BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

MAC last got two bids in 1999 when Kent State and Miami both made it. Miami made it to the Sweet 16 that year.

 

That would be the Miami Wally Szczerbiaks, of course.

 

In fairness when the field was a little more (but not much more) level, UConn did OK with football. Any school that gets its team to a Fiesta Bowl 10 years or so after moving up to I-A deserves credit. The AAC was screwed from the beginning because it didn't have the leverage of the Big East basketball schools.

 

I agree that Connecticut did pretty well when they moved up from FCS to the Big East, most notably when they went to the Fiesta Bowl. But I was referring to the period when Big East football dissolved. UConn pulled out of the stronger basketball conference, the Big East, to join the AAC. So the school moved to a weaker basketball conference with the hope the AAC would be a landing sport for football. That was a total disaster as evidenced by their hasty return to the Big East for basketball and other sports and trying to be an independent in football.

I think UConn would be the school that has been most damaged by the conference reshuffling.

 

It has, also because BC (aka Wake Forest North, and that might be overly kind) blocked it from joining the ACC.

 

I take your larger point, but they hung a banner during your “total disaster.”

 

I think you could argue that most of the damage to UConn football was done by UConn. Get in it and and mean it or don't fool with it. It's always going to be a money pit and budgetary arms race.

 

Fair enough. But the championship year was in their first year in the league. When Connecticut entered the AAC it was certainly a top ten program in the country. After the first ear the program rapidly declined. I acknowledge that the change from Jim Calhoun to Kevin Ollie was probably the largest factor but the decline in in interest in the program after teh change was a contributing factor.

 

Let's be honest here. Some schools just shouldn't start FBS football programs.
If you have to play more than a couple of miles off campus and you never had a football tradition to begin with and you're in a geographic area with no indigenous talent, maybe you should be content to play at a lower level.
The problem now is that schools are being invited to FBS conferences before they even put together the financial and physical infrastructure necessary to play at that level.
It's like a decent university offering admission to a 10th-grader and saying, "We'll see ya in a few months."

 

UConn plays off campus because the state and John Rowland had to save face after the Patriots backed out. They were committed to some sort of stadium project in Hartford. The basketball teams also play in Hartford so it wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

UMass spending however many years playing at Gillette was incredibly stupid. They should’ve just upgraded the campus stadium right away.

 

The UMass move struck me as especially foolish. UConn can at least point to the success of their men's and women's basketball teams, and if you squint, they kind of have a national athletic profile. UMass hasn't really been a factor since Camby and Calipari left, and while money can certainly help improve a program, you need to be spending Liberty-style millions if that's the way you're going to go.

I also think the other factor that Tap brought up is huge. Here is the 2020 Massachusetts football prospects list from 24/7 Sports. It looks like roughly 20 kids across the whole state were Division I, or close to it, talents. None of them were QBs, and only four were four-stars. CT, the number is in the range of 10 to 15. Location is probably the most important factor for plenty of recruits - not all of them, of course - and you're at a significant disadvantage if your immediate area doesn't have a wealth of football talent.