I'm not really answering your question. However, to say the Pac 10 is an academically strong conference isn't the entire story. It rivals South Africa for inequality from best/richest to worst/poorest. At the top, it's possibly to probably the strongest power conference academically. From top to bottom, it completely lacks depth. It has four outstanding universities (Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, USC), one very good (Washington), four decent/average (Arizona, Washington State, Oregon, Arizona State) and one poor (Oregon State). I see absolutely no reason Kansas wouldn't fit academically, especially when the conference is considering Texas freakin' Tech (and Okie State for that matter). What's so bad about Oregon State?