There are a few basic questions when it comes to CFB expansion.
1. Does the school fit as an institution academically?
This is purely a pass or fail. Once you pass you move to stage 2. With us getting AAU membership we unequivocally have passed. Whether UNC is better than us or not academically is honestly unimportant. Stanford and Cal are far superior to both of us (and Notre Dame), yet B10 presidents aren't willing to sacrifice money to get them because they don't pass #4, even though as a whole Stanford and Cals athletic programs are elite (UNCs is pretty elite too as a whole) and are even in a large market. By not inviting Stanford and Cal yet, the B10 presidents are saying we're not willing to get $5M/yr less by having them in our Conference, even though it would BY FAR make them the best Academically after the Ivy League - and perhaps surpass the Ivys.
2. Does the school fit Athletically?
This is an easy one, and is also a pass/fail. How much commitment is the school showing to their athletic programs? Miami invests far more in Football than UNC does. There are a bunch of schools that pass this metric, just like there are a lot that pass the academic metric. As a whole I'd say UNCs athletic program is very similar to like the Cals/UVA/etc where they have a lot of great athletics. But their key sport is clearly basketball. Football they are just basically average, and Football no matter what anyone says IS the answer to #4. Imagine it like this, you grade the athletics for each university where Football is weighted at minimum 24x, Mens Basektball is weighted 6x, Womens Basketball and Mens Baseball is weighted 2x, and everything else is in between at like 1x. That is the reality of what we are talking about here with realignment. UNC could have the #1 Basketball program of all time, and with a fringe top 40 football program they aren't athletically more important than a team with just a top 15 Football program worth, PERIOD. So athletically if we are talking fit, Miami ranks above UNC and UVA - imo pretty easily for the B10.
Ex) Lets say we are ranking athletic programs on a score of 0-100. Where the greatest football/basketball program all time gets 100pts, and the 100th or worse gets 0pts. Well if UNC is #1 basketball but only 40th in football, that'd be 100pts for basketball and 60pts for Football. With the weighting factor I just gave, that would get them 100*6 + 60*24 = 2,040 points towards their athletic grade. For Miami lets say we are top 15 football worth 85pts and literally 0 basketball. Well 0*6 + 85*24 = 2,040 points towards our athletic grade. And again I think just a 24x weight for football (only 4x more than basketball) may actually be low. Plus we are probably like in the 70-80s all time for basketball, and would rank quite high in baseball. And that was with a linear point assignment, when the reality is a top 15 football program is quite different (5 national championships vs 0 different) than a top 40 program.
3. Does the school fit Geographically/Culturally?
For the SEC the question of Geographical fit is going to be a much larger concern. The SEC and B10 are clearly going in diverging strategies regarding geography. The SEC is going to remain a South-East exclusive conference, while the B10 is going national. So UNC and Miami fit with both - again. Oregon, Washington, Stanford, Cal, and some other schools only would fit the B10 and not in the SEC at all. So naturally they are at a disadvantage when it comes to realignment. But regardless Miami and UNC both pass here. I'd say culturally Miami is actually more of a B10 fit while UNC is more of an SEC fit even if they'd be top like 3 academics there. Both would be adding new states to the B10 footprint, but Miamis area is just plain better. For recruiting purposes and actual population, as well as having a lot of fans in the northeast.
4. Are Fox/NBC/CBS willing to pay up *** loads of money for them?
This is by far and away the most important aspect of all this. And Football is THE driver. People can post their made up brand rankings all they want, the reality is we have a far better football program than UNC and get better media ratings in Football. And in a conference like the B10, we would get far greater rankings against the Ohio States/Notre Dame/USC/etc than UNC would. Now this matters a lot more to the B10 than it actually would the SEC imo. The SEC wouldn't actually benefit as much from US as they would UNC likely, even with us being a better football program, simply because they already are winning National Championship after National Championship, already have the South East and a presence in Florida with UF, and especially if they get FSU. So UNC would be the next biggest population state they aren't currently already in. So it does make a lot of sense why the SEC would potentially value UNC and UVA more than Miami.
Basically I think if we were to do rankings by conference it'd look something like:
| SEC | B10 |
| Notre Dame | Notre Dame |
| FSU | Miami |
| UNC | FSU |
| Clemson | Clemson |
| UVA | UNC |
| NCSt/VTech (If the B10 gets UNC/UVA) | UVA/Oregon/Washington |
| Stanford/Cal |
