Since Manuel finally found an OOC 2014 opponent, does the scheduling of BYU give us an insight into expansion?
If it does, it is not goods news with respect to this:
Assume that UConn has a qualified invite to the Big Ten, or at least has reason to believe it will be invited. There are legions that scoff at such nutso ideas and now they can scoff further.
Would UConn have scheduled an October 31, 2015 game if this was true? It's hard to look at this objectively and think that it would have. Traveling to Utah that late in the season would not be sensible if UConn was playing a full Big Ten slate. Big Ten OOC games are played earlier in the year, much earlier.
In fact, no Big Ten team plays an OOC game in October, never mind the last week of October in 2015. And in 2014, only Indiana plays in October and that's during the first week of October against North Texas State.
So that's 24 teams not doing something UConn will do. That's bad odds.
Perhaps Manuel's role is purely to monitor the situation and therefore he no other responsibilities regarding realignment and UConn's athletic future, and that it is only handled by Herbst and her chief of staff, rachel rubin. So he scheduled a late season OOC game without knowing UConn's future. With the gang of three in charge, that very well may be plausible.