Oso planning to go pro
AAC is primarily a football conference and that is where the league and the schools are putting their emphasis. Football is where the TV money is and has the ability to draw alumni support , so focusing on football is their league's best course of action. AAC has been showing solid success at the individual program level in football. They had 3 top 25 teams this year and plenty of bowl teams. The league negotiated an improved TV contract because of football ( although still nowhere near the P5 deals). Basketball for the AAC is for the most part going to be a function of the handful of schools that put a heavy emphasis on the sport. As pointed out above, too many anchors for AAC basketball league to expand beyond what it is. Now that U Conn has left the basketball league can go to a 20 game double round robin format. That schedule format will probably benefit the top tier teams in their basketball league as they will have more winnable conference road games. One big flaw in the TV contract with ESPN is that most of the AAC basketball games are going to be on ESPN+, so their visibility for Basketball goes down.
It's amazing, that of the 16 teams in the Big East prior to 2013, only 2 remain in the AAC (which is, legally speaking, the same organization). Neither of those schools was in the Big East before the 2005 expansion.AAC: Cincinnati, USFBig East: UConn, Providence, St Johns, Seton Hall, Villanova, Georgetown, Marquette, DePaulACC: Louisville, Pitt, Syracuse, Notre DameBig 12: West VirginiaBig Ten: RutgersTemple has the longest Big East history of the current AAC teams, having played football in the Big East in the 1990s.
Wow. That is actually pretty incredible. To be fair though, Temple was slated to join the BE as a full member in summer 2013 and had already joined back for Football.
True, but so had Memphis, UCF, SMU, and Houston. I recall when Houston received an invite. Their fans were ecstatic. "We'll be playing Georgetown!" Georgetown was probably the biggest or least most recognizable name for Houston fans. What they did not get was that Georgetown did not want to play them. I do not recall the exact order the teams came in. I recall that Temple and Memphis were announced at the same time. I assume most of the pre-expansion membership voted to take them. I am not sure about the rest. I know that the Catholic 7 were not at all happy about adding Tulane, and that might have been the last straw. But formal names aside, the newcomers were never going to be part of the Big East. Even USF was a stretch at best. They only got in because the football teams needed to recruit Florida and BC unexpectedly left for the ACC, so they got in for everything else as well.
It was Tulane. ECU wasn’t invited until after C7 announced their departure.
AAC still has plenty of solid programs without UConn. The conference's biggest problem is they are very weak after you get past the likes of Wichita, Houston and Memphis.
No...and after reading many many psosts from people on this board that do...I have to say I'm MUCH better off, if this is the type of "intelligence" a degree from MU gets you. It sure is on full display I will say that.
From my understanding, while the ADs were not on board at all for Tulane as a full-member, the Presidents were obviously in support of it (academic status) and the (then) Big East was being reassured by its (then) commissioner that the acquisition of major media markets (i.e. Houston, Dallas, Orlando, Memphis, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Tampa Bay, Chicago, New York City, Washington D.C., etc.) would recoup the lost value when Syracuse, Pittsburgh, West Virginia et al left. That is what got the C7 to hold their noses at the time.When it was quickly learned that the new contract offer from ESPN was peanuts, the C7 then began looking at separating and looking for its own TV deal (as, if we aren't going to be making the big money, let's at least put the best basketball league together with like-minded institutions). Tulane is naturally used as the scapegoat, but I really feel that it was what was being sold by the (then) conference leadership that didn't end up happening as the biggest reason why the C7 left.Also, FWIW, the C7 also held the belief that ECU would inevitably become a full-member (they originally were a football-only member). That would have been yet another basketball anchor to try and work with. Yuck.
Talking about anchors.. How did DePaul end up getting an invite/
UConn becomes first FBS team to cancel football season because of coronavirushttps://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29600577/uconn-becomes-1st-fbs-team-cancel-football-season-due-coronavirusNice first step on the road to the FCS....
This feels like the first step towards no football, even.
UConn needs to play football. 48 of the 50 flagship state schools in the US play football, Alaska and Vermont excepted. It would look very weak if Southern Connecticut and Central Connecticut can play the sport but the flagship university cannot.On a secondary issue, I would like to see UConn schedule the other three Big East football schools in its non-conference rotation. There are issues which would limit this, of course, but it's worth considering.
UConn should drop to FCS