I thought about just posting some sarcastic retort about New Haven really sucking or something along those lines, but I'm sure Yale is great for people want a Yale experience. And, I'd put UT professors up against any other professors. Now, I'm not talking about Astronomy department TAs who don't speak English, but actual professors who are legends in their respective fields. Sure, some of them went to Yale but that isn't where they're teaching. And, if you're going to spend five years of your life following a football team on the school's dime across the country, you'd better believe a Holiday Bowl comeback is a big deal.
Shark 4's post is the best discussion of the conference re-alignment issues so far, especially the academic side of the issues. The Big Ten doesn't want the baggage UT brings with it to the conference, but they would take UT in a heartbeat otherwise. They have a great financial deal now, and a better academic set-up they don't want compromised.
This is based mainly on my experiences in the Electrical Engineering department, but we had a lot of really esteemed faculty in that department that could compete with any school. With that being said, it seemed like the more esteemed they were, the more they sucked as professors. So many of them would only be on campus for their classes and required number of office hours, and would be hardly available outside of class. It was pretty disappointing that they cared so little about their undergraduate students (I'm sure the grad students got a lot of attention) and solely their research. My point being, great faculty does not equal great academic experience if the school is all about their research at the expense of teaching undergraduates.
Ex2000, it's unfortunate that you don't feel you got a great education at Texas, but perhaps you were somply in a department with weak professors. Or, maybe UT wasn't a great fit for you. I'm always surprised when someone tells me they didn't enjoy their time at UT, but I'm sure it happens. Fortunately, that wasn't the case for me.
With these other 9 schools remaining in the conference, academics obviously wasn't an important issue like so many where making it out to be. The SEC is a better academic conference than us now.
