The irony is, Swofford may have actually told Herbst/Warde that we would be picked up and to keep quiet. This is purely speculative, but this is what we know:
1) Aresco is friends with Swofford, and Aresco is on record as saying Swofford told him that the ACC would only take one school (as opposed to three that some in the media were speculating).
2) During the teleconference announcing Tulane's addition to the Big East (which happened just prior to the ACC picking Louisville), Aresco and Tulane President Scott Cowen (UConn Alumn), avoided at all costs mentioning UConn and touted Louisville. Scott Cowen, even stopped short of saying Connecticut and instead said "I even played football at ...(er) a big east school." It may be that Swofford told Aresco that UConn was "penned in".
3) Jurich touting that UConn was "not penciled in, but penned in". It may be Jurich, building up Jurich, but I'm sure he has his sources and went to work accordingly.
So, it's reasonable to assume that Swofford told Herbst/Manuel that we were a lock and to sit tight and keep quiet. Last time, we were vilified for being too vociferous, this time we were vilified for keeping quiet.
What happened, happened. All of us are disappointed, and some of us are furious, but you know what, we've got to move on and keep our head's up and go to games, spread the word, win games, build on our fan base, and hopefully, our day will come. It will come - damn it!