It is an old narrative. I would argue that UConn left the AAC due to the lack of money, to save men's and women's basketball, and to rebuild football. Can you imagine being in a conference for football and basketball with UAB, FAU, UNC Charlotte, North Texas, Rice, UTSA, USF, Tulane, Tulsa,... Both basketball and football would have collapsed due to lack of interest.
This ^^^^, anyone with a little vision should have known that the AAC was gonna implode into C-USA version whatever. So actually the only move for self preservation, of the entire AD, was the only move Uconn controlled itself . But clowns like Dodd somehow want to spin the same old narrative, even when Uconn doing nothing and after the alphabet soup of what's now left of the so-called AAC is there for him to see. Which would have been a disaster, for FB too, if Uconn had stayed put.
Its an odd take to give a coaching hire a grade based on the past commitment to the program. Under the explained reasoning, Nick Saban or Lincoln Riley would also have been a C as it had nothing to do with how good a coach we got.
The AAC, especially after UCF, Houston, and Cincinnati left, was a problem for ALL UConn AAC sports except maybe baseball. If you can't see what a disaster the AAC was becoming for ALL UConn sports, I don't know what to say. Football was not going to turn around staying in the AAC after the Big 12 raid.
True, especially going forward, as I posted before (below), Uconn has an abundance of local/eastern road games and (count em') only 1 future game west of the the Mississippi as an Indy. While half of the (14) schools in the new AAC are now west of it. So yeah, despite Dodd's played out narrative, the BE/ Indy was a better move for FB too.
When the Big 12 studied expansion and reviewed the candidates before Oklahoma and Texas left, it was obvious to Benedict and UConn that UConn was not on the short list for expansion and would not get an invite when the ultimate expansion happened. Add in the crappy new media deal and UConn had to make a move.
For being a lawyer this is one of the most uneducated responses you could give. The writing was clearly on the wall the Big 12 was going to expand, maybe not as soon as they did, but regardless it was obvious the best teams from AAC would be taken when it did. That being said in your argument they left for basketball, if they were still in the AAC after the Big 12 picked off who they did wouldn’t you likely be complaining why they didn’t do something sooner to avoid this?
True, that's why Dodd still spinning Uconn doesn't care about FB because of their Indy status, in his ranking the coaching hire article, is so played out. It's like he doesn't know how to look at a map or like he's trying to sell shares of Colonial Realty to anyone who will listen.
And of those schools it was clear UConn was far down on the list IF they were to expand when they first flirted with it. The best viable option for UConn to build a better resume was to take matters into their own hands, put basketball in a conference it could have more success in and frankly figure it out for football. UConn staying in the AAC was not doing anything to build any of the sports, and again I’ll go back to, if this move didn’t occur and then the Big12 took Houston Cincy and UCF would you be happy still being in the AAC for either sport? If your answer is yes to that, I’d love to hear why.
I'd die for those numbers at UConn... heck, 90% of FBS would... but a bit of a deeper dive shows that they have regressed a bit (admittedly I'm nit-picking here but the Big 12 isn't the same as it was 5-6 years ago when Baylor/TCU were national powers... it's been pretty setup for them to make the playoffs every year and they have missed it the last two.)