UConn vs. Yale football not in the cards (Malafronte)

[Bulldog Fan]

http://articles.courant.com/1998-09-27/sports/9809270228_1_yale-bowl-football-alumni-uconn

All those factors exist no more. Sure Yale still doesn't give athletic scholarships, but nearly the entire team now receives generous financial aid, thanks to an exploding endowment. Financial Aid in many respects is worth more that an athletic scholarship to recruits. Uconn will almost certainly still win, but the score will be a lot closer than 63-21. The gap has actually narrowed since the late 90's. That's why Yale could beat Army last year.

 

[huskymedic]

The Yale fan does have a bit of a point. UConn fans are constantly complaining that Syracuse won't play the Huskies in either football or hoops and BC won't play us in football. Syracuse and BC have the upper hand as members of a P5 conference and really don't need the games. The same can be said for UConn when discussion of football or basketball games is brought up with local schools like Yale, UMass, Providence, and Rhode Island. If we choose not to play any of our former longtime historic rivals, all of which are pretty close, then we have no right to complain about the Orange or Eagles when they do the same.

Those football games don't carry the same schedule implications as playing Ivy League schools. From above: "... But the Huskies felt the real issue would be getting permission from the NCAA to play Yale twice. Football Bowl Subdivision programs must get a waiver in order for games against non-scholarship schools to count toward bowl eligibility, and those are issued only on rare occasions. It’s why the Yale-Army series, originally intended to be a three-year contract, was pared to one meeting."

No mention of whether there was a counterproposal to play one game @ the Rent.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I think it's worth pursuing. There is money to be made here. Uconn home game at Rentschler and a neutral site designation for a game at Yale us what I think might make it through the conference regulations for money and NCAA for bowl eligibility, especially if some lawyer makes a good argument about tradition, history and grant-in-aids vs. Scholarships.

 

[Jimdish255]

Sure. Play the game if you want to see club-level athletes get hurt.

 

[junglehusky]

If the Ivy league as a whole decided they needed to move up to I-A, they certainly have the money to do it. But since they don't need to, they won't. Yale is building a new residential college and you can see why - more Yalie alumni = more future donors.

On a semi-related tangent, Harvard is getting new uniforms. Nothing crazy, but the kids like it.

That grantland article links to an explanation of the symbol for 10,000 Harvard men, which contains a the most Harvard-sounding quote ever -

“I came up with a draft, and we were ready to go to press,” says Mee. “But I woke up that night in a cold sweat: what if it’s wrong....Yale would never let us forget it! The next day I went to my pastor, Msgr. William Fay of St. Columbkille Church in Brighton. He sent the text to one of his Pontifical Gregorian University classmates in Rome, who was then the lead translator of all papal bulls into Latin. The next day I got word that we did have an error: the x was underscored, when it needed to be overscored to indicate ‘multiply by 1,000.’ With confidence, we went to press. Subsequently, the logo has found its way onto jackets, lapel pins, and a flag.”

 

[60'sfan]

When I was at Uconn, the Yale game was always a big one for us. It was always played at the Bowl in New Haven and we never won. A friend who was a high school coach once told me that Uconn would never beat Yale. We finally did and for a couple of years it was a very competitive game. I usually did not bother to walk across campus to watch Uconn football but I always went to the game at the bowl. If they renewed it I would go again.

 

[coachcap]

Yale reaching out to UConn is just their feeble attempt to stay relevant in the modern day football world in the eyes of their VERY wealthy alumni. If they REALLY wanted to achieve relevancy, they would announce their decision to achieve FBS status with the accompanying number of schollies given, & drag Harvard, Princeton, & Penn along with them. The AAC would add those four in a heartbeat in expansion over any of the refuse available. They have mega-endowments & can afford it. They are happy in their little colony of elitists. In the words of Marie Antoinette: "Let them eat cake!" In this case the sentiment fits.

 

[Adios]

I think once academics are prioritized in top tier college football (if ever), the Ivies will rejoin. The Ivies were accepting B grade students for sports and still sort of do but maybe not in football. The Ivies historically own the freaking game.

 

[John]

It's nice in a nostolgia/theoritical sense, but in reality we cannot go back to that.

 

[FartMan69]

I highly doubt this has anything to do with Yale trying to "stay relevant in the football world." I mean outside of CT who would even notice this game? Yale doesn't care about the football world nor should they. We're actually the ones trying to stay relevant in the football world and no this game wouldn't help that.

 

[Pudge]

You all are skirting around the real regional issue.

At one time ... in my lifetime ... Yale and all the Ivies were relevant in the College Football World. In 1966, Yale v Harvard was one of the biggest games of the year; and, the SEC, PAC 10, Big Ten were not above them.

Today, in the northeastern US, Syracuse (really only big in the late 1950s) and BC (Flutie & then what) have tried to step into the regional elite status. They don't. We have a wide open rarely talked about dispersed Market. I think there is interest; but, you really need to grab it and work it. I would play the Yale bumpkins. Never 1 Rent and then 1 Yale Bowl. But, I might do 1 Yale Bowl out of 3 or 4. Make some regional noise. Get in the NY Times.

 

[junglehusky]

Good lord - you want to play Yale 4 times?

 

[businesslawyer]

Just not worth this much discussion. UConn and Yale is not going to be a rivalry game. If the NCAA will give a one time waiver and Yale want to play us in the Rent, fine. But the economic reality is that we need our FCS game to be a home game, because more and more it's going to be difficult to get P5 teams to play us home and home.

 

[FartMan69]

You all are skirting around the real regional issue.

At one time ... in my lifetime ... Yale and all the Ivies were relevant in the College Football World. In 1966, Yale v Harvard was one of the biggest games of the year; and, the SEC, PAC 10, Big Ten were not above them.

Today, in the northeastern US, Syracuse (really only big in the late 1950s) and BC (Flutie & then what) have tried to step into the regional elite status. They don't. We have a wide open rarely talked about dispersed Market. I think there is interest; but, you really need to grab it and work it. I would play the Yale bumpkins. Never 1 Rent and then 1 Yale Bowl. But, I might do 1 Yale Bowl out of 3 or 4. Make some regional noise. Get in the NY Times.

The Northeast as a whole is a pro-sports market and unless there is sustained success (i.e UConn bball) there won't be much attention paid

 

[Pudge]

Good lord - you want to play Yale 4 times?

Actually ... that is not what that sentence says.

That sentence says that NEVER one for one. I also recognize that the CFB world is stating definitively that FBS should play NO FCS. As we just saw with Villanova, and there are a dozen other solid schedule fills, one FCS (Norfolk State) ain't the same as another. My expectation is by 2020, there will be no interdivision games. I think that is sad. But, that's what I see.

Second? The Northeast ain't a pro sports market. That is YOUR view. That's not proven. There is no reason that you can't build a market/fanbase on College Sports/College Football just as the MSL is doing with the NYC FC or others ... or MMA ... etc.

If UConn can play a solid competitive Football product, UConn sell out a 40,000 seat stadium. Why am I confident in that? Demographics ... and the Football alternatives (Giants, Jets, Patriots) are significantly more expensive. A whole bunch. I simply don't buy this "Pro" market. You have probably 20 million people we can reach. You need to capture the hearts & mind of a decent percentage to have a solid Program. That's not tough math if you really play a solid schedule and you have a Program fans can back.

 

[John]

Actually ... that is not what that sentence says.

That sentence says that NEVER one for one. I also recognize that the CFB world is stating definitively that FBS should play NO FCS. As we just saw with Villanova, and there are a dozen other solid schedule fills, one FCS (Norfolk State) ain't the same as another. My expectation is by 2020, there will be no interdivision games. I think that is sad. But, that's what I see.

Second? The Northeast ain't a pro sports market. That is YOUR view. That's not proven. There is no reason that you can't build a market/fanbase on College Sports/College Football just as the MSL is doing with the NYC FC or others ... or MMA ... etc.

If UConn can play a solid competitive Football product, UConn sell out a 40,000 seat stadium. Why am I confident in that? Demographics ... and the Football alternatives (Giants, Jets, Patriots) are significantly more expensive. A whole bunch. I simply don't buy this "Pro" market. You have probably 20 million people we can reach. You need to capture the hearts & mind of a decent percentage to have a solid Program. That's not tough math if you really play a solid schedule and you have a Program fans can back.

television numbers say we're not a college football market, never mind fannies in the seats.

 

[HuskyDogArt]

Yale is UConn's 5th most played opponent of all time. A game against them at the historic Yale Bowl would have been nostalgic and rekindled old memories.

UConn Football Most Played Opponents

TEAM #OF GAMES
Rhode Island 94
Maine 73
Massachusetts 72
New Hampshire 71
Yale 49

The only 'old rivals' that we should play would be Umass... the others are FCS. The others can play us in baseball, basketball, hockey or lacrosse, but not football...

 

[Fishy]

The Yale fan does have a bit of a point. UConn fans are constantly complaining that Syracuse won't play the Huskies in either football or hoops and BC won't play us in football. Syracuse and BC have the upper hand as members of a P5 conference and really don't need the games. The same can be said for UConn when discussion of football or basketball games is brought up with local schools like Yale, UMass, Providence, and Rhode Island. If we choose not to play any of our former longtime historic rivals, all of which are pretty close, then we have no right to complain about the Orange or Eagles when they do the same.

1) UConn and Syracuse are playing a home and home in football.

2) We also have football games against UMass, Holy Cross, Rhode Island and Maine scheduled.

3) We can't play a road game at Yale for giggles.

4) (On BC, forget that game ever happening. One loss and they'd never live down the "we invited the wrong New England team" that they already hear from ACC fans during the hoop season.)