B12 Commish: Openly states they will look at adding institutions

[upstater]

If you want to save the football program, we need to get out of this conference and either go independent or join up with some northern schools that have better basketball like UMass and Temple. The AAC will destroy the football program. If you think the P5 will never happen, then we need to terminate the football program and find a real basketball league.

There is not a single objective I can think of that is helped by our current conference affiliation.

No one will schedule you in season. You can't have an independent football team in this environment.

So you join a conference with UConn and Temple. Great. Play each other 6 times a year.

 

[huskiesouth]

No one will schedule you in season. You can't have an independent football team in this environment.

So you join a conference with UConn and Temple. Great. Play each other 6 times a year.

But if by chance we are better than Temple we go undefeated

 

[HuskyBballFan]

If you want to save the football program, we need to get out of this conference and either go independent or join up with some northern schools that have better basketball like UMass and Temple. The AAC will destroy the football program. If you think the P5 will never happen, then we need to terminate the football program and find a real basketball league.

You still have never submitted a realistic alternative to our current situation.

We're not going independent. P5 conferences are already conspiring not to play BYU (heck, some are conspiring not to play anyone but each other) - who the heck is going to play us?

I'd love to see what this new league of "northern schools" would look like. The AAC is going to destroy the football program but your new league headlined by Umass and Temple will keep it humming along? And who is broadcasting those games? CPTV?

So it all comes down to whether or not we believe we'll have a seat at the table whenever the next round of realignment happens. We're not dropping the football program unless we're 100% certain that we're locked out forever.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The AAC is destroying our athletic program and your preference is to do nothing. If an Apocalypse is behind one door, you pick another door. It basically doesn't matter what is behind it.

 

[zls44]

The AAC is destroying our athletic program and your preference is to do nothing. If an Apocalypse is behind one door, you pick another door. It basically doesn't matter what is behind it.

"The AAC is destroying our athletic program" Explain. With proof.

 

[Waquoit]

"The AAC is destroying our athletic program" Explain. With proof.

MBB recruiting?

But I just don't see any scenario that puts us in the P5 besides being ND's plus one.

 

[zls44]

MBB recruiting? But I just don't see any scenario that puts us in the P5 besides being ND's plus one.

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

 

[CL82]

Fox and ESPN share the Big XII contract.

Yes they do, yet your bosses have not shown themselves to be willing to pony up for UConn like they did for other institutions when they were funding the dismantling of our prior conference. I have zero confidence that they would offer to 23 million for content they are getting for $1 million. Fox on the other hand does have an incentive to pony up as it expands their reach. I'd pitch to guy who'd benefit from our presence not the guy who funded the evisceration of the greatest basketball conference ever to our detriment.

 

[auror]

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

If Cincy and Memphis leave, the conference will be much worse than the Big East.

 

[WestHartHusk]

If Cincy and Memphis leave, the conference will be much worse than the Big East.

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

 

[HuskyBballFan]

The AAC is destroying our athletic program and your preference is to do nothing. If an Apocalypse is behind one door, you pick another door. It basically doesn't matter what is behind it.

If door number 1 is the current apocalypse and door number 2 is something even worse than the current apocalypse (e.g. all of your suggestions), you don't pick door number 2.

 

[FriarJ]

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

For almost all schools in the NBE, the recruiting is at a higher level than it was for us in the BE. I expect that UConn could recruit just fine in the NBE. Plus you have proven time and time again you don't need a team of 5 star players to win big.

 

[huskiesnyc]

The New Big East makes 4 mill a year vs. 30-40+ mill that P5 schools bring home. Think about it, Rutgers is making 10 times more money than Georgetown. The only big time basketball schools 5-10 years from now will all have football and be in one of the 5 conferences. The NBE ratings are also terrible so their contract is likely to go down to AAC level next go around. We are due for a break in the whole CR shuffle that's screwed us. Those of you that want to drop football and find a short term band-aid in the NBE don't have a clue.

 

[Yonick]

For almost all schools in the NBE, the recruiting is at a higher level than it was for us in the BE. I expect that UConn could recruit just fine in the NBE. Plus you have proven time and time again you don't need a team of 5 star players to win big.

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.

 

[FriarJ]

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.

Yes of course, I was not in any way advocating a switch. I was just talking about recruiting.

 

[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."

 

[FriarJ]

This is going to sound rhetorical but it's not. Seriously because I have no idea; why has UConn not already been invited to the B1G? I guess I'm just thinking if they wanted UConn it would have happened already. What are they waiting on, if that's what's happening here.