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Message: [QUOTE="Drew, post: 4922711, member: 3723"] How has Houston, Cincinnati, James Madison, Tulane, UTSA, etc etc etc competed in football without being in a big conference? Don’t just give me “well geography!” - they are paying coaches at the top top end of the G5 and have made an administrative commitment to being good in football. Tulane was a dead program until Dannen and Fritz arrived and massively upped the commitment to the program, including building a brand new OCS and significantly increasing the amount of funds allocated to the program for everything from the on-field staff, behind the scenes resources, recruiting budget, and everything in between. UConn has NEVER committed institutionally to supporting the football program at a high level. And that statement INCLUDES our time in the Big East. The only exception to that [I]maybe[/I] is Burton‘s contributions for the practice facility and locker room but guess what, everyone and their mother has an IPF and nice locker room these days. These are table stakes to even be able to play the game. We have completely failed at developing a reliable and noteworthy donor base to support the program on top of the funds received from the state and media contracts. You can’t just rely on your TV deal to fund the program- any serious program in 2024 has multiple sources income coming from high-end donors to fund everything from NIL to facility increases, salaries, etc. From the moment the shovel went into the ground in East Hartford, this program was DoA because of the lack of vision and understanding of what was happening in college athletics. Being in the Big East certainly masked a lot of the lack of institutional understanding of and commitment to football, but the last 11 years have shone a light on just how badly managed the program is. Everything that we have won and accomplished in FBS from the sell out crowds to the Fiesta Bowl to the Myrtle Beach and Gasparilla Bowls have been done in spite of terrible football leadership, not because of it. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach