When Randy Edsall accepted the bowl bid from Meineke Car Care Bowl executive director Will Webb the place erupted in applause and shouts.
Edsall and AD Jeff Hathaway exhaled some long breaths. It was a party-like atmosphere, and almost universally, this was the bowl UConn targeted for a long time with so many alumni on the eastern seaboard.
It was never easy, the tension was getting to Edsall so much the only time he had to relax was when he went for a 45 minute run on Monday.
The players were left in the dark, but many of them knew the destination possibilities. Dan Davis said "there were places we didn't want to go." before a nervous and laughing Edsall cut his senior captain off while everyone laughed.
Yes, it was that close to being not in Charlotte. I haven't talked to Webb tonight for his official take, but I'll see if I can get him later.
Lots of hard work.
I'll be back very late once I got this mountain of work done. Cincinnati can't be feeling to well, they deserve better (not sure they do at the expense of UConn though and vice-versa).
Some other nuggets:
- If you are going to go to the game, buy your tickets through UConn at uconnbowl.com. That way UConn gets credit for the 12,500 they have to sell. Travel arrangements will also be made if you choose to.
- Edsall was ecstatic that the bowl didn't make its decision off of the second half at West Virginia and the final score. He stressed the 5-2 conference record to the Webb and others involved in the Charlotte bowl.
- Huskies never contacted the Sun, or tried to. They had no shot at it.
- Edsall did address somewhat his being linked to Ga Tech. He said that's the way the coaching business is and (paraphrasing here) people do what is the best for their family. No idea if he has been contacted.
2 comments:
John, what was the rationale for meineke selecting uconn over cincy? Was the financial committment by uconn the deciding factor? Although they won't say it, who does Uconn see as their best ACC match-up?
Does a game like this in the south really help recruiting for a northeastern football program?
Meineke thought Cincinnati and UConn were about equal as teams in what they accomplished this year. If it was always who is better team, than Florida-LSU or USC is playing in the national championship game.
This bowl has also wanted UConn badly for a long time. They felt as the UConn season as a whole, and the fact they finished alone in second place, they deserved the spot.
Rankings are a snap shot, and Will Webb said that on Tuesday. If say UConn got blown out by West Virginia last week, and then beat Syracuse this week. And then Cincinnati lost to West Virginia this week instead, of two weeks ago UConn is ahead of them in the polls.
Head to head means something, but not as much as a superior league record. If both of these teams were 4-3 in conference, and 9-3, Cincinnati would probably get the nod. But, UConn was in first place in the Big East for most of the season.
And on the ACC, UConn blew out Duke and played a top 25 Virginia team to a one point loss and should have won.
I know Cincinnati fans are griping about UConn is going to get blown out, but a matchup with Wake Forest should be a good game. I would say it is going to be Wake Forest. That's a North Carolina based team and they like having that semi local team.
Finances were a bog part of it. UConn is counting on more than 120000 to get down there. But, UConn had a better conference record than Cincinnati, this isn't a case of UC getting passed over. UConn was passed over for the Sun.
Post a Comment