(10-24-2019 10:40 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-24-2019 10:28 AM)Wedge Wrote:  Maybe people underestimated the general desire of college ADs to cooperate with each other. Their primary job is obviously to do what's in the best interest of their own employer, but aside from that, most of them generally don't mind accommodating another school on things like scheduling.

This is a great point. Remember that ADs have to deal with lots of scheduling arrangements for lots of sports beyond football and basketball, so they have a lot of working relationships with each other. Schools like Notre Dame and Michigan might have the luxury of taking a principled stand against each other in scheduling (and even they eventually relented on that front), but the vast majority of schools are going to have several "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" situations in multiple sports every year. If any of these ADs that are helping UConn today end up needing, say, a marquee men's or women's basketball opponent down the road to help open a new arena or sell season tickets, then UConn's AD is going to remember who helped him out. I think a lot of us as fans look at the schools as monoliths, but a lot of scheduling arrangements still come down to personal relationships between ADs and/or coaches.

If I'm an AD and UConn approaches me with interest in a football game then the first thing I'm asking about is a basketball series. It's a little bargaining chip that a brand program like UConn would have in a situation like this that most schools wouldn't.

But in general, I agree. The ADs will work with each other if for no more reason than they have to schedule multiple dates in multiple sports every year.