Some quotes by Warde Manuel in this article. Regarding the story that said that UConn was one of the biggest losers in conference realignment:
BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe downplayed the severity of BYU’s situation last week, and on Tuesday UConn AD Warde Manuel also refused to acknowledge the sky is falling on the program that once enjoyed membership in the Big East Conference and its automatic bid into a BCS bowl game, saying he read the Times article and "really didn’t give it much credence."
Manuel, hired in February of 2012 and responsible for setting up the series with BYU in March of 2013 — the Huskies will visit LaVell Edwards Stadium on Oct. 31, 2015 — said UConn’s overall athletic program takes a backseat to nobody. The Huskies won three national championships last school year: men’s and women’s basketball and women’s field hockey.
"I never look at UConn and what our teams do as losers at anything, so in that sense, I disagree [with the L.A. Times story]," Manuel said. "Our focus is to continue to have success with our programs and not look at ourselves in any other way just because we are not in a certain conference or not."
Manuel said the only way to fight perceptions that BYU and so-called Group of Five schools from the AAC aren’t worthy of Power Five inclusion is to win football games. Recent proclamations by the ACC and SEC that games against BYU (or any Group of Five school) don’t count in their mandates that member schools play at least one nonconference game a year against a Power Five conference school hasn’t disheartened the UConn AD as much as it has angered folks in Provo.
"From my standpoint, they can say what they want. I mean, we are still actively scheduling teams from those conferences," Manuel said. "It is rare that I get upset about what people say about one conference or another. You play the games. We need to win the games we play here at UConn, and our conference needs to win those games."
But while Mendenhall unabashedly told the Austin American-Statesman in June that BYU "would love" to join the Big 12 — Holmoe defended but didn’t rubber-stamp the statements last week — Manuel is far more diplomatic in discussing UConn’s current situation, unfair as it may seem.
"I am happy with where we are, because it is where we are. Obviously, I will continue to monitor the landscape and figure out what is in the best interest of UConn," Manuel said. "Our focus is to be the best that we can be, and to win the games that are in front of us against teams that are in our conference and some great teams we schedule that are not in our conference. … That has been my attitude since we have been in the situation we found ourselves in, and we will continue to focus on making ourselves strong and better in doing what we do."
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/cougars/58339172-88/byu-uconn-football-conference.html.csp
BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe downplayed the severity of BYU’s situation last week, and on Tuesday UConn AD Warde Manuel also refused to acknowledge the sky is falling on the program that once enjoyed membership in the Big East Conference and its automatic bid into a BCS bowl game, saying he read the Times article and "really didn’t give it much credence."
Manuel, hired in February of 2012 and responsible for setting up the series with BYU in March of 2013 — the Huskies will visit LaVell Edwards Stadium on Oct. 31, 2015 — said UConn’s overall athletic program takes a backseat to nobody. The Huskies won three national championships last school year: men’s and women’s basketball and women’s field hockey.
"I never look at UConn and what our teams do as losers at anything, so in that sense, I disagree [with the L.A. Times story]," Manuel said. "Our focus is to continue to have success with our programs and not look at ourselves in any other way just because we are not in a certain conference or not."
Manuel said the only way to fight perceptions that BYU and so-called Group of Five schools from the AAC aren’t worthy of Power Five inclusion is to win football games. Recent proclamations by the ACC and SEC that games against BYU (or any Group of Five school) don’t count in their mandates that member schools play at least one nonconference game a year against a Power Five conference school hasn’t disheartened the UConn AD as much as it has angered folks in Provo.
"From my standpoint, they can say what they want. I mean, we are still actively scheduling teams from those conferences," Manuel said. "It is rare that I get upset about what people say about one conference or another. You play the games. We need to win the games we play here at UConn, and our conference needs to win those games."
But while Mendenhall unabashedly told the Austin American-Statesman in June that BYU "would love" to join the Big 12 — Holmoe defended but didn’t rubber-stamp the statements last week — Manuel is far more diplomatic in discussing UConn’s current situation, unfair as it may seem.
"I am happy with where we are, because it is where we are. Obviously, I will continue to monitor the landscape and figure out what is in the best interest of UConn," Manuel said. "Our focus is to be the best that we can be, and to win the games that are in front of us against teams that are in our conference and some great teams we schedule that are not in our conference. … That has been my attitude since we have been in the situation we found ourselves in, and we will continue to focus on making ourselves strong and better in doing what we do."
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/cougars/58339172-88/byu-uconn-football-conference.html.csp
