As opposed to the fantasy that somehow football can be maintained as an independent at The FBS Level while playing basketball in The Big East? Its becoming overbearing for programs like BYU and ND who try this. How the Hell is UCONN going to do it? Unless that's the plan all along. Hmm.
It's not likely to succeed and it's not optimal. But, it might be feasible. Scheduling is the big problem, access to bowls is another. Independence is feasible for Notre Dame because they have such a large fanbase; a major conference desires to schedule with them and provide bowl access. If UConn's fanbase and market were large enough to bring in enough money for both UConn and its scheduling partners, UConn could make a similar attempt.
Remember, the hurdle UConn has to jump over isn't as big as Notre Dame's. The arrangement only has to profitable enough to enable scheduling with major conferences, and deliver to UConn more than the $2 mn per year the AAC provides.
UConn's fanbase probably isn't quite big enough to get it done at this time. With building, it might get there. Of course, when that occurred, then conferences would invite UConn in, as many have invited Notre Dame in.
In contrast to nelsonmuntz's view of UConn football failure, this is a vision of football success by an unconventional route. It relies on UConn capturing enough support from the 35 million people in New England and New York that UConn can deliver fans, exposure, and money to its P5 scheduling partners.
The reason to do something like this could be as simple as P5 leagues needing an even number of teams, and there being no suitable partner.
P.S. -- Many commenters have acknowledged that one attractive feature of UConn to an expanding conference is the lack of legal or financial hurdles in the form of exit fees, GoR, and long notice periods. Well, if UConn were a free agent and controlled its media rights, the hurdles would be even lower than with the AAC.
P.P.S. -- If UConn controlled its own rights, a plausible course would be to create its own network (The Husky Network) for local revenue and sell games a la carte nationally, much as the B1G is planning. This would demonstrate UConn's revenue generating ability to conferences with (or seeking) networks. It would have a better chance of working than the Longhorn Network because it would have nearly all of UConn's content, not just Tier 3, and the northeast is wealthier than Texas.
If UConn could get P5 scheduling, say by throwing in an extra $1 mn payment per home-and-home scheduling agreement (for a payout of $6 mn per year), then a Husky Network might plausible generate $2 per cable home in Connecticut (for annual revenue of $2*1.3 million homes*12 = $32 million per year) plus $0.20 per cable home in southern New England and greater NYC, or ($0.20*7 million homes*12 = $17 million per year), plus probably $10 million in national TV sales (UConn men's and women's basketball each get $1-2 million per game for nationally televised made-for-TV matchups, and do typically 2-3 such games per year each; add in football games). That's $59 million per year, less the cost of running a network (say $30 mn per year) and buying football home-and-homes ($6 mn per year), leaving a profit that is competitive with ACC and B12 revenues.
