That Warde and Herbst are sitting in Storrs like deer frozen in the headlights, one step behind reacting to what s happening. Nothing...zero...leadership or vision has been exhibited or communciated.
I have zero faith in the land of misfit toys in Storrs. Our wannabes have been taken to school by experienced bigs boys playing for keeps. Neither have the experience to handle this situation and it is showing.
I am not sure Herbst is like a deer but I imagine Aresco and the conference is. Imagine what they are facing - the BE turning back into a basketball conference only - what Marionette seemed to secretly desire all along. Aresco's jaw must have dropped into his clam chowder when he learned that not only is Snooki leaving too but that in the name of survival Boise et al are looking for a life boat back out west.
This conference is done for in football.
I don't know if anyone in charge of the school could have done anything differently. UConn's conference destiny has been out of their control from the start, as soon as it joined the BE. How could today's circumstances for UConn been any different than the path they have arrived on? I suppose UConn under Hogan/Austin could have demanded that the BE institute departure terms that made it untenable for anyone to leave but would members have gone for that? Everyone in this conference is full of such self-loathing that they couldn't wait to get out of here - UConn included.
The best thing UConn can do is put a good football team on the field. If UConn had been consistently better in football we might have been in another conference today. I have had no problems with UConn being passed over like Charlie in the Box and the squirt gun that shoots jelly on the island of misfit toys you allude to. The BE configured with Snooki, Cincy, Louisville and the guys out west was fine with me. But NOW, UConn, if not invited to the ACC, is looking at either no conference affiliation or a certain move to a MAC-level conference. Either C-USA or MAC.
When you stand back from all of this the question is what would Lew Perkins had done differently that would have put the school in a different position than it finds itself in now? If UConn had great football it might have been able to go it alone like ND for a few years and still get bowl invites. But UConn football isn't nearly great. So it makes the best of a crummy situation it has little control over.
Back to my original point. The university it seems to me was limited in its choices. The LEAGUE, on the other hand, has phuked things up royally all the way down the line in the name of preserving those great rivalries between ridiculous, marginalized non-entities Providence and Villanova.