Storrs — Many UConn loyalists, current purveyors of season tickets and hefty donations, were weaned on the Huskies through the prism of the Yankee Conference, where big games came in small stadiums and modest fieldhouses, producing interest that wasn’t necessarily contrived but perhaps tempered by the geographical isolation.

In those days, you watched UConn for the sake of watching UConn, not the opponent, because the opponents might have been rivals, sure, but not so seductive.

And then along came Calhoun and Auriemma.

Along came Lew Perkins with the bombastic plan of big time football.

Along came ESPN and CBS and this gloriously foreign concept that UConn suddenly mattered on the biggest stages, creating a buzz that ran like a current from beyond the concept of regional, all the way to Jim Nantz and Brent Musburger.

Maybe that’s when our UConn watching habits changed. No longer did we watch UConn merely for UConn. Now we could watch our kids slay the heathens, from Rollie and Big John in the downtown arena to West Virginia at the Rent. We became more discerning, showing up for the biggies, but not so much for Sacred Heart on a Tuesday.

And this is where we’ve arrived with UConn sports.

If you accept the paradigm shift — UConn fans have become as interested in who the Huskies are playing as who is playing for the Huskies — then we arrive at the football program’s greatest dilemma.

Even if coach Randy Edsall turns this into a winner again ... will it matter?

Will enough people care if the Huskies go 8-4 against the vanilla American Athletic Conference?

Will people ever truly come back to the Rent?

I fear the answer is no.

Here’s why: It’s not about efficacy.

It’s about sex appeal.

Surely, the American has some solid football programs, Navy, Memphis and Central Florida among them. But who in the American is must see TV?

Put it this way: Central Florida beat Auburn in the Peach Bowl last year. But which opponent would draw more fans to the Rent or command higher television ratings, Central Florida or Auburn?

God bless Mike Aresco, the commissioner of the American, who did everything but pull a Khrushchev and start banging his shoe on the table last week at league media day, trumpeting the worthiness of his conference at the big boy table.

He had a point. But the Big Ten has Ohio State and Michigan. The ACC has Clemson and Florida State. The Big 12 has Oklahoma and Texas. The Pac-12 has USC and Oregon. The SEC has Alabama and LSU. The American has … who, again?

Edsall was asked at Tuesday’s media day, the annual day of hope, wonder and what-ifs, whether the AAC is a harder sell on the recruiting trail. In the old days of the Big East, he could trumpet games against West Virginia and Louisville, among others.

Now it’s Tulsa and Tulane.

“Yeah,” Edsall said. “It’s a fact. … That’s probably the biggest difference from when I was here before to where we are now.”

Then Edsall said: “But let me just say this. This league is a very good league. It just doesn’t get the respect it deserves. That’s one thing we have to continue to prove to people.

“We’re involved in some recruiting battles. And if you take a look, the (kids) we really want, we’re losing to the Power 5 schools. Some of them are waiting to see whether they get an offer from those schools.

“But that’s why you really just concern yourself with the guys you do get. There’s a lot of guys out there who have ability and who have a chip on their shoulder and want to prove people wrong and for whatever reasons aren’t rated as high. I think we’ve got guys like that on our team. We had them the last time I was here.”

And there, in one stream of consciousness, Randy Edsall just illustrated the curious case of UConn football.

Is he going to make this program a winner again? Yep.

How is he going to do that? By finding the kids with something to prove.

But will it translate into more butts in the seats? Maybe by a handful.

Why? Because the AAC has no programs that move the needle.

Maybe one day the AAC, with more Central Floridas beating the Auburns, will develop the national cachet and league rivalries that sustain ticket sales and TV ratings. But that will require time. Lots of it.

Meantime, UConn football, in very capable hands, sits in purgatory.

Sigh.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro