UConn: The Original Victim of Realignment

Conference realignment is rocking the college athletics world to its core. With teams changing conferences at a pace we’ve never seen before, it’s unknown what conferences will look like once it’s all said and done. What we do know is the Pac-12 won’t be a power conference anymore. Ten of the twelve schools are leaving to join conferences like the Big 12 and Big 10. This has left schools like Washington State and Oregon State in the dust. With little chance of them getting into one of the new super conferences, everyone says they are the biggest victims of realignment.

However, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. During the last round of conference realignment in 2012, one school was affected more than any other. That school is the University of Connecticut, better known as UConn. UConn was a part of the original Big East, and when it fell apart they were unable to get into the new Power 5. But what caused this, and what can we learn from schools like UConn?

How UConn Got Left Out

In 1979, the original Big East was formed, to be the basketball conference in the northeast. UConn was a founding member of this conference. Now throughout the ’80s and ’90s, the conference would rise to become THE basketball conference in the country, allowing them to be one of the conferences in the Power 6. However, the one weakness the Big East had was a lack of football prestige. With all the TV deals centered around football, the Big East was the eight-ball. After years of trying to appease football schools, the Big East fell apart in 2012 with many of their bigger brands like Syracuse and Boston College leaving to chase the big payday that came with football.

One of these brands that tried to leave was UConn. They had a lot of basketball success and had seen moderate success in football, making them a very good addition to any conference. However, there was one conference that UConn wanted to join more than any, which was the ACC. They felt perfect geographically and would join old Big East rivals like Syracuse, Pitt, and Boston College. It seemed like a match made in heaven.

However, there was one hurdle that prevented UConn from joining, their old Big East rival Boston College. Boston College didn’t want UConn in the ACC with them. The reasons have never been stated publicly but the rumors were that the BC president and athletic director had personal grudges against UConn. The other rumor was they were afraid UConn would incorporate on their recruit grounds. So UConn was unable to join the ACC and was forced to join the newly formed American Athletic Conference (AAC), thus leaving them out of the new Power 5.

What This Tells Us About Washington State and Oregon State

The only positive we can take out of this situation is we have an idea of what Washington State and Oregon State are going to go through. UConn is still feeling the effects of being left out during the last round of expansion. Sure, UConn won two men’s basketball national championships and became the school to be at for women’s basketball. However, what not being in a power conference did was kill the football program. They went from having moderate success to appearing in big-time bowl games like the Fiesta Bowl, to being one of the worst teams in the country. Since being forced out of the power conferences, they have only appeared in two bowl games and haven’t had a winning season. It’s gotten so bad the school has essentially given up on them and has focused all their attention on basketball.

Now I’m not saying that Washington State and Oregon State are going to suffer the same fate as UConn. Those two schools have a much richer history of football than UConn. However, most of this success came while they were members of the Pac-12. Now that they’re out of it, who knows if they’ll find the same success. Will not being in a power conference make it harder for them to get the top recruits or bring in big-time transfers? It’s an unknown at this point. But UConn tells a cautionary tale of a potentially dark fate that lies ahead for these two programs.

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