Should San Diego State be part of the Pac 12? (Part 9 of 11)

San Diego State University

The Academics
Location: San Diego, CA
Type of School: Public
Total Student Population: 35,832
Undergrads: 29,481
Demographics: 16% Asian; 4% Black; 24% Hispanic; 53% White; 1% Native American 3% International
Sex Ratio: 42.6% male; 57.4% female
%age of Natives: 94% are Californians
Ranking: 3rd Tier among Full Research Universities
AVG SAT of admitted kids: 1050
Endowment: $113,158,140

CURRENT CONFERENCES: Mountain West (all sports)
Football stadium capacity: 71,400
Men's Basketball capacity: 12,414
Women's Basketball capacity: 12,414
Most notable money sport: Football

San Diego State University is the flagship university of the California State University system which I described earlier with Fresno State. Its formal name is NOT CSU-SD. The school has reputable programs in education, fine arts, and nursing, among others. It is the only school in the CSU system to be classified as a full research university by US News, but as you can see from enrollment numbers, it is still heavily focused on undergrad education. You can argue that Cal-Poly is a better school with stats alone (it is also a CSU university), but it is more heavily focused toward hard sciences than general research. I'd call them a Virginia Tech without the doctoral work as Cal Poly only offers a handful (maybe only one) doctoral program.

Athletically, football is the flagship program overall, though the team itself hasn't been to a bowl since 1998. Much of this is because this program has had the honor of having a number of notable NFL coaches either coach or play here including Dan Coryell and John Madden among others. In recent years men's basketball has been quite decent as the teams have consistently earned NIT and NCAA bids.

Why SDSU should be in the Pac 12
Facilities and a large city base (though the San Diego market is probably watching a lot of USC/Cal/UCLA stuff already) are selling points. The Aztecs in football especially play at an NFL stadium, and with a top coach and recruits could fill Qualcomm up, at least ideally for games to see the home team of course.

Why SDSU should not
Competitiveness in all sports is not a concern, even if football isn't great. The problem once again is academics. SDSU would be the bottom school in the Pac 12 and with two UC's already in the conference plus USC and Stanford, um they would rather have Cal Poly if they were in the MWC.

Final Verdict
If Cal Poly's undergrads and SDSU's undergrads swapped, well this school will be a good fit. Unfortunately, life isn't fair, so they're another school in the Hawaii/New Mexico mold. Good facilities but spottier than desired academics.

SDSU Alumni
Joe Gibbs, Class of 1964
TE/OL/LB at SDSU. Eventually was an assistant there too. But we know what he's more famous for. He was the head coach of the Washington Redskins in the 80's and early '90's and led them to three Super Bowl championships, and also had another stint in the 2000's as the coach where the team once again went to the playoffs twice in four years.


Julie Kavner, Class of 1971
Emmy Award Winning Voice Actress, Most Notable for playing Marge Simpson on the Simpsons


Rear Admiral James E. McPherson, Class of 1977
Former Judge Advocate General of the US Navy from 2004-2006

Courtney Friel, Class of 2002
Fox News Channel Entertainment reporter


So one more school, Utah.. They'll come tomorrow.

i like SDSU for the Pac 12. maybe a bit too close to USC/UCLA though. its right next door, while the distance between the other 5 sets of 2 schools is a pretty large amount.

whos the Blonde bombshell? lol

she doesn't look that pretty. LOTS of makeup. usually a bad sign, lol.

pssh Ryan. She's beautiful for her age.

Kapow wrote:

pssh Ryan. She's beautiful for her age.

She has lingerie and swimsuit pics on Maxim and FHM.