Dennis Dodd: Big Ten expansion not done...stay tuned

[Husky92]

Doesn't take much to spin y'all out of control.

Nope. It doesn't.

 

[CTMike]

I fully expect a come to Jesus moment for the B1G about 30 seconds into negotiations regarding NYC subscribers.

Delaney: "Wait a minute. You're telling me no one in NYC gives a about Rutgers anything? Alright screw the recruiting area and AAU, let's grab UConn"

The thing of it is- we are working hard towards AAU, and as far as recruiting - no, we aren't a gold mine, but a little bit of time and investment in local programs would pay back dividends for years. There's nothing special about, say, NJ recruiting grounds. We can be just as viable if someone has the vision.

 

[TKs]

I think the hint is refering to "TV Markets". Mizzu (AAU, no GOR) St. Louis Market. UConn (AAU soon?) NYC Market. Think B1G or Go Home!

 

[Fishy]

Somewhere in the midwest, a mild-mannered man is leaping into a phone booth to change into his Frank the Tank costume so that he can try to stomp out this ray of hope by pointing out that Stony Brook is really the best way for the Big Ten to expand into the northeast.

 

[noeynox]

You know that scene in casino where Joe pesci is watching his kid brother get pummeled with a bat by frankie? We are Joe pesci, frank the tank is frankie, and any hope of us getting into the big ten is the kid brother. At least that is the image that pops in my head everytime frank posts on the topic. Love ya frank.

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[GopherHawk]

There are three types of invites.

1) sure things - these are national brands which are no brainers. Penn State and Nebraska were these adds for the B1G.

2) traditional schools in very good markets. I think UMd fit this model. Not a sure thing, but really as close as you come.

3) great market with potential - I think this is Rutgers. I believe the B1G thinks with its presence Rutgers can grow.

Now any new invite must add enough value to feed themselves. They must also have recruits for football and basketball. Need to be prestigious acedemically.

I think UConn is somewhere between two and three. Upside if surrounded by good schools. Good market. Good academics. Poor recruiting area. Can you add enough value to pay your own way? We are not talking $20M worth of value, but $35M+ worh of value. That's a big number. Don't point to others already in the club and say I am worth more then them either. That arguement won't get you anywhere.

I don't know if a UConn/Mizzu combo adds $70M+ to the contract unless UConn is needed for NYC. Then you are 15 and we need to find number 16.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

The thing of it is- we are working hard towards AAU, and as far as recruiting - no, we aren't a gold mine, but a little bit of time and investment in local programs would pay back dividends for years. There's nothing special about, say, NJ recruiting grounds. We can be just as viable if someone has the vision.

This recruiting issue is a non-starter.
If NJ is good recruiting and eastern Pa is good recruiting than how geographically challenged do you have to be to realize these areas are a 2 to 5 hours drive from CT.
The parents of a PA kid recruited by Mich
Can see their kid play away games at 3 different schools.

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[Gurleyman]

Somewhere in the midwest, a mild-mannered man is leaping into a phone booth to change into his Frank the Tank costume so that he can try to stomp out this ray of hope by pointing out that Stony Brook is really the best way for the Big Ten to expand into the northeast.

Easy case to make. Stony Brook has a train station on campus that takes you to NYC. That's crucial in the event the internet/email goes down and you need to deliver news to the New York media market by hand.

Plus, being on the East end of Long Island, Stony Brook can carry the pivotal humpback whale market.

 

[Adios]

There are three types of invites.

1) sure things - these are national brands which are no brainers. Penn State and Nebraska were these adds for the B1G.

2) traditional schools in very good markets. I think UMd fit this model. Not a sure thing, but really as close as you come.

3) great market with potential - I think this is Rutgers. I believe the B1G thinks with its presence Rutgers can grow.

Now any new invite must add enough value to feed themselves. They must also have recruits for football and basketball. Need to be prestigious acedemically.

I think UConn is somewhere between two and three. Upside if surrounded by good schools. Good market. Good academics. Poor recruiting area. Can you add enough value to pay your own way? We are not talking $20M worth of value, but $35M+ worh of value. That's a big number. Don't point to others already in the club and say I am worth more then them either. That arguement won't get you anywhere.

I don't know if a UConn/Mizzu combo adds $70M+ to the contract unless UConn is needed for NYC. Then you are 15 and we need to find number 16.

Yale used to and still does recruit nationally for football. With the CIC/B1G affiliation that puts us behind the Ivy League, recruiting should not even be an issue.


We are between 2 and 3, working towards 2. UConn is here to stay. Took longer than other schools to develop because of affluence and the stronger desire for private schools before.

 

[CTMike]

This recruiting issue is a non-starter.
If NJ is good recruiting and eastern Pa is good recruiting than how geographically challenged do you have to be to realize these areas are a 2 to 5 hours drive from CT.
The parents of a PA kid recruited by Mich
Can see their kid play away games at 3 different schools.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

I agree. I think the supposed "lack of fertile recruiting" issue is crap, frankly.

 

[pj]

There are 34 million people in New England and New York. That's plenty of high school athletes, and only 3 BCS level schools. If the B1G comes to New England, high school football will develop here.

I'm not saying recruiting is going to be a positive, it's not. But UConn won't be totally uncompetitive either, even if we're forced to draw recruits from our own region.

 

[Limbo Land]

Don't get to excited... could be about UCF, USF and BYU getting invites with Cincy to Big 12. Keep Focused and get ducks in order for possible B1G invite. The only place we want to be is with these top notch schools.

 

[yazsir]

V


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[BoatShow]

I don't know how important contiguous is when the area separating NJ and CT is NYC.

 

[Adios]

I don't know how important contiguous is when the area separating NJ and CT is NYC.

No one cares about that except posters here. From our own fanbase.

 

[woomba]

This recruiting issue is a non-starter.
If NJ is good recruiting and eastern Pa is good recruiting than how geographically challenged do you have to be to realize these areas are a 2 to 5 hours drive from CT.
The parents of a PA kid recruited by Mich
Can see their kid play away games at 3 different schools.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

NJ and PA Football recruiting blows NY and NE recruiting out of the water - look at the number of prospects that come out of those states on an annual basis.

This comes into play for Big Ten schools wanting an easier sell for OOS athletes to come play at a Big Ten school, not pleasing their parents who want the opportunity to add 2 easy road trips.

 

[woomba]

There are 34 million people in New England and New York. That's plenty of high school athletes, and only 3 BCS level schools. If the B1G comes to New England, high school football will develop here.

I'm not saying recruiting is going to be a positive, it's not. But UConn won't be totally uncompetitive either, even if we're forced to draw recruits from our own region.

Even if you look at UConn, Syracuse, and BC's recruiting over the past 5-6 years you see that only about half of the FB recruits for these teams are from the NY&NE area (even less for BC) despite there being 34M people there. That's not "plenty of HS athletes".

UConn has potential but you're better off just not mentioning recruiting grounds - it only compares semi-favorably to Kansas (and they'll argue that they draw MO similarly to how UConn will count NY&MA)

 

[spsct]

Population means squat when considering recruiting grounds. It is the HS football culture and development that counts, which is why states with similar populations as Connecticut (say Oklahoma and South Carolina) have 7x as many FBS signees.

I wonder how long it would take, if the football culture in New England became the same as NJ tomorrow, before the number of recruits approached equality.

 

[CTMike]

We're at a point in our football program where players/recruits have grown up knowing that UConn plays big-time football, and grown up wanting to play for their state school. That wasn't quite the case even 2 recruiting seasons ago. They also see that UConn has a strong track record on getting guys to the NFL.

It's taken 10 years, but I think it has started to change the football culture at the lower levels. There's something real, tangible, and close to aspire to.

Keep developing it. Hypothetically, let's say UConn get's the B1G invite. Do you think that will generate more or less interest? I don't think CT is quite the recruiting wasteland people make it to be, but with a chance, it'll only continue to improve.

 

[RegisteredUconn]

Even if you look at UConn, Syracuse, and BC's recruiting over the past 5-6 years you see that only about half of the FB recruits for these teams are from the NY&NE area...

Did a quick look at the Penn State and Michigan rosters for the upcoming season. Both have about 37% in-state.

 

[ShakyTheMohel]

While the recruiting piece is important, lets not forget the importance of alumni population. I think the B1G has a pretty strong alumni base in the NE/NY area.

 

[GopherHawk]

While the recruiting piece is important, lets not forget the importance of alumni population. I think the B1G has a pretty strong alumni base in the NE/NY area.

Unfortunately that arguement was used for Rutgers. It does not add value twice.

 

[CTMike]

Unfortunately that arguement was used for Rutgers. It does not add value twice.

Sure it does. If someone goes to 2 games instead of 1, that's twice. Not to mention there are plenty of B1G alums within driving distance to the Rent who aren't driving distance to Rutgers. And... We're not Piscataway. Big points there.

 

[HuskyHawk]

We're at a point in our football program where players/recruits have grown up knowing that UConn plays big-time football, and grown up wanting to play for their state school. That wasn't quite the case even 2 recruiting seasons ago. They also see that UConn has a strong track record on getting guys to the NFL.

It's taken 10 years, but I think it has started to change the football culture at the lower levels. There's something real, tangible, and close to aspire to.

Keep developing it. Hypothetically, let's say UConn get's the B1G invite. Do you think that will generate more or less interest? I don't think CT is quite the recruiting wasteland people make it to be, but with a chance, it'll only continue to improve.

Connecticut is never going to be a great recruiting ground, Soccer, Hockey and LAX consume too much attention from young athletes for that. But, UConn landing in the B1G, and kids growing up going to games against Michigan, OSU, Penn State, Nebraska and Wisconsin would elevate the game of college football in CT dramatically. Now if they could also convince the HS teams to play Friday night, instead of Saturday, it would really take off.

 

[Waquoit]

Isn't pretty obvious that one of the schools will be Notre Dame?

 

[pj]

Isn't pretty obvious that one of the schools will be Notre Dame?

No. According to Swofford Notre Dame cannot join any conference except the ACC through 2026.

 

[metsfan2323]

It's going to come down to our competition for the two slots, if we are the best remaining option, we will be in good shape.

No other school out there brings the basketball value that we have (not even close), and Women's basketball does matter because of the halo effect our program has. Adding the UCONN women's team makes the entire sport relevant and revenue producing to the league. We are also the only school available that solidifies NYC which is one of their stated goals.

Our competition:

AAC - We easily beat everyone in the AAC, it's not worth discussing
MWC - Nope
ACC - Not if the GOR matters and if they still poach from the ACC we probably get the ACC slot

Big 12 and SEC - could Kansas and Missouri be added? Maybe, but one would think that we are more valuable then Kansas.

Could ND go along with Missouri? This is probably our worst case scenario that could leave us out. This would mean that God hates UCONN for some reason.

I like our chances (assuming that God does not hate UCONN)

 

[pj]

Recruiting is a negative now, but it can become a neutral factor with continued growth in northeast high school football, similar to what has recently been underway in Connecticut and occurred in New Jersey decades ago.

Here are the sources of NFL players. The northeast doesn't do too badly:

There are athletes here. They typically need more development than southern players, who are more advanced coming in to college. But you have 5 years in football; the upperclassmen in the north can compete with upperclassmen in the south.

The reason recruiting can become a neutral factor, even though there is a lack of football culture up here causing us to lose some of the athletes, is that there is a higher density of athletes per local university than in the south. New England and New York have 34 million people and 3 BCS schools, 11 million people per school. Michigan has 10 million people and 2 BCS schools, 5 million people per school. Alabama has 4.8 million people and 2 BCS schools, 2.4 million per school. The pool of genetically gifted high level athletes is higher per school in the northeast.

Our trouble is that many of them don't go into football and many of those who do don't play it long enough to develop a love for the game. But, with the growth of football at the university level, we are seeing more interest at the high school level. High school coaches are learning at university clinics. Kids are attending high-level college games.

It will come. Not saying we'll ever grow football to a level where our recruiting territory is a positive. I don't think so. But it can be competitive.

 

[Bearcats#1]

I'm not sure how it all will shake out but I think we see UCONN to the B1G and Cincy to the B12 (because the B1G nabbed a B12 school). UCONN gives the B1G more market for the B1G Network and Cincy gives B12 a travel partner (kind of) with WVA who right now is out on an island.

Hope it works out for us both.

 

[pj]

Big 12 and SEC - could Kansas and Missouri be added? Maybe, but one would think that we our more valuable then Kansas.

Could ND go along with Missouri? This is probably our worst case scenario that could leave us out.

I like our chances.

Unless FranktheTank is the decision maker, then Gale Sayers and Kansas's storied athletic legacy trumps UConn's market size advantages.

The main issue is that we need a major school like Missouri or Kansas to be available to have a partner, but if Kansas is available then Oklahoma and Texas may be too, and those schools may wish to recreate the best of the old Big 12 with Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri joining Nebraska in the west of the B1G; or some lesser combination, such as Kansas and Oklahoma if Missouri stays in the SEC. FranktheTank values Oklahoma's football history above UConn's market, basketball, and research/academics (we'll be AAU 50 years ahead of Oklahoma). Let's hope Frank's thinking isn't reflective of B1G presidents; of if Big XII schools become available, it is an odd number of universities.

Another factor is that if TV network money is really driving this, then the Pac12 could be a player in a B12 breakup. Fox might do a major deal where it migrates B12 schools from their split ESPN/Fox contract to pure Fox with the Pac and new B1G deals. With the Pac and B1G splitting the league, there are spaces for all, at least all the politically powerful players. This is the only way I see the Pac getting to 16 (though I don't see why that is important). This could work to UConn's advantage or disadvantage; by shrinking the number of conferences it might shrink the available D4 slots to 16 x 4 which would hurt us. On the other hand it is movement and could be an opportunity for us to get an invite.