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Message: [QUOTE="champs99and04, post: 2988177, member: 488"] He doesn't come off as insecure to me. Overly optimistic, maybe, but not insecure. Insecure people abandoned the program a long time ago. If you want insecure, the basketball board is that way. ---> I'm not much of a UConn fan these days, but the article he mentioned simply confirms to me what we've known all along - UConn is a lot more similar to your typical P5 program than it is to the other schools in the AAC - big, passionate alumni base, prime real estate in a valuable market, and lofty academic/research ambitions. I do think there are a couple problems, of which he didn't mention, that might give you the impression that he's more optimistic than he is in reality: 1. To the extent that UConn football is valuable is contingent on a lot of variables that have nothing to do with football. It's a program that comes with a hard ceiling because of the obvious geography limitations. We could join the Big Ten, waive every conceivable academic standard for eligibility, and hire a hot new coach. None of it is going to make us Auburn. Maybe we can become Temple, or even something slightly better, but I think all of us would be more than fine with that at this point. 2. Branding has been a problem, and unless that changes with the next president, things will get worse before they get better. Despite all the bad luck that we've endured concerning conference realignment, I'm still firmly of the belief that better marketing and foresight would have gotten us a place at the table. Some of the steps that the school has taken to reach certain milestones have been counterintuitive to the growth and overall health of the fan base. The strength of the brand still seems to rest on people who graduated 20-30 years ago, and while it's not terribly unusual for a school to get caught in a generational divide, it's a pending change that figures to bite UConn harder than other schools given the restrictions in place. As more people retire and move out of the state, less younger people are sticking around to replace them. There's a significant lag effect - from CR and a whole host of other things - that will hide some of our more fatal problems for a while. I think we all know that. In the meantime, we must be willing to challenge institutions, like the NCAA, that have indirectly victimized our school and our fan base. Until we do that we are unknowingly planting the seeds for our own demise. [/QUOTE]

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