The struggle for city football in CT is real
When someone says there are two Connecticuts, folks nod their heads with understanding. Those who don’t regularly follow sports might not realize how deeply it extends to high school football.
Bridgeport (148,654), Stamford (135,470), New Haven (134,023), Hartford (121,054), Waterbury (114,403), Norwalk (91,184), Danbury (86,518) and New Britain (74,135) are the eight most populated places in Connecticut. They account for 15 public schools with football programs — not counting tech, magnet or co-op.
Heading into Friday, 14 of the 15 had amassed a record of 16-60. Some of the proudest, most storied programs with multiple state titles are among those 14. Only Norwalk, at 5-1, had a winning mark.
The state’s best high school player and one of the nation’s most highly recruited, Tyler Booker from New Haven, is going to Alabama. He attends IMG Academy in Florida. There are some outstanding athletes. Yet you also see Bridgeport Bassick defeat winless Class LL Bridgeport
Central, 24-18, for its only victory, only to lose to Class S Griswold, 42-8. Griswold lost to Stonington and Ledyard, Class S schools, by the combined score of 110-8.
Each city’s school district and each program are different. Some teams are competitive. Some are not. They all have challenges. We asked Hartford Public’s Harry Bellucci, retiring after four decades of coaching, Bridgeport Harding’s Eddie Santiago and New Haven Wilbur Cross’ John Acquavita to discuss those challenges. Their remarks are edited into a conversation.
Acquavita: “The gap between the haves and
When the phone rings, Benedict answers, and he will continue to. For athletic directors far and wide, this has been, and continues to be, a time of information-gathering and preparation for whatever is around the corner.
No one knows for sure. To negotiate means to make demands and compromises and at least know what you’re buying or, in this case, parachuting into. Conference USA is set to lose nine of its 14 members, leaving this handful of teams: Florida International, Middle Tennessee, Western Kentucky, Louisiana Tech and UTEP. The Athletic on Thursday reported that part of C-USA’s response has been to “negotiate” with UConn, Liberty and New Mexico.
Benedict talks to professional peers often about the future of the sport and the future for UConn within that sport. What can’t come out of those conversations, at this point, is any guarantee of a healthy landing spot. If UConn were to join Conference USA, or another conference, such a move would not cause the phones on all the other AD’s desks to stop ringing, or other conferences to stop extending offers that will continue to reshape college athletics.
“Obviously there are some benefits to being a part of any league,” Benedict said. “But if you’re not a part of a conference, you’re not a part of a conference. Certainly we would hope there would be opportunities for us from a bowl standpoint as an independent if and when we get to the place where we’re bowleligible.”
One could argue fairly that, with football as an independent, UConn is not in the healthiest possible place.
Consider how much worse the current situation could have been.
UConn twice explored a departure from the American Athletic Conference for a move to the Big East in the years before actually making the move, which became official in 2020. What the Big East was asking for was too great. Major points of the deals, entry fee among them, could not be agreed upon. UConn ultimately decided it was better off sticking it out in the AAC, which it did through the 2019-20 season, negotiating a $17 million exit fee (up from the contractually agreed-upon $10 million if it had provided 27 months’ advance notice).
The Big East entry fee was $3.5 million. Can you imagine what that figure would be if UConn were trying to negotiate its way out of the AAC today? The league is losing Houston, Central Florida and Cincinnati to the Big 12 and the response has been to bring in Charlotte, AlabamaBirmingham, North Texas, Texas-San Antonio, Florida Atlantic and Rice from C-USA.
There would have been … desperation. UConn would have been looking for any way out, and would have had virtually no leverage with the Big East. The athletic department, probably facing a prohibitive entry fee, would not have been able to sell such a move with such expenses to the board of trustees.
“It just became crystal clear for me, having been here for a while, that there was, certainly from all of our other sports and setting football aside for now, only upside for that transition,” Benedict said of the 2019 process. “It has elevated recruiting, fan interest and success, and those are all very important. It was a no-brainer and, yes, the ability to take control and be proactive about where we felt like we needed to go, we were fortunate that we could put something together that was mutually beneficial. It’s hard to watch what’s going on relative to conference realignment. But it feels, obviously, a lot better being in the position that we’re in knowing that we do have our feet on solid ground.”
An earthquake started with breakup of the old Big East that led to the formation of the American and continued through various iterations of potential Big 12 expansion, through shakeups in other Power Five conferences — additions to the ACC and then the Big 10, and the SEC raiding the Big 12 for Texas and Oklahoma, and so on. The game of musical chairs is still going.
“Have you ever played the game Risk?” Benedict said. “It’s like a world map. It’s like a war game. You wind up being placed on certain countries and continents and you try to build your empire and eventually take over the world. It feels like we’re playing a game of Risk right now. People are trying to take people away from people. But in some ways, you wish the board would just be cleared and we could say, ‘How can we move forward in a way that makes sense for everybody and also checks all the boxes that each constituency group is concerned about?’ ”
The AAC, even in its former makeup of more established athletic programs, was not a good fit for UConn. Football could not compete. Men’s basketball struggled. There was concern, after the conference’s new deal with ESPN, that UConn would not be able to keep its women’s basketball games on linear TV.
“You knew you weren’t necessarily in the league that was going to be locked arms together forever,” Benedict said. “At the same time, there wasn’t a lot of rivalries within the conference. Nothing to take away from the competitiveness of the membership, but there is more to college athletics than just competitiveness. It has to relate to your fans. It has to relate to recruiting. It has to relate to recruiting. It has to relate to geographical time demands of a student-athlete.”
UConn is in a better place today. Not the perfect place, considering football, but a better place.
The Huskies do have the bulk of their football schedules built years into the future. A regional approach to scheduling has opponents such as Boston College, Syracuse and Army lined up, as well as lucrative road games at Clemson, Michigan, Ohio State and Ole Miss. The schedules are attractive, the opponents familiar. The setup has been celebrated in some fan circles, derided in others.
UConn wouldn’t want to tear down the structure it has built and it wouldn’t want to give up a lot of those games — not to join a conference that has been raided, and could continue to be. For UConn to seriously consider Conference USA, for any negotiations to actually begin, it would have to understand what the conference will look like. And not even the conference knows that. UConn can’t hastily commit to something that lacks identity, or to a plan that can change with the next phone call.
Still, any football program is better off in a conference — with all else being equal.
“Right now, there are a certain number of independent programs and you work together,” Benedict said. “If that pool shrinks down some, then that could impact you. The good news is we’re in good shape with our home schedule for the next six-plus years. But that’s certainly something you have to think about and factor in.”
So much is unknown, down to when teams on the move will actually start competing in new conferences and what approach those conferences will take. There has been talk about the Power Five breaking off and even forming its own basketball tournament. There has been talk, too, of Power Five football teams playing each other more often, thereby limiting opportunities for independent programs to schedule games. What Benedict is focused on right now is watching, certainly listening, and trying to help the Big East remain strong and become stronger.
“Whatever that means, and certainly that’s up for debate, whether that’s just continuing to invest and do everything we can to stay committed so we can compete at the highest levels in that sport,” he said “Or whether that’s evaluating opportunities to strengthen the league by adding people. Or whether that’s creating some type of scheduling alliances or partnerships with other conferences. Whatever that pathway is, those are things that certainly I would expect that our commissioner (Val Ackerman) is doing and that we’ll have conversations about.”