SI's P5 school desirability ranking...

[Katatonic]

Would have been better if weighed the categories differently.

Cats come in at 29, which is behind Iowa (21), but ahead of Nebby (33).

The Cats would have rated higher but for the 2 disastrous seasons (the football category is made up of the avg. 5 year Sagarin ranking from '17 to '21).

In terms of football ranking, NU is 38th, while Iowa is 9th and UW, 8th.

Ranking all 69 Power 5 schools by college sports value - Sports Illustrated

If the college sports started over, who would be most coveted? We break it down with a formula.

www.si.com

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

Would have been better if weighed the categories differently.

Cats come in at 29, which is behind Iowa (21), but ahead of Nebby (33).

The Cats would have rated higher but for the 2 disastrous seasons (the football category is made up of the avg. 5 year Sagarin ranking from '17 to '21).

In terms of football ranking, NU is 38th, while Iowa is 9th and UW, 8th.

Ranking all 69 Power 5 schools by college sports value - Sports Illustrated

If the college sports started over, who would be most coveted? We break it down with a formula.

www.si.com

Its an interesting exercise, if "playing football in college" in your prime motivator.

However, If someone is a Power-5 athlete who wants to get a free education and has no serious thoughts about becoming a professional in his/her sport, the list goes like this...

Stanford
Northwestern
Duke
Vanderbilt
Michigan
UCLA
and then probably USC, Cal-Berkeley, Virginia, Notre Dame or North Carolina

The vast majority of the Big Ten schools are in the top 50%, whereas the vast majority of the SEC schools are bottom 50% and most are in the Bottom 25%.

So there's that.

 

[Katatonic]

What you're talking about is quite different from a school/program desirability to conferences.

That being said, I'm hard pressed to think of any top NU player who didn't want to give the NFL a shot (barring any injury issues/concerns).

If a player was just interested in using FB as a means to get an education, then why not play for one of the Ivies or a top LAC?

The wear and tear on the body would be a lot less at those schools; reason why many recruits want to play in a P5 (or even more so, the B1G and SEC these days) is bc they want to play against the best - which means playing against teams loaded with talent headed to the NFL.

 

[zeek55]

Interesting list.

Really depends on how you value education and academic brand and all the rest beyond just football/basketball.

NU has had a spot at the big boy athletics table for 126 years and at least in the last 30 has finally understood how important that is as the front porch of the university.

 

[Hungry Jack]

Its an interesting exercise, if "playing football in college" in your prime motivator.

However, If someone is a Power-5 athlete who wants to get a free education and has no serious thoughts about becoming a professional in his/her sport, the list goes like this...

Stanford
Northwestern
Duke
Vanderbilt
Michigan
UCLA
and then probably USC, Cal-Berkeley, Virginia, Notre Dame or North Carolina

The vast majority of the Big Ten schools are in the top 50%, whereas the vast majority of the SEC schools are bottom 50% and most are in the Bottom 25%.

So there's that.

I'd put Michigan and UCLA over Vandy, but it is pretty clear who are the "academic" schools in P5.

 

[Katatonic]

Here's a better, more in depth analysis/ranking done by Nate Silver.

Where Should The Big Ten Expand Next? We Crunched The Numbers.

Which schools should the Big Ten poach next?

fivethirtyeight.com