Being a football independent could work

[husky10]

No, sorry, that is not the real question. If we are staying in the Big East in hoops, you put together the best football league you can under the Big East brand name.

If 2 or 3 of the 6 remaining BE football programs defect and the BB schools won't allow an invite for fear being stuck with ECU BB what should be done? Take all our sports to CUSA or the MAC?

You have no option but try and lock up a bowl spot a year like BYU. Schedule Army and Navy and maybe NDU in NYC in November and December. Get as many BCS teams you can get to come to East hartford in the top half of the season and sit tight a year or 2 until the ACC or the B1G comes calling.

If the BE football is dissolved the AQ would presumably go to MWC I don't think that would be an option for us. 2 seasons is probably all the program could endure of independence but it would keep the BB team rolling and save us from having to pay an exit fee twice in 2 years (BE and CUSA) in 3 years assuming we are going somewhere. Uconn's administration would have to be pretty certain that we will be moving back to a viable conference within a few years before trying this.

 

[Danzz]

I went back and looked at Louisville's football schedule when they were an independent and they had a very good schedule. Granted, the money might not be as good as an independent, but you could easily build a fan base looking at these schedules that could drive revenues to somewhat offset the lack of conference money.

Here are the schedules for Louisville from 1991 to 1994 and they look pretty good:

1991
Home: Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, Southern Miss., Cincinnati, Army, Florida St.
Away: Ohio State, BC, Virginia Tech, Memphis, Tulsa

1992
Home: Memphis, Wyoming, Syracuse, VT, Tulsa
Away: Ohio State, Arizona State, Florida, Cincinnati, Texas A&M, Pitt

1993
Home: Sam Jose St., Arizona St., Texas, Southern Miss, Navy
Away: Memphis, Pitt, West Virginia, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Tulsa

1994
Home: Pitt, NC State, Memphis, BC, Texas A&M, Tulsa
Away: Kentucky, Texas, Arizona State, Army, Navy

If these were UConn's schedules as an independent and you could keep basketball in the BE, would you do it? Some of you will say bowls would be a problem. I say it wouldn't be. Why? Every year, some conferences can't meet their bowl commitments and you could make an arrangement to be included in the BCS if your ranking warranted it.

What about money? There would probably be a set back, but with a schedule like this, you would expand the stadium and you would have to have an athletic department that was hungry to market and fund raise.

I would only recommend being a football independent until an attractive conference bid came, but this idea would protect basketball, which is currently UConn's strength and allow football to continue to develop. If the BE split and UConn moved to a CUSA type situation, it would be neutral to bad for football and bad for basketball, especially if WVU and Louisville left the BE.

Would have loved to keep the BE intact with adding TCU and maybe UCF.Football aside, the problem with this is that Cuse and Pitt left and that hurts BE basketball big time. We have Uconn, Cinn., WVA, Nova and Marquette left as basketball standard bearers. The rest of our conference sucks....sort of like the ACC last year.

 

[UConnJim]

Short memory on basketball. The remaining BE basketball schools will have 11 of the top 50 basketball programs by winning percentage and the new ACC will have 4 including Syracuse. No, Pitt is not in the top 50 winning percentage of all time as their success is relatively recent. ACC will remain top heavy with UNC, Duke, and Syracuse, while the leadership in the BE will rotate over time. By the way, you left out Louisville and Georgetown and even St. Johns which will be back.