If you could travel back in time and give one piece of advice to a UConn AD regarding Conference Realignment, when and what?

[nelsonmuntz]

UConn was Division I prior to 1978. I do not know why UConn went D1AA in 1978 when college football split.

Does anyone know the answer to this question?

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The first ACC expansion was in 2003. UConn had played 3 years of FBS football and had an FBS record of 11-23 and they were not on the ACC's radar. During the second ACC expansion, UConn had a shot. UConn never had a shot at getting a Big 10 invite.

There is no way in a million years Rutgers would be added now. There is no way Rutgers would have been added if the Big 10 waited even 5 years, because by then it would see that streaming was going to make all those New Jersey cable boxes a lot less prevalent.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The University of Connecticut (UConn) football program moved to NCAA Division I-AA (now known as the Football Championship Subdivision, or FCS) in 1978 as part of a larger realignment within college football initiated by the NCAA. Here’s why this change occurred:

1. NCAA Division Realignment (1978)​

• In 1978, the NCAA reorganized its divisions, splitting Division I football into two subdivisions:
  • Division I-A (now Football Bowl Subdivision, or FBS): Designed for programs with larger budgets, bigger stadiums, and more competitive programs.
  • Division I-AA (now FCS): Intended for programs with smaller budgets, fewer resources, and less emphasis on football revenue.
• UConn opted for Division I-AA because it better matched their financial resources, facilities, and program goals at the time.

2. Program Size and Resources​

• UConn's football program in the 1970s was not on the same scale as larger Division I-A programs in terms of attendance, revenue generation, or investment in facilities.
• Competing in Division I-AA allowed UConn to align with programs of similar stature and avoid the financial strain of competing against much larger and better-funded schools.

3. Focus on Basketball​

• UConn was already well-known for its basketball programs, particularly men’s and women’s basketball. Football was not the university’s primary athletic focus, and the move to Division I-AA allowed them to maintain a competitive football program without overextending resources.

4. Regional Competition​

• Competing in Division I-AA positioned UConn to play against regional rivals with comparable programs. This helped foster local interest and rivalries without the overwhelming challenge of competing against national powerhouses.

5. Long-Term Strategy​

• The move to Division I-AA allowed UConn to stabilize and grow its football program incrementally. This groundwork eventually set the stage for the university to upgrade its facilities and elevate the program to Division I-A (FBS) in 2000.

The decision to go Division I-AA in 1978 was a practical one, reflecting UConn’s resources and priorities at the time. Over the subsequent decades, UConn invested in its football program, culminating in its transition to Division I-A in 2000 and eventually competing at the highest level of college football.

4o

That is what ChatGPT said about it.

 

[UConnDan97]

Not playing Notre Dame in a game (when we had already beaten them at their house on national tv), getting beaten by Oklahoma by 28 (when we've seen so many worse losses by the "blue bloods of football), having the stadium on campus (when we drew over 35k while we were playing well in East Hartford), etc. These aren't the reasons.

You are all coming up with the wrong reasons why we aren't in the ACC. We aren't in the ACC for 2 major reasons:

1) We weren't better than BC in 2003 (we had just come up from 1-AA and they got in first to allow them to block us)

2) ESPN didn't try to help the state school where their main campus resides; the school that actually helped them become who they are (along with the Hartford Whalers) when they started off and needed content to air.

If you want to change history, then I suggest you start by changing one of those two things...

 

[Ha Who]

Not playing Notre Dame in a game (when we had already beaten them at their house on national tv), getting beaten by Oklahoma by 28 (when we've seen so many worse losses by the "blue bloods of football), having the stadium on campus (when we drew over 35k while we were playing well in East Hartford), etc. These aren't the reasons.

You are all coming up with the wrong reasons why we aren't in the ACC. We aren't in the ACC for 2 major reasons:

1) We weren't better than BC in 2003 (we had just come up from 1-AA and they got in first to allow them to block us)

2) ESPN didn't try to help the state school where their main campus resides; the school that actually helped them become who they are (along with the Hartford Whalers) when they started off and needed content to air.

If you want to change history, then I suggest you start by changing one of those two things...

History of ESPN for those new to the board. I remember watching Husky baseball games

History of ESPN - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[LBird33]

This whole discussion has been beaten down for years it seems to recycle itself every two years. Time to move forward and forget what did and didn’t happen, who’s at fault, what schools did to other schools, blah blah blah . We need to focus on today. Forget yesterday and regret they are twin thieves of your time and energy

 

[UConnDan97]

It's larger than 4 current schools in the ACC and equal to 3 others in the ACC. That puts us almost smack dab in the middle, and noticeably better than their current additions of SMU and Stanford. But enjoy your time rooting for BC...

 

[SU1968]

Since you guys are traveling in Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine, let me as a question. Were UConn fans happy and following the team when it was in the Yankee Conference? What would have happened to your athletic department if you had stayed there? Would the fans have continued to support it when all the football moves took place. I think your basketball program would still become the outstanding success it is, but what about football?

 

[CL82]

The first ACC expansion was in 2003. UConn had played 3 years of FBS football and had an FBS record of 11-23 and they were not on the ACC's radar. During the second ACC expansion, UConn had a shot. UConn never had a shot at getting a Big 10 invite.

I have no idea whether Connecticut was "on the ACC radar" or not for the 2004 departures. One would think so, given that we were the reigning national champs at the time of the move.

We do know that in 2011 Connecticut was the original target to move to the ACC with Syracuse until Boston College objected.

I don't think anyone has ever speculated that we were ever a serious candidate to move to the Big Ten although I have heard numerous fanbase talk that they would've preferred us to Rutgers. Rutgers was the better choice, though, it was physically located within the NYCDMA, New Jersey is wedged between two major cities, New York and Philadelphia, and it has significant population density with 9 million in total population. The Rutgers move was about cable boxes, and given that, Rutgers was the right choice.

 

[CL82]

Since you guys are traveling in Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine, let me as a question. Were UConn fans happy and following the team when it was in the Yankee Conference? What would have happened to your athletic department if you had stayed there? Would the fans have continued to support it when all the football moves took place. I think your basketball program would still become the outstanding success it is, but what about football?

Well, I can't speak for everybody, but I enjoyed the football rivalries in the Yankee conference. I'm not sure Connecticut's basketball dominance happens if we had stayed in a New England regional conference. In fact, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have. In all likelihood Jim Calhoun would've never come to Connecticut.

How about you guys? If you had one trip in the way back machine where you could only give one piece of advice to a past athletic Director, what would it have been?

 

[CTpessimist]

I think this discussion is missing 2 key things: 1) why are we telling our AD anything - he had one foot out the door to Michigan when Louisville took our spot. 2) I agree that the media and random perception has done no favors. VT lost to Stanford by the same that UConn lost to Oklahoma that year in its BCS bowl. No one ever talks about VT not being a real team who didn't deserve to be there. We were also within 2 possessions up until the 4th quarter and even had the ball on their side of the field before they blew the game open. Given how Edsall coached to keep games close, that game was never out of reach until the OK drive in the 4th quarter TD with 7+ minutes left. It just sucks that people latch onto the final score and the story they already had in their heads.

 

[ZooCougar]

It’s cute that you can come here and lecture us as if we don’t understand college football.

 

[Excalibur]

The first ACC expansion was in 2003. UConn had played 3 years of FBS football and had an FBS record of 11-23 and they were not on the ACC's radar. During the second ACC expansion, UConn had a shot. UConn never had a shot at getting a Big 10 invite.

The blackballing is taking DeFillipo at his word. Why would anyone do that? We should have been lobbying hard beginning in 2004 with anyone who would listen.

 

[CL82]

Really? Oh OK. Who do you root for then?

 

[UConnJim]

Does anyone know the answer to this question?

I think the answer was that back in the late 1960s, schools had to classify their football program as either "University Division" or "College Division" of Division 1 and UConn chose the College Division as that was appropriate at the time. When football split into Division 1 and Division 1AA in 1978, there were criteria for D1 which included having a stadium >30k, attendance of 17k, and scholarship levels. I believe many MAC schools did not meet the criteria, but they somehow got to go D1.

Here is something that may be of interest to people.

John Toner had a storied career at UConn including getting UConn into the Big East, hiring Calhoun and Geno, overseeing the building of Gampel, and coached UConn football to 2 Yankee Conference football titles.

What is most interesting is his career timeline:

UConn football head coach 1966 to 1970
UConn Athletic Director 1969 to 1987
NCAA Secretary-Treasurer 1981 to 1983
NCAA President 1983 to 1985

As you can see, while he was AD at UConn, he also served as NCAA Secretary-Treasurer and later as NCAA President.

Clearly, he was wired in to what was happening with college sports, but I'm not sure he had the power or ability to do anything about it and, honestly, UConn wasn't ready. UConn back in the 1970s and 80s was not the UConn we know today especially when it comes to fundraising and state support.

 

[ScottVib]

Does anyone know the answer to this question?

D1-AA was actually an upgrade for the Yankee conference (UNH, Maine, UMass, BU, UCONN & URI) schools, when they moved from D2 (formerly the NCAA College Division) to the 1-AA classification when it was created in 1978.

 

[NHUConnfan]

Making it easier for UConn to become an AAU university would have been one of the benefits of a better location. How many other major college flagships are located in the middle of nowhere? Ohio State, Michigan, Texas, UCLA, Cal, all in or near a big city. There are some remote main campuses, like Penn State, but the majority of premier public universities are in urban areas. Few are in areas so remote and isolated that the location is considered a joke within the state.

Through the 80's, all the Northeastern state schools suffered from the problem of being in a region flooded with private schools there were the alma maters of many of the people deciding how much money the state schools were going to get. For the first 100+ years of Europeans being in the Northeast, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell and Princeton were the colleges of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York City, upstate New York and New Jersey respectively. Other elite and kind-of-elite colleges grew up in the area, and by the time the state schools really started to become important after World War I, and really after World War II, UConn and the other Northeastern schools had to run a gauntlet of Ivy and Little Ivy and other private school graduates in their respective state houses, and their constituents, that did not feel like the state needed to invest in their own public universities. That didn't really change until the 90's. I went to UConn in the 90's, and while its reputation was improving rapidly, prior to UConn 2000 in 1995 or 1996, the campus looked like a place that no one cared about. UConn was not put out in some empty forest 15 miles from the nearest highway because anyone thought it was a good idea to put it there. UConn was put out in Storrs because no one cared where it went. The reality is that without the basketball programs exploding on the national scene in the early 1990's, UConn would not have gotten the funding to become the major university that it is today.

Ideas like "investing millions more into the football program in the 60's" sound fun, but the money was never there for that kind of investment. Arguing for investing in a New England state college football program in the 60's is like arguing for investing in unicorns and time travel. It would be fun if it was remotely possible. If you keep the dollars relatively even over the last 60 years, one of the few decisions that would have really made a difference for UConn, and the state of Connecticut, would have been to move the main campus to Hartford in the 90's.

So, Storrs is unbelievably small. But there are plenty of flagship universities where the city is defined by its flagship university, and not the other way around. This is one of those ideas that sounds good in theory, but I honestly don't think it moves the needle one bit.

 

[ZooCougar]

D1-AA was actually an upgrade for the Yankee conference (UNH, Maine, UMass, BU, UCONN & URI) schools, when they moved from D2 (formerly the NCAA College Division) to the 1-AA classification when it was created in 1978.

I’m not going to look it up, but wasn’t I-AA created because schools had to have all sports competing in the same division.

 

[UConnJim]

D1-AA was actually an upgrade for the Yankee conference (UNH, Maine, UMass, BU, UCONN & URI) schools, when they moved from D2 (formerly the NCAA College Division) to the 1-AA classification when it was created in 1978.

That is correct. In 1973, the Yankee Conference was designated Division 2 as were all of the College Division D1 football schools. When 1AA was formed, the Yankee Conference moved to 1AA.

 

[CL82]

And he moves on to trying to be insulting/provocative in the next stage of the life cycle of a troll. Up next: feigned victimhood.

 

[ZooCougar]

And he moves on to trying to be insulting/provocative in the next stage of the life cycle of a troll. Up next: feigned victimhood.

Time show this guy the door.