Sad Emoticon for UConn
The Confidential, candidly, is disturbed by this whole conference realignment thing. There are many schools–think Wake Forest and Iowa State–that are extremely vulnerable if the 5 major conferences turn into 4. There is something inherently “wrong” in dispatching a “have” team into the “have not” category. Even worse, there are schools that have already been relegated to this status. Think of the University of Connecticut Huskies.
Unfortunately for UConn, they do not have the market or history to belong in the Big 10. They do not have the football prowess–notwithstanding one BCS bowl appearance–to generate much interest. But the UConn basketball teams–men and women–have been very very good for quite a while.
Despite all that, the UConn Huskies are currently relegated to the AAC. The American. Whatever.
Even worse, ESPN had this article about the UConn athletic director, Warde Manuel, essentially throwing in the towel on trying to find a new conference home for the Huskies:
Are the Huskies done looking for a landing spot in one of the so-called five power conferences, or is the school a member of the new American Athletic Conference just until something better comes along?
“I’ve been done,” Manuel said. “If my focus is always looking outside this organization and what we’re doing, we’re not going to maintain the success that we’ve had.”
So that is it for now, presumably. UConn is part of the American for the foreseeable future.
To a certain extent, there is a political correctness in Manuel’s comments. What else is there to say? “I loathe this American conference thing and cannot wait until the day that we end up in a real conference or are otherwise put out of our misery?” Of course not. He has to speak somewhat positively about the current situation.
But the comments go one step further–suggesting that there is really nothing more that can be done. To be sure, the ACC’s grant of rights has cemented the current college landscape for at least a few years. As the ACC and Big XII head towards the end of their respective grants of rights, there may be a battle royale to see who is left standing. That day will come.
For now, UConn and its fans have to just accept the status quo. It does not look like it will change any time soon.
The Confidential 
As I kept barking to SU fans 2+ years ago…’Syracuse better get out of the BE now, or it could be dooms day!’ I got some real heat…’Stay in the BE!’, ‘SU will be fine!’, etc, etc! Well, in theory, SU could be sitting in UConn’s shoes, now covered in dog-poop!
Yep… Cuse HAD to make that move. The only better conference might have been the Big 10… but a sound ACC is better for Syracuse than the Big 10 in terms of fit.
Technically, UConn got out of the Big East, too…
Hmmm… I think the Big East got out of UConn.
good point. Poor UConn.
One option for UConn would be to drop BCS football & goto the new Big East. Their football team is still relatively new to the D1 level so a step back down may not be a terrible thing. It would be a win for the BE & a win for the UConn bball fans.
That would be a win for Syracuse, Boston College, and Rutgers, who would get additional talent distributed among them.
Adding UConn would prevent the Big 10 or 12 from expanding into the Northeast. I’m sure at some point we will see one of those two reach out this way so it would be nice to prevent it from happening.
I don’t see the Big 10 taking UConn. They have bigger fish to fry. Plus, who is team 16? Cincinnati? Temple?
More likely is that the Big 10 makes a play for Texas, Kansas, or ACC schools. And the UConn is backfill for the ACC or Big XII.
I could see the ACC making a similar deal with Texas as it did with Notre Dame.
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