As a UConn fan that grew up in the state (didn't attend) but lives in MA, I think I fully understand where UConn, BC and UMass fall in New England Fandom. What bothers me is how the rest of the nation perceives New England.
If you are a Greater Boston Catholic and/or alumni of BC, you are a fan. After that, there are no BC fans.
As far as UMass, I see more UConn Bumper stickers an apparal in Boston on a daily basis. UMass barely registers.
Once again, BuffaloLion has our back. The following post was made by him yesterday after some posters speculated as UMass being the 16th team to the big ten and possibly UMass' upsidebeing as large as ours?!?!
I just hope he is as close an insider as they get, because I love when he says "we".
Uconn would be in the Big Ten today if they were an AAU school. I quoted yesterday Delany's statement that he wanted to own the New York City Metro "lock, stock, and barrel".
Rutgers was the first piece to the puzzle. They are an AAU school, and have the closest proximity to New York City. The state of New Jersey is EXTREMELY fertile recruiting grounds for football, basketball, and wrestling. Rutgers also, as strange as it may seem, also makes the Philadelphia media market more valuable to advertizers in that MUCH of the Philadelphia media market is in New Jersey. Rutgers is New York City's football school in that it gets higher ratings than anyone else. The combination of Rutgers and Penn State though still doesn't give Delany everything he wants. He also wants Basketball.
UConn would be the second piece to Delany's New York City's puzzle. UConn has the highest television basketball ratings of any New York City area school including St Johns BY FAR. And it's football program, if given the right funding, could be a sleeping giant.
The feeling is, with Rentschler Field being so centralized to all of New England, that it could carry all of New England for the Big Ten. Portland Maine is about the same distance to Rentschler Field in East Hartford as Philadelphia is to Beaver Stadium at Penn State. Boston is closer to Storrs than Harrisburg is to State College. Geographically, more of Massachusetts is closer to UConn's campus than it is to BC's campus. Unlike Boston College, there is next to NO in-state competition for rooting loyalties with the very minute exception of Yale.
You ask about UMass. One of the things the Big Ten loves about UConn is the incredible support they get from their state Government and state representitives in their efforts to obtain AAU status. I'll put a link below illustrating some of the support they have been getting. On the other hand, UMass has to literally BEG for money.
Whereas UConn's campus and buildings are well maintained, and their research efforts STRONGLY supported, UMass has a campus that scrapes for every dime to keep its buildings from falling down. UMass is looked at by it's own state's residents as a "fall back" institution, and that's how it is treated by the state.
The brightest in-state kids from Massachusetts apply to the Big Ten schools and Ivy League schools, willing to pay more money, because they think they will get a better education there. They apply to UMass as a fall back option in case they don't get accepted anywhere else.
UConn has had a 70% increase of students from Massachusetts in the last decade whereas UMass has seen a MINUS 5.5% dropoff of Connecticut students enrolling at UMass. The UMass administration realized a few years ago that not having a Division One football team was killing them. The elite in-state students that wanted good academics, but were also sports fans (meaning they wanted an Ivy League quality education that included big time college sports) were gravitating to the Big Ten schools and UConn.
In short, UMass has fallen galaxies behind UConn in both academics and athletics. The Big Ten looks at UConn as a sleeping giant that has VERY FEW negatives. One of course is that even though they are far above UMass academically, they are still not officially an AAU school. But we ARE VERY impressed with their efforts in trying to obtain that status.
As promised, here is a statement by their governor stating his support, both verbally and financially, to UConn's impressive state endorsed research efforts.
