Guys, it's not that McNeese fans think McNeese is superior to ULL per se. I think it's more a matter of us tending to think the ULL community tends to think the school is something it's not. Kind of a "megalomania" thing. But I also think the McNeese community isn't the only community that things that.
I think we all would say that ULL has done better in its overall athletic programs. Football? That's different. I'd say that most would say that since USL (back then) made the decision to stay I-A back in the early 80s and McNeese made the decision to move to I-AA at the time McNeese has had the better football team during most of the years. Also, though we recognize that ULL has had some good records in recent years, we also recognize that their wins have come against weak FBS teams. Last year, for instance, the teams ULL beat finished rated 95th, 103rd, 71st, 74th, 116th, 90th, 122nd, and 80th among 125 FCS teams according to the "average" of ratings at
http://www.masseyratings.com/cf/arch/compare2013-16.htm. I can't get to the final FCS ratings for last year at that site but the other win was against the team that finished 72nd in the FCS Sagarin ratings. In other words: ULL fashioned a nice record by beating weak FBS teams that were not outside of the range of what one might expect to encounter in FCS. I think most recognize that ULL has been a lot better the past three years than it was when McNeese played them in 2007. Also that was a very good McNeese team. It was devastated by injury by the end of the season but when ULL played them they were loaded. They'll have to be lucky to have that good a team in 2016. But it's not like playing Nebraska this year or LSU next year. It's just not and I think you guys know that. ULL, from our standpoint, has over the past three years basically been equivalent in caliber to a top 25 FCS team. A tough opponent from McNeese's standpoint. But not "out of their league" in terms of caliber.
Academics? I don't know. I've never seen what I think is a valid ranking of the academic value of universities. What you'd need is some measure of actual output; some measure of how well prepared students of given incoming ability are upon graduation. And so far I haven't seen that. All I know is that I have worked with people from all sorts of places from the Ivy league to small State schools (like McNeese) including a pretty good number of USL/ULL graduates and have not personally seen any indication that I've been at a disadvantage in terms of preparation by virtue of having gone to McNeese EXCEPT that certain universities are such that the name itself gives the person an advantage. It's kind of a "self fulfilling prophecy" thing. Like I have a colleague that has Bachelors and Masters Engineering Degrees from Cornell. But, frankly, if I compare her to a guy I worked with who had a Bachelors from Louisiana Tech there is no question in my mind as to who I came off as thinking was better prepared. And it wasn't the lady from Cornell.
It pains me to say that but it's the truth. Yet I guarantee you when people see "Cornell" next to that lady's name she's going to have an advantage over someone with "Louisiana Tech" next to their name.
The way I look at it is this: The Ivy League gets a fraction of the top 1% in terms of ability to begin with. Then when they get out they have an advantage because they've got an Ivy League degree. The name matters. So you can't really say the Ivy League actually provides the best education just because its graduates are very successful. Most of them were probably genius level IQ to begin with and they also have the "name" on the degree. but you don't really know that someone who's in that top fraction of 1% in terms of ability gets a better education at Harvard than they would at Southeastern Louisiana. It's kind of like giving credit to Hussein Bolt's high school track coach (if there are high school track coaches where he came from) for his 100 meter time. The reality is who coached him has very little to do with it. He's just very talented innately.
Re: McNeese in 2016?
Originally Posted by JohnStOnge
Guys, it's not that McNeese fans think McNeese is superior to ULL per se. I think it's more a matter of us tending to think the ULL community tends to think the school is something it's not. Kind of a "megalomania" thing. But I also think the McNeese community isn't the only community that things that.
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