In the year 2000 when the University of Southwestern La changed it's name to the Univesity of Louisiana at Lafayette, I recall Dr. Ray Authement, who did not care one bit about about atheletics, saying the name would be crucial when applying for research grant dollars. In the academic world everyone goes by their official name and not the athletic branding. He said that we would no longer be Southwestern competing against Texas at Austin, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tennessee at Knoxville ....... We'd now share the same name with those schools which will somewhat level out the playing field.

It looks like he was right about the research dollars.

http://www.raginpagin.com/louisiana/...-Flagship-quot