There’s a lot of things that we did not take seriously and still do not take seriously. Our endowment was one of them. (We’re not sailing past them any time soon.) Our athletic facilities were another. Football was yet another.
We acted like we were Rhode Island or New Hampshire for way, way too long and it’s killed us.
Realignment was a contact sport and we never treated it like that - Cincy did, Houston did, UCF did, SMU did, BC did, Miami did, UL did, Rutgers did. Syracuse and Pitt didn’t, but they didn’t have to because they were good in 1950 and that somehow was enough.
A lot of really weird crap had to happen to put us in this spot, but we absolutely did not help ourselves in any fashion.