And since the vast majority of student athletes are undergraduate students, the ACC focuses on the rankings that feature the quality of the undergraduate education experience. The ACC Academic Consortium ACCAC is also heavily oriented toward undergraduate student collaboration, research projects, and curriculum across the league. These are things that can help with recruiting. Chuck Amato when he was at Florida State used to go into the home of football recruits selling the Best Academic and Athletic Conference in the country. It resonated very well with recruits who were impressed with that against the SEC.

Other conferences want to promote graduate research statistics, but very few of the student athletes participate in graduate research while they are athletes. And there are other organizations besides an athletic conference that focuses on that. The AAU is one for instance.