Carl,
Love the picture. You know in some respects I really tink the 1AA label really hurt attendance at a number of schools. Back in the 1970s UCONN averaged 12-13000 for home games. By the 1990s it was way down, closer to 8-9000. UMass was similar. they used to draw pretty well in the 60s and 70s but attendance dropped off later. I recall going to 2 UCONN-UMass games that were "sellouts" one in Storrs and one in Amherst. Memorial's capacity was smaller then, I think around 14,500. The expanded it with new bleachers on the east side in the late 1970s I think to around 16,500.
Oh lord, are you trying to provoke me into another dissertation?
Yes - the separation of division 1 football in to division 1-A, and 1-AA levels in 1978 most definitely ahd an effect on the interest in the sport locally, when the best athletes, that grew up locally, started going to places far away. UConn was still drawing decent sized crowds to memorial in the 80s and into the 90s. We've operated at a very good capacity at Rentschler with the upgrade to 1-A level in a 40,000 seat facility. We've done so, without ever having played a home game ranked in the top 25. (to my knowledge, I'm pretty sure we fell out of the rankings before we got to play at home when we were ranked - might be wrong) anyway......the fan support is there. Just got to win, and we will sell out regularly at Rentschler too, and sell outs at Rentschler are not unusual anyway.
The split had wide ranging impact on not just the sport of intercollegiate football, but on intercollegiate athletics as a whole across the entire country, and specifically in the high density population area, and high density concentration of colleges in the northeast USA, it had very real measurable affect all the way down to grade school athletic programs of all kinds.
The point of that photo, was to show that the block C is not something new to the university of CT. What I'd like to see is Jonathan get back on the football uniform in a secondary spot. Sleeve or hip.