UConn Smoke

[adoraz]

Dayton seems to check the most boxes
Commitment to BB
Institutional fit
Geographic footprint
Brings fans to Garden

None of the other realistic candidates check all of these 4 boxes (UConn, VCU, SLU, Richmond , Gonzaga)

Maybe, but they don't check off the biggest box, which is being consistently good in basketball. They're not piling up on 4/5 stars either like the Big East or top candidates UConn/Gonzaga.

[Westbrook#36]

Or Fox can go and get some basketball from the Big 12. Ratings wise wouldn't be that much different. To act like Fox wouldn't have input into things is rather naïve. Of course they will have a lot of input.

And with all the basketball that ESPN already has- wouldn't get what the Big East has gotten in terms of most all games on FS1.... I don't see folks here happy going to ESPNU for games.

Who said anything about Fox having no input???

The BE and Fox are partners, to suggest that the BE would have no input is rather naive(right back at you). Truth is, if it's that important for Fox to have in the BE, they'll make worth everyone's while. BTW, I thought according to you and mid-major nut jobs, that ESPNU is soooo much better than FS1 and Fox network? So which is it, ESPNU sucks or it's the shizznit??

[NJRedman]

It has to be all about UCF. They are the prettiest girl at the dance and maybe the only one with two legs.

If all this is true, I couldn't see UConn accepting that. Are they really going to be lower class in a conference they don't want to be in?

Looks like the AAC may be going all in on football.

UCF is three years removed from going 0-12. For life in non-power conferences, success is cyclical. It is not uncommon to see different champions at the top of the league every few years. We saw that in Big East Football, including 2010 when it crowned three co-champions (West Virginia, Pittsburgh and UConn). For the American to essentially put all of its chips into UCF, USF, Memphis, Houston and Cincinnati, it is essentially telling ECU, Tulane, Tulsa, Temple, UConn and SMU that they are not only not as valuable, but that they also have zero chance of reaching the levels that the top half have had in the past five seasons. In the past four seasons, Temple has had two 10-win seasons; Tulsa won 10 games in 2016. That would be a bitter pill for them to swallow.

The level of dysfunction in the AAC is the exact same as Big East Football. Everyone is bound together by necessity, not choice. That is why it is doomed to fail.

But weren't they like 11-1 the year before that winless year?

[GoldenWarrior11]

George O'Leary had five losing seasons while at UCF, including two winless seasons and two eight-loss seasons.

[ProprietyofLeyluken]

You gotta give credit where credit is due.

There will likely be an 8 team playoff (including an access spot) in the future because of what UCF is doing.
If/when that happens, it’s a gamechanger. All of a sudden that p5/g5 line is a lot more arbitrary. All of a sudden, a team like BYU will need to choose a conference just for the path to the national championship (which is not feesible as a non-ND Indy).

This football binary of the ‘haves and have nots’ all of a sudden is more nuanced.

I don’t see any athletics program choosing not to sustain football when they have a legit access point to the national championship.
To the contrary, I foresee more teams trying to squeeze into FBS... teams like James Madison and perhaps Villanova.

[Xudash]

You gotta give credit where credit is due.

There will likely be an 8 team playoff (including an access spot) in the future because of what UCF is doing.
If/when that happens, it’s a gamechanger. All of a sudden that p5/g5 line is a lot more arbitrary. All of a sudden, a team like BYU will need to choose a conference just for the path to the national championship (which is not feesible as a non-ND Indy).

This football binary of the ‘haves and have nots’ all of a sudden is more nuanced.

I don’t see any athletics program choosing not to sustain football when they have a legit access point to the national championship.
To the contrary, I foresee more teams trying to squeeze into FBS... teams like James Madison and perhaps Villanova.

Let's say it goes to an 8 game playoff.

The "next" teams - those in ranking positions 5, 6, and 7 - will most likely be P5 teams year in and year out. As an example, looking at this year, Ohio State, Georgia and say Texas would make it go along with one non-P5 team: UCF.

That's an example of a year where there is only room for one G5. It will look like that more often than not. The probability of gaining access to that inner sanctum is still very low.

In a world like that, with those odds, how do you convince a school's BOT to fund a G5 program that is living on heavy student fee / university subsidies? Getting to that game does not create a magical windfall, and getting to it at all is a tall task.

The current format establishes a P5 lockout. An 8-team playoff, which isn't a given, would mostly expand P5 participation.

IMO, going to 8 will not get very many G5 athletic departments excited. They know they're already operating in Mission Impossible mode.

[admin]

There will likely be an 8 team playoff (including an access spot) in the future because of what UCF is doing.

If the CFP changes to 8 teams, it will be because the Big Ten / Big 12 / PAC 12 are unhappy with the current arrangement because they're losing money when snubbed. It will have nothing to do with UCF.

[ProprietyofLeyluken]

There will likely be an 8 team playoff (including an access spot) in the future because of what UCF is doing.

If the CFP changes to 8 teams, it will be because the Big Ten / Big 12 / PAC 12 are unhappy with the current arrangement because they're losing money when snubbed. It will have nothing to do with UCF.

That may be right... but the UCF 25 game streak all but ensures there will be auto representation beyond the teams from the autonomy conferences... which would give the playoff a bit more of the March Madness vibe.

That access point would be absolutely significant.

It makes football (outside of the privileged 5) an investment that yields a lot more return. There will even be a shift in the reportage, to an extent.

The way they divy up the $$ from those games would be something to watch as well.

[MullinMayhem]

99% of the time even with an 8 team CFP, the extra 4 spots would go to Ohio St., Auburn, ND, Michigan, etc. when they aren't in the top 4. In other words, maybe once in a blue moon a UCF gets in over Texas or the like, but they would be absolutely demolished by real teams if they made it that far. UCF plays cupcakes almost all the time. The only way a CFP would truly give these cinderellas a real chance is if it was a big tournament like college hoops. Much more opportunities for upsets. But in football there's much less parity than in college hoops. You have essentially like 10 pro level teams and everyone else. Ball State would never stand a chance in hell against Bama, but in basketball even if Bama was #1 they would.

It doesn't really change things that much. The AAC is a refugee camp, not a conference. That will never change.

[muskienick]

All this talk about UConn coming to the Big East as its 11th member is null and void as long as the brass at UConn insist on throwing Million$ in the support of a totally pathetic football program in a 2nd-rate BCS Conference. Eventually, the state Legislature might finally begin to realize that they are throwing money down an abyss that doesn't produce any positive feedback or create any success. Home games over the past 6-8 years have seen a precipitous drop in attendance. It is not unusual to see half, or more of, the stadium empty of fans during a game.

Maybe, with the leadership of UConn being as illogical as it has been relative to their Athletic Budget over the last decade, the Big East may want to think twice before inviting them (or agreeing to include them) within the membership of the Big East Conference!