UConn was the victim of a LOT of bad luck and circumstance, as well as bad decision making by others, and bad decision making on its own part.
Unlucky circumstance:
- We get dinged for "not selling Fiesta Bowl tickets" when in reality it just so happened that this was the time the Fiesta organizers flooded the secondary market with cheap tickets by making National Championship game buyers buy a ticket for the Fiesta Bowl as well. Thus UConn (and OU) fans rightfully bought tickets on Stubhub for 1/4 face value instead of going through UConn. Also, Stanford getting sent to the Orange Bowl instead of us made for coast to coast travel for our fans.
- BC blackballed us in ACC expansion #1, and the rest of the league saw Pitt as a reasonable option instead of us so none of them put up a fight to make the choice SU/UConn instead of SU/Pitt. To the rest of the league that was neither here nor there, and thus BC's blackball stood.
- The Big 12 takes WVU instead of UL, or instead of both of them. This leads to the next point.
- Louisville happened to get hot at the right time before ACC expansion #2 and we were in the P era, as well as the LOL YUKON SOLD NO BOWL TICKETZ media stories. All the while ACC football was in a major downswing and in need of a better football school, thus FSU and Clemson could override the North Carolina schools who wanted us by pushing for UL and their perceived better value. Of course UL's basketball was strong enough to allow the North Carolina schools to look the other way on their piss poor academics. If the Kragthorpe era happens two years after it did and if the P era happens two years after it did, if the UL hooker scandal happens (or is finally discovered) two years before it did, there's an incredibly good chance we're in the ACC right now. BC did not have the support to blackball us in 2012. Also, if UL is in the Big 12, there's a strong case to be made that we'd get an invite over WVU, or they potentially could already be elsewhere, in the SEC or as another B12 addition.
- The Pac expansion into the Big 12 fails. If the Pac took their Big 12 contingent of Texas, Tech, OU, and OK State, A&M and Mizzou likely end up in the SEC as they are, and the Big East FB schools are able to scoop up or merge with KU, K-State, ISU, and Baylor. This would leave a Big East football conference of UConn, Cincinnati, USF, WVU, UL, TCU, and the four B12 teams. Maybe UL still goes to the ACC, but that conference is absolutely able to break away from the Catholic BB schools and able to survive on its own as a strong football conference and a very strong basketball conference and would be one of the current P5 leagues. Why the Big East sent flowers to the Big 12 when the Pac deal fell through is beyond me, that deal would've SAVED the Big East, not destroyed it.
Bad decisions by others:
- Delany goes for Rutgers instead of us. Yes, they're in the AAU, but there is absolutely no on-field or TV viewership metric that supports RU's invitation over us. Not to mention the PR disasters that have come out of the football and basketball programs and the AD's office. RU has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster for the B1G from a competition and PR standpoint. That's why you've seen numerous postings from other B1G bloggers at schools including IU and Ohio State positing the idea that UConn should've been selected instead of RU. This was a colossal error on the B1G's part, and at some level I think they know it.
Bad decisions by UConn:
- P. Duh. An absolutely disastrous hire by UConn at the worst possible time.
- Failing to value attendance at football games and allowing the numbers to dwindle without much response, thus furthering the narrative that no one shows up to our football games.
- I don't know how much difference it would've made with the upswell of the southern ACC football schools wanting a football team rather than "another" basketball school, but UConn's monitoring of the UL/UConn decision by the ACC in 2012 was at the very least bad from a PR perspective. The confluence of events that led to the UL decision may have been out of our hands by that point, but the public image of what Warde and Herbst did during that time was not good.
- No matter how many of you don't want to hear it, the perception is that since our football team does not play on campus, we're somehow second rate. Right or wrong, it is what it is.
- Of course, not moving to FBS football sooner. That's the underlying issue behind everything. If we'd upgraded sooner and began the process sooner, it's highly unlikely we're in the AAC right now.
I'm probably forgetting what other things happened, but these are most of them. We're not in a P5 league right now for all of these reasons.