UConn to Big XII Imminent?

[Huskyforlife]

You’d have to wonder why Yormark would waste his time if he knew it wasn’t getting the votes? Why would the presidents waste time with the Endeavor presentation if it wasn’t gonna alleviate their concerns? Why waste UConns time, flying administrators and our AD to Dallas, if it was very unlikely to matter?

My only solution is putting pressure on ACC schools to find a way out of the GOR, but FSU has been working on that for a century with no success.

 

[bendm]

If you have to lose to an FCS team, ND State would be the one. Dominant and better than quite a few FBS programs.

I realize that but The fact that the big12 is sticking its nose up at us while their highest profile football program is losing to a AA team is just too ironic and hypocritical

 

[JohnFSilver]

It’s a very good team. Maybe this year we’ll be of the caliber that we could beat them. We haven’t been at their level in many years. Colorado is going to be in trouble if NDSU scores a TD here.

You can’t lose to fcs.

 

[bendm]

My only solution is putting pressure on ACC schools to find a way out of the GOR, but FSU has been working on that for a century with no success.

In the hopes that their best couple programs defect to the P3 and we can merge with the leftovers? That’s the only way I see that working out.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

It’s a very good team. Maybe this year we’ll be of the caliber that we could beat them. We haven’t been at their level in many years. Colorado is going to be in trouble if NDSU scores a TD here.

Both NDSU and SDSU have very strong programs. Those kids are as tough as rocks.

 

[Huskygrad88]

I realize that but The fact that the big12 is sticking its nose up at us while their highest profile football program is losing to a AA team is just too ironic and hypocritical.

Say what???

 

[Viet Vet]

Why does it need to be 60,000? Why not 45?

Because the long-term objective is to position UConn for an invite to the Big Ten. Forget the SEC, no cultural/geographic affinity with them. We will NEVER get an invite to an expanded Power2 conference from the small/Catholic school Big East. So our short-term goal is to prepare to be upgraded, and that will necessitate an increase in Rent capacity to 60,000 as an olive branch to the BiG as we enhance our football pedigree in the Big12.

 

[BlueMAB]

Different situation. We aren't competing against a different school for this spot we are competing against among other things the horrible image everyone has of our program. One way to change that image is to actually compete in these games and win the games you should if you want to get an invite.
Yormark will champion us to the schools any chance he can. We just have to weaponize him. .

It is different. We aren’t competing for a spot that already exists, we’re trying to create one.

Ville replaced MD so the ACC could stay at 14. We’re trying to get the Big 12 to go from 16 to 17.

So yeah, it’s different. It’s even more difficult now. But a win or loss Saturday isn’t going to move the needle.

 

[BlueMAB]

Unfortunately maybe a beautiful fairly new on campus stadium that holds 60,000+ compared to a smaller one 25 miles from campus did make a difference?

Unless you’ve got a hot tub, a delorean, or pym particles, i don’t know what your point is.

 

[cellocgg]

You’d have to wonder why Yormark would waste his time if he knew it wasn’t getting the votes? Why would the presidents waste time with the Endeavor presentation if it wasn’t gonna alleviate their concerns? Why waste UConns time, flying administrators and our AD to Dallas, if it was very unlikely to matter?

My only solution is putting pressure on ACC schools to find a way out of the GOR, but FSU has been working on that for a century with no success.

Offer is not off the table yet

 

[alphasigko]

Please give this a rest... There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING we can do about IT

 

[CL82]

Hope AD Dave asked the Big XII brass if they could go check out The Big Texan. That surely would have swayed some votes.

Live Stream - The Big Texan Steak Ranch

www.bigtexan.com

I heard that they offered to except football if Jim Mora could finish the 72 ounce steak.

 

[The Viking]

It is different. We aren’t competing for a spot that already exists, we’re trying to create one.

Ville replaced MD so the ACC could stay at 14. We’re trying to get the Big 12 to go from 16 to 17.

So yeah, it’s different. It’s even more difficult now. But a win or loss Saturday isn’t going to move the needle.

It's also different in that the commissioner and the espn network are both interested in bringing us into the fold.
The big stumbling block to us getting in is our football programs incompetence over the past decade plus. Discussions are going on within the Big12 - even if nothing is imminent - and Id think getting off to a good start will help alleviate some of the concerns.
But we can agree to disagree.

 

[Travelman6]

What's he talking about? Watching the basketball team? Obviously, he didn't want to answer the question but he had to say something.

How is it not clear what he's saying?

 

[BlueMAB]

It's also different in that the commissioner and the espn network are both interested in bringing us into the fold.
The big stumbling block to us getting in is our football programs incompetence over the past decade plus. Discussions are going on within the Big12 - even if nothing is imminent - and Id think getting off to a good start will help alleviate some of the concerns.
But we can agree to disagree.

That doesn't get erased with one game. If our performance as a member of the big east (after joining early) over a number of years hasn't been enough (to date), to alleviate concerns, I don't know what evidence we have that one game means anything. Happy to agree to disagree, but do you have any evidence for this opinion that it will alleviate some concerns?

I'm not saying we won't get an invite, win or lose.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I know you are exaggerating, but it does have that feel. I can see Big 12 people saying, “Why do we have to pay them? The ACC didn’t pay SMU“. The answer to that would be, “They’ll be the biggest brand name in the conference”.

This is a weird situation. You’ve got a commissioner and a network coveting a huge basketball brand and a handful of ADs/presidents wondering how UConn football will affect them in football perception when they themselves have no brand value in football or basketball. Meanwhile, the biggest show in B12 football is likely to lose to FCS NDSU tonight.

They don't have any brand names in basketball? With Kansas and Arizona? Plus Houston and Baylor? Really? We wouldn't be the biggest brand name in the conference. The biggest football name in the Big XII, #12 Utah, won 49-0 last night. Colorado did pull out a win.

While "markets" don't matter the way they did in the old cable era, what we bring is exposure to a part of the country where the Big XII has very little visibility. If I'm pitching to the Presidents, I'd show them how many ACC schools succeeded in recruiting smart, wealthy New England/NY HS students since they added BC and Syracuse. That's the real pitch. Tri-state kids, plus RI/MA kids who follow UConn deciding to consider Colorado, Kansas, Arizona and Texas Tech when making college decisions. Why did the B1G really want Rutgers and Maryland? To recruit undergrads from those regions that will pay out of state fees and consider them cheap.

 

[jostar1]

How is it not clear what he's saying?

I didn't know what he was talking about. When he said he was still going to watch "them", I thought at first he was talking about the Big 12 baseball teams.

 

[JohnFSilver]

It's also different in that the commissioner and the espn network are both interested in bringing us into the fold.
The big stumbling block to us getting in is our football programs incompetence over the past decade plus. Discussions are going on within the Big12 - even if nothing is imminent - and Id think getting off to a good start will help alleviate some of the concerns.
But we can agree to disagree.

If the football team was mediocre, there would be another reason. There is a cultural rift with New England in college football. UConn football was superior to Syracuse when it was in the big east, and at times superior to Louisville in performance.

Hell. Back in 2006 ucf and usf wish they were UConn. I remember when we started the series with ucf. UConn fans were upset to play a Mac school.

Truth of matter is once Burton was built there was a lack of investment in program…I don’t know why, politics, basketball people, but that is what happens. You have to continually invest or it atrophies.

 

[uconndogs]

It’s a very good team. Maybe this year we’ll be of the caliber that we could beat them. We haven’t been at their level in many years. Colorado is going to be in trouble if NDSU scores a TD here.

NDSU might be a top 50-60 program nationally. That is a very good team and Colorado was very lucky to get that W.

 

[CL82]

Truth of matter is once Burton was built there was a lack of investment in program…

What investments do you believe the athletic department should have made that they did not?

 

[noeynox]

What investments do you believe the athletic department should have made that they did not?

Paying good coaching salaries to attract talent for starters.

After Diaco they went into full "balling on a budget" mode.

 

[JohnFSilver]

What investments do you believe the athletic department should have made that they did not?

Recruiting budget, coaching staff salary, more help with bringing in marginal students, more creative marketing and development to enhance experience.

Also, we’ve been worst enemy. Killing the Notre Dame series. Stuff like that.

 

[CL82]

Paying good coaching salaries to attract talent for starters.

After Diaco they went into full "balling on a budget" mode.

I fully expected that to be the answer. I hate when people use the cryptic phrase "Connecticut doesn't invest in football" when what they mean to say is "Connecticut needs to pay its coaches more." The notion that we "haven't invested" in football is BuS.

We have outstanding facilities between Burton and Shenkman. The Rent, though 30 minutes too far west, is a nice facility as well, with great sightlines and outstanding tailgating. We've invested plenty in football.

But what we've also done is made some catastrophically bad coaching hires. All of them had some logic to them, but all ended up being horrific. Hopefully, we finally corrected that with Jim Mora, a former NFL and power conference school coach.

When we go out there and suggest that we "haven't invested in football" the rest of college football perceives that as a facilities issue. That's not correct and it hurts our perception as a team that's ready to step up to the P4.

 

[CL82]

Recruiting budget, coaching staff salary, more help with bringing in marginal students, more creative marketing and development to enhance experience.

Also, we’ve been worst enemy. Killing the Notre Dame series. Stuff like that.

See my reply above to @noeynox. Those are all soft operational costs. That's not the connotation when you say that "we have not invested in football." That phrase suggest a facilities issue, which we don't have (notwithstanding the need to dump a projected 175 million into the Rent.)

For what it's worth, I also hate when people analyze our football budget as a percentage of our basketball budget and compare to other schools percentages. We " invest " a shiteton of money in our basketball programs to make them world-class. The fact that other institutions under invest in their basketball means that their investment in football is a higher percentage compared to their investment. That's a dumb and meaningless comparison. Now, if you want to compare our football budget to a P4 football budget, that's a fair comparison.

 

[CL82]

Paying good coaching salaries to attract talent for starters.

After Diaco they went into full "balling on a budget" mode.

There was some logic to bring back Edsal, our most successful football coach, but yeah, we definitely could've done better especially with assistant's salaries. I don't disagree with the point, I just think using the cryptic phrase "Connecticut doesn't invest in football" instead of "Connecticut needs to pay its coaches more" or maybe more plainly, "Connecticut needs to make better coaching hires" does a disservice to the program because it implies that we have a bricks and mortar issue. For the most part, we do not.

 

[superjohn]

They don't have any brand names in basketball? With Kansas and Arizona? Plus Houston and Baylor? Really? We wouldn't be the biggest brand name in the conference. The biggest football name in the Big XII, #12 Utah, won 49-0 last night. Colorado did pull out a win.

While "markets" don't matter the way they did in the old cable era, what we bring is exposure to a part of the country where the Big XII has very little visibility. If I'm pitching to the Presidents, I'd show them how many ACC schools succeeded in recruiting smart, wealthy New England/NY HS students since they added BC and Syracuse. That's the real pitch. Tri-state kids, plus RI/MA kids who follow UConn deciding to consider Colorado, Kansas, Arizona and Texas Tech when making college decisions. Why did the B1G really want Rutgers and Maryland? To recruit undergrads from those regions that will pay out of state fees and consider them cheap.

UConn or Kansas would be the biggest brand name.

 

[alexd]

Recruiting budget, coaching staff salary, more help with bringing in marginal students, more creative marketing and development to enhance experience.

Also, we’ve been worst enemy. Killing the Notre Dame series. Stuff like that.

What killed the Notre Dane series was UConn winning the first game at South Bend then ND wouldn't negotiate beyond that.

 

[Hoophound]

They don't have any brand names in basketball? With Kansas and Arizona? Plus Houston and Baylor? Really? We wouldn't be the biggest brand name in the conference. The biggest football name in the Big XII, #12 Utah, won 49-0 last night. Colorado did pull out a win.

While "markets" don't matter the way they did in the old cable era, what we bring is exposure to a part of the country where the Big XII has very little visibility. If I'm pitching to the Presidents, I'd show them how many ACC schools succeeded in recruiting smart, wealthy New England/NY HS students since they added BC and Syracuse. That's the real pitch. Tri-state kids, plus RI/MA kids who follow UConn deciding to consider Colorado, Kansas, Arizona and Texas Tech when making college decisions. Why did the B1G really want Rutgers and Maryland? To recruit undergrads from those regions that will pay out of state fees and consider them cheap.

Yeah. I wasn’t being literal. However, there’s no arguing that the B12 is light on brands that are really good at anything. KU is very good at basketball. Utah is good at football but that’s not a brand with many fans outside Utah. Arizona is pretty good in basketball, but it’s a tremendously overhyped program. I’ve never understood why they get treated like royalty sometimes.

 

[billybud]

UConn needs a come back...Thirteen straight seasons of no + .500 seasons.

Duke once went 17 consecutive sub 500 seasons...with nine of them with less than 3 wins...

They played a respectable 8 win season last year and a nine win season the year before that.

UConn now has a good coach...get the right roster, spend for a good QB, recuit well...and it will turn around.

 

[JohnFSilver]

I fully expected that to be the answer. I hate when people use the cryptic phrase "Connecticut doesn't invest in football" when what they mean to say is "Connecticut needs to pay its coaches more." The notion that we "haven't invested" in football is BuS.

We have outstanding facilities between Burton and Shenkman. The Rent, though 30 minutes too far west, is a nice facility as well, with great sightlines and outstanding tailgating. We've invested plenty in football.

But what we've also done is made some catastrophically bad coaching hires. All of them had some logic to them, but all ended up being horrific. Hopefully, we finally corrected that with Jim Mora, a former NFL and power conference school coach.

When we go out there and suggest that we "haven't invested in football" the rest of college football perceives that as a facilities issue. That's not correct and it hurts our perception as a team that's ready to step up to the P4.

We haven’t invested. Marketing, updates, training programs, recruiting budgets…

The rentschler field experience is identical to what it was back in 2003 - and I was at that game. That is part CRDA, part UConn just willing to say you got a building , enough.