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Message: [QUOTE="ScottVib, post: 5132487, member: 694"] For me (admittedly selfishly through a UConn fan lens) the bigger what if in respect to CR (at least for UConn) is what if the faculty (through the mid-90s they protested complaining that too much attention was already going to the athletic department with the early years of the rise of the basketball programs) wasn't successful in slowing UConn's FBS upgrade? A UConn football program with a few (lets say five) additional seasons in FBS and a BCS conference, presumably with the same or similar level of success may well have been harder to deny or been in a better spot to be that "New England" program to partner with Miami & Syracuse (later Virginia Tech) in the first attempted raid or in any of the subsequent moves (perhaps UConn's pedigree by then allows for a better claim to being the NY metro team for the Big Ten ahead of Rutgers). UConn has been undeniably the strongest performing athletic department among the Northeastern schools involved in the 2000s era conference realignment, yet their lack of football history or focus has been the threat to the ability of that department (and the resulting improvement in the academic standards of the school, etc) to be able to continue the growth forward, perhaps having a few more years of solid success in their back pocket before things hit the fan might have changed things.. [/QUOTE]