College football Week 1 thread

There’s some thought that Buffalo could be a dark horse candidate for the American, but I don’t think facilities are up to snuff.

 

I think the problem UConn has is that they absolutely do not want to leave the Big East for basketball. So another conference would get the UConn football program. So there is absolutely no incentive for the acquiring conference. What would the MAC gain with the addition of UConn, sans basketball.

 

Absolutely nothing. They've already been down that road with UMass. UConn clearly prioritized their basketball programs by bolting the AAC to go the Big East/independent route. And they've put their football program in an impossible spot.

 

Bob is the Weather guy at the local NBC affiliate and I’m assuming it’s tongue-in-cheek, but why the heck not? Just throw the spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks.

 

This UConn alumnus believed the move made sense at the beginning. Upon moving into Division I-A in 2000 - two years after I graduated - they made five bowl games under Edsall, winning three, up to the Fiesta Bowl fiasco in 2010. Then Edsall jumped ship, and they hired two questionable coaches (Pasqualoni and Diaco) to put them in this present situation. I get why they brought back Edsall a second time, considering what he did in his first tenure, but clearly that was a bad move. I heard one reason for his hiring was they got him on the cheap after they had to buy out Diaco, and (as another poster mentioned) the athletic department is something like $40M in debt.

I imagine the Huskies (under Lew Perkins) envisioned themselves another Boston College/Syracuse when they made the move to Division I. And although I miss it terribly, 16,000-seat Memorial Stadium on campus needed to be updated. But the answer to that was to build a 40,000-seat stadium 20 miles off campus in East Hartford?

In my opinion, an independent schedule makes sense in that without a conference, you can schedule whomever you want. You can keep/build/reinvent your regional rivalries (URI, Yale, UMass) while getting out around the country and play teams such as Clemson (gulp), Fresno State and Michigan. Is it sustainable? Will that bring in recruits? Who knows. I think they're making the best of the situation at hand. It's not the best-case scenario by any means, but I think you could argue it makes some sense.

The move back to the Big East was easily the best decision to save basketball and other programs, and the football team had to fall on the sword by going independent. I'm surprised Edsall didn't leave after that was announced, quite honestly.

Lastly, I think UMass made a worse decision (and as another poster mentioned, I believe they did it once UConn did it). They split time between its on-campus stadium (which wasn't much different than Memorial Stadium) and Gillette Stadium, 75 miles away. Students barely make the 20- to 30-minute drive to East Hartford; who the hell is going from Amherst to Foxboro?

 

Still suffering from COVID?

 

We caught the final minutes of regulation of the Notre Dame/Florida State game on TV because it delayed our local news. My wife’s observations (she doesn’t like college football for a variety of reasons): “Those announcers sure seem to be cheering for that quarterback.” (Milton) and ‘My god, what a superspreader event!” Then, the Seminoles fired up the War Chant and she insisted that we watch another channel.

 

I don't think UConn has a snowball's chance in hell of making it as an independent. The lack of conference television contract, traditional rivalries and the scheduling difficulties are far to big a barrier to overcome.

I offer as example BYU. Back when six Big Eight schools were going to merge with the Pac 10 Utah was not included. When the merger fell apart Colorado jumped anyway and the Pac-12 picked up Utah, for reasons that were not economic. BYU is at least as popular as Utah in-state and has a national following the Utes will never have.

So BYU left the MWC and went independent. Despite the football tradition BYU has, strong local support and a national fan base they just gave up independent status to join the Big 12. If BYU struggled as an independent then UConn has no chance.

 

Interesting case with BYU; I did not know that. I guess I can also see this as a placeholder until something else comes along. At the very least, they do have a contract with CBS Sports. And I know it was just a weather guy, but the earlier post that referenced forming a new Yankee Conference maybe isn't all that bad (in my opinion). I think UConn (and maybe UMass) needs to understand that they will never be a BC or Syracuse. The Northeast was, is and always will be basketball, and to a smaller extent, soccer. UConn attracted the most fans in the country in soccer year after year.

 

UConn in the FBS was a fine move. They got right in the Big East, won some key games, got into the top 15 one year for a few weeks and made a Fiesta Bowl a few years later. The problem came with hiring a retread like Paul Pasqualoni.

I think it's a tough job, but could be a fun job. They need to go outside the box with the hire. Take Kevin Kelley from Presbyterian and have him try his no-punt offense. Might not work but it will get a lot of attention and recruits will be very interested.

 

I'm not so sure BYU ever struggled as an independent in football. It played strong schedules and had no problem getting games or TV windows. It was scheduled to play Utah, Michigan State, ASU, Minnesota, Missouri, Houston, Boise State, San Diego State and Stanford in 2020 before the shit hit the fan. That's a great schedule.

It's joining the Big 12 because BYU is better off being in the Big 12 in all sports than being an independent in football and in the West Coast Conference in all other sports.

As a conference, the Big 12 is the best BYU can ever expect to do. It's better than the Mountain West, and BYU was never getting into the Pac-12, in a million years.