R.I.P. UConn Football | Page 2 | Syracusefan.com

R.I.P. UConn Football

I find this extremely hard to believe.
I agree, Think of the travel costs alone. If they joined the CAA, they would have bus trips (instead of charter flights, hotels, & per diem) to Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, Albany, Stony Brook, and probably Delaware, Villanova, and Towson.
 
If SU plays them it should always be at the Dome unless they want to please the tristate area alums/fans and give them a close game to go to.
 
UConn blew it big time. If they had joined up for BE football in 1990 when the conference first was getting its legs, they could have benefitted from the leap that conference took in the 90s. Yes, it would have meant that they would have had to pay their dues - just as their BBall program had to do in the early days of the BE basketball conference. But ultimately, by 2000, they would have been better off. Instead, they thumbed their noses at BE Football until the conference was established, then they felt like it success was owed to them. (And no other team in history has had the advantage of upgrading from 1AA directly into a BCS level conference.) By that time, conference expansion was on the table and the BE was vulnerable. The BE football conference never needed UConn, but if they had showed even a little vision they could have helped build football in the northeast.

They were part of the problem. I have no sympathy. I hope their football program dies an ugly death. And their football fans are , those that were on their board ten years ago.

Good riddance. Welcome back to 1aa. Have fun playing Holy Cross and Lehigh

Bingo.

As the great Roy Hobbs famously said, “Some mistakes you never stop paying for.”

UConn could have, and should have, upgraded to 1-A sometime in the 80s, or very early 90s.

They didn’t. The ship sailed.

But this is the best thing for them. Every time I’ve gone to the XL Center in the last few years, I’ve stared up at the banners hanging for the schools in the AAC, and realized just what an awful circumstance they were in. Now they’ll get to play their old hoops rivals and stop pouring good money after bad into football.
 
Bingo.

As the great Roy Hobbs famously said, “Some mistakes you never stop paying for.”

UConn could have, and should have, upgraded to 1-A sometime in the 80s, or very early 90s.

They didn’t. The ship sailed.

But this is the best thing for them. Every time I’ve gone to the XL Center in the last few years, I’ve stared up at the banners hanging for the schools in the AAC, and realized just what an awful circumstance they were in. Now they’ll get to play their old hoops rivals and stop pouring good money after bad into football.
It still won't be the same. However, the hoop only fans will get MSG back
 
We are scheduled to play them at home in 2021. Wonder if that still sticks or not...
I don't believe this is accurate. There are no future football games scheduled with UConn.

The earliest we could fit them in is 2022. We are already playing Purdue and Notre Dame at home that year, so the other 2 OOC games will be against lesser teams. One will surely be against a FCS team. The other could be against UConn. Heck, UConn might be an FCS team by then. That alone might be enough to discourage Syracuse from scheduling them.

Syracuse University Football Schedules
 
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It still won't be the same. However, the hoop only fans will get MSG back

It won’t, but living in CT I can say that my neighbors who support UConn would much rather be trekking to Hartford to watch Georgetown, Villanova, St. John’s and the like; than Tulsa, Cincy, and Memphis.
 
We are scheduled to play them at home in 2021. Wonder if that still sticks or not...
I don't believe this is accurate. There are no future football games scheduled with UConn.

The earliest we could fit them in is 2022. We are already playing Purdue and Notre Dame at home that year, so the other 2 OOC games will be against lesser teams. One will surely be against a FCS team. The other could be against UConn. Heck, UConn might be an FCS team by then. That alone might be enough to discourage Syracuse from scheduling them.

Syracuse University Football Schedules

gbo is a Clemson fan.

Clemson is playing UConn in 2021.
 
It is hard to believe that they were actually in the Fiesta Bowl in 2010. I dont miss those dreary days in the Gerg era where we lost to Uconn & Rutgers (and many of those were not close losses). At least things are swinging back to where they should be now.
 
It’s just crazy to see one portion of an athletic department raise funds to improve football facilities while the rest of the department is about sink the program.
 
Bingo.

As the great Roy Hobbs famously said, “Some mistakes you never stop paying for.”

UConn could have, and should have, upgraded to 1-A sometime in the 80s, or very early 90s.

They didn’t. The ship sailed.

But this is the best thing for them. Every time I’ve gone to the XL Center in the last few years, I’ve stared up at the banners hanging for the schools in the AAC, and realized just what an awful circumstance they were in. Now they’ll get to play their old hoops rivals and stop pouring good money after bad into football.

Don't sleep on Dick Blumenthal suing the ACC as well. What a tremendously dumb mistake. Had he not done that, i'm fairly certain the ACC would have another member at this point. BC did their job of explaining how awful a partner UConn can be with their lawsuit against members who got bigger paydays to leave a sinking ship (to which they would have done the same thing)
 
Don't sleep on Dick Blumenthal suing the ACC as well. What a tremendously dumb mistake. Had he not done that, i'm fairly certain the ACC would have another member at this point. BC did their job of explaining how awful a partner UConn can be with their lawsuit against members who got bigger paydays to leave a sinking ship (to which they would have done the same thing)
The original spin from UConn fans about that lawsuit was it got Syracuse to stay in the Big East and they cared about that.
That is part of the reason I don’t mind their demise. They don’t understand the golden ticket their football program got in the late 90s.
They went from D-1AA to a BCS league while other lower D-1A schools couldn’t get that break.

Blumenthal’s lawsuit was beyond dumb and showed how short sided the program was. Syracuse never joined that suit unlike every other remaining Big East football team did.
The ACC didn’t forget that.
 
Don't sleep on Dick Blumenthal suing the ACC as well. What a tremendously dumb mistake. Had he not done that, i'm fairly certain the ACC would have another member at this point. BC did their job of explaining how awful a partner UConn can be with their lawsuit against members who got bigger paydays to leave a sinking ship (to which they would have done the same thing)

It was dumb. However if we've learned anything over the past couple decades of conference realignment it's that greed and self-interest wins every single time.

I have zero doubt that if it made overwhelming financial sense for the ACC to add UConn over Pitt in 2011, or over Louisville in 2013, then they would have, hurt feelings from the lawsuit be damned.
 
It was dumb. However if we've learned anything over the past couple decades of conference realignment it's that greed and self-interest wins every single time.

I have zero doubt that if it made overwhelming financial sense for the ACC to add UConn over Pitt in 2011, or over Louisville in 2013, then they would have, hurt feelings from the lawsuit be damned.
Your point is correct but their weren't any crown jewel programs available at that point. The lawsuit is one of those things when everything is close to even you use as a tiebreaker.
The lawsuit is something that is forgiven but again not forgotten. To be honest the reason why UConn is the position they are is strictly geography. If Connecticut and Rutgers were in the exact opposite location UConn is the Big Ten and Rutgers is the AAC.

The Big Ten would have wanted UConn's WBB and MBB while making its FB tomato cans for OSU/Michigan/PSU if the state got all those cable boxes from NYC/NJ for the BTN.
The ACC lawsuit is just why they had no allies within the ACC when time came to expand to 14 or replace Maryland.
 

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