I’m not a college administrator and I’m not privy to any of the goings-on that contributed to this move for UConn, but from what I do know, it’s hard for me to get my head around the logic of this move.
Syracuse, Pitt et al left the Big East because ‘football drives the bus’. None of us were happy, but we were told it was a move that had to happen or we would die on the vine. There is no big $$ available if your school does not have a football team in a P5. No lucrative TV money. Basketball generates revenue but is nowhere close to football (which by the way still boggles my mind, but whatever). UConn understands this and believes it too, so they dump a -ton of money into a stadium and a program. They get big donors to buy in and (re-) hire what is considered a big name coach. They’re ready to be a player and ultimately either get into a P5 or get that P5 TV money from their current conference.
But their crown jewel men’s hoops program stumbles a bit and instead of dominating their new conference they struggle. The football team just falls off the table altogether.
They hire Hurley and the basketball team shows some promise. UConn is at least feeling better about it’s hoops future. Football is still abysmal BUT the coach is optimistic, saying ‘wait til next year’. So while things aren’t great in Storrs, there is reason to believe that they are on the right track.
Meanwhile reports are published that the athletic department is running a $40 million deficit. In addition to that, there’s is a real possibility that they’ll have to pay their fired hoops coach $10 million. Money they do not have and the state that subsidizes them is well under water themselves so they can’t be expecting much help from Hartford.
If it were me making the decisions there I’d think the prudent thing would be to bite the bullet. Wait it out. My hoops coach is energetic and seems to be able to recruit, my football facilities are upgraded, my coach’s name is respected and if he is to be believed, he has a plan in place. Yes, I’m losing money in the short term but there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
Instead of staying the course though, they effectively abandon football and really any shot at all of a P5 conference and the $$ that comes with that. For what? A short term bump in basketball relevance and a few more sheckles? And let’s not now forget that they incur yet another $10 million invoice for leaving their current conference. Again - money they don’t have.
I mean I get going back to where you had your greatest successes but the Big East is not the same conference it was and the entire college athletics landscape has had seismic shifts. There is no path now for the football program to be successful enough as to be attractive to any P5 conference so that dream is dead and with it, the $$. It seems to me that UConn athletics has abandoned long-term success for short-term...what?
Who wins here? Hurley? If the basketball team does well, the job offers will come for him. The school and athletic department will have a much harder time crawling out from under those millions of dollars of debt. Facilities will suffer, etc., etc.
