Washington is the highest, Utah St/ South Florida pretty high. Definitely paints the picture a bit differently if academics is a big deal for P12. When you can be picky without it majorly impacting your payout, I think this holds more weight. With the list of good football programs paired with high research dollars being non-existent, I guess we will see how much that matters to them. At the end of the day, I have to think the almighty conference payout dollars are worth a lot more than partnerships, but I am not a University President - they may be ok subsidizing the football program in order to have the better research connections. That prestige probably means a lot to them.

The P12 are going to have to decide if they want to be a competitive athletic conference or the ivy league of the west. Sports and academics aren't often the best match.