UCONN to new Big East

[Waquoit]

That may be. So what does the state do with a 90 million dollar stadium the taxpayers bought?

It's paid for and has already been used for 20 years so we already have gotten our money's worth out of it. I imagine the UConn FB team will still play there.

 

[Waquoit]

Well, ground was already broken when MA decided to give Kraft what he wanted. He pulled out of the deal so fast it was shocking.

Kraft didn't get what he wanted from MA. They added some local infrastructure improvements as face-saving measure but he wanted much more than that. The fact is Rowland didn't have all the ducks in a row and couldn't guarantee an on-time opening. That's what killed the deal.

 

[triaddukefan]

Umm..Greensboro?

 

[Waquoit]

My only point was that back in prehistoric times, long before there even was a UConn WBB team, Yale football was the biggest thing in NE college sports.

Anyone else remember the NCIS episode where DiNozzo was captured somewhere in the Middle East? And despite being beaten up several times he still managed to have witty banter with his captor, asking him where he went to college.

"Yale"
"Yale, huh? Quite the football program you have there!"
"More national championships than any other team"

I looked it up. It's true!

 

[Waquoit]

Geno wants talent he can work with, and the latter part of the equation is getting harder to find on these shores.

Especially while playing in a crappy league.

 

[UConnNick]

So UConn vs Texas at MetLife Stadium...

- Would they fill the stadium? Who would actually go to this game besides maybe the 21,000 (avg) who go to UConn home games now?

- What network is putting this game on in prime time or Saturday afternoon?

- Why would Texas do this? They can get UConn-level teams to play them in Austin with no return commitment, get a guaranteed sellout, and broadcast it on the Longhorn Network.

For recruiting purposes. Big time CFB schools like to play games in other markets for the exposure it gives them with recruits. Playing all your home games in Austin doesn't give you that opportunity.

 

[DefenseBB]

Umm..Greensboro?

Hey it's not the Northeast, so does it really matter? (sorry Triad!)

 

[UConnNick]

I will bite after just reading for a few days.

The largest problem with the AAC hasn't been the lack of competition but rather the lack of interest from the fan bases and media. UConn women have steamrolled through old BE competition before and the men won a few NCs playing top teams but their conference opponents were old rivals, rankings were at stake and had a sense of tradition about it. I am skeptical the AAC will ever have tradition regardless of how good some of the teams may become. Let's be honest, even if ECU and Uconn had outstanding football teams would there ever be a large following for the games? I'm skeptical.

The AAC is Conference USA redux with UConn added out of basically being forced to do something. Geography plays a factor and it's for the same reason I wondered why West Virginia would join a conference of midwest schools and be forced to pay for the non revenue sports to go halfway across the country several times per year. The travel alone will help UConn's bottom line and athletes and restoring old rivals with some opponents will spark more interest from the media and fans.

College sports is a dirty business and the upheaval was for football alone. In an ideal world UConn would join the ACC but unfortunately that doesn't appear to be an option for now.

Not true at all regarding UConn and ECU.

The favorite sport at ECU is football, by a wide margin. They've drawn decent crowds for football even lately, when they've had a few down years. When they've been good they've had top 25 teams and they packed a 50,000 seat stadium.

The same was true for UConn. During the several seasons we played in the original Big East, we packed a 40,000 seat stadium and could have sold more tickets.

 

[UConnNick]

I agree with you 100%! Absolutely! It would be delusional to be certain that UConn can maintain being good in multiple sports if not in a P5. No doubt about it! Of course .....

It would be delusional to be certain that UConn will maintain being good in multiple sports simply by being in a P5, many P5 schools aren't. There's more to it than what conference you are in and how much revenue you get. From your comment I know you understand the risk of being certain when not warranted, I post this info for whatever Board members may be reading this. While they are reading let me add ...

It's also delusional to be certain that UConn will get into a P5. One may have their reasons to think it is probable, but certain? Nah, that's delusional. For that matter, one cannot be certain whether it's more likely to get to a P5 from the AAC or the NBE. One may have reasons to think one is more probable than the other, but certainty of no risk? Nah, that's delusional. I hope any Board member reading understands that.

However, I do feel certain, and not the least bit delusional, that a smaller geo footprint means less travel expenses, more convenience for student athletes and their parents, including with the overlooked nonprofile sports, and greater opportunities for fan rivalries. Yes, I do want any Board member reading this to know I feel certain about that.

UConn in the AAC had a slim chance of eventually getting a P5 invite. Uconn in the NBE has a zero chance of ever making it into a P5 conference. Without football, you'll never be in a P5. The school administration just killed any chance of being P5.

 

[browndog319]

Kraft didn't get what he wanted from MA. They added some local infrastructure improvements as face-saving measure but he wanted much more than that. The fact is Rowland didn't have all the ducks in a row and couldn't guarantee an on-time opening. That's what killed the deal.

Have you BEEN to Gillette Stadium? Have you ever been to the old Foxboro Stadium?
I can’t even imagine what else he could have wanted. It’s hands down the nicest stadium I’ve been in along with the retail area around it.
The traffic in and out still blows. But it beats the old mud pit that it was the last time I was there in the 90s.
Did you read the article I attached? This is exactly what it said about on-time concerns. However, he didn’t want to leave MA at the end of the day. He was able to leverage us to get what he wanted.

 

[UConnNick]

Huh? You lost me on this response. My interpretation of your simile is it’s great UConn earned a Fiesta Bowl bid, despite the fact the state of Connecticut had to buy 20,000 tickets per Bowl Game regulations, continue to lose money trying to recruit, get coaches and draw fans in a region where youth football is abysmal, fan interest is fickle and focused solely on 3 pro teams? Go ask BC how their efforts in football are going and they have many, many more signature games on their resume. People are ignoring logic here- D1 big time football will and has not been successful nor sustainable in New England AND IT NEVER WILL BE.

You have no idea what you're talking about. The Ivy League as presently comprised includes some of the greatest power schools in college football history. Those schools have won or shared close to 70 national championships. Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown and Yale were part of that history.

When the Ivy League was formally organized in 1956, the schools decided to de-emphasize football, quit awarding athletic scholarships, and decided not to allow any teams to play in bowl games. That decision, combined with the decline in football at the service academies, caused a gradual decline in CFB interest in the northeastern US. All that was left were Syracuse, Rutgers, BS College and Penn State. Syracuse, and later Penn State emerged as the only two national powers among the group. There weren't enough teams, and no conference affiliations to sustain that interest.

The original Big East had revived some of that interest, but sadly it fell apart. BS College move to a conference with no local rivals didn't help. They became an outlier with nothing in common with their conference mates.

But during the brief time UConn played in the BE, interest in NE college football was revived. Sellout crowds at Rentschler were the norm. It would have all come back again to the 1940's if the Big East didn't fall apart.

 

[UConnNick]

Ouch!!!

Assuming we are talking about MBB as one of the multiple sports, an implication behind your rebuttals is that Villanova had not the necessary conditions, nor Gonzaga, nor Butler a few years ago when they had a great coach. Neither P5, nor the revenue of a P5 proved to be a necessary condition for those schools to have great MBB teams. Is your argument that in the future it will be a necessary condition, even though in the past it was not?

I agree that past is not a necessary predictor for the future. Maybe there's merit in claiming a P5 will be necessary moving forward for MBB to be one of the competitive sports. Yet the evidence is on my side, not yours. You have challenged me to offer explanations, but the burden of proof lies with you, not me, that not being in a P5 will prevent us from having a great MBB team. Until you provide such proof of why the future will be different from the past in this matter, and I said proof, not a rationale, why should anyone conclude definitively that P5 is a necessary condition for a good MBB program?

In any case, the passage you cited was part of the section I stated was for the Board's eyes, so your comeback is a dig at them more than me, though I am sure that was not your intent.

On the other hand, I think you are trying a little too hard to undermine my position. Let me help things out. You could be right that we might end up in a P5 under the right conditions. You could be right that we are more likely to end in a P5 from the AAC rather than the NBE. You could even be right that a P5 is a necessary condition for sports like MBB .... in the future. You just would have to be delusional to think any of that is self-evident and does not require a burden of proof.

Your position may be the self-evident one to you, the one deserving benefit from the doubt for anyone "listening in." But that is not true.

Actually, I think I am done with this topic at this point. It appears your goal is something other than discussion.

The P5 leagues are likely to start paying their players in the revenue producing sports. They will have the money to do it. Mid major conferences won't. The best players will all be at P5 schools if that happens. It's already starting to.

 

[UConnNick]

It's paid for and has already been used for 20 years so we already have gotten our money's worth out of it. I imagine the UConn FB team will still play there.

It's presently losing money, thanks to typically gross mismanagement by the state. Killing the football program will make that even worse. Your average state taxpayer that doesn't know much about it will see it as a white elephant just sitting there.

 

[DefenseBB]

You have no idea what you're talking about. The Ivy League as presently comprised includes some of the greatest power schools in college football history. Those schools have won or shared close to 70 national championships. Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown and Yale were part of that history.

When the Ivy League was formally organized in 1956, the schools decided to de-emphasize football, quit awarding athletic scholarships, and decided not to allow any teams to play in bowl games. That decision, combined with the decline in football at the service academies, caused a gradual decline in CFB interest in the northeastern US. All that was left were Syracuse, Rutgers, BS College and Penn State. Syracuse, and later Penn State emerged as the only two national powers among the group. There weren't enough teams, and no conference affiliations to sustain that interest.

The original Big East had revived some of that interest, but sadly it fell apart. BS College move to a conference with no local rivals didn't help. They became an outlier with nothing in common with their conference mates.

But during the brief time UConn played in the BE, interest in NE college football was revived. Sellout crowds at Rentschler were the norm. It would have all come back again to the 1940's if the Big East didn't fall apart.

Nick-we are talking about 2019, not 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950 or even 1960. But yes, I actually do know the history of the New England Football dynasties. That has NOTHING TO DO with the current environment. Since the 1960's, Pro football has exploded and is supported by us NE fans and is where the real interest resides. You can talk about any revival you want but it is not worthy of any P5 interest as evidenced by no interest and no offers.

I stand by my views that NE (in 2019) is not a college football region to support any college team. There's no youth programs to build into High School programs which a school can pull from. The local dialogues will always focus on pro teams, generating that interest. Add in budget issues to prevent expanded recruiting, getting better coaching for a school in the RED and you have a reduced football emphasis. Basketball is what built the school to national prominence so the back to the roots we go. Sorry my views don't conform to yours.

 

[Vowelguy]

The View From Section 241 -- the NBE

 

[Waquoit]

Have you BEEN to Gillette Stadium? Have you ever been to the old Foxboro Stadium?
I can’t even imagine what else he could have wanted. It’s hands down the nicest stadium I’ve been in along with the retail area around it.

The option to self-finance was always on the table. That's what happened.

 

[cockhrnleghrn]

I was talking basketball. I misunderstood Triad who was talking football. I know little about football recruiting. But if you are talking WCBB - and you feel UCONN needs UCF - -- UCONN doesn't.

I was referring to football; you don't need any help in WBB, but WBB doesn't pay the bills. MBB pays some bills, but not for an entire AD.

 

[UConnNick]

Nick-we are talking about 2019, not 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950 or even 1960. But yes, I actually do know the history of the New England Football dynasties. That has NOTHING TO DO with the current environment. Since the 1960's, Pro football has exploded and is supported by us NE fans and is where the real interest resides. You can talk about any revival you want but it is not worthy of any P5 interest as evidenced by no interest and no offers.

I stand by my views that NE (in 2019) is not a college football region to support any college team. There's no youth programs to build into High School programs which a school can pull from. The local dialogues will always focus on pro teams, generating that interest. Add in budget issues to prevent expanded recruiting, getting better coaching for a school in the RED and you have a reduced football emphasis. Basketball is what built the school to national prominence so the back to the roots we go. Sorry my views don't conform to yours.

Whether or not a school gets a P5 invite or not isn't about football. If it was, Rutgers would still be in the AAC. It's about media markets and demographics. You must have a football team, but if the numbers work, you're in the running.

Boston College got into P5 with a mediocre football team in 2004. It's a hockey school, so even men's BB was a minor factor. They apparently had no problem with adding a New England market, and later on they added Syracuse, certainly not because of the football team, which was pathetic at the time, but because of history and tradition. They have a big fanbase that supports the school because there's nothing comparable anywhere around them.

We are the same. As the flagship state U in CT, we have no competition within the state. There's no Connecticut State U, or Connecticut A&M. We're the only game in town. It worked for Syracuse and even for BC. There's no reason we couldn't do it, except that our university administration was clueless and totally incompetent.

 

[hoophuskee]

I was referring to football; you don't need any help in WBB, but WBB doesn't pay the bills. MBB pays some bills, but not for an entire AD.

I understand now. I didn't realize before you were just talking football. For basketball -- men and women - this will pay the bills better. We aren't getting that P5 bid. As a result, football is not only not paying the bills but it's draining the ability for other sports to succeed in the future. And with the team being so bad and the conference basically crummy- I think we've kind of shown it doesn't matter where we play (including Fla),- we can't cut it in Football. The Fla market all these years hasn't helped then so no reason to think it will ever unless we get into a P5.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

So Mike Anthony decided to write another piece about what it all means - well, maybe not as grand as that, but he gets to a lot of what's important. Here's a sniff:

"Women’s basketball will be in a better place. The Huskies could probably spend the next five years making one Final Four run after another no matter who filled out their schedule and where it took them, but Auriemma won’t always be the coach, and whoever replaces him will run a program from a conference in which it truly fits. "
Mike Anthony: UConn women’s basketball better off in the Big East, even if the program never struggled in six years without it

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Doug Bruno is such a mensch.

"Auriemma recalls going out to dinner with his good friend and DePaul coach Doug Bruno a year or so after UConn left Big East.

“At the end of the night, he says, I got this,” Auriemma said. “I said, well, that’s a change. He goes, I got a big bonus. I said, for what? He goes, winning the league championship. I go, no kidding. He goes, yeah, I never even knew it was in my contract. I knew we’d never win. So I never checked.”

Auriemma has talked to Bruno about a return to the Big East over the years and says Bruno would be ecstatic about it.

“He says it elevates everybody in the league,” Auriemma said."

Jeff Jacobs article has lots of the real Geno in it. I suspect somebody has posted it, but I sure didn't find it.

https://www.middletownpress.com/spo..._source=post original url&utm_medium=referral

"Going from 16 games in the AAC to 20 in the Big East is not a problem for Auriemma. The games against the top 15-20 teams in the nation all will remain on the schedule. What is a problem with Auriemma is the American travel.

“I don’t ever remember getting home at 3 in the morning from a Big East game,” Auriemma said. “Other than a few games, most are in the same time zone. You could bus to at least a quarter of the games. There was a big difference in time commitment by the players. We’re fortunate. We charter. It made it a little bit easier. I’m sure with football when you’re only playing six road games it’s different, but for all the other sports it’s a difficult task.”

Amen, Geno! Just get through this year's travel grind.

 

[hjoerring]

Some people here are acting as if the administrators at Uconn are all dumb! No one woke up. 8-hours ago and said: 'what a beautiful day, I think we should go to the NBE and 'kill' FB. I don't think that is how things are done. Many were involved, reports were commissioned, and it was clear for more than a decade that w/out a P5 invite the school had to go in another direction. I have yet to hear from the pro FB people a reasonable argument about how we can get good enough to be a good program beyond: we were once winning, been to a Bowl, etc. Some say, go out and hire a name coach, do this, do that ... Personally, I am of the opinion that you would have to hire someone who is willing to cheat (many of them out there) and the Univ. looking sideways (many do), lower the standards-- all of which this Univ., alum and State are against. My guess is that a school like BC survives bec of ACC money. I doubt that they are losing bec of bad coaching-- the NE talent is not there. And many of the other private universities are too big and poweful for us to look into their bookkeeping and hidden alum. to expose ontowards conducts.
I hope Uconn can hold onto FB at some acceptable level, but it is clear that the Univ feels more at home with the univ in the NBE than those of the AAC.That means something.

At some point American universities will have to unload these revenue programs and get out of the sport-business world. The only reason for not paying athletes above the table is that it will remove the last standing fig leaf and the financial ruin of many so-called universities. (I won't name any here.)

Congrats Uconn. A major decision for a public univ. willing to say enough to this madness.

 

[triaddukefan]

So Mike Anthony decided to write another piece about what it all means - well, maybe not as grand as that, but he gets to a lot of what's important. Here's a sniff:

"Women’s basketball will be in a better place. The Huskies could probably spend the next five years making one Final Four run after another no matter who filled out their schedule and where it took them, but Auriemma won’t always be the coach, and whoever replaces him will run a program from a conference in which it truly fits. "
Mike Anthony: UConn women’s basketball better off in the Big East, even if the program never struggled in six years without it

So this guy thinks a Rural Flagship Land Grant Public University truly fits in a conference filled with small private Catholic schools located in large urban areas?

 

[oldude]

So this guy thinks a Rural Flagship Land Grant Public University truly fits in a conference filled with small private Catholic schools located in large urban areas? View attachment 44150 View attachment 44150 View attachment 44150 View attachment 44150 View attachment 44150

You are forgetting that Geno Auriemma, a Catholic his entire life, is rumored to be on a first name basis with the Almighty.

 

[JoePgh]

Did anyone explore (or even think of) the possibility of UConn MBB and WBB teams playing in a P5 conference, with football not included? There are already cases (such as hockey) where one sport plays its games in a different conference than other sports. Why wouldn't this work for basketball? Obviously, UConn couldn't expect the same revenue from such an arrangement (or anything close) as if it were in the conference for all sports, but might it not yield more revenue than the New Big East?

I'm thinking that the SEC could use a boost to its competition level (and to its TV and streaming audience numbers) in basketball that the UConn teams could provide. Yes, there would be greater travel involved, but the audience and the competitive value would make it worthwhile.