I've never seen a team more overmatched. At any level. Ever. | Page 3 | The Boneyard

I've never seen a team more overmatched. At any level. Ever.

billybud said:
It's easy to blame BC because of the comments made....but BC didn't really have any pull....but FSU, Clemson, GT, Miami, and VT in concert, did. Particularly so when there was a threat of some football scholls breaking away.
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Reread my post, are think you confusing #1 with #3. For #3 I fully agree it was FSU power play that put Louisville in place of UConn.
 
huskyinfl said:
Why does everyone forget herbsts brother is vp of Broadcasting and global marketing strategy for Nascar. Literally has an expert in the family.
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Not so sure Susie's relationships truly matter nor help at this point for UConn athletics, but you're almost correct. However, I think the NASCAR SVP for broadcasting and production, Steve Herbst, is her brother. Not Brian Herbst, a NASCAR VP of global media strategy and distribution who directly reports to Steve Herbst. Coincidences, or perhaps nepotism may not matter so much in NASCAR land as it does to CT's Ethic Commission appointees with underpaid assistant coaches. ;)
 
whaler11 said:
Oh the only sports organization that has fallen as far and quickly as UConn football.

Is this a Butch burner?
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People learn from failure. It's actually how business is taught now.
 
whaler11 said:
Well I’m pretty sure UConn and NASCAR are Magna Cum Laude then.
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NASCAR has been completely mismanaged. Granted I got into the game later than most (early 2000s), but they gone too far away from their core audience and geographic centers and changing their rules/playoffs every few years doesn't help either.

At one point I believe NASCAR was the fastest growing game in town, but they alienated the core fans that had supported them before they super popular and once the luster wore off for the "new fans" and some bad decisions were made, they haven't been able to get the original fans fully back.

Sound familiar?
 
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CTFIRERETIRED said:
...NEVER going to build a stadium in Connecticut, and all of this Kabuki theater over the negotiations was nothing more than leveraging the State of MA. to get what he wanted in Foxboro.
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Except Kraft never ended getting what he wanted in Foxboro. They bailed because Rowland blew it. And lost the Whalers, too.
 
ZooCougar said:
I give Herbst a bunch of credit for forcing Hathaway out.
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I would have rather had Jeff around than Warde when Louisville to the ACC happened, or SU/Pitt as well instead of Pendergast.
 
noeynox said:
I would have rather had Jeff around than Warde when Louisville to the ACC happened, or SU/Pitt as well instead of Pendergast.
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Why? Jeff was so impotent. He literally was the most useless AD ever. He didn’t raise any money, didn’t get anything done. He was an incompetent caretaker.
 
ZooCougar said:
Why? Jeff was so impotent. He literally was the most useless AD ever. He didn’t raise any money, didn’t get anything done. He was an incompetent caretaker.
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In my mind at least, he was part of the BCS AD good old boy net work. Pendergast was lost, and Warde too green when those things went down.
 
noeynox said:
I would have rather had Jeff around than Warde when Louisville to the ACC happened, or SU/Pitt as well instead of Pendergast.
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Jeff should have spent 7 years planning and positioning UConn for the next round of conference realignment after the first ACC raid. He did nothing. He is still the most responsible party, by a wide margin, for our current conference predicament.
 
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noeynox said:
In my mind at least, he was part of the BCS AD good old boy net work. Pendergast was lost, and Warde too green when those things went down.
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He might have been their bitch boy.
 
ZooCougar said:
He might have been their bitch boy.
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If he had any idea about realignment, he likely would have informed the administration. The fact that they hired a non-connected fundraising guy as the interim AD is proof that he hadn’t told them anything.
 
UConn tried the hardest to keep the Big East together. Everyone involved for the last 20 years has been lost.
 
Excalibur said:
Jeff should have spent 7 years planning and positioning UConn for the next round of conference realignment after the first ACC raid. He did nothing. He is still the most responsible party, by a wide margin, for our current conference predicament.
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Position us how? We were winning in bball and football. I get he sucked at fund raising. I just dont see how Warde or Benedict have performed even at his level of competence.
 
whaler11 said:
UConn tried the hardest to keep the Big East together. Everyone involved for the last 20 years has been lost.
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This is what I believe happened. In that regard Jeff was following orders of the hierarchy.
 
CL82 said:
Sigh, let's look at UConn's shots at expansion one at a time:

1. For the Cuse and Pitt addition to the ACC the prime factor was ESPN's desire to destabilize the Old Big East and shore up a then shaky ACC. The original targets were Syracuse and UConn. BC was on the expansion committee and, effectively, black balled UConn because the (BC) wanted to be the only New England team in the ACC. That's documented. Defilippo bragged about it to Blauds while he was at the Boston Globe. It should be noted that Pitt was a plaintiff in the Big East suit with UConn.

2. For the Rutgers addition to the Big 10, RU was simply a better choice. It gave them entry to the NYC DMA (which would have as well) but NJ 9M people are more than CT's 3M. Add to that that RU was AAU and contiguous with PA and it becomes a clear choice.
We know that there are no lawsuit bad feelings here because, no one in the B1G was sued.

3. For the Louisville to the ACC, it is well documented that FSU resented the extent of Tobacco Road's sway in conference. The last addition was, in its view, basketball centered and it made it clear that the failure to go with a strong football school would make FSU consider leaving the conference. Clemson and our old friends BC backed this play. The rest of the conference prudently went along. Now here I feel like Warde and Herbst had a puncher's chance to change minds but they would have had to flown back to the States and worked their butts off. Would it have worked? Unlikely, but possible. Here, Herbst's relationships may have cost her but not in the way some people think. She relied on a Duke connection, who gave her the Tobacco Road view that UConn would be in. It end up being wrong because FSU's power play wasn't expected.

4. The Big 12 expansion probably failed with with the BYU homosexual policy scandal (d0n't ask, don't hold hands.) They were the big football school in that expansion. Once they became tainted, expansion was less attractive. That said under the Big 12 contract they could have added 2-4 schools and were guaranteed a media boost. (Methinks ESPN quietly reminded them of what happened to the Big East when they crossed ESPN. I say that tongue in cheek... sort of.)​

None of those needed Herbst's lack of social skills or people being butt hurt about the lawsuit for UConn to be eliminated.
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Absolutely correct. Now add in the fact of what drove Randy out of town- the fact that JH micromanaged him and DID NOT help him with working with admissions to get recruits into the school that were academically not at par with the rest of the university. PP and I had a conversation about that one night and he rattled off a list of kids that wound up at Temple because UCONN admissions would not let them in. Look at the rise of Temple and our decline. This policy, set forth from SH, is the single most damning policy that affected our teams. Most great "football" universities allow certain recruits academic admission without the GPA and scores of the rest of the student body. It is incumbent upon the program and school to keep them academically eligible. Notre Dame has been the case and point for this for years- and was the main factor in their decline- (look up their record before Kelly came in).

Football is the sport most affected by the admissions requirements. SH wanted to turn UCONN into Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, etc. With enough money from the state, she almost pulled it off. The flip side was the decline of major sports in athletics. This also coincided with APR issues that occurred with the men's basketball program and the cocktail of conference realignment along with changed admission standards for the school and athletics programs put us into the tail spin we are trying to recover from.
 
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noeynox said:
This is what I believe happened. In that regard Jeff was following orders of the hierarchy.
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It’s been written about forever. UConn was the one who worked the hardest to hold the league together.
 
From a Florida State and Football perspective, choosing Louisville was simple. YUM Center (spending $100s of millions o Taxpayers money and bonding) + PapaJohn's infrastructure easily cries that this school would do ANYTHING to gain admission to their elite conference. Jurich was the best salesman going; however, I do not think you have to look at the Offering Memorandum. Pure instinct tells you that Louisville will build more seats, Brand more, hire whatever coach was needed, pay players, fund any bowl ... whatever. Not only would UConn not compete at that level; we do not even know how.

Reviewing Herbst and Manuel's roles? We had too much against us.
 
whaler11 said:
It’s been written about forever. UConn was the one who worked the hardest to hold the league together.
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I get it, but it was an organizational thing. I can't lay that at the feet of Hathaway.
 
noeynox said:
Position us how? We were winning in bball and football. I get he sucked at fund raising. I just dont see how Warde or Benedict have performed even at his level of competence.
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SEE Tom Jurich. That's how "some" of the ACC expect the game to be played. If you say UConn would never ... then you have answered the question as to why Pitt or Louisville might edge ahead of us. In the 2003 - 2010 timeframe? Did Rutgers raise their seat levels to nearly 50,000? (*Yes) Did Louisville? (*Yes) with flourish.
 
Pudge said:
SEE Tom Jurich. That's how "some" of the ACC expect the game to be played. If you say UConn would never ... then you have answered the question as to why Pitt or Louisville might edge ahead of us. In the 2003 - 2010 timeframe? Did Rutgers raise their seat levels to nearly 50,000? (*Yes) Did Louisville? (*Yes) with flourish.
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Eh, we were fine in that front. The rent was less than a decade old, we were drawing good crowds etc.

Pendergast and Warde added nothing. Literally zero value to add.
 
noeynox said:
Eh, we were fine in that front. The rent was less than a decade old, we were drawing good crowds etc.

Pendergast and Warde added nothing. Literally zero value to add.
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I am a big believer in "watching the moves of your peers and competitors". When Louisville AND Rutgers were polishing their sub-standard stadiums situations (which was soon after Rentschler was spanking new) and we were filling the stadium, an astute AD (and we were winning and growing that brand incredibly 2003-2009) would have found the sponsors and the CT big money and immediately built 10,000 more seats and Luxe'd up Rent.

If you are thinking ... huh ... that is where the Papa John's is today; and when I first went there, Dillon Stadium was a close facsimile.
 
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Pudge said:
I am a big believer in "watching the moves of your peers and competitors". When Louisville AND Rutgers were polishing their sub-standard stadiums situations (which was soon after Rentschler was spanking new) and we were filling the stadium, an astute AD (and we were winning and growing that brand incredibly 2003-2009) would have found the sponsors and the CT big money and immediately built 10,000 more seats and Luxe'd up Rent.

If you are thinking ... huh ... that is where the Papa John's is today; and when I first went there, Dillon Stadium was a close facsimile.
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While i agree with your overall point, it would have been impossible to expand at that point in CT politically. Attendance was trending in the wrong direction, constituents weren't happy with how much money was poured into that initially. Should have just built it at 50k.
 
noeynox said:
Maybe the real problem was firing him with no clear plan of succession. To replace him with an interim and then a MAC conference "RockStar" was poor execution. Should have targeted someone with connections and panache.
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I know right? He was totally over his head here. That's why when he left UConn he had to go to such a huge step down in program. Pshhht...Michigan. Do they even have sports teams?
 
Let's all not forget one very important element to Louisville - they are a big-time scam and lied, cheated, and bribed their way to the ACC. But that's how business gets done and they got it done. We were too busy making sure we had perfect APR scores and looking like choir boys/girls that we forgot that the FSUs, Clemsons, UNCs, etc don't give a rat's patoot about ethics or morality. They care about money and only money and UL delivered the case to make more money - legally and illegally - when we didn't.
 
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