It's really an issue that is perpetuated by the media and especially by idiotic sports talk shows and callers - it's the issue that the masses don't see this as anything more than an NFL-style arrangement of football teams. Not only that, but the baseline for judging football teams is "what was your record last year" because people in general have the attention span of 8-week old puppies.
When the SEC expands, when the B1G expands - they look at it as 50+ year investments. They look for peer institutions. Yes, football is a big deal but this isn't a football league realignment, as much as Joe Blow football fan wants it to be. It's about aligning your university with like-minded universities who match your school's profile. It includes (or should) a look at the entire university - academic profile, ability to grow and utilize endowment and research, type of school, willingness to work and cooperate with conference mates, overall athletic department profile, diversity of geography and demographics and overall "brand" name.
To say that the University of Texas looks at Houston as a peer institution is laughable. Everybody knows what taking Houston means. It's keeping the 4th Texas seat warm for when UT bolts. If UT wants Houston so bad, they need to tie themselves down to the Big 12 for 20 more years in a new GOR. Do you think Texas' aims are to be stuck with Houston for several decades? Everybody know what taking Memphis means. It means getting FedEx involvement until the teams that can bolt, do. UConn is one of the few choices that represents a legitimate peer institution addition and a national brand that can be grown quickly into a fully-functioning Big 12 member in all areas, not just football. But it seems most in these parts are scared of UConn because the plane ride will take like 60 minutes longer than it does to get to West Virginia and you all don't (in our minds anyways) appreciate stuffing your faces with BBQ and Whataburger. The desire here is seemingly to want to replicate the SEC's regional football strength but that is simply not possible...so what we will end up with potentially is the SWC Mark II. Because what the Big 12 is doing right now is working so darn well, let's just keep doing that.
I can only hope that Bowlsby and Company have the foresight to think outside this little regional box and grow the conference. And even if he does want that, this collection of school presidents has to have the political savvy to sell an expansion that includes the likes of UConn to the masses here who only know you all had a mediocre football record in a G5 conference last year and are not the good, middle America folk who eat, sleep and breathe football.
Northeastern has a few segments that look sort of traditional, but it's also a much smaller campus than we have, and if you walk down Bay State Road, and further down the area adjacent to the Charles, BU looks far more traditional than the Comm Ave portion.
