ESPN Article: UConn done with conference-realignment

[intlzncster]

You don't beg but you develop a narrative and sell it. While I don't disagree that the biggest headwind was how disliked Herbst was with her peers. Yet the Louisville AD was widely acclaimed in articles with insider sources with closing and passing the gap in the last week. So to say the whole matter was past the AD level at that point isn't true.

That is truth. And the most necessary narrative to develop lies in the football program. We need to starting winning with regularity. Then comes a passionate fan base, then comes TV exposure/dollars, then comes potential recruits, then comes more bowl possibilities on a regular basis. Then invite?

goshdarn we could be here a while.

 

[Gurleyman]

If the AD won deserved kudos, it was for building up Louisville's facilities, support and financial stability over time. If he got any for last-minute salesmanship, it was from lazy reporters acting like conferences make decisions like these as if they are buying a car.

Our narrative fight was lost pre-Manuel. Any chips we should have earned from the Fiesta Bowl bid got sent down the crapper with Edsall taking the first life raft out, the public fight with Burton, not winning the pr battles regarding our ticket sales at the Fiesta, hiring PP, etc. Now we're commonly viewed as a small-time program which had no business being there. The narrative should have been - and might still be now - that the same school that constructed national powers in both men's and women's hoops out of nothing, had done it again and had gone to a big time bowl game in record time after only seven years at that level. Instead the story became EVERYTHING but that - and all about how we mismanaged everything, didn't belong there, and were Exhibit A about what's wrong the system.

Then throw in a hoops team on probation with an interim coach, a new president and a new AD, and there was much more uncertainty at UConn than at any point since the Dream Season. Even if we wanted to do a kick-ass power point presentation in November of 2012, we were probably going to lose the battle at that time based on the current state of affairs. Our positives were media markets (Hartford/New Haven being largest market without a pro team - plus slight denting of NYC and Boston), academics, hoops tradition and a well-rounded athletic department - stuff the ACC already had ample evidence of. The football negative weighed us down too much.

 

[UC990411]

If the AD won deserved kudos, it was for building up Louisville's facilities, support and financial stability over time. If he got any for last-minute salesmanship, it was from lazy reporters acting like conferences make decisions like these as if they are buying a car.

Our narrative fight was lost pre-Manuel. Any chips we should have earned from the Fiesta Bowl bid got sent down the crapper with Edsall taking the first life raft out, the public fight with Burton, not winning the pr battles regarding our ticket sales at the Fiesta, hiring PP, etc. Now we're commonly viewed as a small-time program which had no business being there. The narrative should have been - and might still be now - that the same school that constructed national powers in both men's and women's hoops out of nothing, had done it again and had gone to a big time bowl game in record time after only seven years at that level. Instead the story became EVERYTHING but that - and all about how we mismanaged everything, didn't belong there, and were Exhibit A about what's wrong the system.

Then throw in a hoops team on probation with an interim coach, a new president and a new AD, and there was much more uncertainty at UConn than at any point since the Dream Season. Even if we wanted to do a kick-ass power point presentation in November of 2012, we were probably going to lose the battle at that time based on the current state of affairs. Our positives were media markets (Hartford/New Haven being largest market without a pro team - plus slight denting of NYC and Boston), academics, hoops tradition and a well-rounded athletic department - stuff the ACC already had ample evidence of. The football negative weighed us down too much.

A lot of blame here but no fingers pointed at Hathaway?

 

[Gurleyman]

A lot of blame here but no fingers pointed at Hathaway?

It is implicit in there. We stagnated under Hathaway (or regressed in some ways), and were passed by despite being in positions of enormous strength, starting with twin national hoops titles in 2004, and continuing with a football program that ascended rapidly, faster than anyone thought possible.

Not everything was his fault - Edsall had his ego issues, Calhoun certainly had his (and didn't mind his own store well enough in regards to Nate Miles and APR issues), Burton was a prima donna, etc. And his bio reads nice - if he takes credit for championships the coaches he inherited won, or if he takes credit for the Burton Complex, which was in the works before he started. But we could have used a visionary - a guy (or gal) who would take twin national titles, which had never been done before, and strike while the iron is hot to fundraise for a Taj Mahal practice facility to rival the Burton. It was an obvious need, for practical space needs as well as recruiting. The donors and media eat in hallways at home games at Gampel. Looks crappy. Plus Memorial Stadium serves no function any more - other than to remind people we haven't done anything with that space. Maybe we could have also built nice baseball and softball stadiums as part of the same project, so that when Penders has a bomb squad, we don't have to host a regional in Bristol. Maybe another AD takes that win at Notre Dame, that shut out of South Carolina, that Fiesta Bowl appearance and expands the stadium to prepare, and either locks up Edsall or hits a home run with the new hire, and keeps things moving forward.

I will admit that I am saying all this in hindsight - I wasn't paying attention or calling for these things at the time, so perhaps I'm not being fair. But that was a lost decade for growth/expansion. Perhaps there was more Manuel could have done in those few months before Louisville got the life raft, but he was swimming upstream. The luster of the Fiesta Bowl/Kemba title had already worn off and was replaced by uncertainty in both programs.

 

[intlzncster]

A lot of blame here but no fingers pointed at Hathaway?

>Our narrative fight was lost pre-Manuel. Any chips we should have earned from the Fiesta Bowl bid got sent down the crapper with Edsall taking the first life raft out, the public fight with Burton, not winning the pr battles regarding our ticket sales at the Fiesta,

That's all Hathaway by definition imo.