That’s what happens when you make decisions based on an irrelevant sport. In the world of conference realignment having good basketball is like serving good ice cream with an apple pie. It’s a nice addition but not the thing people care about.
Not so much. It was a desperation defensive move by the big 12. If the SEC had rated the two best schools out of the ACC, UConn likely would have gotten the offer. We are a bad geographic fit for the big 12.
Sad situation for sure. I guess the fans would rather be a big fish in a small pond. Shortsightedness is certainly financially crippling and relegates the school to secondary status.
Big Lew turned out to be wrong. He said we needed football or else we'd be left behind. We got left behind anyway.
Lew was right. Your logic is faulty. Is the equivalent of saying that you don’t need a college degree in order to become a doctor because you have a college degree and you’re not a doctor.
I disagree. Had we upgraded earlier and established ourselves, I suspect we would not have been overlooked in the ACC expansion. No way of knowing of course, but he understood that it was football, not basketball that would be the driver and he was correct on that score. Whether the decision to upgrade would have saved us had it been made earlier, nobody can know.
Agreed, no politics. Thank you for the reply.
In all honesty, I don’t think so. In the 10 years prior to the last ACC expansion Connecticut had gone to five bowls and won two Big East championships. That is a remarkable record for a team that had only just stepped up to D1 play. Don’t get me wrong though, we need to win a lot of games before the next expansion opportunity comes around.
Nah. We weren’t good enough. We should have hired Mike Leach. We’d be in.
Good had nothing to do with it.
We would have been in but we hired Paul Pasqualoni. It was a terrible move. We needed to show at least as much commitment as UL did. They had Petrino. We didn’t.
Who knows? Course, finding someone the quality of Petrino is easier said than done.
There's like 10-15 schools that create substantial value, everyone else is along for the ride. There are also other factors that come in like market size, demographics, airports and geographic compatibility. Ultimately, UConn has a brand name with 3 revenue sports that can generate ratings (most schools have one or two). We also have a rising hockey program that can help fill spots on the Big Ten Network and a good baseball program that would fill spots on the ACC Network. Aside from all that, we have a fanbase that will watch and pay for UConn content.
Kansas has the edge in that they are already in a P5 Conference. The demise of the Big 12 has been exaggerated in my opinion. The new schools will only get better. The fear that I have is that football playing schools that are in G5 Conferences will improve as well and leapfrog UConn in the rotation for P5 invite, like Cinci and UCF did.
We got leapfrogged because we sucked. I truly believe we are about to head in the right direction and then accelerate quickly.
The problem the schools in the New Big 12 will face is that they will have more losses than they had this past year. It's really simple math. If you take the conference records of the New Big 12 teams from 2021, it was 56-40 (I didn't include BYU), so that means New Big 12 schools (excluding BYU) will have 8 more conference losses. Look at Cincinnati. People were skeptical of their record because they played a weak schedule as their Sagarin opponent ranking was 71. The highest Sagarin ranked schedule for Big 12 schools was 30 and the average was 15. I think Cincinnati will have a tough time duplicating their success going forward.
You mean we didn't get left behind? Honestly, no one told me. What happened to UConn is explained in the first 2 minutes of this clip.
You can stop right there. You are arguing something that was never going to happen at that time. The only reason it happened at all was because of the Pats deal/no deal.
I'm not sure I understand this argument at all. Yes, if teams play each other, someone has to lose? Three of those teams were in the same conference last year and it applied. Both lost to Cincinnati. Are you arguing that Cincinnati likely won't finish 13-0? That's pretty obvious, as they'd never done it in their history before.
The new teams going to the Big 12 had great records last year and so did some of the remaining Big 12 schools. Mathematically some of those teams would have had more losses if they all were in the same conference. Will Cincy be looked at as a top football school and attract fans and recruits if they start having 9-4, 8-5, or 7-6 years? And Cincy is a geographic outlier in the Big 12 and over time I think it will be an issue.
Harder to succeed, but bringing home a much larger pay check win or lose.
Yeah I mean I understand your point I just don't think that matters. Those conferences that play 9 conference games obviously will have more losses than playing one more cupcake. I think fans would rather watch Oklahoma State than Tulane and Tulsa.
Will they get 30 million though? I thought the AAC teams were taking half shares.
Ending up as an indy in FB after 20 years means we didn't get left behind? Of course we got left behind.