Everything you just said is stupid. Every last thing.
They were wanted. Why do you think BC spoke up against them, hmm? The ACC wanted them before Pitt. Politics.
Also, the school has improved tremendously in the past 20 years, by any academic measurement you'd like to use. It's a top 3o public university. It isn't Memphis.
They don't bring anything, you know, other than a Top 35 media market and numerous NC contending programs across a wide array of sports at a school that's been skyrocketing up rankings for two decades on the back of a $2,000,000,000 investment from the State of Connecticut. I guess if you want to ignore those minor points, yeah, they stink.
Although the school's "measurables" in academics have improved recently, part of a school's reputation is built on its alumni network, and the level of success those alumni have achieved in business. This, in turn, impacts the hiring process. By those measures, UConn alumni are not currently (in my experience) considered on the same level as applicants from certain other schools. I would put them on a second tier, no disrespect intended, because every school produces bright and successful students; it's just a question of how many of them per capita.
I haven't worked in NYC in about 10 years, but did so for about 20 years before that. In my last job down there, I rose to a level where I did quite a bit of hiring for my company, which was the fastest growing in our industry for a few years. I did hire a couple UConn people, but I also hired people from Michigan, Penn State, NYU, Syracuse, Boston University, Columbia, Brown, Williams and quite a few other schools, many of which have graduates whose degrees are held in higher esteem.
So what I guess I'm saying is that the transformation in image, academically as well as in terms of sports, is an evolution. Just because recent UConn grads had higher SAT scores, they still have to deal with middle aged hiring people having come up when UConn was a second tier school. That takes time for those perceptions to change - for me, Boston College is only really becoming the source of high performers at jobs now, even though the grades and SAT scores of their grads have been high for 10-20 years.
Likewise with UConn football - sure, they made a BCS game, but it's not like they have a generation or two of success on the field, household names playing in the NFL, and a handful of all-pro or hall of famers that all the announcers know. That's what makes a program a national brand. Is Boise a national brand? Not yet; they are a novelty. Don't forget, in some of our lifetimes, teams like Northwestern used to compete for national titles in football. Those days are long gone. Temporary success does not make a national brand.
Syracuse, despite it's decade lost in the desert, is still a national brand. You see that by hearing Kirk Herbstreit's comments about the "old Syracuse" being back. You have that in part because our communications program graduates all these broadcasters who know our history (and grew up reporting on our sports teams for WAER ...). That's why The Express was so important, rebranding us as the school that had the first black Heisman Trophy winner (which you will note that Nancy Cantor mentioned in her defense of SU academics in the paper the other day). That is powerful branding. That's what separates SU from so many other Eastern football schools like UConn, Rutgers and even Boston College.