The sports like Lacrosse and Hockey could simply be played with your regional conferences and schools, which is actually a good thing to stay connected to the New England schools without having to share a conference in all sports with them. Sure if you want to place your teams into multiple inferior conferences save for Hockey East. Well, it is a legitimate option that would allow yo to be in a regional league. Might be the best option.
As far as the divisional layout I think regional divisions the most sense. As an OSU fan I could see why playing UT, OU, and the rest of the Texas Schools every season would be appealing. You get to play both marquee teams each season while spending loads of time recruiting in Texas. What would UCONN get? Regular visits to the recruiting hot beads of Kansas, Iowa, WV, and Cincy D'Oh? A home slate built around these teams? Good luck selling that in the Northeast. In reality with a 9 game conference schedule you are still going to play 9 of the 11. The North teams will play in Texas just about as much as the South teams. That is one benefit of 12 teams. Once you go to 14 or 16 suddenly you don't play the other division all that much.
These Zipper divisions that the B1G tried, completely failed. How so? If not for the inclusion of 2 additional Eastern Teams and a desire for more, they would have likely remained in place. East/West in the B1G will be brutal with PSU, OSU, UM and MSU all in one division. It is not unlike the unbalance the Big 12 faced a few years back. Hopefully some schools out west step up to balance things out a bit more. There were complaints with the legends and leders division, that is why it is changing. Yes the East is good but that is already causing problems with Nebraska fans. They literally are not getting the big time games they used to. REally down to Wisconsin at this point. They have a series with OU in a few years, that will help. I guess in your best interest you would be added with a Westrn team so the divisions would be the same.
The ACC is still trying to make it work. Pretty dumb when schools like FSU and GaTEch only play once every few years If they truly wanted to play each other every year the divisions could likely be reworked to accommodate it(They are changing things already to keep FSU and Clemson happy). I agree that nearby teams should play, but a North/South split in The ACC might get ugly.What prime recruiting grounds does the B1G West division have? whoops. I think the B1G West might be the only power conference division without a school in a prime recruiting area. congrats. Your proposed Big 12 North is worse. IF the Big 12 added UConn and Cinci at the least you would be in a division with a school from Ohio, Cincy? Laffin. They might as well be in another country. The pecking order in Ohio is as follows: OSU, ND/UM, Flavor of the month National School, the rest of The B1G, Kentucky, Louisville, WVU, a little bit of OU under Stoops, then Cincy. The Big 12 would start pulling recruits out of Ohio if we were playing 4-5 games per year in the state. I have no doubt Cinci would still ahve trouble but other schools with comparable facitities and programs could easily start pulling kids. Heck schools like baylor are pretty popular with the under 18 crowd. Cool uniforms mean more than old accomplishments like Nebraska sells. 18 year old kids are way different than us. Now you add closer schools like ISU, and both Kansas Schools to the mix? How does that help UCONN Recruit? Playing legitimate programs versus low budget wannabies like Tulsane, Tulsa, or Memphis. IF that is not worth anything to you it should be. Why not just continue recruiting places closer to home like NJ, or places where there are hordes of good players like Florida? not to mention playing at least 1 if not 2 games per year in Texas. I won't even bother running down the recruiting competition in Texas. So recruiting Texas is too tough? Come on man, look at the last heisman winners from Texas, all the pro QB's from the state. You gotta go compete for these kids. IF a little bible school like Baylor can do it, so can UConn.
That beats the heck out of being stuck playing in Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Says you. IMO Memorial Stadium, Kinnick, and Camp Randall are all awesome college football environments that traveling UCONN Fans would enjoy. TCF in Minny is a cool stadium, with Minneapolis being a fun city. Illinois Memorial is a bit of a meh for me, but they all can't be home runs.
Those are all terrible recruiting areas, plus you only play at tOSU and PSU every 5 years or so. Talk about lack of recruiting. What you state makes ZERO sense. UCONN will not be in the West. They would either be in an 8 team East, or a 4 Team Pod with PSU, RU, and UMD. Either set up would be very good for travel and recruiting purposes for UCONN. True. You will only play, likely 2 West teams per year. Take you 4 yeras to play everybody and get a home game every 8 years or so. I pointed this out becasue of how unbalanced the recruiting is, very similar to what someone pointed out about the old/proposed Big 12 North division.
There are major cultural differences with the B1G as well. Do you think people in Nebraska and Iowa are similar top those in Jersey and Connecticut? Not necessarily, but I do believe that The University of Connecticut has a HELL of a lot more in common with every shool in the B1G except NW, as opposed to only a handful in The Big 12. OK then answer one question, what are the similarities with Iowa (you used this as a example but that isa B1G state as well), and Nebraska?
What do people in CT have in common with Texans, Oklahomans, and yes Iowans? My guess is that you would be most like UT, academic types who have a wide background of folks. Also somewhat like KU. At the end of the day most conferences have a wide variety of schools, nothing wrong with that. B1G and ACC are no different. Academically Louisville is nothing like most of the ACC.
At least in the B1G they would have PSU, RU and UMD.Do you think you would be looked down upon by the B1G members because of AAU status? I can't answer that because I'm not an academic at UCONN, but it's not like other schools' fans are going to start chants about UCONN not being in the AAU. Wanna bet? Already had happened to Nebraska, they are the new red heaeaded step child of the conference. Much like Louisville will be in the ACC.
Do you think B1G members feel the same way now that Michigan and tOSU are in the same division? For me I think PSU and UNL should be on one side with UM and OSU on the other. IMO there are too many major programs in one division. However Delaney wants PSU, OSU and UM playing at RU and UMD a lot. UCONN would be no different. I agree, it is still unbalanced.
I now the Nebraska fans are not thrilled. They went from having one of the best rivalries in the country with OU Stop right there. The UNL/OU rivalry died a long time ago when OU placed more value on their rivalry with UT. No, still played every other year, new series in 2017. IT wasn't like they stopped playing until Nebraska left. and to some degree Texas, UNL/UT was the product of two name schools suddenly being in the same conference. There was little rivalry before, and outside of bowl games or other NCAA Events there likely won't be much going forward. You have no idea how much people in Nebraska hate Texas. They were so jealous when OU and UT started dominting the conference they just could not stand it and took thier ball and left. They got used to competing for NC's every year, DR Tom left, and things went downhill. At the same time Mack Brown and Bob Stoops started winning nearly every game with the Huskers. People in Nebraska respect OU, they hate Texas, much like people in Oklahoma dislike Texans. .
now they play Iowa and Wisconsin as their biggest rivals, who they have little history with. Well no kidding since UNL has been in the B1G for 3 years and was in the Big 8/12 for 100. Fans dont' care about those much...YET Many Nebraska fans already want out of the B1G. Define many. Every fan base has subsets of fans who see things differently, or want to go back to the way things were back in their day. We have fans who cry about joining the ACC or more comical going independent.
I don't disagree that the B1G is a good fit. As is the ACC. But lets not pretend that these are all regional games. Traveling to Miami, FSU, Clemson, GA Tech, UNC, etc.. is a long way. Traveling to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska is a long way as well. For most games you are looking at a bus ride, flight, and bus ride to get there. The only real difference is how long your flight is. Agreed, however it becomes an issue of what schools do you want to associate with?
The B1G is already watered down from a FB perspective. I disagree. Adding Maryland and Rutgers only made it worse. Now yes, but B1G Membership $ could jump start both programs. Getting in a conference that has roots in parts of the country that are growing is important. Without ties to CA, TX, FL, GA , etc... recruiting can be much more difficult. It hasn't helped the also ran programs in the Big 12, who have had to rely heavily on JUCOs to have any success at all. How many big time Texas Prospects are heading to Ames, Manhattan, Morgantown, and Lawrence on a year to year basis? WVU already has a good class going next year. One of the reasons ther are so many JUCOs is the # of JC schools in Kansas and Iowa, they produce a ton of kids for the major conferences. Coaches send them there if they can't qualify, pick them up later. These are the same challenges that UConn will face as high school football is not the same as it is in Texoma/SE/California, it's just not. Basketball is not the same down here as it is in the NE either. So it can be good and bad.
Ask Nebraska how they like recruiting the rust belt. Nebraska recruits nationally. What has hurt them is the shutdown of their state wide scholarship program and their inability to take partial qualifiers. +1. I live in Nebraska and keep up with them to some degree. They did lose some good exposure in Texas and honestly it's strange, they will schedule a cupcake like Wyoming or South Dakota instead of going to play in prime areas. They love home games so like last year they did not play a NC game on the road.
It's obvious where the top FB talent is, and it's not the NE. If UConn want to be successful in FB being in a conference with Southern ties would help more than anything.
