Conference Thought Experiment

[SubbaBub]

If...we...were....in....the....B1G....we...wouldn't...have...to...drop....FB.

We'd have enough money to fund an independent FB schedule.

 

[huskyinfl]

Lol, why would they pay you a full share of football revenue if you don't have a team?

 

[CL82]

To be fair, the effects of watching Big 10 sports can feel very similar to constipation.

You feel like something momentous is going happen but it never does?

 

[storrsroars]

If...we...were....in....the....B1G....we...wouldn't...have...to...drop....FB.

We'd have enough money to fund an independent FB schedule.

Lol, why would they pay you a full share of football revenue if you don't have a team?

Good point. OTOH, B1G payouts are now >$50 mill/year, and if FB is 80% of that, then that's at least $10 mill for us and we likely get to keep SNY. So it's still better than where we're at.

Not that that would happen...

 

[mrl2016]

I am not even an AAC apologist/sycophant, but why doesn't anyone appreciate the fact that a conference is essentially a brand, and ours is still a very new brand. Brands need time to grow, and constantly crapping all over the brand and writing off the product just leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's just ironic to me how we are all "all-in" on our basketball rebuild but when it comes to building up a conference, and by extension our school, some people want nothing to do with it.

I’m not sure I’ve read a take on the BY I’ve ever agreed with more than this.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Lol that wasn’t the point of the thread! It was to try and measure if those wanting to keep football were doing so in order to help the AD overall or if they were simply football fans

My view is that there is no future for UConn basketball if we drop football. It's as simple as that. Dropping football is a ticket to irrelevance. So the hypothetical doesn't make any sense.

• Conferences that are never ever going to add UConn: SEC, Pac12, B1G
• Conferences that might consider UConn if Notre Dame joined as a full member and if UConn was very good at basketball and at least competitive at football: ACC
• Conferences that might be raided and therefore need to replace members with schools that are good at basketball and at least competitive at football: Big12
• Conferences that are worse for UConn basketball than the American: every conference not listed above, including the Big East.

 

[Fairfield_1st]

Like you Guapo but no P5 is going to take any new programs without football - these conferences are based on football - every other sport including MBB are a distant second - way distant second

In general I agree with this, but the ACC does have an inequality issue due to Notre Dame not being there for football. Adding UConn to that conference for all but football does leave football at 14 schools and gets hoops to 16.

 

[UConnNick]

Maybe they are the exception, but Nova faced a choice between big time football and no big time football. It seems that, at the moment, things have worked out well for them.

Unfortuantly, I think the NBE and the AAC are ultimately headed for the same fate. But, I’d rather die with friends than some jokers from Tulsa or Tampa.

Friends? The C7 schools spent the last few years of the old Big East undermining the football schools due to petty jealousies and turf wars. They're no friends of ours. They pushed their own agenda to such an extent that it drove the football schools to seek better alternatives. Well, all of them except our clueless administration at that time.

 

[SubInATub]

My view is that there is no future for UConn basketball if we drop football. It's as simple as that. Dropping football is a ticket to irrelevance. So the hypothetical doesn't make any sense.

• Conferences that are never ever going to add UConn: SEC, Pac12, B1G
• Conferences that might consider UConn if Notre Dame joined as a full member and if UConn was very good at basketball and at least competitive at football: ACC
• Conferences that might be raided and therefore need to replace members with schools that are good at basketball and at least competitive at football: Big12
• Conferences that are worse for UConn basketball than the American: every conference not listed above, including the Big East.

Basketball and Football at UConn aren't a 1:1 correlation. Football has never really been good here, it was just the environment (conference realignment and poor coaching decisions). That being said, dropping football wouldn't bring basketball to irrelevance, but keeping football around and making that priority would (unless we successfully land a spot in P5).

 

[Guapo]

Friends? The C7 schools spent the last few years of the old Big East undermining the football schools due to petty jealousies and turf wars. They're no friends of ours. They pushed their own agenda to such an extent that it drove the football schools to seek better alternatives. Well, all of them except our clueless administration at that time.

I’m not talking about the administrations of those schools.

Culturally, I have much more in common (and much more history with) the alum and fans of Villanova, PC, Georgetown etc.

 

[UConnNick]

Lol that wasn’t the point of the thread! It was to try and measure if those wanting to keep football were doing so in order to help the AD overall or if they were simply football fans

Those two things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Some folks may want to keep football for both reasons. I've been a Husky football fan since the 1960's. That's a lot of history to see gone forever, and I also know it's the only chance, however remote, to get into a P5 conference. Dropping football means being a mid major forever.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Basketball and Football at UConn aren't a 1:1 correlation. Football has never really been good here, it was just the environment (conference realignment and poor coaching decisions). That being said, dropping football wouldn't bring basketball to irrelevance, but keeping football around and making that priority would (unless we successfully land a spot in P5).

Welcome to the 21st century. You may not realize it is no longer 1999. The Big East is gone. What carries its name is a barely a shell of what the Big East was. It has no future. No conference that doesn't play D1 football has a future in the landscape that is coming. The past is irrelevant, because we aren't in the past anymore.

I get the nostalgia, but it isn't healthy. It's a delusion to believe that things will ever be as they were then.

 

[Guapo]

Welcome to the 21st century. You may not realize it is no longer 1999. The Big East is gone. What carries its name is a barely a shell of what the Big East was. It has no future. No conference that doesn't play D1 football has a future in the landscape that is coming. The past is irrelevant, because we aren't in the past anymore.

I get the nostalgia, but it isn't healthy. It's a delusion to believe that things will ever be as they were then.

But it’s not a delusion to say that the NBE is a better basketball conference than the AAC and it’s viewed as a major conference by fans, media and recruits.

 

[UConnNick]

Why would anyone of consequence want to schedule UCONN for football out of conference? Notre Dame makes it work because they've a built in audience/draw.

For a guaranteed win?

 

[HuskyHawk]

But it’s not a delusion to say that the NBE is a better basketball conference than the AAC and it’s viewed as a major conference by fans, media and recruits.

Was a better conference and was viewed as a major. The American is better. Right now it is. And it will clearly be next year.

Memphis loses little and brings in the #1 overall recruit. Houston will be good. Wichita State, with a young team, is in the final four of the NIT after beating Clemson and IU on the road. UConn will win 20 games and has a top 15 or so recruiting class. Cincinnati will be good. UCF will take a step back, but Dawkins is a good coach.

 

[UConnNick]

I’m not talking about the administrations of those schools.

Culturally, I have much more in common (and much more history with) the alum and fans of Villanova, PC, Georgetown etc.

I enjoy reading your takes on various topics, Guapo, but just because you'd enjoy going out for a few beers with friends from old Big East schools isn't a rational reason for moving the AD into the "new" Big East. Eventually, as others have stated, they're going down the same drain as all the other mid majors. It has already begun to happen.

 

[Guapo]

Was a better conference and was viewed as a major. The American is better. Right now it is. And it will clearly be next year.

Memphis loses little and brings in the #1 overall recruit. Houston will be good. Wichita State, with a young team, is in the final four of the NIT after beating Clemson and IU on the road. UConn will win 20 games and has a top 15 or so recruiting class. Cincinnati will be good. UCF will take a step back, but Dawkins is a good coach.

I enjoy reading your takes on various topics, Guapo, but just because you'd enjoy going out for a few beers with friends from old Big East schools isn't a rational reason for moving the AD into the "new" Big East. Eventually, as others have stated, they're going down the same drain as all the other mid majors. It has already begun to happen.

Look, I don’t poop all over AAC basketball like some do; but trying to argue that the AAC is, or will be, a better conference that the NBE is totally crazy.

I agree that the NBE and AAC are circling the same mid major drain, however I’d rather be a “Mid Major” with the likes of Villanova and Georgetown than ECU and Tulsa.

 

[SubInATub]

Was a better conference and was viewed as a major. The American is better. Right now it is. And it will clearly be next year.

Memphis loses little and brings in the #1 overall recruit. Houston will be good. Wichita State, with a young team, is in the final four of the NIT after beating Clemson and IU on the road. UConn will win 20 games and has a top 15 or so recruiting class. Cincinnati will be good. UCF will take a step back, but Dawkins is a good coach.

Just because the AAC may have been a better conference this year in basketball, does not mean the AAC is better than NBE moving forward...

 

[HuskyHawk]

Look, I don’t poop all over AAC basketball like some do; but trying to argue that the AAC is, or will be, a better conference that the NBE is totally crazy.

I agree that the NBE and AAC are circling the same mid major drain, however I’d rather be a “Mid Major” with the likes of Villanova and Georgetown than ECU and Tulsa.

Crazy? It is reality. You listed the two most well regarded and know Big East teams and the two worst AAC teams. Hardly convincing. I'd rather be in a league with Memphis and Cincinnati than one with DePaul and Creighton.

 

[Guapo]

Crazy? It is reality. You listed the two most well regarded and know Big East teams and the two worst AAC teams. Hardly convincing. I'd rather be in a league with Memphis and Cincinnati than one with DePaul and Creighton.

I’d rather be with DePaul, Creighton, Butler, Xavier, Marquette and PC than just about anyone else you could list in the AAC.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I’d rather be with DePaul, Creighton, Butler, Xavier, Marquette and PC than just about anyone else you could list in the AAC.

PC is the only team on that list I have any interest in playing. Maybe Xavier. We can schedule PC out of conference. I hated that DePaul and Marquette were in the BE back when we were in it with them.

 

[Guapo]

PC is the only team on that list I have any interest in playing. Maybe Xavier. We can schedule PC out of conference. I hated that DePaul and Marquette were in the BE back when we were in it with them.

I hear where you’re coming from but i just really disagree with you

 

[HuskyHawk]

I hear where you’re coming from but i just really disagree with you

I get it. It's ok to disagree. I just really hate the very idea of UConn becoming UNH or URI, which is what joining the Big East would do to UConn. It would be the end of UConn's aspirations to be something more than a local public U.

UConn started playing D1A football in 2000 as an independent. What was our enrollment then? What was our USNWR ranking? I believe, as the administration did then, that national perception of public universities is very much linked to football. It would be a massive mistake to abandon that.

 

[uconnell]

Just because the AAC may have been a better conference this year in basketball, does not mean the AAC is better than NBE moving forward...

Maybe not but it’s a good indication

 

[whaler11]

Just because the AAC may have been a better conference this year in basketball, does not mean the AAC is better than NBE moving forward...

It also wasn’t a better conference top to bottom. Although the Big East was down the AAC was the same as it is every year.