Losing the BCS-AQ status in the current environment, certainly would be a problem, but to this day, nobody has ever shown me how a conference can lose BCS-AQ status once a group of football teams has it as a conference. So it's a pointless statement. The media like to yap about it, but the fact is that the only way BCS-AQ status is lost, is if the BCS itself goes away, or a conference that plays in a BCS-AQ conference simply dissolves all of their football programs. Neither of which are happening any time soon.
1-A football compeition level existed before it was called FBS/BCS/AQ BS, and it will continue at that level when the alphabet soup is gone. It's all about money. Money money money.
I responded to a message that said nothing about the BCS-AQ status, or basketball success from Fishy..... only that the new big east would lead to 'certain diminshment' of uconn athletics.
Maybe i misinterpreted it, being about uconn athletics, but that's what I thought it said. Didn't seem to be talking about all big east schools in that message. anyway.
First of all, money. Football is the money making driving factor in college sports. Always has been, always will be. The financial success of an athletic department at a university, or an athletic league of universities, is directly tied to the competition level and health of the football programs. Not only that, more importantly - the growth potential of an individual athletic department, or an athletic conference, is directly related to football programs. This is what Lew Perkins identified in his first study and report on 1-A football at UConn way back in 1990.
Coming to grips with this fact, this realization that football is what determines how financially successful and big basketball programs can be, is what the big east conference, and I think even leadership at our own university is going through the fire learning right now, so many years late for the big east conference.
The success of the big east as a conference, is directly tied to beginning the play of football in 1991 at 1-A level. The growth potential of the uconn athletic department, and in turn how that affects the growth of the university as a whole, is directly tied to the upgrade to 1-A football that was set into motion finally in 1997.
It's taken the big east conference to nearly die, TWICE, for them to realize it over in Providence. Without football, there is no big east conference basketball at the top level of intercollegiate sports anymore. The uconn athletic department, with all of it's basketball dominance over the years, is finally realizing it, too, and it's probably not easy for a big time fellow over there with offices under the Gampel dome to realize that the continued success of the basketball dynasty he built is directly tied to what happens on the gridiron at a facility in East Hartford.
I have many faults with Randy Edsall, most when it came to coaching, but the man understood football, and it's role in the intercollegiate world, and I believe it frustrated him to no end, that during his years, it probably didn't sink in with administration in athletic department and university, as we're winning national championships left and right in basketball and raking in the ncaa tournament money as a member of the big east (and that's wehre the money in men's b-ball is - the tourney - not in broadcasting), but the guy wasn't a very good communicator either.
Lew Perkins, looked at the intercollegiate world, and realized that the ceiling that our athletic department could reach was limited by football in 1990, when the basketball program had just had it's very first miracle season, and Gampel pavilion had not yet hosted a basketball game. Providing an environemtn where the basketball programs could thrive, was a major, major part of why he was so concerned with making an upgrade happen.
This school is committed to being at the level we are at, we are in much better position than other big east colleges financially, and with our fan support in ticket sales and market share in broadcasting. If the big east goes away tomorrow, UConn will have scheduling problems, but we will be fine.
Division 1-A football existed before the BCS, and did just fine. It will exist and be just fine when the BCS doesn't exist again. We will still be part of it, and we were very, very smart to upgrade and join the club, and now that we're in, we're not going away.
The success of our athletic programs rides on the ability to recruit successfully to compete at the level we want to compete at. Recruits ultimately choose a school because of the coaches, and the level of competition they see around them, not the conference affiliation. This is something that the UConn b-ball programs will be facing a hard reality in not too long time from now. It's nice to have the shiny toys and big sports cathedrals, but players come because of coaches, and level of competition.
Coach P said it simply when he first arrived at Rentschler. Players want to go where they see other good players going. Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma, most certainly would agree, I think.
THe big east conference almost died in 2011. Would we be better off if it had? Are we better off in a different conference? Maybe. Maybe not. It makes for good discussion, talking about it. But conferences come and go.
Competition does not.
THe only thing that's for sure, is that if football had taken priority over basketball at the conference level of leadership a decade ago, when we were winnign a national championship in football for the Big East, we wouldn't have to travel as far for intercollegiate sports within our league now.
