(11-05-2016 06:03 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(11-05-2016 05:11 PM)fishpro1098 Wrote:  

(11-05-2016 12:34 PM)NJ2MDTerp Wrote:  

(10-29-2016 09:51 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  For the record, I'm not interested in taking a dump on Connecticut. In fact, I defended you in this very thread. I think you've gotten a raw deal, TBH.

However, please don't brag about your "championship pedigree" in women's basketball. Nobody cares – except maybe a few Tennessee and Louisiana Tech fans.

That would be like West Virginia fans bragging about their rifle team or Penn State talking about women's volleyball. It doesn't matter at all. Your men's basketball history barely matters – hasn't that been proven to you yet?

You were late to the party with regard to major college football and it bit you in the arse. Don't get mad at me, I didn't make that decision.

Perhaps UConn were late to the party, but I believe it was the hiring of Paul Pasqualoni and his successor, Bob Diaco, in combination with the perception of a lack of a football culture that's kept UConn out.

Based on academics, location and a financially successful athletic program, UConn otherwise is a prime candidate for P5 status. They just need to find for decent head football coach and be willing to pay for quality assistant coaches.

Even if UCONN developed a quality FB program, I think their geography kills them. ACC is not expanding for a millennium. Big12 is the only league in play IMHO and you just saw what they did there.

A suggestion for Husky fans. (For which I will receive untold wrath) There's no reason you should be content with the outcomes of recent expansion moves. Your school was passed over every time; doesn't seem right; doesn't seem fair. But I suggest that you are seeing events through a searing focused homer's point of view; not unreasonable nor surprising.
If you are unable to see the clear reasons that other schools got the call instad of UConn, it is a case of willful blindness. I'm not disparaging your school. Just suggesting that you might try to see it from the outside.
Pitt and Syracuse were added to the ACC because the huge population of those two states would make the ACCN possible. It was a cable box/carriage fee add. Connecticut could not match that.
Rutgers and Maryland to the B1G was also for cable boxes, and to connect with the substantial B1G alumni populations in NYC & DC. Why not UConn instead of Rutgers? The NJ population is almost nine million, the student body is 60k, and the living alumni base correspondingly huge. Connecticut could not match that.
In the case of Louisville to the ACC, the football centric schools demanded that the added school have football cred. Louisville prevailed over UConn, Cincy, et al.
In the most recent case, the Big 12 knew there would be no expansion. They staged the beauty contest in order to elicit a pay raise from ESPN. If they truly wanted to add schools, they would have done so much more quickly, and without the soap opera. Was it a insulting to every school that applied? Yes; anger, resentment are called for.
The issue of "fairness" cannot be reconciled. It is unfair that a fine athletics program, like UConn, should be paid a fraction of the money being paid to Weak Florist, of the ACC. But in this thread and in all of the countless postings on BY, I have seen only one reference to TV networks other than ESPN. All of the media companies could have bid on the AAC rights, and maybe they did. The offer from ESPN could have been exceeded by i.e. Fox Sports. If any of ESPN's competitors thought there was money to be made by outbidding ESPN, they would have done it. It is a very competitive industry and it is the responsibilty of the AAC to engage the networks in competitive bidding. ESPN is not persecuting UConn. They are taking advantage of favorable market prices.
The Big 12's demise is all but certain. When the split comes, most of their members will be left out of the P4 conferences. They could continue as the Big 12 and add any number of schools who might be willing, but their next contract will be at a rate far below the money that is being paid to the current Big12. When the bowl contracts that include the Big 12 expire, Iowa State, Texas Tech & company will be a G6 conference. The P4 will include fewer than 60 schools. How's that for fairness?


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Is there any particular reason you put your thoughts in fishpro's post?

If the power conferences were formed today Uconn would be in ahead of many current power conference schools. The reality is, none of those schools are leaving or getting kicked out of a power conference. The only thing Uconn can do is invest and wait.

(11-06-2016 03:15 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  If the power conferences were formed today Uconn would be in ahead of many current power conference schools. The reality is, none of those schools are leaving or getting kicked out of a power conference. The only thing Uconn can do is invest and wait.

Just like making a correct investment years ago puts you ahead in the future, making the correct decisions years ago puts you ahead today.

Uconn didn't invest years ago, so they got stuck.

(11-06-2016 03:40 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(11-06-2016 03:15 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  If the power conferences were formed today Uconn would be in ahead of many current power conference schools. The reality is, none of those schools are leaving or getting kicked out of a power conference. The only thing Uconn can do is invest and wait.

Just like making a correct investment years ago puts you ahead in the future, making the correct decisions years ago puts you ahead today.

Uconn didn't invest years ago, so they got stuck.

Yes and no -- there was no Northeastern Power conference, the schools that became the 1A schools were all independents.

UConn could have gone the 1A route as an independent in 1978 but didn't. Perhaps if the Big East had been built around football as well as basketball they might have, and the changes in the timeline there would have been interesting. They would have started a conference with Syracuse, BC and Villanova (maybe Villanova doesn't drop football). Maybe Rutgers would have joined at inception instead of turning down the offer. At that point you have 5 football schools in the Big East and Penn State doesn't get rejected. Perhaps Pitt joins, or goes to the Big 10 or ACC.

What could have been.

(11-06-2016 03:15 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  If the power conferences were formed today Uconn would be in ahead of many current power conference schools. The reality is, none of those schools are leaving or getting kicked out of a power conference. The only thing Uconn can do is invest and wait.

Thats not true though. The Pac-12 isn't going to take them over WSU. The SEC isn;t going to take them over Vandy. The B1G isn't going to take them over Purdue.

(11-06-2016 09:09 PM)megadrone Wrote:  

(11-06-2016 03:40 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(11-06-2016 03:15 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  If the power conferences were formed today Uconn would be in ahead of many current power conference schools. The reality is, none of those schools are leaving or getting kicked out of a power conference. The only thing Uconn can do is invest and wait.

Just like making a correct investment years ago puts you ahead in the future, making the correct decisions years ago puts you ahead today.

Uconn didn't invest years ago, so they got stuck.

Yes and no -- there was no Northeastern Power conference, the schools that became the 1A schools were all independents.

UConn could have gone the 1A route as an independent in 1978 but didn't. Perhaps if the Big East had been built around football as well as basketball they might have, and the changes in the timeline there would have been interesting. They would have started a conference with Syracuse, BC and Villanova (maybe Villanova doesn't drop football). Maybe Rutgers would have joined at inception instead of turning down the offer. At that point you have 5 football schools in the Big East and Penn State doesn't get rejected. Perhaps Pitt joins, or goes to the Big 10 or ACC.

What could have been.

Why would UConn have needed a conference if they were investing in football back in 1978? None of the other eastern independents needed a conference to build their program and there were enough independent teams for a decent schedule that post 1983 would have got TV coverage.

Facts are in 1978 it was already too late. They didn't move up from DII until 1978, and except for the late 50's and 1973 they weren't even competitive at that level. They needed to make the investment and effort at least a decade earlier.

Uconn fans can look at it this way: Imagine seeing all your peers being snagged up into a brand new football conference in 1991, (big east) and despite the fact that your program is stronger than many of the peers taken by this new football conference, and the fact that you want to join them, you aren't invited. Then 15 years later, two more of your peers are added to that conference (Cincy and Louisville) and you are still wanting in. But you drive on in CUSA 2.0 hoping for the best. Add on top of that insult you see that the conference made up of former peers has added two brand new schools?!?! (Uconn and USF) That's a kick in the nuts. At least you guys got to be a part of the power conference system for 9 years and only a few years after you transitioned up from Division 1AA. That in itself is something to be grateful about. The best example I can give is If Umass got an invite to the ACC or Big 10 and you didn't. That's what ECU has seen happen time and again for the past 25 years. Only Southern Miss playing in CUSA 4.0 could be worse than the hand dealt to us.
Cheers!

Politics in the state of Connecticut weren't a friend of UConn or any public university until the 90's. Public universities were largely ignored, UConn struggled to get academic funding never mind athletic funding. UConn has put in the money now but it seems probably too late which sucks for UConn fans. In the Big East we did hold our own, even though we didn't invest in football until 2000.

Also UConn never played D2 football.

(11-07-2016 08:32 PM)Huskies12 Wrote:  Politics in the state of Connecticut weren't a friend of UConn or any public university until the 90's. Public universities were largely ignored, UConn struggled to get academic funding never mind athletic funding. UConn has put in the money now but it seems probably too late which sucks for UConn fans. In the Big East we did hold our own, even though we didn't invest in football until 2000.

Also UConn never played D2 football.

Division 1-AA until 2001 right? I remember the shock when Uconn traveled to Ames and thumped a good Seneca Wallace led Iowa St team late in the season in 2002. The outrage there! "We lost to another division 1-AA team like Northern Iowa!" Technically, Uconn was a Division 1 Independent team that year.
Cheers!

(11-07-2016 08:32 PM)Huskies12 Wrote:  Also UConn never played D2 football.

Yeah they did. The Yankee Conference was NCAA College Division until the College Division was renamed Division 2 in 1972. Then it was D2. When the NCAA created D1-AA in 1978, the Yankee Conference and other strong D2 conferences were the original members. Nonqualifying D1-A conferences, Ivy, SoCon, Southland, etc., were forced down to D1-AA in 1982.

The fact that Eastern Football consisted of independents actually made it relatively easy to move up to D1, and later D1-A. Schools had no fixed schedule. Rather, their schedules evolved as other programs moved up and down the ladder of competitiveness. Temple, for instance, played a high level schedule including Syracuse and Penn State in the 40's and early 50's, then dropped to the College Division, then returned to D1 around 1970. Rutgers never dropped out of the University Division (D1), but played a schedule full of schools like Colgate, Princeton and Connecticut until the D1-AA split and the construction of Giants Stadium, which allowed them to make the commitment to stay in D1-A and start playing schools like Syracuse and Penn State regularly instead.

(11-07-2016 05:59 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(11-06-2016 09:09 PM)megadrone Wrote:  

(11-06-2016 03:40 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(11-06-2016 03:15 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  If the power conferences were formed today Uconn would be in ahead of many current power conference schools. The reality is, none of those schools are leaving or getting kicked out of a power conference. The only thing Uconn can do is invest and wait.

Just like making a correct investment years ago puts you ahead in the future, making the correct decisions years ago puts you ahead today.

Uconn didn't invest years ago, so they got stuck.

Yes and no -- there was no Northeastern Power conference, the schools that became the 1A schools were all independents.

UConn could have gone the 1A route as an independent in 1978 but didn't. Perhaps if the Big East had been built around football as well as basketball they might have, and the changes in the timeline there would have been interesting. They would have started a conference with Syracuse, BC and Villanova (maybe Villanova doesn't drop football). Maybe Rutgers would have joined at inception instead of turning down the offer. At that point you have 5 football schools in the Big East and Penn State doesn't get rejected. Perhaps Pitt joins, or goes to the Big 10 or ACC.

What could have been.

Why would UConn have needed a conference if they were investing in football back in 1978? None of the other eastern independents needed a conference to build their program and there were enough independent teams for a decent schedule that post 1983 would have got TV coverage.

Facts are in 1978 it was already too late. They didn't move up from DII until 1978, and except for the late 50's and 1973 they weren't even competitive at that level. They needed to make the investment and effort at least a decade earlier.

They were in a football conference in 1978 -- the Yankee Conference, with other schools that went to FCS. If they had intended on playing FBS at the time, they would have been aligned with BC, Syracuse, Pitt et. al a little earlier. Eastern football could have been different, as the Big East could have started out sponsoring football and been the all sports conference Paterno wanted.

Obviously it didn't happen. But interesting to think about if it had.

Both Seton Hall and St. John's played football at the Division III level in the 1970s. Seton Hall disbanded its football program in the early 1980s, where St. John's continued to play until the early 2000's. I'm surprised that these two schools would give up on football while other eastern private schools like Fordham, Colgate and Holy Cross could continue to participate in the sport.

(11-08-2016 09:10 PM)NJ2MDTerp Wrote:  Both Seton Hall and St. John's played football at the Division III level in the 1970s. Seton Hall disbanded its football program in the early 1980s, where St. John's continued to play until the early 2000's. I'm surprised that these two schools would give up on football while other eastern private schools like Fordham, Colgate and Holy Cross could continue to participate in the sport.

Focus those resources onto their primary sport more than likely. At least when it comes to Seton Hall they are a very small private school with very limited resources. Even fully focusing on BBall they still mostly struggle (last year aside). They don't sponsor many sports, something close to the bare minimum. Then throw in all the health issues and it seems a no brainer. FBS makes sense, not DIII.

Marquette had football until 1960. They participated in the first ever Cotton Bowl against Sammy Baugh and TCU - losing 16-6. Over 70 players from Marquette participated in the NFL and AFL, including George Andrie and Buzz Buivid (who finished 3rd in the Heisman voting in 1936). While the program had an all-time winning record - 349-280-39 (.552%) - administration (back then) realized it could not keep up with the rising costs for football. Couple that with the very poor last couple of seasons, and the embarrassing attendance figures we had against Penn State, there was really no other option than to drop the football program.

Many don't want to hear it or consider it, but there will be more programs in the next decade that make that decision as well. The good news is that those savings and resources can go more into basketball and other programs, which are much easier to maintain and recruit for.

(11-09-2016 10:58 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  Marquette had football until 1960. They participated in the first ever Cotton Bowl against Sammy Baugh and TCU - losing 16-6. Over 70 players from Marquette participated in the NFL and AFL, including George Andrie and Buzz Buivid (who finished 3rd in the Heisman voting in 1936). While the program had an all-time winning record - 349-280-39 (.552%) - administration (back then) realized it could not keep up with the rising costs for football. Couple that with the very poor last couple of seasons, and the embarrassing attendance figures we had against Penn State, there was really no other option than to drop the football program.

Many don't want to hear it or consider it, but there will be more programs in the next decade that make that decision as well. The good news is that those savings and resources can go more into basketball and other programs, which are much easier to maintain and recruit for.

Are you suggesting this will be the UConn path?