OT: AAC Fans Beyond Delusional

[Bill Marsh]

Is this for real? I had no idea East Carolina fans had the power to get under the skin of people so much. Let it go. Talk about things that you shouldn't let bother you!!! East Carolina fans have you all riled up??? Pick your battles, dude.

In related news, some Canisius fans over on their message board are saying the Big East was a bit overrated. Oh, and there were two loudmouth Samford fans claiming that the conference is going nowhere but down. And Houston Baptist better get off its high horse. Quick, NJRedmen, get over to each of those message boards and defend the honor of Big East basketball against irrelevant fan bases.

Spend some of that "down time" planting a tree, or writing a poem, or punching yourself in the groin -- all of which are much more productive than waging war against four East Carolina fans.

Too funny...

There's a message board that includes Canisius?

[SJHooper]

People act like once schools go FBS from FCS that there is no going back. Just not true. UMass tried big time football and went back down. It can happen. All the common sense says they should just house their football somewhere else and play basketball and all other sports in the Big East where their natural home is. The Big East is where they made their name and brand. Many common fans still think they are in the Big East. Some say "Well no conference will let them park their football only", ok maybe so. In that case they will have to reassess their huge football commitment. Their experiment will ultimately fail. College football in the northeast just is not a thing. It's the NFL. The northeast is about college hoops, the NFL, NBA, and MLB.

Their football has to be losing money. They probably invested so much money so they don't currently see a large negative impact but after years and years of nothing but more failure no matter the coach, recruits, or anything else they try, I think they honestly say "Screw this, let's just admit we are basketball first and join the Big East".

I think they are enamored with the POTENTIAL money they can make from football, not the CURRENT level they get from it. It's like many young business kids coming out of college. These companies in major cities promise them luxurious traveling, and the chance to be rich. They sell dreams. For few it comes true. For the others, they realize they are never moving up and choose a different career. UConn is still in the dreaming stage but they will be hit with reality soon.

[Bill Marsh]

People act like once schools go FBS from FCS that there is no going back. Just not true. UMass tried big time football and went back down. It can happen. All the common sense says they should just house their football somewhere else and play basketball and all other sports in the Big East where their natural home is. The Big East is where they made their name and brand. Many common fans still think they are in the Big East. Some say "Well no conference will let them park their football only", ok maybe so. In that case they will have to reassess their huge football commitment. Their experiment will ultimately fail. College football in the northeast just is not a thing. It's the NFL. The northeast is about college hoops, the NFL, NBA, and MLB.

Their football has to be losing money. They probably invested so much money so they don't currently see a large negative impact but after years and years of nothing but more failure no matter the coach, recruits, or anything else they try, I think they honestly say "Screw this, let's just admit we are basketball first and join the Big East".

I think they are enamored with the POTENTIAL money they can make from football, not the CURRENT level they get from it. It's like many young business kids coming out of college. These companies in major cities promise them luxurious traveling, and the chance to be rich. They sell dreams. For few it comes true. For the others, they realize they are never moving up and choose a different career. UConn is still in the dreaming stage but they will be hit with reality soon.

Nice post.

Just to nitpick one point. UMass is still FBS football. They haven't gone back down.

[SJHooper]

People act like once schools go FBS from FCS that there is no going back. Just not true. UMass tried big time football and went back down. It can happen. All the common sense says they should just house their football somewhere else and play basketball and all other sports in the Big East where their natural home is. The Big East is where they made their name and brand. Many common fans still think they are in the Big East. Some say "Well no conference will let them park their football only", ok maybe so. In that case they will have to reassess their huge football commitment. Their experiment will ultimately fail. College football in the northeast just is not a thing. It's the NFL. The northeast is about college hoops, the NFL, NBA, and MLB.

Their football has to be losing money. They probably invested so much money so they don't currently see a large negative impact but after years and years of nothing but more failure no matter the coach, recruits, or anything else they try, I think they honestly say "Screw this, let's just admit we are basketball first and join the Big East".

I think they are enamored with the POTENTIAL money they can make from football, not the CURRENT level they get from it. It's like many young business kids coming out of college. These companies in major cities promise them luxurious traveling, and the chance to be rich. They sell dreams. For few it comes true. For the others, they realize they are never moving up and choose a different career. UConn is still in the dreaming stage but they will be hit with reality soon.

Nice post.

Just to nitpick one point. UMass is still FBS football. They haven't gone back down.

Sorry about that. I thought I remember reading that. At the very least I know for a fact they are seriously considering bringing it back down. Just saying it's not impossible to consider downsizing football once it's at the FBS level. UConn can't be that stupid to keep making football its priority much longer.

[Bill Marsh]

People act like once schools go FBS from FCS that there is no going back. Just not true. UMass tried big time football and went back down. It can happen. All the common sense says they should just house their football somewhere else and play basketball and all other sports in the Big East where their natural home is. The Big East is where they made their name and brand. Many common fans still think they are in the Big East. Some say "Well no conference will let them park their football only", ok maybe so. In that case they will have to reassess their huge football commitment. Their experiment will ultimately fail. College football in the northeast just is not a thing. It's the NFL. The northeast is about college hoops, the NFL, NBA, and MLB.

Their football has to be losing money. They probably invested so much money so they don't currently see a large negative impact but after years and years of nothing but more failure no matter the coach, recruits, or anything else they try, I think they honestly say "Screw this, let's just admit we are basketball first and join the Big East".

I think they are enamored with the POTENTIAL money they can make from football, not the CURRENT level they get from it. It's like many young business kids coming out of college. These companies in major cities promise them luxurious traveling, and the chance to be rich. They sell dreams. For few it comes true. For the others, they realize they are never moving up and choose a different career. UConn is still in the dreaming stage but they will be hit with reality soon.

Nice post.

Just to nitpick one point. UMass is still FBS football. They haven't gone back down.

Sorry about that. I thought I remember reading that. At the very least I know for a fact they are seriously considering bringing it back down. Just saying it's not impossible to consider downsizing football once it's at the FBS level. UConn can't be that stupid to keep making football its priority much longer.

Two different situations.

UConn made an enormous $90 million investment in a new 40,000 stadium. They also invested in additional infrastructure and facilities improvements to be competitive at FBS. Finally they just hired a big time coach and made a 5 year investment in him. They are not going to back away from all of those investments very quickly or readily.

In contrast, UMass made updates to existing facilities and to an existing 17,000 seat stadium, updates that were needed regardless of what level they are playing at. They just hired an excellent but unemployed coach who is toward the end of his coaching career. They really don"t have a lot to back away from if they decide to drop down to FCS, which may happen.

UConn is a basketball-first school. They made the jump to FBS football because they felt it was necessary to protect their basketball program. They haven't changed their thinking on that. They saw the direction in which college sports were headed 20 years ago AD decided that football was necessary if they wanted to be big time in basketball. Their long term goal is to get into a Power conference and they're not giving up on that aspiration any time soon.

[Jet915]

This is exactly right. UCONN has invested way too much money already into football. They are gonna ride it out for atleast 5-6 years hoping that their football becomes respectable while they are still getting old Big East money. If their football still sucks and their old Big East money runs out and they still haven't gotten a BCS offer in those 5-6 years, then that is when they will consider jumping to the Big East IMO.

[SJHooper]

Agree with Jet. Maybe they are stubborn and want to ride it out. Ok, fine. Let them. Once they keep failing and realize that even a good college football team won't take off in the northeast unless they are a top 5 team competing for national championships, they will eventually run out of money and light a match to the program. That's when they come calling for the Big East. It may happen in a few years. It may happen in 10. But they will be back. It just makes too much sense to link back up with a strong major basketball conference rather than stay in a crappy basketball conference for football.

[NJRedman]

Is this for real? I had no idea East Carolina fans had the power to get under the skin of people so much. Let it go. Talk about things that you shouldn't let bother you!!! East Carolina fans have you all riled up??? Pick your battles, dude.

In related news, some Canisius fans over on their message board are saying the Big East was a bit overrated. Oh, and there were two loudmouth Samford fans claiming that the conference is going nowhere but down. And Houston Baptist better get off its high horse. Quick, NJRedmen, get over to each of those message boards and defend the honor of Big East basketball against irrelevant fan bases.

Spend some of that "down time" planting a tree, or writing a poem, or punching yourself in the groin -- all of which are much more productive than waging war against four East Carolina fans.

Too funny...

The AAC trolls found us! Is that you Cardfan?

[theNEWbigeast]

Is this for real? I had no idea East Carolina fans had the power to get under the skin of people so much. Let it go. Talk about things that you shouldn't let bother you!!! East Carolina fans have you all riled up??? Pick your battles, dude.

In related news, some Canisius fans over on their message board are saying the Big East was a bit overrated. Oh, and there were two loudmouth Samford fans claiming that the conference is going nowhere but down. And Houston Baptist better get off its high horse. Quick, NJRedmen, get over to each of those message boards and defend the honor of Big East basketball against irrelevant fan bases.

Spend some of that "down time" planting a tree, or writing a poem, or punching yourself in the groin -- all of which are much more productive than waging war against four East Carolina fans.

Too funny...

The AAC trolls found us! Is that you Cardfan?

I am in no way an AAC troll. AAC is terrible. You're the one who got your panties in a wad about what East Carolina was saying about you.

[Bill Marsh]

Agree with Jet. Maybe they are stubborn and want to ride it out. Ok, fine. Let them. Once they keep failing and realize that even a good college football team won't take off in the northeast unless they are a top 5 team competing for national championships, they will eventually run out of money and light a match to the program. That's when they come calling for the Big East. It may happen in a few years. It may happen in 10. But they will be back. It just makes too much sense to link back up with a strong major basketball conference rather than stay in a crappy basketball conference for football.

Not really necessary to be a top 5 program competing for national championships.

Penn state aside, Rutgers has been able to pull in 50,000 without that level of program and 50,000 was good enough to get them into the Big Ten. Even in the case of Penn State, they haven't competed for a national championship in 25 years nor have they been top 5, but they're still drawing 100,000. Maryland and Syracuse both draw around 40,000 and neither has competed on a national level for years, but both recently upgraded their conference membership.

It's certainly possible to draw 40-50,000 in the Northeast and that would be enough to get a major conference interested. UConn just needs to establish its brand more solidly and reliably. They've only been coetipng at this level for a decade and that's not long enough.