Blaudschun--Catholic Schools Met in NYC...

[ffg53]

UConn football is viewed by the college football elite as a Johnny come lately. Coach Edsall led them to a small amount of success, which may never be replicated. The pinnacle of success was being selected for a BCS bowl where they were thrashed by Oklahoma and by most reports actually lost a large sum of $ because their wasn't adequate fan support to buy the required # of tickets. If what most posters here think is the optimum outcome occurs, UConn will land in a new mega ACC or Big Ten. For football this will mean being a perpetual doormat. Sure there will be additional guaranteed cash for the school, but I think the projections and estimates for this are overblown...just like UConn thought going to a BCS bowl would be a cash cow. Is it really an exciting prospect for the football team to perpetually finish in the bottom third of a league and get beaten by 30 points by the top teams?

I wonder how many people said the same thing about UConn basketball when we joined the Big East?

 

[freescooter]

UConn football is viewed by the college football elite as a Johnny come lately. Coach Edsall led them to a small amount of success, which may never be replicated. The pinnacle of success was being selected for a BCS bowl where they were thrashed by Oklahoma and by most reports actually lost a large sum of $ because their wasn't adequate fan support to buy the required # of tickets. If what most posters here think is the optimum outcome occurs, UConn will land in a new mega ACC or Big Ten. For football this will mean being a perpetual doormat. Sure there will be additional guaranteed cash for the school, but I think the projections and estimates for this are overblown...just like UConn thought going to a BCS bowl would be a cash cow. Is it really an exciting prospect for the football team to perpetually finish in the bottom third of a league and get beaten by 30 points by the top teams?

Aside from some inaccuracies in your post about what UConn did or did not expect, I guess I have two responses...
1. Why would you assume we'd perpetually finish in the bottom third of either the Big 10 or certainly the ACC? Certainly not based on the evidence.

2. Even were your assumptions to come to pass, how would we be worse off than Georgetown, Villanova et al who are going to be relegated to an A-10 level conference if they split from football?

 

[upstater]

UConn football is viewed by the college football elite as a Johnny come lately. Coach Edsall led them to a small amount of success, which may never be replicated. The pinnacle of success was being selected for a BCS bowl where they were thrashed by Oklahoma and by most reports actually lost a large sum of $ because their wasn't adequate fan support to buy the required # of tickets. If what most posters here think is the optimum outcome occurs, UConn will land in a new mega ACC or Big Ten. For football this will mean being a perpetual doormat. Sure there will be additional guaranteed cash for the school, but I think the projections and estimates for this are overblown...just like UConn thought going to a BCS bowl would be a cash cow. Is it really an exciting prospect for the football team to perpetually finish in the bottom third of a league and get beaten by 30 points by the top teams?

BigTen: $40 million a year
Big East: $2 million a year

 

[huskyharry]

With the ground breaking due soon for the bball practice facilities, UConn has the facilities.
If they sign up Coach Ollie for the long term, they will have coaching stability.
I would much rather see UConn in a basketball conference with the Catholic 7 from the big East plus Philly's big five ...add Xavier and it would be a strong basketball conference with regional ties and reasonable travel expenses. Football could compete well in the MAC.
Better IMO than staying in a conference with teams spread over the full spectrum of the 48 states with no history or propensity to develop rivalries...e.g. Tulane, Boise, SDSU, UCF, USF, E. Carolina etc

 

[freescooter]

"Maybe if they had invited Penn State and then having the foresight to invite both FSU and Miami?

Hard to say."

If you're going to time travel, Gavitt should probably have never invited Syracuse or BC in the first place. They were the ones that demanded football schools be added almost immediately. Maybe we'd still be rolling along as a good hoop conference.

Or maybe if the football schools had left in 2003, BC would have stayed, could have added another couple of schools, the league could have gotten its own media deal and it would have been a serious competitor for the ACC. It would have been a basketball power on top of all that.

 

[Pudge]

We were never going to be a serious competitor to the ACC. That track just leads to this continuous downward spiral ... that HOPEFULLY leads to the ACC swirling down the toilet cause some other Big Entity is a predator.

 

[ctchamps]

Johnnies' are just as bad.

Look, here are the schools, over the whole history of the NCAA, that have as many or more titles as UConn:

UCLA
Kentucky
Indiana
North Carolina
Duke
Kansas

That's a short list. There are times in history where some of them have been in the wilderness. And if you want to add other schools that have experienced that, with only, say, two titles, add Louisville and Cincy and Michigan State. It's hard to kill those programs off. There are a couple (San Francisco, OSU) that have never fully revived, but even in those scenarios, they won back to back titles, not over the course of 12 years.

The program is resilient, and will get picked up. It would be disastrous if they got stuck in this cluster****? Sure. But there's a lot left to play, and they've accomplished enough to eventually get a seat at the big boy table.

I love your optimism. Personally I'm optimistic UConn will land on its feet and years from now we'll look at these few years as a bump in the road. My sadness is about the demise of the BE. Loved the BE tournament and the graphics showing UConn's accomplishments. The BE may not exist after this year. The accomplishments don't get taken away.

 

[freescooter]

We were never going to be a serious competitor to the ACC. That track just leads to this continuous downward spiral ... that HOPEFULLY leads to the ACC swirling down the toilet cause some other Big Entity is a predator.

You might be right, but I'm not certain of that, particularly given the demise of Miami in particular over the period. But further, I think that we'd have been no worse off, and likely better off today had we taken that step. We would have a "BCS" league still even if it was made up of the very same temas who will populated this latest version of the Big Easten. We would have added some teams after breaking away, and those teams would now be viewed as members of the club...who knows what the outcome might have been. We'd have been the dominant basketball league with solid football.

 

[HooperScooper]

I wonder how many people said the same thing about UConn basketball when we joined the Big East?

Funny, I was going to post the exact same thing.

Being successful with football in general (don't go pointing out anomalies because there obviously are some) has to do with spending a lot of money. The largest athletic budgest are typically the successful football schools.

Here are the athletic budgets for most of the schools in the big six conferences, http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/08/22/In-Depth/Budgets.aspx

In the ACC UConn's $64 million athletic budget would place it right up near the top while in the Big Ten it would be almost rock bottom only above Indiana and way behind OSU, Michigan and Penn St.

If UConn were to get a serious injection of money into the atheltics budget I'm certain they would be most competitive in college football.

 

[CTBasketball]

Funny, I was going to post the exact same thing.

Being successful with football in general (don't go pointing out anomalies because there obviously are some) has to do with spending a lot of money. The largest athletic budgest are typically the successful football schools.

Here are the athletic budgets for most of the schools in the big six conferences, http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/08/22/In-Depth/Budgets.aspx

In the ACC UConn's $64 million athletic budget would place it right up near the top while in the Big Ten it would be almost rock bottom only above Indiana and way behind OSU, Michigan and Penn St.

If UConn were to get a serious injection of money into the atheltics budget I'm certain they would be most competitive in college football.

There's a correlation. Just like studying for a test. The more you study, the better you do. The more money you put into a program, there is a great chance the program will see success on the field.

 

[ctchamps]

I tip my hat off to you.

 

[freescooter]

I wonder how many people said the same thing about UConn basketball when we joined the Big East?

Actually nobody really did. In the early Big East years UConn was a middle of the road team. If the NCAA tourney had as many bids as it does now, UConn would likely have earned at least 1 or 2 more. Nobody really expected UConn to win National Championships but UConn wasn't terrible either. That came later. But to be fair, I really don't think anyone really expected the Big East to be as good as it actually became. I mean the members were mostly good programs, but I don't believe any had actually won NCAA titles. There were a couple of NIT titles among the group from back in the day when the NIT was considered equal, maybe even more than equal to the NCAA. Providence and St Johns both had NITs form the late 1950s or 60s. BC had been to an NIT final. Villanova had been to a Final Four (which was vacated). Syracuse had claimed a poll title back in the 1920s or 30s. UConn was probably a little big behind PC, BC, but not that much. the conference was good but it wasn't until Ewing at Georgetown, and the 1985 season where 3 of the Final Four teams were from the Big East and the 4th, BC, lost its Elite Eight game in OT that people really began seeing the Big East as the one we think of today. By that time UConn had already declined mostly. But in the early years, while not a power, the Huskies were a mid-pack program.

 

[upstater]

Actually nobody really did. In the early Big East years UConn was a middle of the road team. If the NCAA tourney had as many bids as it does now, UConn would likely have earned at least 1 or 2 more. Nobody really expected UConn to win National Championships but UConn wasn't terrible either. That came later. But to be fair, I really don't think anyone really expected the Big East to be as good as it actually became. I mean the members were mostly good programs, but I don't believe any had actually won NCAA titles. There were a couple of NIT titles among the group from back in the day when the NIT was considered equal, maybe even more than equal to the NCAA. Providence and St Johns both had NITs form the late 1950s or 60s. BC had been to an NIT final. Villanova had been to a Final Four (which was vacated). Syracuse had claimed a poll title back in the 1920s or 30s. UConn was probably a little big behind PC, BC, but not that much. the conference was good but it wasn't until Ewing at Georgetown, and the 1985 season where 3 of the Final Four teams were from the Big East and the 4th, BC, lost its Elite Eight game in OT that people really began seeing the Big East as the one we think of today. By that time UConn had already declined mostly. But in the early years, while not a power, the Huskies were a mid-pack program.

When the BE started, Perno pulled in some monster recruiting classes. Unfortunately, that never really brought UConn to prominence. Corny Thompson, Chuck Aleksinas (a transfer), Mike McKay--these were not bad players, and it was one of the better classes in the BE in the first couple of year.

 

[ffg53]

Actually nobody really did. In the early Big East years UConn was a middle of the road team. If the NCAA tourney had as many bids as it does now, UConn would likely have earned at least 1 or 2 more. Nobody really expected UConn to win National Championships but UConn wasn't terrible either. That came later. But to be fair, I really don't think anyone really expected the Big East to be as good as it actually became. I mean the members were mostly good programs, but I don't believe any had actually won NCAA titles. There were a couple of NIT titles among the group from back in the day when the NIT was considered equal, maybe even more than equal to the NCAA. Providence and St Johns both had NITs form the late 1950s or 60s. BC had been to an NIT final. Villanova had been to a Final Four (which was vacated). Syracuse had claimed a poll title back in the 1920s or 30s. UConn was probably a little big behind PC, BC, but not that much. the conference was good but it wasn't until Ewing at Georgetown, and the 1985 season where 3 of the Final Four teams were from the Big East and the 4th, BC, lost its Elite Eight game in OT that people really began seeing the Big East as the one we think of today. By that time UConn had already declined mostly. But in the early years, while not a power, the Huskies were a mid-pack program.

Really? I lived in western/central New York at the time. Plenty of people in central New York were saying exactly that about UConn in Orange country. There weren't any message boards then...for better or worse.

 

[freescooter]

I recall that in the 2nd season maybe, UConn was actually in first place in the Big East with like 3 games to play and lost all 3 and finished .500 in the league.

 

[ffg53]

I recall that in the 2nd season maybe, UConn was actually in first place in the Big East with like 3 games to play and lost all 3 and finished .500 in the league.

Which was after they were in the league. My initial post referred to consensus/perception prior to league affiliation. Rather than negate my argument it reinforces it, in that I don't think it's necessarily accurate that should UConn go to the B1G they'd be a perpetual doormat any more than they were in the BE.

 

[Waquoit]

For football this will mean being a perpetual doormat

I wonder how many people said the same thing about UConn basketball when we joined the Big East?

Actually nobody really did. ... But in the early years, while not a power, the Huskies were a mid-pack program.

It's true that nobody expected UConn to be a doormat at the time, in fact they were a team on the come. Big things were expected. That's why they were asked to join the Big East, they didn't get good due to Big East affiliation. They were fresh off an NCAA berth as the ECAC Champions. They beat Sly Williams Rhody team, their best two players were freshman and had a big guy coming in who had a National Championship under his belt. And that Rhody team was good. The year before they lost by just 1 to that Duke team made it to the Finals. Hall's John Nelson missed a foul line jumper at the buzzer that would have won it.

UConn had chance back then to get some traction and get past mid-pack status but Perno just wasn't up to the job. He never came close to repeating his recruiting success of the Corny year. Even so, in 1982 they gave that Freddie Brown - Pat Ewing team it's worse loss of the season, at G'town in front of Pearl Bailey. With the benefit of hindsight, Perno should have gotten the gate after that year. That team that beat Pat Ewing comfortably ended the season losing 7 of 8.

UConn hasn't learned it's lesson either. It was clear that the BB program had lost all momentum. It began to backslide and didn't make a move until the program hit rock bottom. Remind you of any current program?

 

[upstater]

For football this will mean being a perpetual doormat



It's true that nobody expected UConn to be a doormat at the time, in fact they were a team on the come. That's why they were asked to join the Big East when Holy Cross said no. They were fresh off an NCAA berth as the ECAC Champions. They beat Sly Williams Rhody team, their best two players were freshman and had a big guy coming in who had a National Championship under his belt. And that Rhody team was good. The year before they lost by just 1 to that Duke team made it to the Finals. Hall's John Nelson missed a foul line jumper at the buzzer that would have won it.

UConn had chance back then to get some traction and get past mid-pack status but Perno just wasn't up to the job. He never came close to repeating his recruiting success of the Corny year. Even so, in 1982 they gave that Freddie Brown - Pat Ewing team it's worse loss of the season, at G'town in front of Pearl Bailey. With the benefit of hindsight, Perno should have gotten the gate after that year. That team that beat Pat Ewing comfortably ended the season losing 7 of 8.

UConn hasn't learned it's lesson either. It was clear that the BB program had lost all momentum. It began to backslide and didn't make a move until the program hit rock bottom. Remind you of any current program?

Karl Hobbs lead that team to victory in that game. He played great.

 

[Gurleyman]

Why do we continue to perpetuate the meme here that the Fiesta Bowl was a thrashing? It was 34-20 with 10 mins left and we were driving in OU territory. Drive stalled, they sealed it with a long clock-eating drive and added a late pick six to make the final margin worse aesthetically.

It wasn't a nailbiter or a "argggh, we were so close" loss, but I sat there watching the game in the fourth quarter thinking "wow, we have a real chance here". And the OU fans who remembered losing to Boise State sure weren't changing the channel either.

 

[BeanTownBob]

Expect a statement in the next 24 to 48 hours, with it being "an upset" the BB 7 remain. Gotta love this gem, greeaaattt:

"UConn president Susan Herbst has contacted officials from the non-FBS Big East members, pleading with them to stay in the league, sources told ESPN.

Ironically, Herbst, along with Cincinnati and South Florida officials, heavily lobbied to get out of the Big East and join the ACC when the league had to replace Maryland."

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/s...-schools-leaning-leaving-big-east-sources-say

 

[UConn5]

Given the landscape I wouldn't blame them. Not a good situation.

 

[upstater]

Anything Herbst says here also has legal ramifications. Don't forget, there's a lot of money involved.

 

[upstater]

"If the Big East lost the seven Catholic basketball schools, it would decrease the value of the league's media rights by "15 to 20 percent," an industry source said."

The math here tells me that this is more money for the football schools.

You lose 20% of your money when 45% of the league leaves. Uhh, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

 

[BeanTownBob]

"If the Big East lost the seven Catholic basketball schools, it would decrease the value of the league's media rights by "15 to 20 percent," an industry source said."

The math here tells me that this is more money for the football schools.

You lose 20% of your money when 45% of the league leaves. Uhh, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

The BB only schools were taking a significantly smaller yearly number than the Football playing schools. Don't think this is going to turn into a better number for UCONN. Plus the Basketball conference is now complete crap.