Poll: Yes or No on the move to the Big East

[uconnbill]

What do the UConn football fans think?

 

[DefCONNOne]

How much you wanna bet the bball-only honks show up en-masse to skew the results of this poll?

 

[Adios]

Our fans can't bear the growing pains, so they cry and abandon the most likely path to success.

 

[SubInATub]

Our fans can't bear the growing pains, so they cry and abandon the most likely path to success.

I don't think rehiring Edsall is a growing pain...

 

[EdgewoodNHV]

I need an "I don't know" option and I bet it'd be a popular one.

 

[UConnDan97]

I need an "I don't know" option and I bet it'd be a popular one.

Agreed. There is so little info that we currently have on what will happen to the football team in terms of conference / scheduling and tv access that I'm not sure anyone should feel confident they are voting for the right button yet...

 

[CL82]

I need an "I don't know" option and I bet it'd be a popular one.

Until we see what this means for scheduling, there is no way to tell.

 

[Adios]

I don't think rehiring Edsall is a growing pain...

Going through bad coaches is part of growing. Look at Temple. They win games now. So hard to see, right?

Oh, look! People who disparage the football program vote "yes".

 

[BugsyCT]

Moving hoops to the Big East is good for basketball. Not that the opponents are currently much stronger than the AAC (except Villanova in recent years), but it will help attendance playing local rivals again, so the UConn hoops brand should get an overall boost no question.

Was it the right move long term as a whole? I don't know. They basically pulled the trigger on this to save their hoops brand at the expense of the football program, which drives the bus financially in the rest of the college sports world. And they did it with no plan in place at all for where the football program lands. What they invested in 20 years ago that was supposed to give us leverage in staying competitive, they are basically throwing in the towel on.

I don't buy into the narrative that CT is "a basketball state, not a football state." Keep hearing that a lot. People love to watch the NFL here - Giants, Pats, other popular non-local teams. They like high school football. And when UConn had a good thing going during Edsall 1.0, they filled the Rent. UConn went to bowl games. They put players in the NFL. It's when CR hit and everything went bad that everyone bailed. So I don't buy into that we're only about basketball. We've proven we're not. So I'm not giving up on UConn football, even if they're relegated to this purgatory. Screw the doubters.

 

[RSTuthill]

I need an "I don't know" option and I bet it'd be a popular one.

How about an I don't care at this point option?

 

[mikeinmanila]

It's 2000 all over again. Maybe lightening strikes twice in 2024/25...if not, streaming may make the whole conference affiliation thing less important as OOC games get more intriguing and fans can focus more and more on their team vs a conference per se (especially for the vast majority of schools that aren't perennial contenders for a conference or national championship). Overall, this was the best possible option for UConn at this time.

 

[Sky ball]

What happens to the Civil Conflict? Who gets the missing trophy?

 

[justgoplay]

Is it possible the UCONN administration got wind that some combo of UCF, USF, Houston, or Cincinnati was getting a P5 invite out of the AAC? I know a steady diet of Eastern Carolina, Tulsa, and Tulane basketball games blows chunks, but this all seems pretty drastic for your over all athletic program.....It would be great for your basketball to have home and homes with Nova, Georgetown, St.Johns's, Providence, etc....but, unless the AAC is getting blown up I don't see how it makes financial sense.

 

[HuskyBandDad]

Is it possible the UCONN administration got wind that some combo of UCF, USF, Houston, or Cincinnati was getting a P5 invite out of the AAC? I know a steady diet of Eastern Carolina, Tulsa, and Tulane basketball games blows chunks, but this all seems pretty drastic for your over all athletic program.....It would be great for your basketball to have home and homes with Nova, Georgetown, St.Johns's, Providence, etc....but, unless the AAC is getting blown up I don't see how it makes financial sense.

Just my opinion with no facts. None of the teams you mentioned are getting a P5 invite any time soon.
I don't think anything happens with CR until new TV contracts.

 

[UofCT]

How much you wanna bet the bball-only honks show up en-masse to skew the results of this poll?

Got me

 

[Padutch5]

Is it possible the UCONN administration got wind that some combo of UCF, USF, Houston, or Cincinnati was getting a P5 invite out of the AAC? I know a steady diet of Eastern Carolina, Tulsa, and Tulane basketball games blows chunks, but this all seems pretty drastic for your over all athletic program.....It would be great for your basketball to have home and homes with Nova, Georgetown, St.Johns's, Providence, etc....but, unless the AAC is getting blown up I don't see how it makes financial sense.

Some random thoughts:

I am not sure it had any bearing on the decision, but I think the AAC is living on borrowed time. It’s a disjointed amalgamation of very distant, far flung schools. Each of the top five leagues has a geographic center with some outliers added. Where is the center of the AAC?

I wish all of the people on the Boneyard decrying this decision had attended football games at the rent the last couple of years. We would have had a much fuller stadium. I was lonely.

I’m not sure the fat lady has sung yet. In some ways, this looks like an “in your face challenge to ESPN” for the stupid decision on putting basketball behind the paywall in the new AAC contract. I hope ESPN did not pay a bonus yet to the genius who came up with that idea. Will ESPN have some kind of a counter proposal?

Maybe we can again get Blumenthal to file some law suits to get UCONN into a real 5 league. It worked well the last time.

Unless scientists can come up with something to prevent head injuries, football in Ct. is a dying sport. Look at youth level football in your local towns. Towns are forming coop teams to survive. The same is happening in our high schools. At least we can use the Rent for Lacrosse and soccer.

 

[ZooCougar]

I need a “I don’t know, but I will make my peace with it as long as the football program doesn’t die.”

 

[storrsroars]

As I live in Pittsburgh, my choice would be, "Sure, keep big-time football. None of my taxes are paying for it!"

My answer might be very different if I still lived in CT.

 

[huskyblooz]

"If they are playing at EO Smith, I will be there rooting on my Huskies!"
~ Huskyblooz

 

[champs99and04]

Unless scientists can come up with something to prevent head injuries, football in Ct. is a dying sport. Look at youth level football in your local towns. Towns are forming coop teams to survive. The same is happening in our high schools. At least we can use the Rent for Lacrosse and soccer.

Surprised it took this long for somebody to mention this because I think it's a subtly important part of outlook. Football isn't going away anytime soon and it'd be a huge leap to paint UConn's current leaders as visionaries for getting out from under it now, long after so much has been invested with little to show for it. There's no escaping the disaster here.

But it's also not your traditional sunk cost because it gives them a head start in re-shaping a post-football world that many of their peer institutions - even if they don't know it now - will eventually join. They now own the unique opportunity - as a state school embedded with resources their conference mates lack - to mobilize their basketball program and their brand in a way that can't be replicated in the shadow of football.

I don't know what the timetable looks like and I don't think anyone does. I do believe, however, that as it relates to football, the cultural divide - between north/south, liberal/conservative, urban/rural - will become more pronounced as the moment of truth grows closer. In that sense, UConn could conceivably stumble into the role of social pioneer; the school that knew to get out before anyone else.

It will be complete nonsense, of course. But then again so are most of the reasons they're not already in a P5 conference.

 

[UConnNick]

How much you wanna bet the bball-only honks show up en-masse to skew the results of this poll?

I say we allow multiple votes. I vote NO! x 1,000,000. Now it's 99.99% no.

 

[storrsroars]

But it's also not your traditional sunk cost because it gives them a head start in re-shaping a post-football world that many of their peer institutions - even if they don't know it now - will eventually join. They now own the unique opportunity - as a state school embedded with resources their conference mates lack - to mobilize their basketball program and their brand in a way that can't be replicated in the shadow of football.

It can't just be about basketball as the future though. Should also be looking at potential of esports (I don't get it, but people 40 years younger than I certainly do), lacrosse and other sports that are gaining appeal among current and future prospective students.

 

[champs99and04]

It can't just be about basketball as the future though. Should also be looking at potential of esports (I don't get it, but people 40 years younger than I certainly do), lacrosse and other sports that are gaining appeal among current and future prospective students.

I'd peg hockey as the sport most likely to emerge next, but that has its own concussion problem to deal with.

Lacrosse definitely has some appeal, though I think it will be a while before it gains much traction as a spectator sport. If Hockey East can continue to expand their deal with NESN and eventually get to the point where all their games are televised, that could tap into a serious revenue stream. Unfortunately the approach to growing the league has lacked the urgency and creativity I might have liked.

Soccer has a lot of upside as well. (I don't know if I'm 40 years younger than you, but I'd bet against esports as a serious money-maker - the world hasn't changed that much, at least I hope)

 

[HuskyDogArt]

How much you wanna bet the bball-only honks show up en-masse to skew the results of this poll?

Typical shortsighted baloney that Connecticut is known for.

 

[HuskyDogArt]

How about an I don't care at this point option?

UConn in the Big East is like a Yacht in a pond...out of place...