I still don't understand how a UConn fan can take this stance when this is literally what so many schools did to us.
You can't?
We hate it, but look how it's worked out for them. BC is about as irrelevant an athletic department there is and yet, there they are, making ACC P5 money while offering, I'm being kind, mediocre ACC sports (their best sport belongs in Hockey East). Syracuse football dropped towards the bottom of the Big East football standings like a dead weight as soon as UConn entered the picture. After they left, they started winning enough to make it back to bowl games before going back to their recent losing ways...probably because the whistle blew on their cheating scams.
Both BC and Syracuse offer very little to any Power conference going forward and they know as well as anyone that the more large, public schools they have to compete against hurts them. If the ACC was interested in giving both a bump, they would add UConn and give them a r1valry game that this area (that has New York, Boston and Hartford in it) will get excited about. But until the ACC, as a conference, insists on helping their northeast members out and promote its brand in the area by adding UConn, I would expect to see both continuing to campaign against UConn to "protect turf".
Now flip it to UMass/AAC for a second. How many UConn fans are really going to get all jazzed up to watch UConn/UMass football up in Amherst or Foxboro? We will have a hard enough time convincing UConn fans to drive to East Hartford to watch these games, so forget about asking them to tack on an additional hour of driving time. I'll go. And probably many of us Boneyarders will go too. But we won't come close to selling out Gillette for a game against UMass. The school is having very public discussions about its football program's viability and its basketball program has been, I'm being kind again, hot garbage after The Squid left. So why should UConn fans want to promote them to our AAC level? What happens if UMass catches a bit of fire in the following years and leapfrogs UConn in expansion talks because their football team won 10 games while ours won 8? UConn fans, including me, would lose their . I lose my when I see the schools that are being talked about today being ahead of UConn in the pecking order. If I ever read something from anybody anywhere that suggested that UMass would be a better add for the B1G/ACC than UConn, then I would give up sports altogether. Move to a deserted island, develop my own monetary systems using seashells and empty boat drink glasses, grow a Cast Away beard, and tap out.
I can completely understand why many UConn fans want to protect this pile of garbage turf we reside on. The last thing any of us want is for another northeast school to draw the Jim Delany's or Bob Bowlsby's or John Swofford's eye away from us. . This CR nonsense is eat or be eaten. Stab your friend in the back after shaking his hand. Bat flip and watch your HR for hours. Self promote self promote self promote (while taking a dump on your conference "friends"). After we find our P5 home, then I'll all for UMass taking our AAC spot. But until then, F them and everyone else.
