The View From Section 241 -- the NBE

[huskysupporter]

How long did it take Pasqualoni to get a job after UConn fired him? Apparently the NFL didn't share our opinion of him. Is it possible that it wasn't the coaches' fault?

This is one of the worst hot takes in the history of hot takes. Holy cow.

 

[ZooCougar]

Right. I guess Ollie was a terrible coach too, even though he is one of the fastest coaches to a championship in history. And Auriemma must suck at his job too because that program is struggling to recruit now.

How long did it take Pasqualoni to get a job after UConn fired him? Apparently the NFL didn't share our opinion of him. Is it possible that it wasn't the coaches' fault?

Especially since quite a few of us predicted years ago that all three programs would struggle in the AAC?

Pasqualoni is not a good head coach in college football anymore. He proved that at Syracuse in the end and UConn.

This is a silly argument that you have made.

Ollie won a flukey championship with Calhoun’s leavings.

 

[ZooCougar]

This is one of the worst hot takes in the history of hot takes. Holy cow.

IKR

 

[billybud]

This was a big decision...could be one of those 40 year decisions.

One can only hope that there was thought and planning and the decision was made with all information available. Not being on the inside, with the "what do we do with football question"..it has the appearance of "who knows, but screw it, we have to do something".

I think that most are supportive of the move...

 

[Buffett10]

The AAC was better than the NBE this past season in men's BB and is going to continue to get better. Without football, the NBE is about to begin a slow descent toward total irrelevancy. The fact that we've signed up to go along for that ride is mind numbingly stupid and short sighted.

We just committed football suicide, apparently to appease some dumber than dirt donors, who myopically care only about men's BB.

The NBE may be better than the AAC for travel, but most of the Olympic sports teams were only traveling to half the schools in the conference because the schedule was home and away every other year. If we have to travel to Omaha, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis and Cincinnati every year in all sports, it's almost a wash travel wise, except that some of those cities are closer than many in the AAC. If we were in the ACC the travel would be just as bad as the AAC and way worse that the NBE, but if they invited us tomorrow we'd be there in less time than it takes for the ink to dry on the contract. Why? Because of the money.

Speaking of money, the NBE doesn't pay any more, and very well could pay considerably less than what we were going to be making in the AAC, especially now that football bowl revenue sharing is gone, and the likelihood of getting big payday games on the road will be considerably more problematic as an Independent. This takes away most if not all the revenue generating potential that FBS football offers.

Football programs go through down cycles. It happens to the best of programs long term. We could have gotten out of this cycle, become competitive again, and started making bowl games, which improves recruiting, and then the winning begins to build on itself. We've done it before and could have done it again.

Why be an Independent now? We'll lose even more money than we have been, we'll be playing schedules that virtually guarantee less attendance, and for what? I think we're only going through the motions because neither this, or any other school administration, wants to go down in history as having cancelled a sport we've been playing since 1896, even longer than basketball. The politicians and taxpayers in CT would have a fit if they were to keep driving by Rentschler viewing it as a 90 million dollar white elephant.

Again we are victimized by small minded, short sighted, parochial, New England style thinking. Even if we never would have made it into a P5 league, we are voluntarily giving up any chance to join one for nostalgic only reasons. The NBE schools are mostly small Catholic institutions with small alumni bases and no national following. They've been routinely beaten in their TV ratings on Fox by women's BB games in the same time slots. Very few people nationally care about NBE basketball. Their level of opposition in men's and women's BB is a wash or worse compared to the AAC, and we are giving up the potential to make more money in a football conference to join a league which is about to go on a steady decline because it can't possibly keep up with P5 leagues that make several times more money. Also, the P5s may eventually split and form their own association for sports. If that happens, there's some chance that the AAC might go along with them as the best of the G5 leagues. The NBE will be relegated to a second tier, or lower level of competition if that happens. We're hitching our wagon to the wrong horse.

You claim that P5s might eventually split right? So being independent and NOT connected to a buyout will HELP UConn not hurt us. You guys are all having knee jerk reactions. The other poster saying we shouldn't have joined the AAC in football? HAAAA where the heck would we have gone? Back to the Yankee Conference? Oh I get it now. Yeah we would have joined the Northeast Conference. We all need to chill out and ill gurantee there is more to this then we know. Football is in the coffin and has been for years. Blame it on the money I blame it on having zero talent to work with.

 

[Buffett10]

Basketball’s problem, like football was a coaching one. The AAC didn’t prevent Ollie from pulling in a top-25 recruiting class and it certainly didn’t cause him to alienate the class such that the majority left. Hurley is a good coach and I have no doubt that he will right the ship, regardless of conference.

The long-term concern is a revenue one and the curious choice to again realign the school with ten institutions that have entirely different missions academically and much smaller budgets athletically.

I really hope it works and every team comes out better, but I’m very fearful that this isn’t only footballs death sentence, but the start of a slow decline across the board, first as UConn falls out of the FBS club and then as more and more of the attention is focused on the top tier (old 1A, without football we’d fall back to the old 1AAA group).

His class was a "top 25 class" Because of the size of the class. Yes it had some potential but that class was trash. Vance Jackson is SCORCHING the nets for New Mexico State or wherever he is LOL. Typical fans getting all crazy jumping to conclusions. We cant recruit in the AAC for basketball. Ill gurantee its a different story in the NBE. People keep forgetting how good Xavier, Butler, Creighton how they were CONSTANT top 25 teams. Add that to the mix of Gtown and Providence getting much better recruits. Then obviously winner of past 4 national championships (Villanova). Seton Hall and Marquette getting better and St. Johns with NYC can definetly come up. This conference will without a doubt help us recruiting.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

We weren't even a good fit in the original Big East. We were the only flagship public state university in an entire conference of religious schools. Eventually Pitt, Rutgers, WVU, VA Tech, Louisville and USF joined, but the conference was still split between the football and non-football schools, ironically just like our fanbase is split between the football and non-football fans. It didn't work then and it will not work now. We've learned nothing from 40 years of history.

The Big East did work. It actually was amazing.

Bigger forces at play came in and ruined it. This idea that schools that play different sports can't coexist in a basketball league is bogus.

Had the SEC not created a league title with a mandatory 12 team minimum, I'd say it's fairly likely none of this madness happens.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Pasqualoni is not a good head coach in college football anymore. He proved that at Syracuse in the end and UConn.

This is a silly argument that you have made.

Ollie won a flukey championship with Calhoun’s leavings.

That must be why so many non-P5 schools win championships, because hiring great coaches is easy. And the corollary is also true, right? All these coaches at these mid-majors must suck because almost all of them struggle to win.

If all that matters is the coach, then why do we care about conference affiliation? Won't the coach take care of winning regardless?

 

[ZooCougar]

That must be why so many non-P5 schools win championships, because hiring great coaches is easy. And the corollary is also true, right? All these coaches at these mid-majors must suck because almost all of them struggle to win.

If all that matters is the coach, then why do we care about conference affiliation? Won't the coach take care of winning regardless?

Literally everyone in the AAC hired better coaches than us. We are the problem. The conference isn’t.

 

[auggie22]

Do you know anyone with kids under the age of 20? Youth football participation in the northeast is dropping dramatically, and that trend will only continue. If a test is ever developed to diagnose CTE in living people, football will become a fringe sport. I think we are 5-10 years from a major high school in the state of Connecticut shutting its football program down because of head injuries.

If it is ever determined that universities knew the prevalence of CTE in their players and buried the information, university presidents and athletic directors could go to jail.

Football will not be driving the bus for much longer.

Yep. I think it is at least equally likely that football popularity wanes and basketball becomes more of a relative revenue driver long-term.

 

[SubbaBub]

BL continues to show why he's the best writer on the board.

If already said this is going from the frying pan into another frying pan. The better of two bad decisions. I agree this is a short term decision, but a I justifiable one.

 

[History Geek]

If they do that, they will leave the AAC and nobody will care.

If they do that and leave the Big East, the media will revolt.

This is the first thing I have read here in the past four days that makes me think maybe this could end up being a good thing for the university.

 

[History Geek]

My initial reaction was anger. Then it became sadness for football, baseball and the death of a P5 dream. Now I am at the stage that there has to be a strategic plan for this. Has to be. Leadership can't be this myopic. This was leaked a few weeks earlier than when UConn wanted to let this out. There are things that were still being negotiated and those timelines can't always be moved up.

This makes perfect sense. Maybe there is an plan but the premature leak means the components of the plan were still being negotiated. If true, hopefully this doesn’t severely weaken any leverage.

 

[CTMike]

Literally everyone in the AAC hired better coaches than us. We are the problem. The conference isn’t.

It’s not “only this” or “only that”... it’s a culmination of all of the above. First and foremost repeated bad decisions by the AD... but a conference that reduced our value and we resented being in didn’t help either.

 

[The Funster]

I was going to write a piece on this decision, then decided why bother? BL wrote something better than I ever could have anyways.

College athletics is heading towards the shitter. There is a gulf between the haves and the have nots with the have nots desperately trying to keep up. When do we stop looking the other way while our institutes cheat and cook the books? When do we as taxpayers and/or donors stop watching our money be poured into losing propositions? I get what basketball did for UConn. It fueled tremendous growth. I get that successful sports can make a college attractive but what is the point of diminishing returns? When does the tail start wagging the dog?

 

[UConnNick]

The Big East did work. It actually was amazing.

Bigger forces at play came in and ruined it. This idea that schools that play different sports can't coexist in a basketball league is bogus.

Had the SEC not created a league title with a mandatory 12 team minimum, I'd say it's fairly likely none of this madness happens.

The original Big East worked fine when it was just the BB schools with BC and Syracuse. When Tranghese had to start adding the additional FB schools, it started to slowly unravel. You then had two separate groups of schools with different goals.

Then Tranghese wanted the same number of FB and BB schools on each side. Having the same number of FB and BB schools meant that the commissioner broke any tie votes. As a former PC athletic administrator, which side was Tranghese going to vote for?

Eventually the football schools got tired of getting outvoted all the time by BB schools that didn't have the same goals and needs. That's one of the reasons they all started leaving the league.

It worked in the beginning but not so much toward the end.

 

[Husky25]

This is honestly the best case scenario. Slim chance that it is what the administration planned on. I'd put the odds of it actually happening at less than 95/1.

 

[WrenchFan69]

This is honestly the best case scenario. Slim chance that it is what the administration planned on. I'd put the odds of it actually happening at less than 95/1.

Even a $1-2m a year sweetheart deal would be a dream come true. Considering what ESPN has put us through, we're certainly due a favor or ten.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Even a $1-2m a year sweetheart deal would be a dream come true. Considering what ESPN has put us through, we're certainly due a favor or ten.

It would be the least ESPN could do.

-Don't reduce the payout
-Allow UConn football to stay
-Schedule some home/homes with AAC hoops/womens hoops

 

[Husky25]

Even a $1-2m a year sweetheart deal would be a dream come true. Considering what ESPN has put us through, we're certainly due a favor or ten.

It would be the least ESPN could do.

-Don't reduce the payout
-Allow UConn football to stay
-Schedule some home/homes with AAC hoops/womens hoops

I tend to agree, but it's not realistic. What has happened in the last 16 years that would lead you to believe ESPN would agree to this?

 

[DefCONNOne]

We're back to the small time, hope you're happy.

He's giddy. Haven't you been reading his posts here? Trolling the football board gets that clown off!

 

[DefCONNOne]

If they do that, they will leave the AAC and nobody will care.

If they do that and leave the Big East, the media will revolt.

You misspelled "and nobody will care". I highlighted your mistake.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

I tend to agree, but it's not realistic. What has happened in the last 16 years that would lead you to believe ESPN would agree to this?

Absolutely nothing haha. Just pure hope and speculation.

 

[DefCONNOne]

Thoughtful piece. Of course, Chief’s the perpetual optimist and hopes we can pull the rabbit out of the football helmet. But, you are correct there was no meaningful plan for football and now it’s all hanging on a lifeline from Fox Sports. Let’s hope that works and works quickly.

Prof. DefCONN is here to tell you it won't.

 

[Dove]

I love the fact that we get an MSG tournament again. Love that.

But that's really about it.

I know that I will try to give my tickets away for a midweek game against Marquette/DePaul/Butler/Creighton/Xavier - come January and I won't get any more takers than I get now for ECU/UCF/USF/etc...

If we are ranked, we will sell tickets. If we aren't, we won't - no matter who we play.

When we play in NYC - we will be there in force, because people LOVE going to MSG for a game.

But I don't believe this moves the needle much as far as attendance is concerned. Will believe it when I see it.

Even if UConn is 20-3 and ranked #12 in the country?