Financial Woes of a University Outside the Power Five - UConn Edition

BC is almost as responsible for the state of UConn athletics as anyone in Storrs. Why a Catholic school 100 miles away gives a damn about Connecticut’s state university is beyond me. Keeping UConn out of the ACC was a petty move.

Oh yeah, that talk of competing for recruits: UConn will always curb stomp BC, just because of the academics. UConn could play a Pac-12 schedule and that’d still be the case.

 

The other aspect of it is that, back when TV markets were what mattered, BC and Syracuse got the ACC into the NYC/Tri-State and Boston/New England. UConn didn't add anything in that regard.

 

I was stunned to run across a UConn/Tulsa game on TV the other day that was being billed as a big conference rivalry. WTF?

 

How would UConn fans react to going back to FCS for football? They would fit better in the Villanova mode of Big East for most sports and CAA for football.

 

Once they realized it two years after the fact? They'd probably be cool with it.

 

I don't think Idaho is unhappy with its move. But it takes some stones to admit that moving down is the right thing. Idaho also plays in a 17,000-seat airplane hangar. UConn didn't build that 40K-plus seat stadium to play Stony Brook and Albany every year...

 

I think that’s a big thing. Of course, they didn’t build it to be empty on Saturdays either.

 

Where's Ken Krayeske when you need him?

 

The team during six games last year drew an average of 20,335 fans a game at the 40,000-seat stadium. UConn's attendance has dropped by 48.2 percent since it peaked in 2008 when it averaged 39,331 fans per game, according to the NCAA.

2018 home schedule: UCF, URI, Cincy, UMass, SMU, Temple

2019 home schedule: Wagner, Illinois, East Carolina, Houston, Navy, USF

2020 home schedule: UMass, Maine, Indiana, Cincy, Temple, Tulane, UCF

 

Yeah, those are bad schedules. But you go to FCS, and UConn doesn't even get Temple or UMass or Liberty to come to East Hartford. Now that schedule is probably five home games, four in league and one against someone like CCSU or Bryant.

Independent isn't ideal. But at least Liberty, UMass and New Mexico State are also indy, so scheduling won't be as bad as it was even just a few years ago.

I mean, Idaho wasn't getting any FBS programs out of conference to come to Moscow, either. The Vandals were in a much more dire situation ... i.e., they didn't have a conference home at all in FBS.

What's more important to UConn, playing in a conference that lifts basketball or playing in a conference like the AAC just to keep football alive? (And I don't even know if the Big East actually would want UConn to come aboard. All speculation on my part.)

 

They extended the contract in October for 15 years at $93 million.

BC blocking UConn from joining the ACC -- if true -- I think also might have been a factor when the former Connecticut AG, Richard Blumenthal, sued BC for leaving the Big East for the ACC back around 2003.

Have any colleges gone backward in football or basketball? Go from I-AA to I-A and back again? I'm sure the majority of administrators wouldn't be able to make that switch and admit they were wrong. Perhaps we will be the first domino to fall, because something has to give. I'd be way more pissed if they cut sports while trying to keep the SS Minnow afloat. Going independent in football and the Big East in basketball may appease the basketball purists, but then football would really be a non-entity, as has been posted here.

The ACC is a perfect fit for UConn. And truth be told, it seems like Rutgers is an even bigger disaster in the Big Ten. I think that's why there was this PR push to call UConn the "sixth borough" and make it close to New York City.