Aug. 24—How ironic, indeed, that UConn’s athletic hierarchy, which myopically sent the football program to Elba a few years back with the basketball-centric move to the Big East, needs football more than a lung as it begs its way into the Big 12.
The news of State U’s latest dalliance with a power conference leaves several questions, nearly all of which are related to the two most important factors related to expansion and realignment — and the same two factors UConn lacks: money and quality football.
Per ESPN’s Pete Thamel — for my money the nation’s top college sports reporter — the UConn/Big 12 conversations “centered around football funding and how UConn could be competitive upon joining the league in 2031. Part of UConn’s presentation covered how the Huskies would be prepared to build and spend money on football like the current Big 12 programs, according to sources. They also pitched the league on how quickly they became competitive in the Big East football conference after joining in 2004.”
Now I’m going to pause briefly to start laughing out loud.
They became competitive in the Big East because of prescient athletic director Lew Perkins, who actually understood football’s infinite significance to the changing rhythms of college sports. It’s far from relegating it to Independent status, as the current administration did in 2019 without even consulting then-coach Randy Edsall.
And then there’s this: Where is the money coming from to enhance the program? The athletic department runs in the red, redder than a Nebraska home football jersey. Now it is prepared to spend like other Big 12 programs do? How? We’re supposed to believe that during the next seven years of Independent football, they’ll find the money to commit to the layered upgrades necessary to appease Big 12 officials?
Maybe that’s why Thamel wrote,…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/mike-dimauro-once-again-football-003600302.html
Author : The Day, New London, Conn.
Publish date : 2024-08-25 00:36:00
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