http://www.voodoofive.com/2012/2/8/...-competitive-football-invites-memphis-to-join Don't think Memphis is bad? Don't want to believe me? That's fine. No skin off my back. Take it from the words and reactions of those who have shared a conference with them. Who have seen them look as impressive in MBB as possible (USF-Memphis was a slaughter). They are not impressed. They do not care. They realize this is nothing- NOTHING- but a complete failure, as is every other move this conference has made. SMU. Houston. Memphis. The USF/Louisville/Cincinnati base knows these people. They shared a house with these people. And they never wanted to see them again. Heed their warning.
The general premise is correct. The BE is conf USA. What saddens me is not so much that Memphis is bad at football, but that it's just a lousy university. I feel the same way about Houston, and Boise. SMU is a solid, upstanding university with a great alumni association. UCF is a competitive university. If the BCS AQ system is going away, why not either create a local regional conference with the likes of UMass and Temple, or at least cherry pick the strong universities, like Tulane and Tulsa. At least those conferences would have something going for them. Remaining in this conference is a ticket to irrelevance for UConn.
Memphis State and Houston. The chance to see UConn play mid-major football teams, representing diploma mills, on a rotating basis, against whom they have nothing in common AND are not driveable road games. What a combination!
IF the BCS system were to be replaced by an actual, true playoff system, rather than the garbage they are labeling as a 'playoff' right now, a complete geographic reconstruction of intercollegiate athletic conferences, is exactly what you'd see happen.
I don't understand the FedEx thing. It's just a company. Who cares? Only in a city as pathetic as Memphis could the mere fact that a decent company is HQ there be considered relevant. Stamford CT is far more important on that measure. Hell, imagine if we could add San Jose State! Intel! Adobe! Rutgers isn't far from the UPS HQ but I don't hear them acting like it's a big deal.
Unless Rutgers moved near UPS' HQ in Atlanta, that may be a factor. On the other hand, your point is relevant and Joisey has plenty of corp HQs.
During the blizzard of '78 a friend of mine got caught in of all places a strip joint on a side street in providence. Sounded ok to a bunch of college guys, except that after 2 days, it was pretty skeevy, the beer ran out, the were older and not that attractive without makeup, and there was nothing to eat. That is Memphis. In memphis and bosie we have added two places that are little more than 4 year community colleges. What a sad sad state of affairs...
As a college student at Trinity during the blizzard of '78, stuck on campus with no supplies coming in but my wrestling coach stuck on campus and requiring us to practice daily (I remember it taking over half an hour to walk about 500 yards to the gym through the unplowed snow), you are not going to get me to believe that I wouldn't have had a better time stuck in a strip club. Sorry -- not buying.
Maybe these schools will use this opportunity as a catalyst to overall improvement. UConn was headed straight downhill as an institution around the time they joined the Big East.
I don't really agree with that Waquoit. It obvioulsy needed a change in vision, and it got that with the efforts of the Board of Trustees, especially Lew Rome as Chairman, in the mid-80s. But before that it was on a par with what it saw as its peers, UMass, Rhode Island, New Hampshire. Not great but not awful, either. Adn it was in need of some new investment in its physical plant for sure, but it had also seen several new buildings put up in the 1970s and early 1980s. The Physics building opened in around 1972-73 ish, the new School of fine Arts in the late 70s-early 80s, and there were others. In fact, there was a concerted effort made starting in the mid 1980s to upgrade the qulaity of the student body through better and more aggressive recruiting, more out of state recruiting (something for which they were criticized by some for what its worth) and so forth. Intersting that that all started to come together at the same time that Calhoun arrived. And really started about the time the Dream Season hit. But like the Flutie Factor, I think if you really look at the details you'll discover that much of what happened in terms of the upgrade of the Universtiy would have happened without Jim Calhoun. he absolutely made it way more fun, though.
UConn was the top public University in New England even in the 80's. UMass wasn't too far behind, but the others were not really very close. But none of the New England public schools had any national profile, except in certain fields. I do think the Big East, and basketball success helped change that, and it certainly caused the state to pay attention to UConn and invest in it for the first time. My family moved to Connecticut from the midwest, and were surprised at the low level of regard people had for the flagship state university. Yale was and is the standard bearer, and others like Trinity and Wesleyan were well regarded. It's the same across the region. MA is littered with great schools. RI has Brown, NH has Dartmouth, Maine has Colby, Bates and Bowdoin and VT has Middlebury.
I don't think that there is any question that both the political will to rebuild UConn and UConn's perception outside of greater Hartford (especially in Fairfield County) benefitted greatly from our basketball success..
