Winning either the NC St (or Louisville) game is/was still an important marker, but something tells me that AD Benedict is a heck of a lot more Machiavellian in the way he’s approaching the BigXII kabuki dance than Warde Manuel ever was with the ACC.
A few thoughts and some rehashing.
While Warde Manuel’s untimely piña colada trip was a PR disaster, it made no difference in the ACC’s choice in 2012. He could have been vacationing in Mars or on Swofford’s front door in boot licking stance, the ACC was still going to add Louisville.
A lot of people, including the crooked self-important slime himself, thought Tom Jurich was somehow a genius for getting the ACC invite. I can’t help laughing just thinking about it. This was 2012, not 1932 when Vanderbilt tried to get into the SEC. Pretty much all that is known about UConn and Louisville was readily available to Swofford and the ACC presidents. Florida St. and Clemson forced the ACC’s hands to not add another northeastern school. All Jurich had to do was let the ACC know they were interested and provide some lame presentation where they made believe that Louisville would improve their academics, so that the North Carolina and Virginia schools would be able to vote in favor without holding their noses too much, and maintain their infantile grudge against UConn. If anything, they voted for Louisville’s inclusion in spite of Jurich, figuring he would be fired soon enough anyway.
I still maintain that UConn was the better choice by far, and that Louisville’s selection was short-sighted, at best. Even so, Dave Benedict, as AD, would not have been able to get UConn in the ACC at that time.
Moving forward to today, I believe that Benedict is better for UConn in getting a Big 12 invite. He has enthusiastically indicated to the powers that be in the Big 12 of their interest. Unlike 2012, when UConn was well within the footprint of the ACC, that is not the case now for the Big 12. But in the current climate where conferences are becoming more super regional or national, Benedict made the case that having a New England and New York market is valuable, a point that Yormark seems to share.
But Benedict is not overdoing it. There is nothing more for him to sell. Unfortunately, an invite may still depend on circumstances that hinge on what happens with the PAC media deal and its aftermath. So “Rule #1” may still rear its ugly head. But there is at least interest with the Big 12, since I don’t see Yormark wasting his time meeting with UConn representatives if there was no interest.
If it does come down to a 50/50 situation where UConn may be invited to the Big 12, Benedict is more likely to push them over the top than Manuel could.
