I hate the reoccurring narrative that we "deemphasized football". We have great on-campus facilities, just hired an outstanding coach in Jim Mora, and have a 40,000 seat stadium. How is that deemphasizing football?
Pundits get paid to spew any thought that'll create clicks, sigh. I really don't get tied up in their opinions but draw the line and reply to said posts when they throw around inaccurate info/facts. Even that has become a part time job.
Lazy journalists are lazy. They are easily manipulated. They have been manipulated into believing UConn gave up on football. They can become evangelists if fed the right information.
So infuriating! Why is UConn joining the B12 "inconceivable" when KU is considered a premier B12 brand yet its demo is smaller than CT, has 3 MBB NCs in the past 30 years vs 5 for UConn and has been to the same number of BCS games as UConn during the same time period (despite being in a Power Conference for decades). Yormark sees the future. He's right; a dominant basketball league with very solid football, and new teams from larger markets is the only way to try to remain remotely competitive with the P2 (that said, I can't see a basketball only school in a small demo like the Zags, being part of the equation).
And playing as an independent gave us flexibility in scheduling so that our home games were, at least theoretically a better product. It also put waste to the notion that "no one wants to come to Storrs." As we've seen plenty of good schools are interested in playing here.
In all candor the quality of our scheduling as an independent has been far better than I could have hoped for when it was announced that we were returning to the BE.
I'm not on twitter, but I've thought about emailing these guys, with a link to our on-campus facilities. They are P5 level. I don't think they even know about that.
Movement is good for us. Status quo is bad for us.
This is exactly what UConn needs to do. They need to start planting stories. The journalists have obviously read the articles about Benedict saying that it would be a difficult decision, because they've referenced them, so they would read these stories, too. Also, throw in a discussion of UConn+ and that we are ready for digital streaming or being part of a network. That UConn has P5 facilities, although most other schools and fans probably don't know it.
You can "plant" multiple stories galore but no one is going to forget the poor quality of the football team during the 2010s and beyond until Mora showed up. This why some of us on the Boneyard were so critical of the team then while others found lots of rationalizations for the team's record. There must be accountability for the dumpster fire of a program and a clear path forward so we have conference options ahead. And when we bring up a possible on campus football stadium, we really have UConn's long-term outlook at heart.
It will be fun watching the free loaders becoming more and more irrelevant.