That really shouldn't surprise anybody. SDSU and Houston have a ton of potential as does USF. In a very short period of time BCU may be looking up at UMASS's athletic program. Check out the final score of the 2012 Cotton Bowl: Houston 30 Penn State 14.
ESPN isn't the most popular site. They are third. Yahoo is first. I don't need a lesson on how ESPN influences people's opinions. Their opinion on the Big Easy is pretty clear - I don't see any evidence that message boards have influenced them, it's 'journalism' that is driven by business - they don't ignore the NHL for no reason. They operate from the top down, not from the bottom up. UConn's issue remains that not enough people truly care about the football team locally and nationally. Unless a message board can contribute to solving that issue it's not going to have a real impact. I get that it's a chicken and egg problem. You need to play well for a long time to get national respect, but having national respect makes it easier to hire the coaches and recruit the players needed to play well. Really it comes down to the alumni and people of Connecticut wanting to be part of the club badly enough that they buy into the program and support it in such a way that it can't be ignored by television and the bigger leagues. I don't have much faith in the 'casual' portion of our fanbase making the emotional and financial investment that takes. It's just not how people here operate. To have Rentschler sold out for the season would take 30,000 non-student season ticket holders, but we seem to be moving backwards on that front. On the brightside, I did get a call from the athletic dept the other day because I haven't renewed my tickets yet (out of laziness) - it's the first time I remember them ever calling me about it.
In regards to what it will take for us to help UConn football i think it's all about support right now and every thing will fall in line after that down the road a bit. I was at a dinner party last night with a group of young alums. 3/4 other guys there had already purchased season tix and we convinced the 4th one to cave in and grab a set as well. As we continue to play decent-quality football all these students who get to watch the games for $5 a ticket enter the workforce (hopefully) and continue to support the team. We are all in our mid-20s and starting to purchase season tickets now. If we continue to not #suckharder, the student level interst will continue because frankly the tailgaiting is really fun and the games are getting better. As the years continue the students, like myself and the group of guys i was with last night are going to continue to attend games...attendence is going to increase. Demand will increase...stadium will have to increase. And we put ourselves in a position to be a quality addition to a stronger conference. The key is just continue to win and gain the support of the state and students.
Guess who was conspicuous by his absence at today's UConn Hockey East public event at the XL Center? The ADs from PC, BU, UMass and UMass-Lowell were present. BCU? Nada.
I'd like to use the 1000th reply to this thread to say that BC sucks. Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2
Wow! To nail the 1,000th post in this God-forsaken thread, you chose to do the Herman Cain! Very gutsy play. Very gutsy indeed... (wait, is my counter off?)
Don't sell yourself short. When UNLV plays New Mexico @ the garden in the BET championship game you'll be a legend.
This isn't going to happen overnight... Its taken 10 years to get here... And that is considered unprecedented. What we need is the next generation of husky fans to bring the passion. Programs like Bama And LSU have have generations brought up on spending Saturdays watching college football. Uconn is growing but it's going to take a generation or two for the next big step.
Agreed. It's a critical time though as if the money isn't there and the quality of football drops some, it's that much harder to catch up. Could end up in a hole that can't be dug out off.
These are exactly the stakes the program is facing these next few years, beginning with this one. The program's rise was predicated partly on the promise of "Big Time Football" For its first decade in 1-A, it nailed it. Its future is predicated on not receding with the NNBE tide. Without a new conference, our future may depend on how well our brethern step up to the plate. If the NNBE is not regularly winning OOC and Bowl games against top team, then the number of NNBE teams that will be viable in a national context is limited. Stay at the current level with the ACC and eventually it will wither. Consolidation that comes with a playoff, see Mandel's latest SI.com column projecting last year's "Playoff selection" and you'll see the bulk of the 12 BCS spots going to the SEC (4), B12 (3), and P12 (2). No way the B1G (1) only gets one come 2014. The last two spots went to the ACC (didn't deserve it) and Boise (wouldn't have gone 11-1 in the BE). Notably absent in this list was the actual BE champ WVU, who beat Clemson by about abajillion and it was only that close because football is a timed sport. Even with the benefit of hindsight, the BE got zero respect from an opinion maker who is supposed to know something about CFB. No flowering defense of past BCS records, bowl wins, head to head matchups will help the situation. The ACC has a leg up with it's Orange Bowl tie-in. It will be a three year death match between the ACC and the NNBE for the street cred necessary to survive the next 12 years. It starts now and there can be only one.
This is where Notre Dame can come to the rescue and partner with the BE as they did in the past in bowl selections. It's win/win. ND gets regular revenue and the BE gets slotted higher than they would normally. Of course it might be against the best available ACC or the Orange Bowl agrees to select a BE/ND team twice every 4 years and partners with the SEC for 2 years in years when they don't host the semi-final---which might be never in the Orange Bowl's case.
