What I cannot understand is how the narrative continues to be that we are a second rate athletic department. We have the best overall basketball programs in the country when you look at both the men’s and women’s team. No one comes close. We continue to excel at a number of sports, and we do so without the benefit of power five money.
I think people really fail to understand the extent to which making the "non-traditional" move of leaving the AAC for a non-FBS conference was messaged as abandoning football. To many within the FBS media and whom cover the conferences that UConn would like to join, it was a clear sign that the athletic department didn't care. To them, you moved out of the FBS conference for a 1-AAA one.. you downgraded football, clearly you have sub-Sun Belt facilities, truth be damned.
If you dig in an do research, you'd see otherwise and that the move was absolutely the right one for the athletic department, ultimately increasing fan-engagement; while the university retained similar levels of revenues to continue to fund facilities, support staff, etc. However most columnists aren't going to take the time to do that without someone feeding them the information, plus even if they tried to be contrarian, they'd face the uphill battle of convincing their readers or face massive ridicule, it's much easier to go along with the narrative.