Would you do it all over again?

[UCFBfan]

So I got to thinking the other day about where we currently are as a program. I read the article in the Courant about the rebuild and saw a startling fact that we haven't had a winning season since 2010. That's ridiculous to think about....then it went on to talk about how it still might be three more seasons out before we are possibly good....2022....wtf?!?

So I started to think about what I might do if I had a time machine and could jump back to 1999. Knowing everything I know now, would I have given the green light to move up to FBS? I'm not exactly sure I know what I'd do. Not moving up means basketball stays in the Big East and CR never fully effects us. However, it takes away any slim chance we ever have of joining the P5.

So my question is simple. Knowing what you know now, if you could go back to 1999, would you still give the green light to moving up in football?

I'd like to hear reasons. This isn't a drop football thread. I'm on no way advocating it and don't want this to become that. I'd wanna hear why people would or would not follow the same path knowing what we know now.

 

[Stainmaster]

Once the P5 split happens, the BE loses 98% of its value. Fond memories aside, no matter what the secondary classification of DI schools ends up looking like, it'd essentially be analogous to a top FCS conference. Keeping basketball at the highest tier of competition should be priority #1, and long term, that highest tier is the P5 (which will not take the BE as its +1 for obvious reasons). Whatever the low chances of us making it are currently, it automatically shoots down to zero if we don't have football. Football has to be ridden with until the P5 gates are officially closed forever. Then, the tough conversations start.

 

[Fishy]

If you go back in time, convince people to listen to Lew Perkins and others a lot earlier than they did - we waited too long to make the move.

Also, while you’re at it, go back and smother Jeff Jacobs and a bunch of politicians who grandstanded their way into killing the proposed Notre Dame football series.

 

[uconnbill]

While you are at it, build it on campus in overriding the politicians at the time and elect a different AG instead of Blumenthal so that UConn would have been included in the ACC when they expanded.

 

[Stainmaster]

While you are at it, build it on campus in overriding the politicians at the time and elect a different AG instead of Blumenthal so that UConn would have been included in the ACC when they expanded.

This would make sense if other parties to that lawsuit weren’t extended invites...but they were.

Your political dislike of certain people isn’t license to rewrite history.

 

[Carl Spackler]

The longer this thread goes, the more obvious it will become that UConn is what it is in 2018 because of essentially 35 years of arrogant, ignorant, inept culture of political leadership at both the university and state level.

 

[UCFBfan]

While you are at it, build it on campus in overriding the politicians at the time and elect a different AG instead of Blumenthal so that UConn would have been included in the ACC when they expanded.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you say bc I agree. However, my question was if you could go back and know everything would still happen that has happened, would you still move up?

 

[billybud]

That Blumenthal, as lead counsel, was the face of the lawsuit is without question...

I do not think that it made any difference, but Connecticut was out front and center with the press, and Blumenthal's calls for Shalala to be disposed had to have upset the President of Miami.

But other factors played in...business is business...and the fact that some folks might have been PO'd by a lead counsel was probably insignificant in the outcomes (other than BC's long time refusal to schedule UConn).

 

[uconnric]

If I could go back in time I'd invest in Apple, Google, Amazon and I'd be retired. And wealthy.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Uconn ststus as a red headed stepchild misfit outsider in intercollegiate athletics, perpetually perched on the edge of downfall, began in earnest 35 years ago. The schools basketball programs managed to be included in Gavitt's vision of an urban private school basketball league. Then in 82-83, Penn State wanted in and was excluded by 5-3 vote.

The rest is history of repitition of failure and poor leadership by multiple iterations of state elected and appointed leaders at university and state level.

Multiple opportunities to find a meaningful home for athletics failed. John Rowland and Lew Perkins made it last as long as it did by the driving through1-AA upgrade.

From coaches to adminustrators to politicians, multiple iterstions of hubris, arrogance and ignorance alienated everyone that could help vote for UConn.

In thr game of survivor, we made it to the final round andthe jury selected somebody else,because we alienated everyone.

 

[BugsyCT]

Curious what everyone’s thoughts were about the lawsuit as it was happening back in ‘03 or ‘04. Were you for it or against it at the time? Remember it was about BCU and other schools plotting to leave in order to destroy the Big East.

 

[Exit 4]

Go back in time and build the stadium on campus. That’s about it for me.

 

[CTMike]

It was the right move. What we’ve managed to do is make 500 consecutive terrible decisions ever since. Just avoid a handful and we aren’t in the mess we are in today. Astounding incompetence.

 

[Ewekon]

Nobody is better at failing up than Dick Blumenthal.

 

[Carl Spackler]

If you go back in time, convince people to listen to Lew Perkins and others a lot earlier than they did - we waited too long to make the move.

Also, while you’re at it, go back and smother Jeff Jacobs and a bunch of politicians who grandstanded their way into killing the proposed Notre Dame football series.

The media complacency and culpability in perpetuating the hubris, ignorance and ineptitude of both state government and university leadership (as well as the coaches of the money making sports) over 35 years cannot be understated.

 

[Rocktheworld]

Also, while you’re at it, go back and smother Jeff Jacobs and a bunch of politicians who grandstanded their way into killing the proposed Notre Dame football series.

I’d think of smothering a different, even-less-likable Jeff

 

[BlueandOG]

I have had so much fun at the UCONN games, it is definitely worth it.

 

[Adios]

Those who say "no", do you guys seriously aspire to be part of the Atlantic 10?

 

[businesslawyer]

If you go back in time, convince people to listen to Lew Perkins and others a lot earlier than they did - we waited too long to make the move.

Also, while you’re at it, go back and smother Jeff Jacobs and a bunch of politicians who grandstanded their way into killing the proposed Notre Dame football series.

Not just the politicians. We had all the chest thumpers here screaming that we were being disrespected.

 

[businesslawyer]

Curious what everyone’s thoughts were about the lawsuit as it was happening back in ‘03 or ‘04. Were you for it or against it at the time? Remember it was about BCU and other schools plotting to leave in order to destroy the Big East.

The lawsuit had to be done. We wouldn't have gotten as close as we did without it.

And many of you continue to delude yourself if you really believe that ACC members held it against us and not Pitt. You're assuming that university presidents are as easily manipulated by social media discussion as you are.

 

[Carl Spackler]

The lawsuit had to be done. We wouldn't have gotten as close as we did without it.

And many of you continue to delude yourself if you really believe that ACC members held it against us and not Pitt. You're assuming that university presidents are as easily manipulated by social media discussion as you are.

Keep telling yourself that. maybe someday it will be true.

 

[Dooley]

My only regret is that we waited waaaaay too long to upgrade football. That is consistent with how Connecticut does things - hem and haw over something only to make a rushed bad decision at the very last minute, then complain about the eventual negative fallout. If we had upgraded in the 80s...even the early 90s...I really believe we would be in the ACC right now. Better yet, there is a chance the old Big East (the REAL Big East) would still be in existence and a member of a true Power-6 structure. We would have competed against Boston College, Miami, and Virginia Tech for 10 years before their eventual split. That's plenty of time to develop strong partnerships. Of course, we would have needed an invite from the Big East to upgrade. It's my understanding - and I may be wrong - that we had one of those "if you upgrade, you will have a place to play" agreements similar to our Hockey East upgrade.

Our upgrade took way too long and the stadium our state finally relented to bond out was a cheap and quick construction just to get something built. The Rent became outdated in less than 5 months after it opened, offers zero on-campus flair that the majority of FBS stadiums offer, and any attempt to renovate or expand it was met with the same ridiculous "season ticket sellouts" response from our inept AD.

Best of all, we're doing the same exact thing with the new hockey venue. Somebody please wake up Albert Einstein and march him to UConn's front door to, once again, define insanity for our inept AD.

Aside: not entering that Notre Dame series was a stupid opinion back then and looks incredibly stupid now. That series slapped the entitled label on us and rightfully so. New kid on the block UConn tried to dictate decade long terms to Notre Dame. Connecticut politicians are a special kind of stupid.

 

[Exit 4]

I think I was for the lawsuit...but I also didn't have a full perspective on all that goes into CRA dynamics at the time.

Fast forward to today, yeah - the legacy of the lawsuit certainly hasn't helped in our current efforts to secure a P5 invite. As administrators from that era retire and exit from the schools we sued, the taint will fade.

In the end, the suit is not the deciding factor in our current fate. ESPN $/small-home market protection (ie Syracuse and BC) and lack of football history (ie Clemson/FL St) has put us where we are today. CT having one of the worst demographic trends is no help either (not a growing market and that can matter over a 15 year tv deal).

So what do we bring? We fill the gaps left in the new ACC and/or the B1G's reach for the east coast. I still believe that should either the ACC or B1G finally take us, we will be instrumental to uniting what is a disorganized NYC market for college sports. Plus we bring an absolutely stellar history for women's sports.

 

[Excalibur]

While you're at it, get us an athletic administration and president that would have actively worked to get us out of the conference between 2005 and 2010. That's when the game was lost, not after . . .

 

[Excalibur]

Curious what everyone’s thoughts were about the lawsuit as it was happening back in ‘03 or ‘04. Were you for it or against it at the time? Remember it was about BCU and other schools plotting to leave in order to destroy the Big East.

The lawsuit was a necessary step in the short term. BC's resistance in 2010-11 was based on fear of competition, not revenge. That said, naming the individuals as defendants was dumb.