Forde-Yard Dash: Do Not Move to the Big 12, UConn. It’s a Trap.

Plus, open-date disadvantages to watch for this college football season and the first coach awards to hand out.

The dalliance between Connecticut and the Big 12 should be one-sided on the conference’s part. / David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football (Connor Stalions commemorative spy glasses sold separately in Ann Arbor—and Mount Pleasant). First Quarter: The Buzzin’ Dozen. Second Quarter: The Strength-of-Schedule Debate. Third Quarter: Savior Coordinators?

Fourth Quarter: Don’t Mess With Happy, UConn 

Those disruptors in the Big 12 are still at it, setting up a Monday presentation for league presidents to gather information on bringing Connecticut (31) onboard as member No. 17 in 2026. The Dash doesn’t blame commissioner Brett Yormark for his interest—he’s been bullish on basketball and intrigued by a presence in the Northeast, and the Huskies could deliver on both of those fronts.

But the interest here should be one-sided. It would be a colossal mistake for the Huskies to jeopardize everything they currently have in pursuit of more football revenue.

Don’t mess with happy, the saying goes.

UConn would seriously be messing with happy.

Returning to the Big East after spending a few years in American Athletic Conference purgatory was exactly what UConn needed. It was great for the fans, great for basketball (men’s and women’s) and great for basketball recruiting. It was a return to the school’s athletic identity.

Battles with St. John’s, Seton Hall and Providence were back. The electrifying Madison Square Garden atmosphere for the Big East tournament was back. Winning was back.

The Huskies are coming off back-to-back national titles in men’s basketball—and dominant tournament runs at that. Coach Dan Hurley turned down the Los Angeles Lakers during the summer to stay at UConn. Geno Auriemma is still getting it done on the women’s side, going to the 2024 Final Four and returning superstar Paige Bueckers for one more season in ’24–25.

You want to trade that for cross-country trips to play in Salt Lake City, Stillwater, Okla., and Lubbock? All because Randy Edsall (32) went 8–5 in 2010, winning a three-way tie for a Big East title and earning the right to be thrashed by Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl? That’s the sum total of UConn’s football glory. 

The “home” football stadium isn’t even in Storrs; it’s in East Hartford. Getting fans (especially students) to travel that far was hard enough when the team was good—and it hasn’t been good in ages. Making decisions to prop up that program is a foolhardy strategy.

The hoops glory has been earned without massive football revenue. It can be sustained without massive football revenue. Gonzaga keeps winning with absolutely zero football input. 

The Big 12 would demand a reduced revenue share for UConn anyway for several years—there is discussion of not even bringing the Huskies’ football program into the league until 2031. The goal would be ensuring that no current Big 12 members lose money with the addition of the Huskies. That presumably could be accomplished, or these meetings wouldn’t even be happening.

If there is one thing that could be driving UConn to mess with happy, it might be this: a fear that further realignment will jeopardize an all-access NCAA basketball tournament. If 60 to 70 members of the Power 4 conferences are going to complete their presumptive breakaway from the rest of Division I, they could decide to hold their own March Madness and tell the roughly 300 other members of the division to pound sand and play among themselves.

It would be the single worst thing to ever happen to college athletics, a reckless and disastrous decision that would bring reprobation raining down on the decision-makers. But, hey, have they cared about the greater good of the entire enterprise yet?

So maybe that is UConn’s thought process here. But it seems like a scared stance to take. Don’t do it. Don’t blow a good thing by reaching for more cash.

Schedule Traps 

The Dash has checked all the schedules—yes, all of them—and identified a few looming pitfalls for teams (more to come in future editions): 

The Big Ten is the only power conference that created more than two open-date disadvantage games (33) for any of its members. And the Big Ten has done it to three teams in league scheduling alone. (An open-date disadvantage is when an opponent is coming off an open date—resting, healing and preparing—while your team is not, having played the previous week.) 

It could well be problematic but ultimately inconsequential for Northwestern to play Maryland, Purdue and Michigan at a disadvantage. Same for Indiana when it plays UCLA, Northwestern and Washington. But the league also stuck it to preseason favorite Ohio State, which will face Iowa on Oct. 5, Northwestern on Nov. 16 and Indiana on Nov. 23 at an open-date disadvantage.

The Iowa game is particularly interesting in that spot, with Ohio State playing a road game the week before at Michigan State and another the week after at Oregon—perhaps the Game of the Year in the Big Ten.

Toughest November schedule belongs, of course, to Florida (34). As follows: Nov. 2 vs. preseason No. 1 Georgia in Jacksonville; Nov. 9 at preseason No. 4 Texas; Nov. 16 at home against preseason No. 13 LSU; Nov. 23 at home against preseason No. 6 Mississippi (which has an open-date advantage); and Nov. 30 at preseason No. 10—but now perhaps vulnerable—Florida State. If the Gators don’t already have bowl eligibility locked up in October, they might not get it. Which would be curtains for third-year coach Billy Napier.

Napier, with Gators quarterback Graham Mertz, needs to have bowl eligibility locked up by October to ensure job security. / Matt Pendleton/Gainesville Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK

Wake Forest (35) got the schedule back half from hell. Coming off an Oct. 12 home game against Clemson—which has beaten the Demon Deacons in 15 straight games—Wake gets put in the travel blender. There is an Oct. 19 game at UConn, then an Oct 26 game at Stanford; that’s followed by a week off and then a closing stretch of California at home, at North Carolina, at Miami and home against Duke. 

The single dumbest scheduling product of realignment (so far; other bad kickoff times are coming): Rutgers (36) playing an 11 p.m. ET Friday conference game at USC. The Scarlet Knights might make it home for Saturday brunch. (Fortunately, they’re off the following Saturday.)

Second-dumbest product of realignment: back-to-back travel dates for Stanford (37) at Syracuse and Clemson. These are the only consecutive cross-country dates any of the relocating West Coast teams were dealt. The fact that the second of the two is to play a ranked opponent in a hard place to reach—fly to Greenville, S.C., then bus to Clemson and back—adds to the difficulty of it.

Coach Who Earned His Comp Car This Week 

Brent Key (38), Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. He’s the new upset king of college football, racking up five ACC wins as a double-digit underdog in just 22 games as a head coach. The latest was his greatest yet, taking down No. 10 Florida State in a physical, ball-control game where the Yellow Jackets played manifestly better than the reigning ACC champions. The Key to happiness will be sustaining it; Tech has also lost four times at home as a favorite in the last two seasons, including last season to 21-point underdog Bowling Green.

Coach Who Should Take the Bus to Work 

Mike Norvell (39), Florida State Seminoles. Norvell got a huge offseason raise and the Seminoles have spent a year complaining that they’re too good for the ACC. Now his Noles are in 17th place in the league. Florida State better be ready for what could be a much-improved Boston College on Labor Day night. 

Point After

When hungry and thirsty in that ACC hotbed of the Bay Area, The Dash recommends a bite and a pint at The Refuge (40) in San Mateo, Calif. Get yourself the best pastrami sandwich on the planet and a Cellarmaker Wicked Juicy hazy IPA from the absurdly loaded beer list and thank The Dash later.