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Message: [QUOTE="MSSportsGuy, post: 2693918, member: 6485"] For what it's worth since I'm bored on a Thursday night (good grief I dislike the NBA playoffs) We all know football drives all of this and UConn is still very new to the football game. What strikes me about the AAC is that it's just a collection of random schools who have almost zero history together and whose geographic differences will make it challenging to create any sort of rivalries. UCF and USF are no doubt "peer" institutions but it's sort of a hodgepodge from there. I just don't see there ever being much excitement for ECU vs UConn in football, or men's or women's basketball no matter how competitive the teams may be. Conference musical chairs was done for money and that's about it. There was little regard given for geographic locations of schools and I recall thinking when I first learned that West Virginia was joining the Big 12 "hmm, wonder about their travel for sports other than football?". UConn would be a natural fit in what is now the ACC given that Syracuse, Pitt, BC are at least close in proximity, plus the rest of the conference at least has logical rationale to its membership with the exception of Louisville. Football and the corresponding TV deal is 99% of the reason things are the way they are with current conferences with academic reasons being 1% at best. College football may be the goose that lays the golden egg in the sense that while the growth has been exponential I wonder at what point it evens out. SEC football is truly a religion in the deep south and the games and entertainment aspect seems to get bigger each season. My personal opinion is to just stop pretending college football is anything but amateur and either pay the players or don't make them get an education if they don't want one and just let them focus on football. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach