I recall quotes in the articles from the Big XII flirtation, stating that the perception of UConn "downgrading" and "not being serious" about football was a big portion of the school president's reluctance to back Yormark's plan to add the Huskies.
Ultimately history has proven it was the right move for UConn's unique situation.. but it was a very outside the box move, and one that football first schools in the Big XII core couldn't ever fathom. Our stated reasoning (avoiding the ESPN+ paywall) is also looking weaker and weaker as more content is pushed to streaming, essentially we've become the school who picked the secondary sport over the primary income driver and have stated, that our (fairly affluent) market isn't willing to stream our content.
We know that's not the case... but those are things UConn has to overcome to eventually find a home beyond a bottom-tier conference desperate enough to offer football-only. UConn needs to do more to socialize the quality of the facilities to show, hey we made a non-traditional football move, but we've got the investment here... they need to do more to talk about the benefits, real or imagined, they've realized for football (hey attendance is higher the last two years, we get to play a stronger schedule than what we would've had in the AAC)... but until they can really message the move and get people thinking that not only was the Big East a basketball move.. but a "football move" or not the downgrade it's perceived to be, outside the northeast, UConn abandoned football in favor of basketball (and honestly no matter how successful basketball is, will cancel that narrative, if anything it reinforces it).
