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Message: [QUOTE="huskymedic, post: 5308959, member: 549"] Stewey just can’t help himself - same old, same old: [MEDIA=twitter]1942992668440883473[/MEDIA] ->[B] UConn is the only Big East program with an FBS football team. Although it has struggled in the past, UConn’s football program has been trending upward, finishing last year with a 9-4 record. The school stated it will offer $18-plus million of the $20.5 million cap limit this year and will max out next year. Even if it spends $5 million on men’s basketball and $2.5 million on women’s basketball (rumored as the high end among Big East schools), it could spend up to $9 million on football, which is three times what most G6 teams plan to spend. What do you think is the future of UConn football? — Thomas G.[/B] Give a lot of credit to Jim Mora for lifting up a program that looked dead in the water for a full decade, at a time when it was facing an existential crisis. UConn’s decision to rejoin the Big East in 2020 has obviously been a boon for the Huskies’ powerhouse basketball programs, but it’s left football homeless for the past five years. That didn’t stop Mora from arriving in 2022 and taking the Huskies to bowl games in two of his first three seasons, even beating ACC foe North Carolina in last year’s Fenway Bowl. But let’s also keep some perspective. UConn has gone from playing an AAC schedule, at a time when the league still had Cincinnati, Houston and UCF, to an independent slate in which the Huskies’ eight regular-season wins last year came against Merrimack, FAU, Buffalo, Temple, Rice, Georgia State, UAB and UMass. It is essentially playing a MAC/Conference USA-caliber schedule. Given the dollar figures Thomas mentioned, I don’t think UConn’s goal is to be a MAC/Conference USA program. It wants to return to the upper tier, like it did in the old BCS-qualifying Big East, when the Huskies reached the 2010 Fiesta Bowl. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has had his eye on UConn for some time. He’s a basketball guy from the Northeast. He wants those New York/New England TV sets, and he wants Dan Hurley and Geno Auriemma. The problem is that his members are primarily football-first schools, and UConn football has held zero appeal to this point. Perhaps that changes if Mora and the Huskies can turn themselves into consistent winners. I can’t imagine those hoops coaches would be keen on leaving the Big East again, but P4 football media revenue is a lot more lucrative than hoops-only. Or, wait and hope that the ACC implodes in 2030 thanks to its renegotiated Grant of Rights. <- [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach