It’s nice that Connecticut would like to join the Big East for all of their non-football sports. (Aside: This wouldn’t be a “basketball-only” deal as Rothstein worded it. Connecticut would move all of their sports to the Big East, as they already play field hockey and women’s lacrosse there as associate members.) Any move that would allow them to enter the Big East for everything but football would require them to admit that they’re really not trying at football, though. Except they really can’t do that, not after just hiring Randy Edsall to replace Bob Diaco. They’re committed to the future of Connecticut football, and there’s nowhere for Connecticut football to go. They’re stuck.
1 Like
Unless it is the ultimate nut punch to Edsall and they just fold the FB program and fire him…again.
I just can’t see it happening unless UConn has given up all hope to move up to a P5 and that probably won’t happen until after the next round of alignment. More than likely, they’ll be a hot prospect for either the ACC or the B1G as their academics are better than any of the other contenders and they spend money on their non-revenue programs around the same that most P5 conferences do. Only reason they aren’t in a P5 already is because of Boston College keeping them out of the ACC and the B1G picking Rutgers over them. They need to keep football for now to be viable to those conferences.
I’m all aboard the Wichita State train at this point whether UCONN leaves or stays. Would help get our conference up to 12 teams in basketball and their basketball and baseball are consistently good. We need another strong team in our conference and pulling the Shockers might entice UCONN to stick around.
2 Likes
“Our comment is that there have been no discussions [between UConn and the Big East],” said John Paquette, Big East’s associate commissioner for sports media relations. “That’s all we are going to say about it. Nothing is new. We’ve been down this path before [with rumors]. We realize it’s going to be talked about.”
This sounds to me like boosters trying to garner support for a move back. It’s known that UCONN talked to the Big East during the Big 12 Expansion fiasco in regards to moving all sports back there while adding only football to the Big 12. But there’s no way the AAC keeps UCONN as a football only member and there probably isn’t going to be much of a market for their football program at the FBS level in any conference without the other sports tagging along.
Boosters are upset that the program is struggling this year and blaming it on the conference…that’s rich.
Those denials are about as convincing as the ever popular “vote of confidence” coaches receive 2/3 of a way through a season, then they get fired at the end of said season, if not before.
Their football program is an albatross.
Only the American’s top two teams, Cincinnati and SMU, are virtual locks for the NCAA Tournament. If someone other than those two wins the conference tournament, it could give the league three teams in the field of 68. Aresco was holding out hope for Houston as an at-large. Several American teams, including UConn, which won seven of 10 to get back to .500 before the game vs. Memphis, could be NIT candidates.