I’m not sure what it will take to make him realize that what he’s trying to do isn’t working.
Every time we turn around, we have some new, dubious milestone - first time losing to a Connecticut school in 30 years, first losing record in 30 years, first opening game loss on campus, worst loss in 40 years...
We can’t get a shooter on campus, we can’t put together a competent front court, a couple of his best recruits never made it and a trio of the ones who did bailed out.
He’s being paid an absolute fortune, attendance has fallen off the table, the athletic subsidy is growing because our former cash cow program is waning....and Conference realignment is looming, probably for the very last time, in about three to five years and we are absolutely destined for permanent out status right now.
If you’re not ten steps beyond worried, you’re not paying enough attention.
Yeah I mean this all pretty loaded, for one. Because other things are at stake.
I guess my worldview of this whole period of athletics is/was this:
We had a chance to really run a draw play, and put together a competitive football program and simultaneously keep the basketball program at an elite level - but the window to do it and the margin for error was really small. It was made smaller by realignment and it's been shrinking even more (and more rapidly) with every misstep.
Edsall left. Then the Big East blew apart. Then Calhoun stepped down. Then probation. Then Pasqualini. Then Diaco. With the exception of a spirited '13 and the great run in the '14 tournament, Ollie's been almost a total bust. And it's just been more steps back since then. And more money spent for progressively worse results. And now you have this whole other element of the state budget crisis starting to bubble up and I dunno - it's a perfect storm of awful, really.
We had a chance to have both football and hoops and I just think that realistically, that window slammed shut pretty quickly and we didn't make it through the opening in time. Simple reality is that we're not at a point financially, from a recruiting standpoint, marketing standpoint, prestige standpoint where you can have both at a high level.
And that's not even getting into your standard-issue, sheer endurance test you're asking fans to take part in and expecting them to be OK with. You're asking fans to sit around and watch Villanova, Marquette, Butler, Creighton and even freaking Providence and Seton Hall doing *perfectly fine* in the new Big East and in other cases - seeing Xavier up their profile as well.... all of whom avoided football entirely - and they're fine, they've maintained, gotten better academically AND athletically.
And meanwhile they look at their pocket schedule and here's UConn playing none of those guys, but rather East Carolina with marketing behind it that says 'yeah we know we shouldn't be playing these bums, we're better than them anyway and don't worry, just show up and play pretend with us for a few years and we'll be on to facing the REAL teams in a few years. Once the football team figures its face out." It's legitimately counter-intuitive marketing.
And then I look at the long view for football and I dunno what we're really even chasing. I mean since the last round of realignment, the Big XII is already looking like that's going to fall apart. Which means the Pac-12, B1G, ACC and SEC pack in more schools - and then they may even consider kicking out social loafers. And that just leads to this endless cycle of stupidity. I love that TV $$ too but at what point do people just sit back and ask themselves whether chasing that is worth literally blowing every other thing up about your athletic department - especially the hoops program - which has quite literally been the rocket fuel to help the University boost its profile.
There's a TV rights bubble brewing. The conference realignment stuff is going to continue to be a mess. I don't know why, how or where we'd fit or whether it's even a real, legit fix long term. Now you've got the feds getting involved in hoops recruiting, and it's only a matter of time before they're involved in football recruiting, too. Football in general might be headed to a real bubble with the way it's youth participation rates are trending...
I'm sitting here looking at this really awesome basketball program (s) we've had over the years that's been really helpful to boosting the profile of the university and serving as a deep source of civic pride in a state where nothing seems to be going well anymore and saying to myself 'gee, this is really nice, I appreciate it and want to see it do well, let's just go to the new big east and see where things go.'
Instead - *because we are chasing football* - we are in a conference with opponents that no one has interest in seeing us play. With no real geographic bump... I mean honestly I'd rather see us play St John's 15 times a year than I'd want to see us play Memphis once. Because there's history there, a common, shared history. There's less interest in the hoops program not just because the team is getting worse - but because the opponents aren't interesting.
I think the scenario that no one wanted to have happen - having to choose between football and hoops - is going to be a decision they're going to have to make. And if it's me - i'm for saving hoops all day over anything with the football program. I dunno where i'm even going with all this, but I'm just cooked on this stuff. They're outta time. They've gotta make a decision. What sucks is the progressive incompetence of Ollie is helping to close that window, so a first part of that bigger decision is figuring out what to do with him.
