How Many UConn Football Fans Feel Betrayed Today?

[Excalibur]

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.

That's kind of the point, though. If the goal was to try to parlay football success and our market into a potential p5 invite, you needed to be all in on that, and pour money into it. If we weren't willing to do that, we should have just followed the Catholic 7 in 2013.

 

[huskysupporter]

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.

Our coaching salaries have been putrid - non competitive. It’s an embarrassment how much out O Coordinator was paid.

 

[polycom]

That's kind of the point, though. If the goal was to try to parlay football success and our market into a potential p5 invite, you needed to be all in on that, and pour money into it. If we weren't willing to do that, we should have just followed the Catholic 7 in 2013.

Sure one could say that. But if we had a big booster or group of boosters who said let's take football seriously like basically every other school who takes football and really sports in general seriously, we wouldn't be where we are today. We live in a rich state that is disconnected from collegiate sports. Sure the women's team has a strong following but what do the dollars say because at the end of the day that is what matters.

 

[CL82]

2) this was evaluated by all of UConn’s decision makers and they all disagree with you.

Lol, you know Mike, that's not comforting in the least.

 

[GridironGR8]

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

I am not really familiar with the soccer facilities but looking at Google Maps it appears that if UConn were to relocate the practice soccer field it could build a slightly larger version of the grandstand side of Bob Ford Stadium at SUNY Albany. The Albany stands hold about 8500 and the stadium project (Phase One of at least two phases) cost $24 million six or seven years ago. Yeah it could be expanded but who is going to pay for it?

 

[Bonehead]

Yeah it could be expanded but who is going to pay for it?

Creighton.

 

[CTMike]

Lol, you know Mike, that's not comforting in the least.

Fair...

 

[EJHarrington]

You seem to be having a very hard time coming to grips with the facts that:

1) of all the factors that *may* lead to footballs eventual demise, this is like number 382.
2) this was evaluated by all of UConn’s decision makers and they all disagree with you.
3) the AAC was no panacea. Expecting UConn to subsidize payouts to absolute dregs and thank the conference for the privilege is no friend of ours.
4) it’s only conventional wisdom and people rooting for UConn’s failure that are calling this a death sentence. It makes a tough path harder, no doubt- I hope AD David Benedict has the fortitude here to make it work. But there’s also an opportunity to be a strong regional presence in the Northeast. That’s ok. No AAC team was ever being considered for the championship anyway, we were never playing for that, we didn’t lose anything there. Keep as much rights as you can, try to get games on SNY or another platform... build, win, try to make an occasional bowl when there aren’t enough teams to fill slots. It’s not perfect but it’s not death... at least, not yet.

I disagree that no AAC team was ever being considered for the championship. A few years ago if Houston ran the table they almost certainly would have made final four. Even if they didn't, playing a New Years' Six Bowl Game is a pretty massive consolation prize.

 

[huskymedic]

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

I am not really familiar with the soccer facilities but looking at Google Maps it appears that if UConn were to relocate the practice soccer field it could build a slightly larger version of the grandstand side of Bob Ford Stadium at SUNY Albany. The Albany stands hold about 8500 and the stadium project (Phase One of at least two phases) cost $24 million six or seven years ago. Yeah it could be expanded but who is going to pay for it?

Would be extremely tight as construction is already underway... 98 Million Dollars Athletic Upgrades On BOT Agenda

 

[uconnbill]

Still blame ESPN and Syracuse alumni for this crap show UConn is stuck in.

The Garden will be fun in March, but football playing 2-1s and teams like MTSU and others isn't thrilling.

 

[TJT]

The DEATH WARRANT for UConn FBS football was officially signed today.

 

[TRest]

Our coaching salaries have been putrid - non competitive. It’s an embarrassment how much out O Coordinator was paid.

Edsall got what the market would pay. I thought Lashlee was paid well, since he left we really got cheap. The horse was already out of the barn at that point.

 

[WrenchFan69]

The DEATH WARRANT for UConn FBS football was officially signed today.

Do you mean yesterday?

 

[CL82]

Betrayed? No.
A little depressed? You betcha.

 

[VAHuskyFan]

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.

You’re forgetting the part where he came back and went 2-20 against FBS teams, including presiding over the worst defense in the history of major college football.

I don’t think anyone would argue he inherited a bowl-caliber team, but we just put up our worst record since 1932 and got out-recruited by the likes of: Utah State, Appalachian State, Kent State, Georgia State, Northern Illinois, Portland State, UMass, Georgia Southern, and Coastal Carolina.

I don’t know how much better someone else could have done. But it’s not really possible to have done any worse. A winless season against FBS teams followed by a recruiting class ranked the same as Harvard’s probably forced a few hands here on the football side of things. And Randy shares in the responsibility for that.

 

[hardcorehusky]

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.

Within the first 60 seconds of talking to Diaco, you knew something was off. He was inept socially and didn't give a crap about what you were saying. Had anyone talked to him and interviewed him instead of going off the Broyle Award, he never would have been here. Even BC passed on him.

 

[businesslawyer]

You’re forgetting the part where he came back and went 2-20 against FBS teams, including presiding over the worst defense in the history of major college football.

I don’t think anyone would argue he inherited a bowl-caliber team, but we just put up our worst record since 1932 and got out-recruited by the likes of: Utah State, Appalachian State, Kent State, Georgia State, Northern Illinois, Portland State, UMass, Georgia Southern, and Coastal Carolina.

I don’t know how much better someone else could have done. But it’s not really possible to have done any worse. A winless season against FBS teams followed by a recruiting class ranked the same as Harvard’s probably forced a few hands here on the football side of things. And Randy shares in the responsibility for that.

You want to make the case that he didn't do a good enough job the last two years? That's fine. He didn't. Although I don't think a great coach was getting more than two additional wins a year with this group anyway, and those wins don't change a bloody thing about the conference issues.

So in a thread about betrayal, you want to mix up betrayal with not having done a good enough job. Got it. You just like complaining and casting dispersions.

 

[VAHuskyFan]

You want to make the case that he didn't do a good enough job the last two years? That's fine. He didn't. Although I don't think a great coach was getting more than two additional wins a year with this group anyway, and those wins don't change a bloody thing about the conference issues.

So in a thread about betrayal, you want to mix up betrayal with not having done a good enough job. Got it. You just like complaining and casting dispersions.

LOL, You’re the one “mixing up” betrayal, not me. I never said Edsall betrayed UConn.

The OP said Randy was “a role model in all this.” I simply suggested that he had a hand in “the decline of UConn football.”

I don’t think anyone betrayed UConn football. I think the school made a rational decision given the situation we faced financially and on the field. Randy played a role in getting us here. Full stop. You initially argued that Randy was not responsible for our football situation because it’s unfair to count leaving against him. Fine. I pointed out he was, you know, also our coach for the last two years.

You seem to agree those haven’t gone so well, so I think we’re in violent agreement here.

 

[DefCONNOne]

Two things- Jim Boeheim thinks we made the right move! and..... we can deep six the " ESPN will step up and help us because of the State tax breaks we gave them" line of wish full thinking. I am not happy as we should be able to dominate the AAC in men's hoops but we will see what happens. HCRE has an interesting task ahead of him.

Jim Boeheim's words and thoughts mean nothing. Less than nothing, in fact.

 

[bmayuc]

So you're a football fan?

Im a fan. I enjoy the sport of football. I had season tickets with my family as recently as 2017. I enjoyed our competence and tailgating experience when we were mediocre. I can live with a 6-6 team that blows out Rhody and gets blown out by Miami and West Virginia and splits the other games so that I can attend home games with my family.

I did not enjoy the experience of tremendous embarrassment and incompetence of the Pasqualoni and Diaco eras, which combined national embarrassment and brand deterioration while acting as a financial and reputational anchor tied to the legs of our other athletics programs, drowning them in failure. Specifically our nationally acclaimed and championship basketball programs, which from a marketing perspective built the University into what it is today.

However, circa 2012 dragging that anchor made sense. After all, if we got into ACC/B1G/B12 we would be set up for decades financially.

Once that ship sailed, the costs and risk just did not make sense any longer.

So, do I enjoy football? Yes. Am I a UConn football fan? Yes.

Do I believe it's worth the UConn basketball programs playing the violin on the deck of the Titanic out of some weirdly misplaced pride?

Uhhhh, no. Great decision.