Some people here like to bash the Big East, but let's face it, that conference is still real nice. The Big East Tournament looked great on TV, their deal with Fox is incredible (I know, ratings are still growing, but they get those weekend fox national games and the station will continue to grow). As importantly, Fox actually treats the Big East as if it is a top notch product. They put 60% of their teams in the dance this year with good seedings. Their conference RPI is very respectable, again. Basically, the Big East has 10 teams with solid fan bases that actually care about basketball and some geographical continuity that makes for solid rivalries. We could join as team 11, they could move to a 20 games round robin schedule, I think that would be great.
Park football in the MAC. Why not? It's not like the AAC football is bringing us any positive momentum that is going to propel us to a P5 conference. It's actually the opposite. Our overall brand is being crushed by being the AAC.
If we go to the Big East we will still be treated with the respect of a major power basketball conference team, and we have just as much chance to make bowl games consistently out of the MAC as we do the AAC. We can hold our heads high as we compete at the highest level in hoops while our football team tries to regain some success out of the MAC.
Our current situation is just a disaster for the UConn "brand." We are affiliating with schools that we have nothing in common with, that have no respect in our flagship sport, have no geographical connection with, and quite frankly they are not the type of schools that are going to raise our overall profile. Schools like Providence, Villanova, Georgetown are very different types of institutions than UConn, but at least we can affiliate with them and have some pride that these are good schools that will help keep UConn's brand (as an academic institution) above water.
I am sure the typical Big East haters will jump down my throat here, but the time has come.
