Guest Post: Storrs, CT is the capital of college sports

In case you haven't noticed, I am the blog's only Connecticut-based writer, so I do my best to represent UConn sports.  And I think I do a pretty good job.  But the Huskies have been winning so much lately, in both men's and women's sports, that the job has become too big for just one blogger to handle.

So I'd like to introduce our newest guest blogger, Michael J. Nichols.  Mike and I have been good friends since meeting at UConn Law School in the fall of 2006.  A native of Cromwell (the literal epicenter of the Nutmeg State) Mike has both a B.A. and a J.D. from the University of Connecticut, where he was the undergraduate Student Body President and a two-term member of the Board of Trustees.  This makes him a very credible authority on all things UConn.  In his spare time, he is a scratch golfer and roots for the Red Sox, the New York football Giants, and the Hartford Whalers.  Today he will discuss how dominant UConn has become throughout the wide realm of college sports:
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According to the most recent AP poll, only 10 schools are ranked in the top 25 for both men’s basketball and women’s basketball – Duke, Ohio State, Connecticut, Syracuse, Georgetown, Kentucky, Texas, Notre Dame, Texas A&M, and Michigan State.

Photo Credit: AP

Of those ten, nine have FBS football programs – everyone but Georgetown.

Of those nine, seven are headed to bowl games this year – everyone but Texas and Duke.

Of those seven, only two – Ohio State and Connecticut – are headed to BCS games, while a third, Michigan State, had a season worthy of BCS consideration.

Of those three schools, the average AP ranking of their Big Three sports is as follows: Ohio State: 7th, UConn: 10th, Michigan State: 13th.

(And, if you don’t think women’s basketball is in the Big Three of revenue sports, just wonder aloud the last time you saw a non-championship college hockey, soccer or baseball game televised on ESPN.)

But when you toss in two other prominent sports (the final rankings for men’s soccer and the pre-season baseball rankings) you get the following: UConn: 13th, Ohio State: 28th, Michigan State: 31st.

I might also toss in men’s hockey as well, but all three teams are currently unranked.

So, what does this little exercise prove? It doesn’t prove anything, but it makes a compelling argument that UConn has the strongest athletic program in the country this year in the big five sports that have major professional leagues in the United States – Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey and Soccer.  Sure, schools like Stanford, UCLA, Texas and others excel in a number of the individual, revenue-losing “Olympic” sports. But, pound-for-pound, in the sports that the most people watch and care about, there is no better program this year than the flagship state university of Connecticut.

And while a victory over Oklahoma this Saturday night in the Fiesta Bowl may not change the numbers, it would certainly go a long way towards people realizing just where the center of the college sports universe is…Storrs, Connecticut.