Passive aggressive twitter from our alum.
It will be interesting to see what happens with their football program.
It appears the AAC doesn’t want them for football only. They are ranked the worst program in the country right now, so even CUSA and the MAC are reportedly not interested in them.
They have about 14 months to build a schedule, presumably as an independent. How are they going to do that?
Well, there are 8 schools in the AAC that suddenly have openings in their schedule. That would ideally be the way to fill in the holes in the schedule for 2020. But the AAC schools have no love for the UConn program that has done so little for the AAC and will be leaving it so suddenly. They are going to want to replace UConn rather than play on one team short. And this is where I have concerns.
If they choose to add UMass, I have no problem with that. It is a spit in the eye to UConn and doesn’t affect us much. Might have UMass recruiting a bit but they really aren’t a threat. I don’t see that happening though.
I think their dream add would be Army for football only. Just like Navy. It gives them access to the NYC market for the first time and gives them a huge upgrade in terms of quality and tradition for football. And brings the Army-Navy game into the fold. This would be a major win the the AAC. And it could be a problem for Syracuse,
No, I am not worried about Army stealing recruits from us. I am worried about the recently scheduled 4 game series we signed with Army. We lost an OOC series with Navy when they joined a conference and the same thing could happen if Army joins the AAC. Really hope we can play that series. I love the West Point campus and would love to see a couple of SU-Army games there. And I would love to see the Long Grey Line travel back up to CNY a couple more times.
Anyway, back to UConn. Their best bet to build a schedule for 2020 and a couple of years beyond is to try and steal the games whoever replaces them in the AAC had scheduled. If the AAC takes an independent like Army, UConn could probably just grab the 8 games Army decides to ditch in favor of AAC games and fill up their schedule that way. It is so late in the game now, those opponents will have little choice but to accept the change. That might even drive a switch of the 4 coming SU-Army games to be SU-UConn games, worst case.
No offense to UConn, but that would be a big letdown. Fortunately, if this happens, I think the games are far enough in the future that Syracuse might have some other options to explore.