How Many UConn Football Fans Feel Betrayed Today?

[AndOne]

God bless you guys who still think an independent UConn football team will be repping NY and the P5 will be sending an invite in the future. Not sure if it's an over top delusional response to stress or just not wanting to face reality.

 

[whaler11]

Lol. Yeah and the day Kristen Keene opened in Newibgton they had a traffic jam stretching from Hartford to Meriden. When they first put in emissions testing there were traffic jams so bad that the Legislature had over 100 bills repealing the program introduced. When UConn joined Hockey East they led the nation in attendance just to throw in a sports example. Just saying, you can’t measure this by 1 days reaction. We’ll see see how many donate again in 5 years when people are seeing Houston and Memphis in the Final 4 while UConn gets booted in the second round for the 4th straight year. And the AD budget deficit doesn’t go down.

lol yeah folks id sweat all those houston final four visits.

dying on mt aac. hilarious

 

[LoyalFanCT]

God bless you guys who still think an independent UConn football team will be repping NY and the P5 will be sending an invite in the future. Not sure if it's an over top delusional response to stress or just not wanting to face reality.

We are not on Planet Neptune! LOL. There is some rational thought here. Just as an example,
here is a recent survey: The college football teams with the most fans living in the New York City area.
4. UConn - 150,150
The University of Connecticut is located about 150 miles northeast of New York City. Many UConn grads are from and move to the NYC suburbs in Connecticut.

 

[Northbound]

It's not Geno's fault. It's not Edsall's either. He was an employee. He had every right to leave and take what he perceived to be a better job, right or not. And whatever you think about how he left, that is inarguably irrelevant to where we are today.

CEO's leave corporations all the time. Those in charge have to find competent replacements. Our Trustees, our Presidents and our ADs failed beyond miserably in that. If we were still a Top 60 football program, we'd be able to work something out with the AAC just for football.

Yup this is true. Folks wont agree but the Diaco hire wasn't the issue. The guy was an up and coming coach that was highly regarded NOBODY could have predicted how wacky he’d get.

The real crime was the P and then the RE2 hires.

Seemingly everyone but the athletic department and the CT high school football coaches knew the P hire would be a bad one.

The RE2 just smacked of desperation and the inability of DB to understand by how Rhett and family could or couldnt be successful at UConn and in CT just made a potentially exciting hire with the potential to modernize the offense just become another transition and reinforce the perception that the program wasnt stable or an exciting destination.

The whole deal is painful - but hiring a home run staff is hard - if it was easy everyone could do it.

 

[polycom]

Yup this is true. Folks wont agree but the Diaco hire wasn't the issue. The guy was an up and coming coach that was highly regarded NOBODY could have predicted how wacky he’d get.

The real crime was the P and then the RE2 hires.

Seemingly everyone but the athletic department and the CT high school football coaches knew the P hire would be a bad one.

The RE2 just smacked of desperation and the inability of DB to understand by how Rhett and family could or couldnt be successful at UConn and in CT just made a potentially exciting hire with the potential to modernize the offense just become another transition and reinforce the perception that the program wasnt stable or an exciting destination.

The whole deal is painful - but hiring a home run staff is hard - if it was easy everyone could do it.

The RE2 hire isn't that bad considering how much we were willing to spend. If we were willing to invest real money and we still hired RE, that would be different. Unless people want to argue that we should have used the same amount of money to hire a no name coach.

 

[whaler11]

Yup this is true. Folks wont agree but the Diaco hire wasn't the issue. The guy was an up and coming coach that was highly regarded NOBODY could have predicted how wacky he’d get.

The real crime was the P and then the RE2 hires.

Seemingly everyone but the athletic department and the CT high school football coaches knew the P hire would be a bad one.

The RE2 just smacked of desperation and the inability of DB to understand by how Rhett and family could or couldnt be successful at UConn and in CT just made a potentially exciting hire with the potential to modernize the offense just become another transition and reinforce the perception that the program wasnt stable or an exciting destination.

The whole deal is painful - but hiring a home run staff is hard - if it was easy everyone could do it.

3 sentences into his tenure I knew he was an arseclown.

There is no way you could interview him
for a 7 figure job and think - wow I trust this guy to be successful.

Impossible for anyone competent to hire Diaco.

 

[Northbound]

3 sentences into his tenure I knew he was an arseclown.

There is no way you could interview him
for a 7 figure job and think - wow I trust this guy to be successful.

Impossible for anyone competent to hire Diaco.

The guy won the Broyles award as the games top assistant at ND, but yet you knew he was going to the bed. You can’t make this level of Monday morning quarterbacking up.

You should start your retained search firm for coaches.

 

[huskysupporter]

We absolutely could have been relevant in football. Heck, we were at one point. The latest shortsighted move by the Administration was the death blow to the program (and the athletic department as a whole) but it’s not like that was the only decision that destroyed football. The lack of financial commitment to the sport kept any hope of rising back to relevance in the dumpster. Moving to a new conference was just the match that turned the dumpster into a raging dumpster fire.

 

[whaler11]

The guy won the Broyles award as the games top assistant at ND, but yet you knew he was going to # 2 the bed. You can’t make this level of Monday morning quarterbacking up.

You should start your retained search firm for coaches.

Who gives a flying fork about the stupid Broyles award. Listen to the idiot talk for 30 seconds. He’s an insane madman.

My God - defending his hire is absurd.

I can promise you I can do a better job hiring football coaches than anyone UConn has employed in the last 10 years. You’d have to be an absolute loser to not be able to.

 

[storrsroars]

Hell, let's blame Cody Endres while we're at it.

 

[RedSoloCup]

Betrayed? A stretch. Let down... yeah. I had never really had expectations of leadership after watching the debacle the last few years.

And I recognize, as noted by several posters on this board, that they have drastically under-invested in the program. I can't sway the steady habits and waste that is CT government, I am not a big donor, just a fan. I have just watched with some hope that not all the flowery speeches were hot air.

Well, that hope is gone, and with it my donations to the university. I will still head down to the tailgates, and still enjoy the day and the time. Raise one for the guys on the field who came to play. I just know that there is a much higher probability that we will see the end of that opportunity in the next few years.

The steady habits of CT, hotbed of mediocrity.

 

[huskeynut]

I have stayed out of this one so far. I understand to fan reaction to a degree. But some reality is missing in the rage.

If you want to lay blame at the feet of people, here's were you start:
1. Jeff Hathaway as AD. For those of you who don't remember, Hathaway did not have a good relationship with may of the coaches including Edsel, Calhoun and Geno. Hathaway was one of the reasons Edsel bolted to Maryland. Hathaway had no vision for UConn and was stuck in the old Yankee Conference mold.
2. Edsel. Yes Randy has blame in this mess. He was the one who bolted to Maryland without even saying good bye to the team. Sorry - that's no class.
3. Hathaway hired Pasqualoni. He who was love and adored by the CT high school coaches. Remember, many of the high school coaches had a very strong dislike for Edsel.
4. Our beloved rock star - Warde Manual. Fired Pasqualoni (good) and hired Bobby Boy Diaco (disaster). Then left for the Ad's post at Michigan.
5. And let's not forget our "friends" from the OBE - Miami, BC, Pitt, Syracuse and yes ND. They had no problem saving themselves.
6. ESPN - I need not say any more.

Now, I'm not totally happy with the status of the football program. Would I like to see the program in a conference - yes. Whether it happens or not remains to be seen. But the football program has to take a very hard look at why they are in the position they are today.

And finally, I still donate to UConn despite moving to Florida 3 years ago. Many of you may not agree with me and I'm fine with that.

 

[LoyalFanCT]

Journalist Jeff Jacobs, has this little gem about Tom Ritter, UConn's bumbling interim board chair. "Before he adjourned the meeting, Ritter said, “Somewhere, Dave Gavitt (the late architect of the Big East) and John Toner (the late AD who got UConn into the conference) are misty-eyed and exchanging high-fives right now.” I am glad Ritter has such intimate knowledge of the hereafter. I suspect Toner would be horrified with the outlook for football, as a former UConn football coach and NCAA president.

 

[Redding Husky]

The program was on borrowed time the moment Louisville was announced to the ACC. Everyone here with half a clue knew it might ultimately be the death of UConn sports when relegated to the G5. (Non-BCS back then).

We were so naive. We thought having great academics and a very successful athletic program would get us into the P5. But the world is Machiavellian. Louisville took the dirty road to the P5 and it worked.

 

[BlueDogs]

So basically you agree with my posted and you just wanted to quote me. Cool.

Umm.. you is not such a good reader

 

[polycom]

Umm.. you is not such a good reader

Sure.

 

[TRest]

We were so naive. We thought having great academics and a very successful athletic program would get us into the P5. But the world is Machiavellian. Louisville took the dirty road to the P5 and it worked.

That was the model for the ACC until it wasn't.

And I disagree that UConn hasn't invested in football, our facilities have to be as good or better than anyone's in the AAC. We only got cheap when we had to poopcan Bobby and throw on a mediocre bandaid.

 

[BlueDogs]

Sure.

That went over your head. Lighten up and enjoy your Catholic after-school basketball league. It should be a real blast from the past, minus Syracuse, Pitt, BC, Rutgers, West Virginia, Miami, Louisville, Va Tech, ... you know...the big boy schools that managed to look forward.

 

[outlaw]

the true betrayal belongs to The Civil ConFLiCT. RIP </3

 

[uconnric]

Huge overreaction to this move. You'd think we just turned down an ACC invite, which, thanks to our friends at BC, may never come. Our membership in the AAC wasn't working for football and was not working for basketball, notwithstanding the increased travel costs for non-revenue sports. The AAC is basically a southern league and we were outliers in it.

I'm not going to moan about the loss of Tulsa, Tulane, East Carolina, SMU. Yes I'll miss directional Florida(s), Houston, Cinci, but it won't be that difficult to make a football schedule at least as attractive to the casual college football fan as we had in the AAC, if not a lot better. The casual fan was not being drawn to the AAC schedule for either football or basketball. The bowl tie-ins were not that great either. The Big East (yes it's not the Big East of old) will at least improve our brand overall.

This was a move that had to be made. The athletic department was hamstrung in the AAC. It was originally a move made by necessity, not by choice. And it wasn't working.

No, I don't feel betrayed at all. I'll still support UConn athletics. If some of you want to quit, that's your decision.

 

[zmart]

Question.
If UConn were to drop to the FCS level, could the new soccer stadium be expanded to 15,000 seats.

 

[kemba]

The guy won the Broyles award as the games top assistant at ND, but yet you knew he was going to # 2 the bed. You can’t make this level of Monday morning quarterbacking up.

You should start your retained search firm for coaches.

Everyone who gets hired to be a head coach has something on paper that makes them a good candidate. AD's job is to find out the rest, such as, is this guy a crazy person. They failed and dug us into this hole.

 

[uconnell]

Why now! Couldn’t UConn wait till they got a permanent Chair to the BOT and the new President had been sworn in? Why? Who takes responsibility if this fails when all who approved are no longer here? Such a shock to the fans. Almost as secretive as the “Manhattan Project”. After all this I hope UConn comes out of this better than they went into it,

 

[BlueDogs]

Question.
If UConn were to drop to the FCS level, could the new soccer stadium be expanded to 15,000 seats.

Irony .. the new soccer stadium...

 

[BlueDogs]

Why now! Couldn’t UConn wait till they got a permanent Chair to the BOT and the new President had been sworn in? Why? Who takes responsibility if this fails when all who approved are no longer here? Such a shock to the fans. Almost as secretive as the “Manhattan Project”. After all this I hope UConn comes out of this better than they went into it,

Because if it went through a normal process, the public would come to realize going backwards is not going forward. We shrink from doing big things constantly.