Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Why are "State" schools USUALLY subordinate to U. of Schools, and why are there exceptions?  The major "State" schools are in OH, PA, LA, FL, OR, WA, AZ, OK, IA, NC ... which is a fair number, but in some states the State school is almost unknown outside the state.  And I think only for OH and LA and PA are the state schools clearly dominant.  

I dunno, isn't it usually that the "State" school is the land grant university, and is usually focused on things like ag and other stuff, while the "U of X" schools are more focused on things like the med school and the law school?

So usually one is more of the academic flagship of the state, and it just naturally flowed that that "flagship" school also tended to end up being the bigger athletic program?

Yes, that has always been my observation of this phenomenon as well.

I've heard that story, but I admit to not really understanding "land grant U" very much.  UGA is a land grant U for example, even though it started way back in 1785.  It does have a large Ag school, and I think always has had one, and a Vet school, but the Medical school is in Augusta.

Land-Grant Colleges and Universities | NIFA (usda.gov)

Georgia State until fairly recently was a large "commuter school" in downtown Atlanta.  It now plays football with the big boys apparently, they just beat Might Vandy.

Some southern "state" schools are HBCUs, like Alabama State.  I left out Miss State.  NC State is a large school relative to UNC, I think the latter is more liberal arts oriented, and has the med school.  Virginia State?  WV State?  Kentucky State?  I have heard of Indiana State for one birdlike reason.

Nebraska State?  Texas State?  Only in the movies?

Interesting.  

Yep.  It’s well known that many of the state schools started off as (Insert State Name here) A&M and they were colloquially known as ( insert state name here) Aggies. Kansas State was Kansas A&M, or Kansas Aggies. Oklahoma State was Oklahoma A&M, or Oklahoma Aggies. Most of them ditched the A&M moniker around the 1940’s and became (insert state name here) State University. Probably the right move. 

Texas A&M, being steeped in tradition and history, rejected this trend and stayed A&M. For those that don’t know, we were actually the A&M College of Texas until the 1960’s. Membership in the corps of cadets was mandatory, and student enrollment was about 6,000. Think Citadel or VMI type of institution. No women were allowed. 

Then, in 1963, they changed the name to Texas A&M University and I think started admitting women and being in the corps was optional. This is the reason why sometimes you’ll hear references to Ol’ Army and see mascots like Ol’ Sarge. Ol Army really refers to the corps only A&M of yesteryear. 

I don’t think much changed until the 1970’s, until enrollment started going up and up every year, women went from being a small contingent to half or more of the student body, and the core dwindling down to a token amount. Even now, the size of the corps is roughly equal to when I was a student, about 2,000, even though enrollment went up by 30,000. 

I’m glad we kept the A&M part, I think it makes us unique, and I’d like to think that if A&M is mentioned the default school is Texas A&M is the first thought.  Like the Dr Pepper ads mock, they mention “ State” and “Tech”, because there are so many. 

The U of Minnesota is also the state's land-grant institution.

The various colleges currently named Minnesota State University were originally the state's teachers colleges (Mankato Normal School), and were merged together with the community and tech colleges in the early 90s.

We went really off topic on this one, but probably one of the main reasons why A&M is so far ahead of other colleges/universities in the same boat is because we were included in the Texas Public University Fund from the get go.  The old joke goes, Why do the Aggies only get 25% of the PUF ?  Because they picked first !  But the reality is that it has been a huge advantage for us, and when we were much smaller we got a lot of funding that we would have otherwise never seen.  Texas Tech, for example, is not in the PUF and doesn't have nearly the endowment.  

A lot of the schools were originally Teachers colleges.  I think I read where Florida State was originally a teachers college, along with a bunch of others.