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Message: [QUOTE="Dooley, post: 1228135, member: 2920"] Are you by any chance Greg Flugaur (Twitter handle)? I only ask because of the Gopher similarities between your handle here and Flugaur's Twitter profile. Regardless, I agree completely with what you said. UCONN's top 4 criteria to improving their CR profile are: 1. academics/research - push towards AAU acceptance (or, at least, falling well within range of majority of AAU institutions); 2. improving football - UCONN will never be an Alabama, Ohio St, or USC level football program, but it can be (and has been) a very competitive football program in a BCS/P5 model; 3. DMA/TV reach - Hartford/New Haven is #30 but UCONN also has presence in NYC DMA and is covered, albeit not as fervently as in CT, in Boston; 4. men's basketball - top 3-5 elite hoops program in the country...really only have to stay "scandal free" during our CR quest. I think that UCONN leadership knows that academics/research are #1 and most important for B1G membership, hence the push to secure an additional $1.5B from our state to accelerate expanding our research profile. Some of the new construction funded by that $1.5B is nearly done and we've already seen it pay off with [URL='http://the-boneyard.com/threads/uconn-designated-as-federal-health-care-study-center.72575/']prestigious designations[/URL]. I completely agree with your point about sports - sports are cyclical; some years are "up" years and some are "down" years. I have no doubt that our football program will improve back to respectability soon...at least, restoring the program to where it was before Paul Pasqualoni was hired by our former AD. But the push towards AAU is of most importance to UCONN. Once our research profile fits in well with other B1G schools, I think UCONN fits in very well in the B1G. We're a large, public flagship northern-based school that puts equal emphasis on academics within our athletic department while remaining competitive in all/most sports in most athletic years. Anyway, I do think UCONN is putting on a full-court press for B1G membership. I have no idea who our partner would be but until one is identified, it is clear that UCONN's leadership is doing everything possible to address the 4 criteria listed above. [/QUOTE]

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