The whole "a strong UVA is good for VT" meme has been bandied about for a long time. I think I've been seeing that on this board close to 20 years or more, but never any actual data or even a coherent progression of logic.

You certainly can't argue that a strong VT has been especially good for UVA right?

I imagine the theorizing is something along the lines of state pride? Somehow if two rival schools are duking it out in the national spotlight (by virtue of both being ranked teams), it keeps the attention of in-state players on the instate school(s), and that pride manifests as a greater chance to keep players in state? So we divide the in state player pie in fewer pieces. Is that the logic?

So we need UVA to be good to keep instate players, but if they become good independent of a strong rivalry, what's the purpose of the rivalry again? This remains a tautology. Rivalries help except when they don't?

Start over, so strong programs make more compelling rivalries, but the rivalries don't necessarily make the programs strong. However, if they are strong, then we benefit from some sort of resulting synergy, but its benefit is totally unquantifiable. So we're ghost hunting again.














[Post edited by Techsupport at 06/13/2018 09:43AM]