jim Boeheim and Tony Bennett and Roy Williams and Jamie Dixon. Maryland was - is - spinning its wheels under Mark Turgeon, so the ACC just got a heck of a lot tougher. Well, for the Georgia Techs of the world, anyway. I'd like to think that it's Louisville that has to contend with the defending ACC champs, not the other way around.
Women's basketball
2009-2010: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 25)
2010-2011: 64 (Md. 50; UVA 0)
2011-2012: 50 (Md. 73; UVA 0)
2012-2013: 90 (Md. 64; UVA 0)
2013-2014: 73 (Md. 83; UVA 0)
Totals: 277; 187; 25
On the other hand, it's the Hoos that are spinning their wheels on this side of the sport. Louisville and Maryland both are perennial top-25 teams - or better - so there's not much change from UVA's perspective. We had a way to go before we could hope to contend, and still do.
Men's swimming and diving
2009-2010: 51 (Md. 0; UVA 67.5)
2010-2011: 57 (Md. 0; UVA 70.5)
2011-2012: 59 (Md. 0; UVA 60)
2012-2013: 66 (Md. 0; UVA 47)
2013-2014: 66 (Md. 0; UVA 48)
Totals: 309; 0; 293
Women's swimming and diving
2009-2010: 52.5 (Md. 48.5; UVA 69)
2010-2011: 26 (Md. 52; UVA 63)
2011-2012: 50 (Md. 38; UVA 57)
2012-2013: 52 (Md. 0; UVA 56)
2013-2014: 60 (Md. 0; UVA 66)
Totals: 240.5; 138.5; 311
Maryland axed their swimming programs a couple years ago, so the upshot here will be to add a team back to the mix. And a pretty good one, on both ends. Our men's team finished a miserable fourth at the ACC championships this year, which I don't have to tell you is the proverbial UNACCEPTABLE, and bringing in Louisville adds a potent challenger to the mix.
Baseball
2009-2010: 50 (Md. 0; UVA 64)
2010-2011: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 83)
2011-2012: 50 (Md. 0; UVA 25)
2012-2013: 73 (Md. 0; UVA 64)
2013-2014: 73 (Md. 64; UVA 90)
Totals: 246; 64; 326
Maryland's surprising super regional run notwithstanding, this is a huge and relatively high-profile upgrade. There aren't cross-division rivals in baseball, so we really have no idea whether we'll even play Louisville right away, but they'll certainly make the pathetic Atlantic rather more worthwhile. The Cardinals have put in an appearance in Omaha each of the last two seasons; they've never won there, but this move to the ACC can only help them - and the conference.
Men's golf
2009-2010: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 65.25)
2010-2011: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 27.5)
2011-2012: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 51.5)
2012-2013: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 39)
2013-2014: 21.5 (Md. 0; UVA 33.5)
Totals: 21.5; 0; 216.75
2009-2010: 33 (Md. 21; UVA 63)
2010-2011: 40 (Md. 0; UVA 80)
2011-2012: 0 (Md. 24; UVA 80)
2012-2013: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 42)
2013-2014: 20.5 (Md. 0; UVA 61.5)
Totals: 93.5; 45; 326.5
Our men's team isn't a big contender, typically finishing mid-pack in the conference tournament and scraping a few national points here and there. The women's team, quietly, is one of the better ones in the country; not quite a major contender for the national championship, but they're generally in strong contention for ACC titles. Maryland is none of the above and Louisville is a bit better, but not going to be a big deal.
2009-2010: 0 (Md. 100; UVA 60)
2010-2011: 0 (Md. 90; UVA 25)
2011-2012: 0 (Md. 83; UVA 25)
2012-2013: 0 (Md. 90; UVA 70)
2013-2014: 53 (Md. 100; UVA 83)
Totals: 53; 463; 263
Again, like field hockey, the ACC is taking a pretty big downgrade here. Maryland is a powerhouse, and working on a six-year Final Four streak. Louisville's team is relatively new, playing their first season in 2008. They've been a mediocre Big East team most of their existence, with the exception of one horrible year in 2012 and one really good one this year. If they carry that success forward, they'll present a challenge, but the ACC is a much different beast than the Big East, even without Maryland.
2009-2010: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 100)
2010-2011: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 63)
2011-2012: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 100)
2012-2013: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 75)
2013-2014: 40 (Md. 0; UVA 75)
Totals: 40; 0; 413
Nothing to see here. Maryland has no team, so there'll be one extra boat at the ACC championships; regardless, nobody's touching UVA any time soon.
2009-2010: 50 (Md. 25; UVA 0)
2010-2011: 50 (Md. 25; UVA 0)
2011-2012: 50 (Md. 25; UVA 0)
2012-2013: 25 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2013-2014: 25 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
Totals: 200; 75; 0
Like rowing, but the other way around. UVA went 8-43 this year with half a roster. Yes, that's the nadir, one hopes, but Louisville is too good a team for us to care where they land in the conference. (Near the top, most likely, but not quite championship material.)
2009-2010: 64 (Md. 0; UVA 83)
2010-2011: 50 (Md. 50; UVA 90)
2011-2012: 25 (Md. 0; UVA 90)
2012-2013: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 100)
2013-2014: 25 (Md. 0; UVA 83)
Totals: 164; 50; 446
Back to not caring where in the hierarchy they land, so long as it's behind us. Louisville has a respectable tennis team, but it's about to join the fight for second place. Actually, playing in a conference will be somewhat new to them; the Big East had a conference tournament but its teams didn't really play each other during the season. Louisville's been playing against ACC teams more than Big East teams, and the Cardinals more or less split those matches.
2009-2010: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 50)
2010-2011: 0 (Md. 25; UVA 64)
2011-2012: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 64)
2012-2013: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 64)
2013-2014: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 73)
Totals: 0; 25; 315
Very little to speak of here; Louisville usually has had winning records, but they pad out their schedule with a lot of fluff, and haven't had an invite to the NCAAs since 2008. They won't be a big factor in the ACC, and UVA should expect to beat them most if not all of the time.
2009-2010: 56 (Md. 0; UVA 49.5)
2010-2011: 46 (Md. 25.5; UVA 46)
2011-2012: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 15)
2012-2013: 13 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2013-2014: 0 (Md. 0; UVA 25)
Totals: 115; 25.5; 135.5
2009-2010: 36 (Md. 42.5; UVA 0)
2010-2011: 27 (Md. 0; UVA 44)
2011-2012: 22 (Md. 0; UVA 0)
2012-2013: 0 (Md. 9; UVA 0)
2013-2014: 61.5 (Md. 35; UVA 18)
Totals: 146.5; 86.5; 62
Consistent success in this sport has eluded Louisville, the same as it's eluded UVA and Maryland, and it's going to be hard to predict anything here other than that Louisville probably will be better than Maryland was and won't be a huge threat to win any ACC titles.
************************************************
Yes, I took an extended break for the Fourth, there, and I'll do it again next week, too. Part of it was, I was totally going to write a weekend review yesterday and then I realized, most of the stuff I wanted to write about was from Jeff White's column. So just read that instead.
Summer break for me starts this Friday, but I'll write stuff Wednesday and Thursday, and then Thursday and Friday next week.
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