UCONN fans are starting to get real nervous.....

[Herman Cain]

Why would the ACC expand again and why hasn't it done so already?

They will explore expanding when next media contract comes up. ACC could also be raided by the  Big Ten at that point.

[wadesworld]

They will explore expanding when next media contract comes up. ACC could also be raided by the  Big Ten at that point.

Oh.

[JD]

Oh.

Lmao.

[forgetful]

College revenue and accounting is arbitrary and political in nature. 3000 per student fee at U Conn could just as easily be part of tuition.  Look at MU they mark up the dorms big time the first two years but show a lower tuition cost than some other schools.

You need to avoid commenting on the business of academia.  Also, the ACC is not taking UCONN, it is a money loser for them. 

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

UConn is not ready to drop football yet...but they are getting there. I think Warde Manuel's departure changed the atmosphere a little bit.

I'm not convinced that UConn is the shoe in it thinks it is for the ACC. I used to think so but now the ACC seems to be stabilizing while the B12 seems to be coming apart at the seams. I've long thought that one of those two conferences will implode and it looks like it will be the B12. If B12 schools are available, why would the ACC settle for UConn?

It is very telling the B12 would rather have one lump sum of $10 Million rather than add any new schools. UConn is not an attractive expansion candidate for a football conference. A basketball conference on the other hand....

[GGGG]

College revenue and accounting is arbitrary and political in nature. 3000 per student fee at U Conn could just as easily be part of tuition.  Look at MU they mark up the dorms big time the first two years but show a lower tuition cost than some other schools.

You can't compare publics and privates.  Public universities are oftentimes under mandates to only use tuition revenue for instruction.  So the student fees to athletics could go away entirely and not effect the core function of the University - at least in the short term.

[GGGG]

I have a personal bias here, since I grew up a Huskie fan in Connecticut (my first MU game was the 41 pointer from Novak)

That said, I think that the short term value of UConn for even 2 or 3 seasons would be worth it for the Big East.  If they got an ACC invite later, so be it.  We could go back to 10 and be happy as we are now.

2 or 3 seasons would not be good.

But UConn for a decade?  I'm good with that.

[DienerTime34]

UConn dropping football seems like wishful thinking by MU fans eager to get them in our conference. Why, because they've had a couple of down years? Even the worst bowl games outdraw college basketball ... the Pinstripe Bowl gets better TV ratings than UNC vs. Duke. All it will take is the football team going 6-6 and an invite to the Papa Johns Speedy Deliver Service Bowl and everything will be good over there again.

[GGGG]

UConn dropping football seems like wishful thinking by MU fans eager to get them in our conference. Why, because they've had a couple of down years? Even the worst bowl games outdraw college basketball ... the Pinstripe Bowl gets better TV ratings than UNC vs. Duke. All it will take is the football team going 6-6 and an invite to the Papa Johns Speedy Deliver Service Bowl and everything will be good over there again.

That's not entirely accurate.  UConn will get the AAC bowl payouts regardless if they make one or not.  The issue is that the AAC television contract, and the conference's bowl tie-ins, are bad.  Therefore UConn is losing money.

However the AAC has a better contract than CUSA, the MAC and the Sun Belt.  And better bowl tie-ins too.  So perhaps considering *those* schools aren't dropping football, we shouldn't make assumptions that UConn will.

[GoldenWarrior11]

This can't be true.  I was told repeatedly that football drives the bus in realignment and that small, no-time, little Catholic schools couldn't compete with the big boys of college athletics.  I was also told that any conference not on ESPN would be a death-sentence for that league.  I was also told that media markets matter and that football growth and potential were key factors in realignment. 

It's almost four years since the BE/AAC split, and one conference is trending upwards while the other is trending downwards.  With UConn deciding to continue pursuing P5 membership, and as a result - aligning with Tulane, East Carolina, UCF, SMU, Houston, Tulsa and the other misfit toys - they made their bed.  They decided to gamble their athletic future on football, believing basketball was safe no matter the conference it was housed in.  Well, guess what?  UConn fans, even the die hards, have zero interest in spending money on those schools, and it is even worse that UConn has never won a regular season title in the AAC.

UConn was supposed to be the power program in the American when it was created.  However, in football alone, they have been surpassed by each and every school - including Tulane who just spanked them last weekend.  In basketball, Houston and SMU have invested heavily in facilities and coaching upgrades.  Memphis hired Tubby Smith.  Temple and Cincinnati have remained strong.  They, too, are losing their ground in basketball - because of their amended focus to football. 

UConn needed the Big East brand in order to be successful in basketball.  Calhoun preached that for years, as he said the only way he originally started getting quality players for the program was that he sold recruits on playing in big cities on the east coast in front of packed gyms and on TV.  No one in Connecticut gives a hoot about Tulane, East Carolina, Tulsa, Houston, SMU, UCF, or USF.  Temple, Cincinnati and Memphis, maybe, but it ain't Syracuse, Villanova, Pittsburgh, Georgetown, Louisville, Notre Dame, West Virginia or St. Johns. 

I actually don't want UConn in the Big East - I love our 10-team structure and all of the like-minded schools in it - but let's be real: UConn is coming back to the Big East because they will need to and it will make the Big East more money.  The ACC does not and will not ever invite them, period (Boston College will make sure of this, and the football powers, FSU, Clemson and Louisville, will be against this also).  My prediction is, by 2020, UConn will rejoin the Big East for all sports (de-emphasizing football again).

[🏀]

The $30M a year budget losses each year are not unique to UCONN, but most of the AAC, and often excludes the cost of scholarships.  If they would be willing to drop football, UCONN would be a very logical choice and adding them would still allow a double round robin with a 20 game schedule.  Would it be worthwhile though to consider going to 12 and having two divisions if others would drop football.  Choices from the AAC would include:

Memphis
Cincinnati
SMU

(excluding Houston who will never give up football and Temple who would likely be vetoed by Nova')

Choices from the A10 would include:

Dayton
VCU
St. Louis

One would have to assume that adding Memphis, Cincinnati, SMU or UCONN would bring in more $$$'s, not so sure about the A10 schools.  Would it be worth it if they dropped football.

ABD.

[🏀]

Oh.

+1

Just to reiterate, ABD.

[fjm]

I get UCONN's recent past.
But I'd rather have Cincy and Memphis.

[Benny B]

For some reason, Benny believes that a UCONN-to-Big East offer has already been made/discussed... both parties probably expressed an interest in talking preliminary and sat down around the end of the first year following the Big East's renovation; however, for many of the same reasons posted here, the Big East still favors stability more than anything and therefore "the board" was quite concerned that UCONN, if invited, would simply use the Big East as a stepping stone.  Nevertheless, the board's consensus was that having UCONN would be of great value to the conference if they were committed to the conference, so preliminary terms for membership were floated to UCONN, which, incidentally, didn't say anything about football but did have a media rights pledge front and center.  It didn't take long for UCONN to completely balk at the terms and walk away which was interpreted by the board as a clear indicator that UCONN was indeed looking at the Big East strictly as a stop-gap.

Now... are UCONN's goals and perspectives evolving?  Perhaps, but not likely.  Is there anything that would ever mitigate the board's skepticism regarding UCONN's intentions in the Big East?  Perhaps, but not likely.  Could the Big East and UCONN therefore ever sit down at the table again?  Perhaps, but not likely.

[LAZER]

I get UCONN's recent past.
But I'd rather have Cincy and Memphis.

Why?

[Marcus92]

I get UCONN's recent past. But I'd rather have Cincy and Memphis.

Never going to happen.

Unlike UConn, Cincy and Memphis actually have legitimate (although second-tier) football programs going back more than a century. The Bearcats averaged 37,000 fans a game last season and have been to 7 straight bowl games. The Tigers are a pretty mediocre program, but have appeared in bowl games the past 2 seasons.

Like UConn, the only conferences Cincy and Memphis are interested in are the Power 5 football conferences. From their perspective, the Big East has nothing to offer.

[MU82]

I've been on the record many times as saying I'd love to have UConn in the conference.

But I sure would hate to lose our heated rivalries with HBU and Howard!

[Benny B]

I've been on the record many times as saying I'd love to have UConn in the conference.

But I sure would hate to lose our heated rivalries with HBU and Howard!

Listen... let's just put this 20-game schedule nonsense to bed.  There's no way UCONN is going to play an 8-marble schedule.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Listen... let's just put this 20-game schedule nonsense to bed.  There's no way UCONN is going to play an 8-marble schedule.

Yeah that post still makes no sense to me. I don't understand how Houston Baptist and Western Carolina is better for RPI than UConn and @UConn. Playing teams like those take marbles away from the conference, it doesn't add them.

[fjm]

Why?

I get what Marcus92 is saying about their football teams etc. But for me, it's more of a "you screwed us, we screw you" thing. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blah blah... but UCONN thought they were high and mighty and spurned us... they can get their buckets and bail out their own sinking ship. I'd rather have teams that see the quality of being in the BE.

but having said that, I get that it would never happen. It's just like... my opinion... man.

[Benny B]

Yeah that post still makes no sense to me. I don't understand how Houston Baptist and Western Carolina is better for RPI than UConn and @UConn. Playing teams like those take marbles away from the conference, it doesn't add them.

Ask yourself this... why hasn't any other high-major conference gone to a 20-game schedule?

For an individual team, sure, replacing HBU and HU with UCONNx2 seems great for RPI... but there's nothing that precludes MU - or any Big East team - from playing a stronger OOC schedule as it is.  Nevertheless, we're not talking about maximizing Marquette's RPI here... we're talking about the Big East's RPI, and the Big East isn't going to prioritize maximizing MU's RPI.

Even if the potential boost for MU's RPI seems like a great thing, it's not so great if you lose to UCONN.  In most cases, a loss to a top 100 team at home is typically going to be more detrimental to your RPI than a home win against a cupcake.  And if said top 100 team happens to be a conference foe, the result is a net-zero for the conference.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

I get what Marcus92 is saying about their football teams etc. But for me, it's more of a "you screwed us, we screw you" thing. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blah blah... but UCONN thought they were high and mighty and spurned us... they can get their buckets and bail out their own sinking ship. I'd rather have teams that see the quality of being in the BE.

but having said that, I get that it would never happen. It's just like... my opinion... man.

I see why you can come to that conclusion but UCONN, just like every other institution is making the best decision for them - it's not personal.  If their objectives change as an institution and it aligns better to what our conference has to offer, we would be silly to turn them away because we felt some slight from the demise of the Big East.

[fjm]

I see why you can come to that conclusion but UCONN, just like every other institution is making the best decision for them - it's not personal.  If their objectives change as an institution and it aligns better to what our conference has to offer, we would be silly to turn them away because we felt some slight from the demise of the Big East.

Yeah that's a good point I suppose.

[Marcus92]

I certainly enjoyed playing the likes of Louisville, UConn, Syracuse, Notre Dame and Pitt on a regular basis. But those days are gone. Fortunately, the current Big East conference schedule will serve up 8 games against Top 25-level teams. Even DePaul isn't a complete gimme — they're rated higher than all but 6 of our non-conference opponents.


The Big East is a great conference exactly as it is. We don't need to expand. And if we decide to, it can be on our terms.

[Juan Anderson's Mixtape]

Yeah that post still makes no sense to me. I don't understand how Houston Baptist and Western Carolina is better for RPI than UConn and @UConn. Playing teams like those take marbles away from the conference, it doesn't add them.

Except MU needs a certain number of home games to meet revenues needed for the budget.  So one cupcake gets replaced but the game @UConn replaces either Vanderbilt or @Georgia.

As much as I love the double round robin, I'd favor staying at 18 games.  Play 8 teams twice, 2 teams.  Not that unbalanced.

If the BE expands, I say UConn or bust.  Don't go to 12.  The A-10 schools don't excite me and neither Cincy nor Memphis are going to drop football.  But first UConn needs to at least drop down to FCS.