RE: All Things Realignment 2.0
It's (almost) funny watching the uConn apologists now getting ruffled over this on the Conference Realignment board. "Tiresome" one calls it, "clueless" another one says.
What is funny is that when uConn left, they did it by quite literally flipping us the "double bird." They managed to insult every member of the AAC while they were in it, claiming that their "fans just can't get excited about playing" us, and bitching and moaning about how "the conference" was "holding them back" in recruiting, etc... Then, as they left (conveniently as soon as the BE exit money was gone, coincidence, I'm sure), they bragged about how the BE and "Football Independence" was going to solve all their problems: they would be playing exclusively marquee names, their travel would be so much less, yadda, yadda, yadda... Thank God, they were free of "the conference."
Now suddenly, they are looking at rejoining a football conference; it's another win! They would suddenly get the benefits of a Conference: bowl tie-ins, media deals, scheduling alliances. Their AD is a freaking genius! Win, win, win!
Look, uConn obviously made a good decision jumping to the BE. Fine. Maybe they even made a good decision to show their ass as they went out the door. But in what world does trading SMU for NMSU and Houston for UTEP, and even Tulsa for Middle Tennessee State actually count as a "win"? That's all I want to know.
I wonder if this isn't a real-life "Major League" type scenario: the AD wanting and needing justification to kill off the FB team, so he assembles a line-up SO bad that nobody will come? "You want us to lose?" the GM asks in the movie, to which the owner says, "No, you've been losing...I want you to finish dead last." so that attendance will drop below a certain number so that she can relocate the Indians (sorry, the GUARDIANS) to Miami. What is the attendance number so dismally low that uConn can finally make a case to scrap the program?
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