It still feels like a combination of personal animosity and ignorance. That Cal was invited to the ACC and not UConn is irrational in the extreme. I understand the elite academic profile for Cal-Stanford, but other than Golf and Tennis, they don't add anything athletically at this point and the travel burden is extreme. It's not like UConn would downgrade the ACC academically.
The ACC basically lied to themselves as to how much gravitas Stanford and Cal had as brands, then behaved as if the completed a coup. SMU was basically a decent profile adding a considerable market and very fertile recruiting territory at no cost.
All anybody cares about is football. And we are stuck in purgatory until we've burned off all the stink of Diaco and Edsall.
They've been lying to themselves for a decade now. It was the height of stupidity not to add Rutgers and UConn long ago. Might not have lost Maryland had they not been brain dead. It's the best conference fit for UConn, but it's been badly managed.
This is a hard decision to fathom. It would be really nice to hear how the ACC presidents came to this decision when they invited SMU, Cal, and Stanford over Uconn.
UConn hasn't gotten an invite because they haven't been serious about football until recently.
True, but also with the caveat that if UConn had money available from a power conference, it would be able to invest a lot of money in football. We're being judged as if we don't have one hand tied behind our backs.
Added carriage fees for the ACC Network in large, new ACC markets (TX and CA)?
That's two coaches ago. I think a good bit of that stank has burned off. We will see how Candle does. His rebuilding of the program, both coaching staff and players, in a very short window was impressive. How good they will be awaits to be seen.
I feel like you are trolling here, buddy, but you're not wrong. They could have.
You do realize that the university has been subsidizing the AD to the level of 25-50m annually, right? Very similar to other universities. Lets say UConn gets into a P* conference at a 50% media share initially and concurrently needs to increase FB expenditures to compete at a higher level. Let's say the media rights bring in another 15m over what they get from the BE. They'll spend 10-15m more for FB until they get to over the 50% mark. From there it's likely net positive to be able to reduce the university subsidy a bit. Whether people believe the university should subsidize the AD is up for debate but across the nation, most flagship university presidents believe there is a net positive effect to subsidize athletics due to the impact it has on student applications, student profile, research grants, donations, the local economy, and civic and legislative pride, etc. Think about a UConn without big time/D1 athletics. It'd be UConn of 1980. Not many would sign up for that given where the university is situated in so many aspects currently.
Not trolling at all. Just fed up with the injustice. You really believe UCF, Cinci, BC. Pitt, Cuse, Rutgers, Minnesota, are better than UConn? The powers that be keep shifting everything on UConn. First football was no good, the fiesta bowl appearance was just luck. Then football is good, but oh, you don't play anyone good, that's why you win. Same for basketball now. Two seed? You guys don't deserve that. You didn't play a tough schedule like power schools do! Why are we forced to play UConn at Gampel in the women's tournament? Even though we stink, we shouldn't be in the same bracket as UConn. This was the women's basketball coach of Syracuse's complaint. No one responded by telling her to lobby to get UConn in the ACC and they won't be in the same bracket at tournament time.
Yeah, I actually have never heard that narrative at all and it's not consistent with my recollection of what happened. As I've said before, I don't think ESPN is keeping us out so much as they have zero incentive to get us in. Those are two different things.
100% this. My recollection is that ESPN was not on board with adding SMU and Calford, but they were contractually obligated to pro rata the ACC for this expansion.
"A lifeline for its floundering football program" unfortunately is the narrative that UConn needs to overcome. Hopefully we've made some progress in the year and a half since this article was published, with more to come.
My guess?There may be one more round of conference realignment where the P2 pick up one or two high value properties. After that, I think future conference alignment may be consolidation rather than expansion. Just a guess.
Is that a year and a half year old article?
