Dallas News pros and cons of B12 expansion candidates

[junglehusky]

There is a poll at the end --- vote for UConn if you like. If you are extra motivated you can go private browsing and open the direct link to the poll: https://polldaddy.com/poll/9324448/

 

[UConn Dan]

And only vote for UConn - no partner

 

[amory]

Lol yet another rather offensive article.

The best thing we bring is women's basketball? F uck outta here

 

[junglehusky]

Lol yet another rather offensive article.

The best thing we bring is women's basketball? F uck outta here

Facebook comments at the bottom. I'm not on facebook so.... Paging Mr. Dooley....

 

[hardcorehusky]

I voted but it is a dumb article. Doesn't mention men's basketball or our market.

 

[junglehusky]

Oh wow we shot up to first place beyond FSU... maybe cool it for a bit and come back tomorrow people? LOL.

 

[Slasher]

Florida State is such a pipe dream.

 

[Drew]

Florida State is such a pipe dream.

It's like saying the American should expand to 16 with Alabama, Florida, Texas, and USC

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

Polls via multiple links http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/col...nati-byu-uconn-houston-smu-even-florida-state

 

[UT4Big12]

There is a poll at the end --- vote for UConn if you like. If you are extra motivated you can go private browsing and open the direct link to the poll: https://polldaddy.com/poll/9324448/

Some of those schools can easily be ruled out:
Boise State is never going to happen----poor academics, olympic sports suck (-)
BYU is not going to happen---the Big 12 is not going to revisit the nightmarish discussions we've had with them in the past. (- x2)
SMU and Houston are not going to happen----no one in the conference wants more schools in the state of Texas (the Texas schools in the conference would vote NO immediately. We don't need to add to the competition for Texas recruits). (- x2))
Colorado State University is a beautiful campus with improving academics, but they are just now building their on-campus stadium and CSU (like the University of Colorado) does not carry the Denver market or any market in Colorado. Colorado is a pro sports state and it always has been. I lived in Colorado for 14 years and I can vouch for that. (-)
NIU? I am certain it is not on the Big 12's list of candidates for expansion. I cannot see NIU adding anything of substance to the conference in the long term. (-)
Memphis--OMG, I looked it up and was horrified of what I found out. Memphis, a very poor academic school surrounded by high crime ghetto neighborhoods. Memphis is nicknamed "Tiger High" by the locals. (- x 5)
FSU- I don't know where anyone got the idea that FSU was free from its GOR with the ACC and is available. FSU would go SEC first before it would consider the Big 12. If Big 12 were an option, FSU would have to have travel partners in Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami etc.
USF--not likely. USF doesn't have a stadium of its own and it doesn't carry the Florida market. FSU, University of Florida and Miami already do that. Big 12 fans freak out at the idea of adding directional schools like USF and UCF. We might as well be Conference USA 3.0 if we go there. (-)
ECU--same as USF and UCF. That is a no go! (-)
UConn- we love schools that are the flagship universities of their states. Extremely good academics, but not much history in football (excuse my ignorance on this if I am wrong). Being a land grant public research university makes it even more attractive, as many schools in the Big 12 are land grant public research universities. Geography would be a nightmare, but it could be worked out somehow. We seem to be doing that with West Virginia University. (+)
Cincinnati--Pretty campus from what I've seen in pictures, but personally, I would rather not. Schools with city names just do not do it for me. Cinci competes with big brother Ohio State for the Ohio market and Ohio State wins hand down. I would vote (-), but I could see it getting a (+) votes when nothing better is available for expansion.

I would be happy if the Big 12 went with UConn and no one else in this expansion scenario.

 

[Ha Who]

And only vote for UConn - no partner

I did vote for NIU and us

 

[UT4Big12]

Some of those schools can easily be ruled out:
Boise State is never going to happen----poor academics, olympic sports suck (-)
BYU is not going to happen---the Big 12 is not going to revisit the nightmarish discussions we've had with them in the past. (- x2)
SMU and Houston are not going to happen----no one in the conference wants more schools in the state of Texas (the Texas schools in the conference would vote NO immediately. We don't need to add to the competition for Texas recruits). (- x2))
Colorado State University is a beautiful campus with improving academics, but they are just now building their on-campus stadium and CSU (like the University of Colorado) does not carry the Denver market or any market in Colorado. Colorado is a pro sports state and it always has been. I lived in Colorado for 14 years and I can vouch for that. (-)
NIU? I am certain it is not on the Big 12's list of candidates for expansion. I cannot see NIU adding anything of substance to the conference in the long term. (-)
Memphis--OMG, I looked it up and was horrified of what I found out. Memphis, a very poor academic school surrounded by high crime ghetto neighborhoods. Memphis is nicknamed "Tiger High" by the locals. (- x 5)
FSU- I don't know where anyone got the idea that FSU was free from its GOR with the ACC and is available. FSU would go SEC first before it would consider the Big 12. If Big 12 were an option, FSU would have to have travel partners in Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami etc.
USF--not likely. USF doesn't have a stadium of its own and it doesn't carry the Florida market. FSU, University of Florida and Miami already do that. Big 12 fans freak out at the idea of adding directional schools like USF and UCF. We might as well be Conference USA 3.0 if we go there. (-)
ECU--same as USF and UCF. That is a no go! (-)
UConn- we love schools that are the flagship universities of their states. Extremely good academics, but not much history in football (excuse my ignorance on this if I am wrong). Being a land grant public research university makes it even more attractive, as many schools in the Big 12 are land grant public research universities. Geography would be a nightmare, but it could be worked out somehow. We seem to be doing that with West Virginia University. (+)
Cincinnati--Pretty campus from what I've seen in pictures, but personally, I would rather not. Schools with city names just do not do it for me. Cinci competes with big brother Ohio State for the Ohio market and Ohio State wins hands down. I would vote (-), but I could see it getting (+) votes when nothing better is available for expansion.

I would be happy if the Big 12 went with UConn and no one else in this expansion scenario.

Sorry for some of the typos in my first post.
One more thing I forgot to say about UConn and that is this: by most accounts I've come across, UConn is a P5 school stuck in G5 hell. I don't doubt that.

 

[MattMang23]

Some of those schools can easily be ruled out:
Boise State is never going to happen----poor academics, olympic sports suck (-)
BYU is not going to happen---the Big 12 is not going to revisit the nightmarish discussions we've had with them in the past. (- x2)
SMU and Houston are not going to happen----no one in the conference wants more schools in the state of Texas (the Texas schools in the conference would vote NO immediately. We don't need to add to the competition for Texas recruits). (- x2))
Colorado State University is a beautiful campus with improving academics, but they are just now building their on-campus stadium and CSU (like the University of Colorado) does not carry the Denver market or any market in Colorado. Colorado is a pro sports state and it always has been. I lived in Colorado for 14 years and I can vouch for that. (-)
NIU? I am certain it is not on the Big 12's list of candidates for expansion. I cannot see NIU adding anything of substance to the conference in the long term. (-)
Memphis--OMG, I looked it up and was horrified of what I found out. Memphis, a very poor academic school surrounded by high crime ghetto neighborhoods. Memphis is nicknamed "Tiger High" by the locals. (- x 5)
FSU- I don't know where anyone got the idea that FSU was free from its GOR with the ACC and is available. FSU would go SEC first before it would consider the Big 12. If Big 12 were an option, FSU would have to have travel partners in Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami etc.
USF--not likely. USF doesn't have a stadium of its own and it doesn't carry the Florida market. FSU, University of Florida and Miami already do that. Big 12 fans freak out at the idea of adding directional schools like USF and UCF. We might as well be Conference USA 3.0 if we go there. (-)
ECU--same as USF and UCF. That is a no go! (-)
UConn- we love schools that are the flagship universities of their states. Extremely good academics, but not much history in football (excuse my ignorance on this if I am wrong). Being a land grant public research university makes it even more attractive, as many schools in the Big 12 are land grant public research universities. Geography would be a nightmare, but it could be worked out somehow. We seem to be doing that with West Virginia University. (+)
Cincinnati--Pretty campus from what I've seen in pictures, but personally, I would rather not. Schools with city names just do not do it for me. Cinci competes with big brother Ohio State for the Ohio market and Ohio State wins hand down. I would vote (-), but I could see it getting a (+) votes when nothing better is available for expansion.

I would be happy if the Big 12 went with UConn and no one else in this expansion scenario.

You are not wrong on UConn football if you're using the term "much history in football" as a synonym for "a long history in 1A football."...

We have been playing the sport as long as anyone. We were Division 1 for many, many years before it split into two divisions. We went 1AA at that time. We made the decision to upgrade in the 90s and officially joined the Big East in 2004. In that BCS league, our overall D1A record was about 20 games over .500 at something like 65-45 from the time we upgraded through the end of Randy Edsall's tenure as coach, which was capped off with an appearance in the 2011 Fiesta Bowl.

We took a hit for a few years because our dumb former AD hired a retread coach, Paul Pasqualoni, and since PP took over, our record has been like 20-40, dropping us to an overall D1A record of exactly .500, 86-86. We don't have the lengthy history to just make the last five years look like a little blip on the radar. Instead, because we are still in relative D1A infancy, our poor seasons the last few years are being viewed as our norm, or what can be expected of us. They are not. For twice as long, and in a BCS league, we had a .600 winning percentage. That's our norm. We are still digging our way out now, but our new coach, Bob Diaco, got us back to bowling this past season and we plan to stay there.

We are not a football lightweight. We won the Big East twice in nine seasons before it broke up, (twice more than Rutgers who had a 15 year head start) appearing in five bowls in that span, including every year from 2007-2010. We averaged 8 wins a year in that span. We have been to the BCS (Hi again, Rutgers). We have some of the best facilities in the country and we dump plenty of money into the team, considering we have a P5 operating budget while collecting G5 checks. Also, if we joined the XII today, we would have more alumni in the NFL than any school in the league not named UT or OU. We are committed. The XII has nothing to worry about with UConn football.

I am not our resident football historian, though. That would be @Butch and I will let him give you more if he would like.

 

[UConn Dan]

Well said @MattMang23

Too much emphasis on "history" but if you look at the success we've had in the limited time when we were in a BCS conference, a reasonable person would discern that we have the resources and the potential to be in the top half of any power 5 league and could become the northeast power house this region deserves.

We are trending in the right direction under Diaco.

I recommend that a power 5 conference buy us now while we are cheap.

 

[MattMang23]

Well said @MattMang23

Too much emphasis on "history" but if you look at the success we've had in the limited time when we were in a BCS conference, a reasonable person would discern that we have the resources and the potential to be in the top half of any power 5 league and could become the northeast power house this region deserves.

We are trending in the right direction under Diaco.

I recommend that a power 5 conference buy us now while we are cheap.

Thank you. And totally agree. Length of history isn't as important as success. Just look at Rutgers. Literally, no one has played the game longer and yet no one has played the game worse. Only thing I forgot to cite and wanted to was our winning records against Syracuse, Pitt, and Louisville.

 

[Dooley]

@UT4Big12 - In my humble opinion, things like "lack of history" can be compensated by a continued commitment to winning. Is a school willing to invest the necessary dollars to compete at the highest level? UConn has proven that it wants to - a new stadium that is ready for the P5 green light to expand up to 55K range, beautiful on-campus facilities (including indoor practice facility), coaching pay scale on par with P5 schools (would increase with P5 money), and recruiting budgets that allow us to compete in the northeast and other targeted areas. No, we obviously don't have the budget that Texas or Michigan have (not many do), but we are also pouring tens of millions of dollars more into our football and sports programs than our G5 competition. Look across our sports portfolio...not a dud anywhere can be found.

UConn made one bad coaching hire. Every program has gone through it. We have dug out from the really dark days and things are turning back around to restoring annual competitive seasons. Make no mistake, UConn fans don't have grandeur thoughts of entering the B12 and winning conference championships every other season...but we do expect to compete. It might take some time to recruit the depth needed to compete at such a high level but I have no doubt that the necessary dollars and resources would be invested to do just that. Unlike some other recently added P5 schools from our area, UConn doesn't cut corners. When the school wants to compete in something, it gosh darn does.

All that said, our next AD hire will be interesting. I think our new AD will need to have a football background (just like the departing Warde Manuel) to continue our commitment to the biggest collegiate sport. We will learn a lot about what direction President Herbst (who is one of our, if not the best Presidents in our school history) wants to take UConn in the upcoming years.

 

[UT4Big12]

You are not wrong on UConn football if you're using the term "much history in football" as a synonym for "a long history in 1A football."...

We have been playing the sport as long as anyone. We were Division 1 for many, many years before it split into two divisions. We went 1AA at that time. We made the decision to upgrade in the 90s and officially joined the Big East in 2004. In that BCS league, our overall D1A record was about 20 games over .500 at something like 65-45 from the time we upgraded through the end of Randy Edsall's tenure as coach, which was capped off with an appearance in the 2011 Fiesta Bowl.

We took a hit for a few years because our dumb former AD hired a retread coach, Paul Pasqualoni, and since PP took over, our record has been like 20-40, dropping us to an overall D1A record of exactly .500, 86-86. We don't have the lengthy history to just make the last five years look like a little blip on the radar. Instead, because we are still in relative D1A infancy, our poor seasons the last few years are being viewed as our norm, or what can be expected of us. They are not. For twice as long, and in a BCS league, we had a .600 winning percentage. That's our norm. We are still digging our way out now, but our new coach, Bob Diaco, got us back to bowling this past season and we plan to stay there.

We are not a football lightweight. We won the Big East twice in nine seasons before it broke up, (twice more than Rutgers who had a 15 year head start) appearing in five bowls in that span, including every year from 2007-2010. We averaged 8 wins a year in that span. We have been to the BCS (Hi again, Rutgers). We have some of the best facilities in the country and we dump plenty of money into the team, considering we have a P5 operating budget while collecting G5 checks. Also, if we joined the XII today, we would have more alumni in the NFL than any school in the league not named UT or OU. We are committed. The XII has nothing to worry about with UConn football.

I am not our resident football historian, though. That would be @Butch and I will let him give you more if he would like.

Thank you for the information. I appreciate the education lesson.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Sorry for some of the typos in my first post.
One more thing I forgot to say about UConn and that is this: by most accounts I've come across, UConn is a P5 school stuck in G5 hell. I don't doubt that.

Glad to see we've made an impression. Look up athletic department budgets next for a real eye-opener.

 

[UT4Big12]

@UT4Big12 - In my humble opinion, things like "lack of history" can be compensated by a continued commitment to winning. Is a school willing to invest the necessary dollars to compete at the highest level? UConn has proven that it wants to - a new stadium that is ready for the P5 green light to expand up to 55K range, beautiful on-campus facilities (including indoor practice facility), coaching pay scale on par with P5 schools (would increase with P5 money), and recruiting budgets that allow us to compete in the northeast and other targeted areas. No, we obviously don't have the budget that Texas or Michigan have (not many do), but we are also pouring tens of millions of dollars more into our football and sports programs than our G5 competition. Look across our sports portfolio...not a dud anywhere can be found.

UConn made one bad coaching hire. Every program has gone through it. We have dug out from the really dark days and things are turning back around to restoring annual competitive seasons. Make no mistake, UConn fans don't have grandeur thoughts of entering the B12 and winning conference championships every other season...but we do expect to compete. It might take some time to recruit the depth needed to compete at such a high level but I have no doubt that the necessary dollars and resources would be invested to do just that. Unlike some other recently added P5 schools from our area, UConn doesn't cut corners. When the school wants to compete in something, it gosh darn does.

All that said, our next AD hire will be interesting. I think our new AD will need to have a football background (just like the departing Warde Manuel) to continue our commitment to the biggest collegiate sport. We will learn a lot about what direction President Herbst (who is one of our, if not the best Presidents in our school history) wants to take UConn in the upcoming years.

Good to know.

 

[UT4Big12]

Glad to see we've made an impression. Look up athletic department budgets next for a real eye-opener.

Well, I just thought I would give an opinion on how most Big 12 fans see the expansion candidates. It doesn't take much to see which school stands out above the others.

 

[Drew]

Well, I just thought I would give an opinion on how most Big 12 fans see the expansion candidates. It doesn't take much to see which school stands out above the others.

this is sorta OT but wasn't UNM considered for the XII in the 90's?

 

[Dooley]

Uh oh guys, we have fallen from 1st to 4th place. Looks like our AAC sentence will be permanent.

 

[UCFBfan]

Some of those schools can easily be ruled out:
Boise State is never going to happen----poor academics, olympic sports suck (-)
BYU is not going to happen---the Big 12 is not going to revisit the nightmarish discussions we've had with them in the past. (- x2)
SMU and Houston are not going to happen----no one in the conference wants more schools in the state of Texas (the Texas schools in the conference would vote NO immediately. We don't need to add to the competition for Texas recruits). (- x2))
Colorado State University is a beautiful campus with improving academics, but they are just now building their on-campus stadium and CSU (like the University of Colorado) does not carry the Denver market or any market in Colorado. Colorado is a pro sports state and it always has been. I lived in Colorado for 14 years and I can vouch for that. (-)
NIU? I am certain it is not on the Big 12's list of candidates for expansion. I cannot see NIU adding anything of substance to the conference in the long term. (-)
Memphis--OMG, I looked it up and was horrified of what I found out. Memphis, a very poor academic school surrounded by high crime ghetto neighborhoods. Memphis is nicknamed "Tiger High" by the locals. (- x 5)
FSU- I don't know where anyone got the idea that FSU was free from its GOR with the ACC and is available. FSU would go SEC first before it would consider the Big 12. If Big 12 were an option, FSU would have to have travel partners in Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami etc.
USF--not likely. USF doesn't have a stadium of its own and it doesn't carry the Florida market. FSU, University of Florida and Miami already do that. Big 12 fans freak out at the idea of adding directional schools like USF and UCF. We might as well be Conference USA 3.0 if we go there. (-)
ECU--same as USF and UCF. That is a no go! (-)
UConn- we love schools that are the flagship universities of their states. Extremely good academics, but not much history in football (excuse my ignorance on this if I am wrong). Being a land grant public research university makes it even more attractive, as many schools in the Big 12 are land grant public research universities. Geography would be a nightmare, but it could be worked out somehow. We seem to be doing that with West Virginia University. (+)
Cincinnati--Pretty campus from what I've seen in pictures, but personally, I would rather not. Schools with city names just do not do it for me. Cinci competes with big brother Ohio State for the Ohio market and Ohio State wins hand down. I would vote (-), but I could see it getting a (+) votes when nothing better is available for expansion.

I would be happy if the Big 12 went with UConn and no one else in this expansion scenario.

I know that on a map it looks like geography is an issue but when you look at it realistically it's way easier to get to UConn via airplane then a lot of schools in the Big 12, especially WVU. To get to The Rent (football) or XL Center (some basketball games) you just take a 20-25 minute bus ride down I-91 and you're there. Storrs is a tiny bit more of a trek but nothing over an hour, tops. So geography shouldn't really be an issue. There are plenty of flights in and out of Bradley so it's really a non-issue in the grand scheme of things

 

[mainlinedave]

Thank you. And totally agree. Length of history isn't as important as success. Just look at Rutgers. Literally, no one has played the game longer and yet no one has played the game worse. Only thing I forgot to cite and wanted to was our winning records against Syracuse, Pitt, and Louisville.

Actually, UCONN has played much worse than Rutgers. You have two Big East Championships. We have one. Big deal.

UCONN is one of the few schools that has lost more games in its history then it has won. Traditionally, you are one of the least successful teams in college football. RU has at least won more games than they have lost...and we've played a lot more games than UCONN has.

How do you possibly say we have played it worse? We have been to more bowl games, have more bowl wins...have a better head to head record, and while both teams were in the same league, RU won more league games than UCONN. RU has finished in the top half of league standings more often, and RU has been ranked in the top 20 a lot more also.

RU has has been ranked in the top 10 during two separate seasons while in the same league. UCONN? NEVER!

Nice try, but no one outside the state of Connecticut thinks UCONN has played better than RU. No one.

 

[UCFBfan]

The article is crap but it feeds all of our worst nightmares. That the Big 12 will look at what "drives the bus" (football) and kick UConn to the curb due to it. Yes it all depends on the network issue but if the Big 12 doesn't get a network and still decides to expand, I don't see how we are attractive anymore. Should we be, yes absolutely. However, the biggest thing we have going for us is our basketball teams and our market potential. Neither of those work in our favor if there's no network. I really hope this doesn't happen and we get our golden ticket.