UConn still must climb big mountain to make NCAA case

[Point6]

link: UConn still must climb big mountain to make NCAA case

This article has turned me into a proponent for a move back to the Big East if we can get it. I know this will hurt FB scheduling and possibly FB SOS, but we need to protect the elite status of the Men's basketball program or we will be out in the cold forever. The article makes the case that we are already (almost) statistically ineligible for an at large bid even after the win vs. Syracuse, essentially because our upcoming schedule will not move the needle. I assume this would not be the case in the Big East.

Sorry I know this has been hashed and rehashed. I am not a proponent of shutting down football but what good would eventually winning the AAC in football do if we do not maintain elite status in Men's hoops?

 

[Stainmaster]

Simple.

The P5 cartel will break away from the rest of the NCAA in 10-20 years, rendering the Big East just as disadvantageous as our current conference. Making it into that cohort is the only shot any current non-P5 athletic program has at surviving beyond that point. In order to make that move, football has to be brought up to a minimum level of respectability -- and being in the AAC puts us in a much better position to do so than if football were to go independent.

 

[VAHuskyFan]

The problem is that we opened the season with back-to-back losses against sub-250 RPI teams.

That's a problem in any conference. If we were in the New Big East, those 10,000 simulations wouldn't look a whole heck of a lot better. The simulations are based on the early data and the data right now says we are terrible.

The good news is that the tournament committee overweights recent performance. If we win the AAC regular season and take 2 of 3 against OSU, Auburn, and G'Town, I think we'd be looking pretty good.

Agree that the NBE is better in basketball right now than the American, but tough to complain when we are near the bottom of our current conference in RPI.

 

[auror]

The problem is that we opened the season with back-to-back losses against sub-250 RPI teams.

That's an exaggeration, but your point is correct.

I don't think the tournament committee does overweight recent performance.

What they do overrate is top 50 RPI wins. At least they did last year (hard to tell what they'll overrate each year since some of the members change each year).

I think we're only going to have like 6 more opportunities at one of those, depending where Houston and a few others land. That means we can't really lose ANY of those.

 

[upstater]

One win against a crappy Syracuse team should not have us worried about this stuff. I just hope for improvement. I am gad that Jalen is getting the experience at point guard to improve his game there. It will help in the long run.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

The P5 cartel will break away from the rest of the NCAA in 10-20 years

Disagree on this one, such a breakaway would be litigated in the courts extensively and I think there'd be more than enough evidence of collusion and potential antitrust violations. Not to mention the notion of the P5 is something heavily propped up by ESPN, an entity that is tanking. I think ESPN is the entity that will not exist in its current form 10-20 years from now. People are clearly growing tired of their model and it's showing. With leagues creating their own networks, the need for ESPN is shrinking. I don't see the P5 breaking away from the NCAA though.

 

[upstater]

Disagree on this one, such a breakaway would be litigated in the courts extensively and I think there'd be more than enough evidence of collusion and potential antitrust violations. Not to mention the notion of the P5 is something heavily propped up by ESPN, an entity that is tanking. I think ESPN is the entity that will not exist in its current form 10-20 years from now. People are clearly growing tired of their model and it's showing. With leagues creating their own networks, the need for ESPN is shrinking. I don't see the P5 breaking away from the NCAA though.

Who would litigate?

If the 4/5 conferences created their own thing, who is going to sue? The people who DIDN'T leave the NCAA? They would simply announce, we're leaving! "We're not bothering you. By all means, stay in the NCAA! Call yourselves the Power 5--be our guests."

There is too much money on the basketball side for them to leave that alone. We are talking about a billion dollars a year.

For 65 schools? That's a lot of moolah. And even if they get a huge cut in the annual payout (say CBS gives them $500m instead of $1B) that is still about $8m a school, which is much more than the $1m they are currently getting. Plus, the NCAA would be off their backs.

 

[shizzle787]

The power conferences aren't leaving the NCAA. Football will be dead in 30-40 years anyway, and the NCAA tournament will be where it's at. I do think we should go back to the New Big East and go independent in football. I actually think we could get a decent TV deal with FOX and get a good football schedule: we could schedule Army, BYU, UMass every year home and home. The FCS game is #4. We could schedule a 2-1-1 with ND where we play two in South Bend, one in Storrs, and one at MetLife. That's #5. We can probably get a yearly series with BC at the end of the year. That's #6. At the beginning of the year, we can schedule 5-6 home and homes with lower and mid-level P5 schools, and it's likely Cincy may join us so there are your 12 games.
Potential football schedule:
Indiana (A)
Illinois (H)
Mizzouri (A)
Kentucky (H)
Syracuse (A)
Fordham (H)
Notre Dame (A)
UMass (H)
Army (A)
BYU (A)
BC (H)
Cincy (H)

 

[whaler11]

The power conferences aren't leaving the NCAA. Football will be dead in 30-40 years anyway, and the NCAA tournament will be where it's at. I do think we should go back to the New Big East and go independent in football. I actually think we could get a decent TV deal with FOX and get a good football schedule: we could schedule Army, BYU, UMass every year home and home. The FCS game is #4. We could schedule a 2-1-1 with ND where we play two in South Bend, one in Storrs, and one at MetLife. That's #5. We can probably get a yearly series with BC at the end of the year. That's #6. At the beginning of the year, we can schedule 5-6 home and homes with lower and mid-level P5 schools, and it's likely Cincy may join us so there are your 12 games.
Potential football schedule:
Indiana (A)
Illinois (H)
Mizzouri (A)
Kentucky (H)
Syracuse (A)
Fordham (H)
Notre Dame (A)
UMass (H)
Army (A)
BYU (A)
BC (H)
Cincy (H)

Have the lead paint removed from your home immediately.

 

[Towney007]

I don't see the P5 break. Even if there is, they may effectively court 'the best of the rest' to tip the chips. I don't think a P5 break - as unlikely as it is - means UConn is instantly left in the cold.

Right now, in terms of the writing on the wall they have a big, big choice to make.

I think UConn either needs to get insanely serious about hiring a big time coach to come here and make a real, honest, genuine run at becoming a football power and be willing to risk basketball status long-term...

Or...

Protect their strongest assets and do everything they can to move the hoops programs to the Big East and risk taking massive athletic budget hits for almost all of their other sports.

I'm leaning to the second option right now just because it's more realistic and I think the risk is lower; but i'm not absolutely convinced it's the right option either. Neither is ideal, but to me the clock is ticking and they need to make a decision.

 

[VAHuskyFan]

That's an exaggeration, but your point is correct.

"Exaggeration"? It's literally true. What are you talking about?

 

[Point6]

Notwithstanding my post above, I don't know what I think. I think Towney's post above sounds about right (although also like Shizzle's if we can get that done). I am a huge FB fan so I do want FB to succeed - and recognize we need it. I wonder if FB only is a possibility for the Mountain West? If Cincy joined us in BE for hoops/Olympics and MW for FB only, we might be able to keep FB a push and improve BB. Its not like we have FB rivals in AAC. I also agree we do not have time to be half-a$$ed in FB. Sorry BD.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Have the lead paint removed from your home immediately.

I rarely (never?) agree with Shizzle, but he may be right. This week's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel has a really interesting piece on football and concussions. There is now enough data to show that changing tackling techniques has absolutely no impact on concussions. Football is a violent sport, and there is no way to fix it and keep it football.

There are multiple studies coming out in the next few months that show serious brain damage can occur BY high school, and they now recommend NO contact football before high school. At some point the AMA and other major associations are going to adopt the recommendation. Youth participation is down 25% over the last 10 years. We are reaching a tipping point that will be the kiss of death for football as a major sport.

 

[upstater]

I rarely (never?) agree with Shizzle, but he may be right. This week's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel has a really interesting piece on football and concussions. There is now enough data to show that changing tackling techniques has absolutely no impact on concussions. Football is a violent sport, and there is no way to fix it and keep it football.

There are multiple studies coming out in the next few months that show serious brain damage can occur BY high school, and they now recommend NO contact football before high school. At some point the AMA and other major associations are going to adopt the recommendation. Youth participation is down 25% over the last 10 years. We are reaching a tipping point that will be the kiss of death for football as a major sport.

How does football participation compare to other sports? Youth basketball and youth soccer is heavily down as well. Two factors: fewer kids are playing youth sports for various reasons, and there is a huge demographic drop in the younger age group. There needs to be a comparison across the board.

I don't think football will ever really suffer. There will be enough kids to stock football teams and pro teams. It is still a very popular sport. Maybe you won't have the unreal athletic specimens we have today, where guys can run 4.6 40s at 260 pounds, but even if it goes back to the days of 265 pound linemen, they will still be playing the sport.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

How does football participation compare to other sports? Youth basketball and youth soccer is heavily down as well. Two factors: fewer kids are playing youth sports for various reasons, and there is a huge demographic drop in the younger age group. There needs to be a comparison across the board.

I don't think football will ever really suffer. There will be enough kids to stock football teams and pro teams. It is still a very popular sport. Maybe you won't have the unreal athletic specimens we have today, where guys can run 4.6 40s at 260 pounds, but even if it goes back to the days of 265 pound linemen, they will still be playing the sport.

You can pretend people will be fine with continuing to give their children permanent brain damage, but I find that less likely. Schools are going to have to have waivers that say in bold print, at the top, that your son has a high likelihood of getting brain damage if he plays this sport. A standard waiver is not going to work, because you can't waive a negligence claim.

It will also become socially unacceptable in the middle and upper class for parents to let their kids play the sport, and when the kids stop laying, fewer parents will watch, which will make the sport less popular and less appealing to the working class.

I do think that football's loss will be in some part, soccer's gain.

 

[upstater]

You can pretend people will be fine with continuing to give their children permanent brain damage, but I find that less likely. Schools are going to have to have waivers that say in bold print, at the top, that your son has a high likelihood of getting brain damage if he plays this sport. A standard waiver is not going to work, because you can't waive a negligence claim.

It will also become socially unacceptable in the middle and upper class for parents to let their kids play the sport, and when the kids stop laying, fewer parents will watch, which will make the sport less popular and less appealing to the working class.

I do think that football's loss will be in some part, soccer's gain.

At the skill positions, football will lose some to other sports. But the big bodies will still gravitate to football--because they just can't play the more skilled sports.

I think youth football will indeed drop. I don't think high school football is going to suffer all that much. In fact, I never played youth football, and I can remember my first practices when I was told to get into specific line stances and had no clue what the coaches were telling me. I think that's how it's probably going to b, and it's alright too--because football outside of the QB position doesn't really require all that much in terms of skills building.

 

[Pudge]

Disagree on this one, such a breakaway would be litigated in the courts extensively and I think there'd be more than enough evidence of collusion and potential antitrust violations. Not to mention the notion of the P5 is something heavily propped up by ESPN, an entity that is tanking. I think ESPN is the entity that will not exist in its current form 10-20 years from now. People are clearly growing tired of their model and it's showing. With leagues creating their own networks, the need for ESPN is shrinking. I don't see the P5 breaking away from the NCAA though.

please

Don't count on litigation or ANY legal constraints to stop the Oligarchy/Cartel movements of ... what is essentially ... a southern based drive to control the revenue dollars of Sport. And mindset of the 1970s. Taking Syracuse & BC over UConn is a prime example. They do what they like and wear those funky Blazers.

What I am watching ... is the collapse potential of the ESPN distribution model with cord cutting. And the American (kudos to 12 schools ... well 11 really) developing Football that is watchable. This - going forward - is going to make a Rutgers v Northwestern game mean less economically than a high scoring exciting USF v Houston game. And with market appeal. Sustainability of where the content model - Conference networks and all - is not without huge holes coming. At that point, the viewing public won't accept the attempt to exclude the highly watchable. UConn needs to maintain excellence across Sports - including some Football coach who can win.

 

[Drew]

The key to making our AD attractive (even if its just to fans) is finally accepting the realities that come with big boy FBS level football, and that is allowing flexible admissions standards to get legitimate football players through the door and upping the spending on not just the head coach but the assistants and support staff as well. We rank near the bottom of the American in football spending despite having a bigger budget than anyone in the conference. If you want to know why the team sucks right now it falls on not just Bob but the inability to attract quality assistant coaches because of what we pay them. The last 3 coaches we've had have made public complaints about the admissions department not letting kids in. GDL even said it after the UConn/Temple game this year, the reason they couldn't recruit Matakevich was grades. Insane that Temple can get a kid like him in and we can't. UConn isn't Harvard. If a kid qualifies with the NCAA let him into school. Spend the money on allowing coaches to travel all over the map to recruit. Hire appropriate recruiting staff. Invest in your program.

For anyone who wants to only have D1 basketball and wants to demote football to FCS or kill football altogether, I give you this:

2016 UConn vs Temple football tv ratings: College Football TV Ratings — Sports Media Watch
2016 UConn vs Syracuse basketball ratings: Colts-Jets, WWE RAW, SportsCenter top cable sports-ish TV ratings for Monday December 5, 2016

The disaster that is UConn football playing Temple on a Friday night in November when the team had essentially given up on the season drew more viewers than the UConn vs Syracuse basketball game Monday night. Have you seen the Big East ratings on FS1? They are atrocious. If you want to have a national name and national AD in 2016 you simply have to have big time football. It doesn't mean you are incapable of having success in basketball if you don't have FBS level football, but would you really feel better about yourselves if our AD became Georgetown? What about DePaul or Seton Hall? Would any of us honestly sign up to trade athletic accomplishments with any of them in the time we've moved to FBS football? That's who you're aspiring to align our athletic department with?

UConn needs to invest in the football program fully and take the handcuffs off in order to allow the program to truly flourish. If not, the ceiling is 8-4 and the floor is much much lower than that.

 

[The Funster]

While the football concussion situation will have an effect on the sport going forward I think the greatest immediate effect is the questionable future of the ESPN model. ESPN has been in the economic drivers seat of college athletics...has made decisions and passed judgement on a number of issues. They epitomized the golden rule, "those who have the gold, make the rules." I think they will fall off, college sports income will become much less centralized and getting a seat at the table will become more merit based and less "who you know" or conference based. At least that is my hope anyways.

I hope ESPN goes down in flames. They built their brand in large part on the Big East and then they savaged that conference for their own gain. As the saying goes, "I hope they choke on it".

 

[upstater]

The key to making our AD attractive (even if its just to fans) is finally accepting the realities that come with big boy FBS level football, and that is allowing flexible admissions standards to get legitimate football players through the door and upping the spending on not just the head coach but the assistants and support staff as well. We rank near the bottom of the American in football spending despite having a bigger budget than anyone in the conference. If you want to know why the team sucks right now it falls on not just Bob but the inability to attract quality assistant coaches because of what we pay them. The last 3 coaches we've had have made public complaints about the admissions department not letting kids in. GDL even said it after the UConn/Temple game this year, the reason they couldn't recruit Matakevich was grades. Insane that Temple can get a kid like him in and we can't. UConn isn't Harvard. If a kid qualifies with the NCAA let him into school. Spend the money on allowing coaches to travel all over the map to recruit. Hire appropriate recruiting staff. Invest in your program.

For anyone who wants to only have D1 basketball and wants to demote football to FCS or kill football altogether, I give you this:

2016 UConn vs Temple football tv ratings: College Football TV Ratings — Sports Media Watch
2016 UConn vs Syracuse basketball ratings: Colts-Jets, WWE RAW, SportsCenter top cable sports-ish TV ratings for Monday December 5, 2016

The disaster that is UConn football playing Temple on a Friday night in November when the team had essentially given up on the season drew more viewers than the UConn vs Syracuse basketball game Monday night. Have you seen the Big East ratings on FS1? They are atrocious. If you want to have a national name and national AD in 2016 you simply have to have big time football. It doesn't mean you are incapable of having success in basketball if you don't have FBS level football, but would you really feel better about yourselves if our AD became Georgetown? What about DePaul or Seton Hall? Would any of us honestly sign up to trade athletic accomplishments with any of them in the time we've moved to FBS football? That's who you're aspiring to align our athletic department with?

UConn needs to invest in the football program fully and take the handcuffs off in order to allow the program to truly flourish. If not, the ceiling is 8-4 and the floor is much much lower than that.

The ratings thing is interesting but not that simple.

500k viewers is teeny by ESPN2 standards. Last year, UConn was pulling 1m viewers. That's a bad #--but I don't know why it's an outlier.

But more on point, the football # is equivalent to the basketball #. Both about 500k.

And it's not because no one wants to watch UConn football. The other American football games on ESPN2 also drew about 500k eyeballs.

UConn basketball typically does better than that.

Pac12 is also only garnering 500k. Some ACC games are doing the same or in that range (Louisville BC on ESPN2).

Only the big Saturday games are drawing viewers in the millions.

 

[Ldandy]

The power conferences aren't leaving the NCAA. Football will be dead in 30-40 years anyway, and the NCAA tournament will be where it's at. I do think we should go back to the New Big East and go independent in football. I actually think we could get a decent TV deal with FOX and get a good football schedule: we could schedule Army, BYU, UMass every year home and home. The FCS game is #4. We could schedule a 2-1-1 with ND where we play two in South Bend, one in Storrs, and one at MetLife. That's #5. We can probably get a yearly series with BC at the end of the year. That's #6. At the beginning of the year, we can schedule 5-6 home and homes with lower and mid-level P5 schools, and it's likely Cincy may join us so there are your 12 games.
Potential football schedule:
Indiana (A)
Illinois (H)
Mizzouri (A)
Kentucky (H)
Syracuse (A)
Fordham (H)
Notre Dame (A)
UMass (H)
Army (A)
BYU (A)
BC (H)
Cincy (H)

Dude you're high. Going independent is not an option for Uconn. You don't snap your fingers and get a stand alone TV Contract for Football. Especially when you have little history as a football program. As or scheduling being feasible think again. Its so difficult to schedule as an independent that even ND had to accept a pseudo membership in The ACC. Your schedule would be Army H & H, Umass H & H, Maybe BYU H & H and then a bunch of FCS Home Games and road paycheck games like Umass is forced to accept just to remain solvent. It would be dreadful. If you think attendance is bad now... The only option is to remain in The AAC, try to improve, and hope for another round of musical chairs in 2024-2025.

 

[Ldandy]

The power conferences aren't leaving the NCAA. Football will be dead in 30-40 years anyway, and the NCAA tournament will be where it's at. I do think we should go back to the New Big East and go independent in football. I actually think we could get a decent TV deal with FOX and get a good football schedule: we could schedule Army, BYU, UMass every year home and home. The FCS game is #4. We could schedule a 2-1-1 with ND where we play two in South Bend, one in Storrs, and one at MetLife. That's #5. We can probably get a yearly series with BC at the end of the year. That's #6. At the beginning of the year, we can schedule 5-6 home and homes with lower and mid-level P5 schools, and it's likely Cincy may join us so there are your 12 games.
Potential football schedule:
Indiana (A)
Illinois (H)
Mizzouri (A)
Kentucky (H)
Syracuse (A)
Fordham (H)
Notre Dame (A)
UMass (H)
Army (A)
BYU (A)
BC (H)
Cincy (H)

Dude you're high. Going independent is not an option for Uconn. You don't snap your fingers and get a stand alone TV Contract for Football. Especially when you have little history as a football program. As for scheduling being feasible think again. Its so difficult to schedule as an independent that even ND had to accept a pseudo membership in The ACC. Your schedule would be Army H & H, Umass H & H, Maybe BYU H & H and then a bunch of FCS Home Games and road paycheck games like Umass is forced to accept just to remain solvent. It would be dreadful. If you think attendance is bad now... The only option is to remain in The AAC, try to improve, and hope for another round of musical chairs in 2024-2025.

 

[auror]

View attachment 17478

"Exaggeration"? It's literally true. What are you talking about?

Sorry, not exaggeration then. Misleading or pedantic. Today's RPI for those teams doesn't matter, only what it is on selection Sunday. I and most people don't think they'll end up 250+.

 

[storrsroars]

There were 36 Friday night games in that report. UConn-Temple (523,000) finished 32nd in viewership, exceeding only:
AirForce/Fresno St. 435000
SMU/Tulsa 410000
Memphis/Tulane 185000
Toledo/Utah St. 143000

There was a Cincy/Tulsa matchup that was just a couple thousand ahead at 526000.

However, Friday nights can draw, even taking out the slate of games those on the day after Thanksgiving and conference championships (which can draw 4-5 million even on a Friday - Houston/Memphis did over 3 mill). In fact, 21 Friday night games did exceed 1 million viewers, 12 of which were "regular" season (non-championship/non-Thanksgiving weekend). Note that even AAC teams made the list.

Stanford/Washington 3333000
Duke/LVille 1881000
Colorado St./Colorado 1823000
Clemson/BC 1659000
Oregon/Cal 1516000
Baylor/Rice 1454000
Miss St./BYU 1435000
Kansas State/Stanford 1358000
TCU/SMU 1357000
USF/Temple 1300000
BC/FSU 1152000
USC/Utah 1046000

In some of these cases the product wasn't even all that good. But better than UConn. Just put a watchable product on the field for football, eyeballs will follow.

That said, the most surprising thing to me from that report was that UConn/Cuse had almost as high a percentage of over 50s watching as Fox News, which is saying something because Fox's audience is old as dirt. What were the under 50s watching - or did they all stream/DVR it in some unmeasureable fashion?

 

[Sky ball]

New Big East? ha ha Here is how it goes.

UCONN: Hello NBE, we would like to bring our marquee men's and women's basketball teams to your conference.
NBE: That's nice UConn but if the ACC or the BiG comes calling will you stay with us?
UConn: Well no as we need a home for our football team.
NBE: Buh Bye Now