The Fall of UConn Football | What Happened? 

only reason I go near that place is because Cabelas lol

exactly. uconn is a huge school and has a ton of potential to be a powerhouse in the northeast but the stadium atmosphere is not attractive to top recruits at all. even ones from new england and new york

If this is true, this is absolutely insane. I had a 5 minute WALK from my college stadium, in an off-campus apartment!

@@5552515 Back in the day, they played home games on campus in Storrs at Memorial Stadium. They started playing home games at Rentschler Field (East Hartford) in 2003. Memorial Stadium was demolished about a decade ago now, I think the new basketball practice facilities were built there afterward.

If Uconn was better I think more locals would show as well. Locals just go to Yardgoats instead.

Yessir. Thank you for the continued support m

Why does college football need UConn? It's a lower-tier program with no significant history situated in the Northeast, a region that produces the least amount talent and has the least amount of interest in college football.

Never forget him having Jordan Todman stand in front of the team and tell them he was turning pro right after the Fiesta Bowl, while not telling anyone that he was hopping on a plane to interview for the Maryland job. Nice accountability, Coach.

Another fun fact is that the Big East really didn’t deserve to make a majority of those BCS bowls as there were multiple teams with better records, better wins, and overall better teams that didn’t make a BCS bowl because the Big East was gifted an automatic qualification. Very often the MWC got absolutely screwed over in favor of the Big East. G5 teams outranked Big East teams in 05, 08, 10, 11 and 12, yet in 4 of those years Big East teams made it over them. Two years where the most ridiculous when #9 TCU in 2005 didn’t make a BCS bowl and in 2011 when #6 Boise State didn’t make one and in fact zero G5 teams made a major bowl, despite the fact that at least one of them were supposed to. 2011 wasn’t even close as Boise State outranked 4 teams that made BCS bowls over them. WVUs best win on the season was a 3 point win over #25 Cincinnati whereas BSU beat #16 Georgia by 21. In 2010 6 G5 teams outranked the Big East Champion, but yet an unranked 8-5 UConn magically beat out #7 12-1 Boise State for the Fiesta Bowl. UConn got demolished in 2 games by 20+, whereas BSU beat 4 Top 25 teams, and averaged more points than UConn could score in any season, and allowing over 8 points less on defense per game. 2009 even has some confusing elements in which the MWC Champion had better stats in literally every category both physically and from a scheduling standpoint yet magically ranked behind Big East Champ Cincinnati. The WAC Champ in 2009 had unquestionably a far superior better victory (beat PAC Champ #7 Oregon by 18, whereas Cincinnati’s best win was against #15 Pitt by 1), demolished common opponents of Cincinnati by a score of 100-20 vs Cincinnati beating them 65-43, and where statistically better then on both sides of ball yet also magically ranked lower than them.

Orange bowl was usually the worst 2 teams in the bcs bowl games. Sometimes you get 2 teams ranked high teens to 20s going against each other.

Greatest college football rivalry of all time! A rivalry so intense that it gave everyone at UCF collective amnesia, and they completely forgot that they were in a rivalry.

Appreciate it! Glad to be back. A lot of work to be done but excited to be back making videos

These videos are never meant to be disrespectful, but It’s been a decade of mediocrity, I think I did “due diligence”. However, I’m very happy for the football team & I alluded to the fact that Jim Mora could (and hopefully would) change the trajectory of the program in due time

Fam this comment isn't aging that well either, as I am typing this they are 0-5.

This is spot on

Definitely got one planned

Definitely got something coming for UTSA

@@JKJ002 let’s gooo

Awesome when will it come out@@JKJ002

Right now, I have at least 2-3 videos I would like to get out beforehand, so maybe sometime in June or July. But I will definitely make a video on them because they are on the rise

look at our Baseball and Hockey programs. They may not stand out but U Conn's baseball team is ranked and has a 33-8 record and the men's hockey program was ranked 19th and made it to the playoffs but lost to last years champion Umass Amherst

no it wasn’t. the AAC actively hated uconn and was bad for basketball. football is better off being able to schedule opponents that make more sense.

Leaving the AAC was a very bad deal for UConn football, but it was a very good deal for the rest of UConn.

@@thomasdelcontejr483 i’m not talking about the fans. mike aresco was making actions against the school constantly

I'm back after UConn began to suck again (0-5)

...annnndddd they're back to losing. Was 2022 a fluke?

Tbf they have to watch UConn

Went to the Purdue-UConn game this season as a Purdue fan The Husky fans were such a non-factor I had more interactions with fellow Purdue fans, and on the rare times we (me and my party) spoke to a UConn fan it was about how much Purdue was dominating by

this iisint really true at all....im a ct native and have been to many uconn fb games we are really not nasty to opposing fans and we know how bad we suck.

i'm shocked we had fans there. lol

If the game you're referring to is the 2013 game at Rentschler Field, I remember it well. It was the biggest home game in the program's history and they brought in extra seating to bring the capacity up to above 42,000. It was the last sellout UConn had at the Rent since then and was the first and only time the program appeared on Saturday Night Football. All of this is to say that you happened to visit at a particularly charged time for the program and the university. I also imagine that a lot of the anger came from the fact that half the season ticket holders sold their seats to Michigan fans at that game. Anyone who went would tell you that the stadium was almost 50-50 Michigan/UConn fans. Especially considering UConn blew that game at the end, I can understand how you could've come across the worst of the fanbase, but understand that this was probably the biggest moment for college football in Connecticut, and as such there were a lot of emotions running high.

There was no snub, the triangle was never going to let UConn in. And for there to be a fall there first has to be a rise. And I would have loved to have been in the same room when someone at UConn said "Hell yeah, what a great idea for the state to build us a football stadium 24 miles off campus".

School would never gain votes for ACC. Academic prestige escapes UCONN and has, I suggest, since YALE to Morrill Land Grant monies for SHEFFIELD SCIENTIC SCHOOL. CORNELL pulled same trick crippling possibilities for what became SUNY. DUKE, UVA, GT weren't adding to the conference Connecticut's cow school. And ACC doesn't need another basketball power.

@@Lufsixq - Maybe "snub" wasn't the right word. Louisville's invitation to replace Maryland was unanimous, and it was probably the only school they even considered at that time. However, UConn, ESPN, and much of the rest of the college football world certainly did think UConn was the obvious choice for some reason.

@@Lufsixq The problem wasn't so much the "snub" as the Big East exodus from other teams. UConn had a nice niche there for a while and played in some high profile matchups. I'm not sure they ever were in the Top 10 but they were definitely in the Top 20 and played some high profile games against West Virginia, Louisville, USF when those teams were good too. Then Everyone left to chase dollars in the ACC or Big 12 in West Virginia's case. I hate off campus stadiums, but in UConn's case there is no pro team so much of the state adopts it. They used to pack out the Rent, but times have changed.

@@thomasdelcontejr483 this is correct. The ghost of Calhoun

I doubt any school that plays its football off campus would ever have a full stadium

I’d love to go to the games, but when the stadium is over half an hour away from my campus? It’s worthless if I know we’re going to lose.

@@ospraey02 yeah I applied to UConn this year and was very impressed by their campus when I visited but the football situation I couldn't deal with

@@thomasdelcontejr483 that's when they were worth taking a bus from campus to see because there was a legitimate chance they'd win

@@thomasdelcontejr483 it's the relation between the lack of success and the inconvenience of getting to the games. at practically any other FBS school the stadium is likely right outside your dorm

One phenomenally good class(for a program like UCONN..) but a few really good ones strung together by Edsall, yeah.

@@baldwinserrantshot365 I thought I remembered it right. I did.

The best team they had was the year they beat South Carolina in the Papa John’s bowl. They were actually a worse team when they went to the Fiesta Bowl. They had a solid 4 years of success that blew up when Randy left. Terrible coaching hires set them back over and over! Hopefully Mora and fix things…

At least Kansas has the excuse of only investing in men's basketball and being a constant powerhouse there

Hey don’t knock Army. They really are not trash. Heck they almost beat Michigan a few years back and lost by 7 to Oklahoma in 2018.

@@sococomfort22s34 Uh, he didnt knock Army. He mentioned a UConn game against Army.

Sense trustees are fine with success in basketball, football be damned.

Might've been the only five minutes they were in the lead all season

@@nefgoods3117 it was the opening kickoff. I was at the game in disbelief.

Im sure they still fill up more seats during home games despite that

I'm sure you don't

Never thought of that before.

EXCELLENT comment!

@@thomasdelcontejr483 how do you figure that? First, the AAC doesn't have ESPN+ deal. They have a media rights deal with ESPN, which includes ABC, all the ESPN cable networks, and ESPN+. The AAC distributes on average, about $6 million per year, to each member from the media rights revenue. Now that might change, if the media rights get renegotiated before the media rights contract expires in 2035, since the AAC's top 3 products are moving on to the Big12. It will still likely be higher per member than what UConn is getting from CBS. In comparison, the CBS Sports deal will net UConn on average, about $100,000 per game, depending on the quality of the opponent. As part of deal, CBS Sports will broadcast up to 5 games per year for an estimated $500,000 per year, which would put the deal in the range of four years, $2 million. So in four years, UConn's media deal with CBS Sports will net them about 1/3 of what AAC members are getting per year.

If you’re talking about good FCS programs, don’t forget the Ivy League. Yale and Harvard are honestly as good as UConn and UMass Honestly UConn and UMass should join the ACC

The NIT win was in 1988. Won the Big East and went to the Elite Eight two years after that.

I’m sorry tho those school left for greener pastures because the ACC was just as big of a basketball powerhouse as the Big East and at the time had a better reputation for football than it does now (ACC).

UConn didn't leave the Big East, they were shown the door because they weren't a Catholic school and also were moving forward with their football program. These were incompatible with the vision for the Big East Conference at that time. Funny how it's come back full circle, and they're back, obviously except for football.

I think mora could do it but as a independent it's going to be tough.

yes

How did UConn tie for the best record in 2009, when Cincinnati was undefeated and won the conference that season?

No, because they don't play in a Power Five conference, they don't have any program prestige and most of all they are located in the north east which typically has the least talent in the country when it comes to recruits. You hit some gems every once in a while but most of the real talent is down south. As a life long Boston College football fan, I can confirm this. UConn is a basketball school, that it their niche and they should stick to it.

@@Chris-tq1jy dawg all a bowl takes is a 6-6 record

They will actually play at Tennessee on November 4th!

@@dylanshort1661 👍🏽👍🏽

Not Indiana but I might be biased as a BIG10 guy but I feel like Indiana has a lot more football success than any other team you named except maybe North Carolina

Stay tuned with UNC football we are up and coming 💪🏾.

The year that UConn won the Big East (along with nearly half the conference) was the low point for the BE. Their BCS representative was a 4 loss team that was nowhere near the top 25. There were a few years early on after the first ACC raid of the BE where it looked like the BE would recover and was going to be OK, but the bottom fell out after that season.

Kansas got every conceivable break in 2007. No Texas, Oklahoma or Texas Tech on the Big 12 schedule. A&M was in the wilderness. Oklahoma State had to rebuild. Nebraska was terrible. K-State was in the middle of the Ron Prince ERROR. Colorado was hot garbage. Iowa State and Baylor were two of the worst power conference teams in the nation that season. An absolutely shitty non-conference slate. The Jayhawks only got the Orange Bowl bid because Lew Perkins (ironically, the former UConn AD) bribed the Orange Bowl committee to take them instead of Mizzou.

Indiana isn’t even much of a basketball school lol

Maybe the coaches can suit up for the money lol

or they could do one about basketball

@@davidholtz3885 ?

@@bonjourphoenix7487 uconn is more known for basketball than football

I can see where you're coming from in that the program never really got over the hump of achieving major success on a consistent basis. But after the bowl wins with Orlovsky in the early 2000's, and the Fiesta Bowl appearance in 2011, the program was certainly in a spot where getting over that hump was a genuine possibility - then it fell apart. The program spent about a decade on the rise, just to spend the subsequent decade crashing and burning entirely.

Texas too. The southern states invest in more football youth programs. Over here in CT its everything else but football.

I agree

They just recruited this super star QB out of Fort Lauderdale.

Heavy on this 💯

Coming soon

@@JKJ002 that would be incredible. Me and my grandma went to the first ever UAB home game in 1991 and there was about 4k to 5k people there, so I’ve been a fan since literally day 1.

I worked at UAB when they cancelled the program, and it did not go over that well. The primary reason (that they provided) for doing that was $$$$ that it took to maintain the healthcare of the players and so many injuries. Sounded funny since UAB was a major hospital and provided the care themselves. Anyway, UAB got lucky hiring the right head coach, and that is the key to any good program. Mora at UConn is NOT going to help. He's made some of the worst HC decisions in his career. I thought he would be good at first, until I watched him blunder away too many games.

Hiring fired retreads is almost 100 percent to fail. Why programs continue to do it? Just for some baseline of 4-6 win mediocrity? You're better off hiring young coaches and hoping they build something they remain loyal to.

I'm trying to put this video together on UAB, and since you're a season ticket holder, what is some information about the program that I should know and include in the video? It can be anything from their early days to the decision to cut football to the present day.

Basketball wasn't always king at UCONN. Prior to the change in the 80s it was just one of the sports we had that competed with soccer, baseball and football. And the women's sports were popular as well, winning national titles in field hockey and such. Basketball didn't become dominant until they state cut UCONNs tax allotment and new funding needed. The school somehow got Calhoun to coach, and the rest was history. Football kind of sneaked in the back door in the 90s, hit a brief period of success, then returned to its current status. The trouble with football at UCONN has always been recruiting. Whereas Calhoun was successful getting top recruits, the football team wasn't. Until that changes, it's all academic.

They should move to conference USA or the mac

First of all, Rentschler Field is only 30 minutes away from the campus in Storrs. Not ideal, but still fairly close. Secondly, I know plenty of UConn football fans who have stuck with the program. Many have been understandably discouraged by the program's poor performance over the past decade, but there is a hunger and excitement for something good to happen. Remember, there is no pro football in Connecticut, so UConn is it, and they do have a loyal following which will only expand with success on the field. I am hopefull that 2022 will be the start of it.

Yet in 2010 UConn was considered to be at a higher level than a team that ranked #8 in the country

Army is the only football stadium I have in†rest visiting here in the north. Matter of fact im not too far away as i live near waterbury CT. its only 1 hr away.

@@danielflynn8530 the campus is beautiful on the Hudson River Valley

@@SINcitySEAL I recently passed by Newburgh which is nearby and saw the castle from the bridge on my travels from PA a couple weeks ago

More videos are coming soon for sure

U and then Conn. Nobody says connecticut

It’s abbreviated UCONN stop being obtuse

It's University of Connecticut really

It all depends on one’s expectations. I wound not expect Mora to take UConn to a New Year’s Day bowl. I see him maybe getting UConn consistently to bowl games but not major bowls games consistently

@@sococomfort22s34 Hopefully, a minor bowl bid in Mora's 2nd season, and then build from there to get some major ones. One can only hope, and they've done it before.

UCONN is a basketball powerhouse. I was born and raised in NYC and can attest to RESPECT accorded the men's program and the woman's program is beyond excellent. Poor on-field and sports executive management has destroyed the football management. Last year's roster was choked with prep school grads. Wtf? I captained a prep school football team. I co-edited the sports section of a Connecticut college's weekday daily newspaper. No way a program wins with that type of roster in collegiate professional football, I suggest. UCONN might do well to drop football. High Schools there don't produce collegiate professional talent and the football management doesn't fathom how to recruit talent from other regions of the USA.

UConn didn't really leave the Big East. The non-football members split off and formed their own conference. After some negotiations they were able to take the Big East name and logo with them, but the AAC retained the Big East's headquarters (which they've since moved from) and existing infrastructure. I don't think UConn was initially invited to the new Big East, since all of the founding members of the new BE we're small schools, mostly private, and they all had either FCS football programs or no football at all.

​@@ethanhill9460 UConn won't drop Football...I think the realignment game is going to continue and I think the ACC will be looking for members when FSU, Clemson and VA tech sue to get out of the GOR of the ACC. VA tech wants to move to the Big 10, Clemson and FSU want to join the SEC. Miami is asking the Florida legislature to help them. Boston College plays us in Ice Hockey and now we are playing them in Football, which is great for the 3 FBS teams in New England. I think Syracuse and Pitt will welcome us. Playing ND would be fun too...UConn beat ND. We even beat Michigan, we have a game scheduled with Ohio State soon. Don't think that northeast high school football is bad. We might not be Texas, however we have private schools that take our best players away. Connecticut high schools can not get a player from another district and our school districts average 18 square miles, yet the private schools can. Some of our rivalry games are some of the oldest games played, which is usually around Thanksgiving week. I have faith in Jim Mora. He's using the transfer portal, something that Randy Edsall said he would never do. We might be known as a basketball school, yet soccer, hockey, baseball are champions, too. Football will not be easy, however we can win...

UConn football had some success in the 2000s/early 2010s.