B12 Commish: Openly states they will look at adding institutions

[UCweCONN]

Yeah, but if we give up FB and join the NBE, we end up as having no shot at a P-5 conference. Who knows what will happen to non P-5 conferences 10-15 years down the road.
UConn has no choice but to keep FB and hope for the best. Besides, the state invested 50Mil on the Burton/Shenkman training/practice facility. Plus nearly 100Mil on the Rent. CT legislators would call for heads to roll if we gave up FB.

Yeah, that's typical of the government. Keep throwing money at something rather than admitting you made a mistake and cutting bait.

 

[CallMeBruce]

Yeah, that's typical of the government. Keep throwing money at something rather than admitting you made a mistake and cutting bait.

Except it's still not a mistake. We've had bad luck and bad timing and some bad decisions, but you can't have big-time college sports without football. It doesn't exist, and in the short-term, it's going to exist less and less. I'd love to live in a world where the money in college sports responded primarily to basketball, because basketball is awesome and football is terrible. That's not the way it is, and we need to salvage something from our football program before our basketball program pays the price.

 

[IMind]

Yeah, that's typical of the government. Keep throwing money at something rather than admitting you made a mistake and cutting bait.

Yes, because businesses regularly throw away 150mil investments...

 

[nelsonmuntz]

If you think our recruiting is bad now, wait until it's from the A10 or Big East.

You are right. The AAC schools are really cleaning up against the Big East on the recruiting trail.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Yes, because businesses regularly throw away 150mil investments...

Unless you have a time machine and can undo the $150MM already spent, that money is gone. The school is going to need to justify the $15MM+ that the athletic department is getting every year going forward, and that is going to be tough.

 

[zls44]

Ignore ZLS. If it doesn't have the ESPN stamp of approval it is worthless to him.

Yep you figured it right out sherlock.

 

[zls44]

You are right. The AAC schools are really cleaning up against the Big East on the recruiting trail.

You're right, one year is a totally cool sample size.

 

[IMind]

Unless you have a time machine and can undo the $150MM already spent, that money is gone. The school is going to need to justify the $15MM+ that the athletic department is getting every year going forward, and that is going to be tough.

So yeah year two into the AAC, a down year for the program and the conference as a whole, and with a tremendous amount of instability in terms of the future of college football and the conference make up, and we're going to burn it all down while we still have cash on hand that puts us ahead of our "peers." in conference. Yup that makes sense.

 

[WestHartHusk]

You're right, one year is a totally cool sample size.

It is when we are coming off a National Championship. I don't understand your delusional view on the Big East.

 

[IMind]

Not to mention I keep hearing how we'll go to the NBE? Who's inviting us? Do you think they want us back in the conference? We'd stick out like a sore thumb. We have a ton of resources they can't touch... no one in that conference is inviting us back.

 

[zls44]

It is when we are coming off a National Championship. I don't understand your delusional view on the Big East.

The staff doesn't have one member who is closely tied in with the modern AAU circuit. That's 95% of the problem.

 

[zls44]

Not to mention I keep hearing how we'll go to the NBE? Who's inviting us? Do you think they want us back in the conference? We'd stick out like a sore thumb. We have a ton of resources they can't touch... no one in that conference is inviting us back.

It's the same Homer mentality that can't understand why uconn isn't being fought over by the P5.

 

[Gurleyman]

Again, the only flagship state school in the continental US that doesn't have football at all is Vermont. The ones that play FCS in the area are UNH, URI and Delaware (or perhaps add Albany and Stony Brook) while there are also the Big Sky area ones (Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota). These become our colleagues as soon as we quit.

We may think that the NBE is an attractive landing spot if we abandon football, but they'd have to take us (and there's absolutely no reason for them to consider it), and we'd be a total outsider as a state school in a league of small, private, urban Catholic schools.

Either we stick this out as long as we can and try to get better and earn a seat at the big table, or we cut our losses and accept that our future is heading on a path back to the Yankee Conference from whence we came.

 

[UCweCONN]

Yes, because businesses regularly throw away 150mil investments...

Too few know when to walk away. It's very tough to be the guy who says "I/we f-d up."

 

[Gurleyman]

Too few know when to walk away. It's very tough to be the guy who says "I/we f-d up."

You sound like the people who wanted us to walk away from the Big East in 1986.

 

[UCweCONN]

Except it's still not a mistake. We've had bad luck and bad timing and some bad decisions, but you can't have big-time college sports without football. It doesn't exist, and in the short-term, it's going to exist less and less. I'd love to live in a world where the money in college sports responded primarily to basketball, because basketball is awesome and football is terrible. That's not the way it is, and we need to salvage something from our football program before our basketball program pays the price.

$150 million plus an asleep at the wheel AD equals failure to me. If I had any confidence in Manuel and Herbst, I might agree with you.

 

[IMind]

No one's inviting UConn anywhere unless it will generate more money, or at least not reduce the amount of money that each conference member is taking home. It's pretty clear that no one has said to the ACC, B1G, or BIG XII.. if you add UConn we'll pony up another $20 mil/year.

 

[UCweCONN]

You sound like the people who wanted us to walk away from the Big East in 1986.

Really? We were coming from nowhere to the Big East then. The current situation is the exact opposite. We were somewhere and are now stuck in nowhere with no light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[tzznandrew]

There are a number of reasons, not all of which we are privy too. Certainly, one reason may be that they don't want UConn.

But people aren't added, and then are, all the time. Forever, we thought Rutgers to the B1G was a pipe-dream, and that, if the B1G really wanted them, they'd already be there. And then, one day they were. Were they more worthy one day than the next? What changed?

These things take time, and we try to take guesses from the dark.

 

[Gurleyman]

In our "cross our fingers" world, they'd be waiting to see how the first wave of Eastern expansion went with ratings/TV households, etc. before going in for another bite of the Northeast corridor - and they'd be waiting for us to get closer to AAU membership to where we'd be acceptable to their university presidents.

But who knows for sure.

 

[IMind]

No one's inviting UConn anywhere unless it will generate more money, or at least not reduce the amount of money that each conference member is taking home. It's pretty clear that no one has said to the ACC, B1G, or BIG XII.. if you add UConn we'll pony up another $20 mil/year.

Just wanted to add that future TV contracts, football play off scenarios, or revenue streams may change the $$$ so UConn makes more sense... but not right now.

 

[IMind]

Really? We were coming from nowhere to the Big East then. The current situation is the exact opposite. We were somewhere and are now stuck in nowhere with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Your revisionist history sure is interesting. One could argue that joining the Big East was killing the program at that point. We were a big fish in a small pond, made the NCAA regularly, and recruited pretty well. It took 6-7 years in the Big East for us to become a competitive program let alone dominant... but you want to bail in year 2 of this conference... not to mention where the hell would we go? The CAA? America East? The A-10? Christ that's depressing. I'd rather play Tulane.

 

[Gurleyman]

Really? We were coming from nowhere to the Big East then. The current situation is the exact opposite. We were somewhere and are now stuck in nowhere with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Yeah - you sound like the people who gave up then and said we can't compete and we should just cut our losses and stay where we belong.

A flagship state school with no football (or FCS football) doesn't have a significant place in the future athletics landscape, unless our future is hockey-centric.

 

[Stainmaster]

To all those clamoring for the NBE: hope you can find a bomb shelter for when the P5 completely nukes every single non-P5 athletic program.