Not surprising. Army is thriving as an independent, and looking at BYU’s schedule (USC, Washington, Tennessee, Utah, Boise, SDSU, USF) they seem to be fine as well. I do hope we get VCU in basketball. The conference has a chance to be one of the five best, and VCU would help get us there.
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Any independents not doing well? Makes me feel like going independent is a good thing for Uconn or anybody.
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If the conference keeps the divisions what are the chances of Navy being moved to the East where they should be?
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UMass…UConn has more of chance to be UMass than BYU or Army.
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UConn waiving the white flag on football because they have the one market interested in women’s basketball. I get it for them, but long term they will really regret this decision.
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Article claims the conference is likely to do away with the divisions. If it doesn’t, I would be a little surprised if Navy agreed to move. Being in the West so that they could play in Texas every year as well as against privates like Tulane, Tulsa, and SMU was one of the stipulations of the Midshipmen joining in the first place.
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NMSU, Liberty, UMASS, i. e., all of them but Notre Dame, BYU, and government-funded Army. UConn will almost surely drop to FCS in football if they don’t fold the program.
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If I was a first or second year UConn football player, I would ask for a transfer.
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Who would want a UConn transfer?
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Well I don’t think they have all 1 stars.
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UMass celebrating that they aren’t the worst FBS independent team anymore.
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I don’t think Navy leaves because of the exit fee. HOWEVER, if I was Aresco I’d let them leave for free or make a deal to reduce it if they did it now. AAC already getting 10M from UCONN. But 10 football teams round robin schedule that would be great and would build rivalries quickly. TV would probably give us less total but amount per school would stay around the same if not go up. Round robin and 9 conf games is huge.
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I agree @dansatjr. navy sees how Army is doing with their ability to schedule who they want and how they want it, while Navy is locked into the rigors of a conference .
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I disagree. BYU has to front load their schedule with bigger brand schools and spend October and November playing whatever leftovers are available in the FBS. Then they have to reload their entire schedule the following year. And they have no access to a New Years Six game.
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There’s a reason CBY said, “Being independent is hard cheese.” We would have a very hard time getting home and home games against anybody worth a darn — even teams in AAC. We would never, ever get a shot at an NY6 bowl, much less the CFP.
We would not get the AAC type money for TV games, nor would ee get the type of players we are getting now.
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Agree, Liberty and NMSU had to play each other twice last year to fill their schedules. Army had to play 2 FCS teams to fill theirs in 2018 and will be doing so again in 2019. That’s not doing to well, IMO.
How would you organize a schedule with 11 teams? To me, it makes sense to get rid of one team, and that would be Navy. Their team is slowly tanking since joining the conf. They just can’t compete on a fixed schedule.
Buy Navy out, keep them in conference for 3 years to buffer them setting up a full-season slate, affiliate with them as a league for non-conf games, like ND with the ACC. Then move to a 10-team league with 9 conf games.
Navy can then control their schedule like Army, and the AAC TV money gets split in less ways for remaining members… $$$ (remember Navy has their own deal with CBS, so they’re good).
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I wish they’d drop Tulsa, but I can’t see that happening. The article about staying at 11 also mentions that the conference will likely get rid of divisions. I would guess they’re going to play a round-robin minus one, so nine conference games like the Big 12 plays unless the schools want an additional non-conference game and the AAC can get a waiver for that. I would guess a home game for UH against Tech or for any AAC school against a good draw might mean c. 3 million before expenses. Schools may not want to give that up. Who knows if they’ll have a choice?
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I believe we will operate similar to how the B1G operated when it was eleven teams. Only difference is we will have a championship game between the top two teams.
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We cannot have a championship game between the top two teams unless we play a full round robin of 10 games which is not going to happen. We will have to keep 2 divisions.