Slowly, the narrative writes itself, sustained through the anger of fans and media who need to vent. Understandable enough. Losing begets lunacy.

Lest we allow it to perpetuate and perhaps fester into fact for one more second, however, we throw the challenge flag.

Randy Edsall is not to blame for the disaster that has become UConn football. He was handed a grenade, whose pin was finally pulled in the summer when his leadership — again — set the program up to fail. This is the second such time Edsall's leadership has betrayed him at UConn.

The trumpeted move to the Big East to save basketball is killing football. We're seeing it every Saturday. It won't get better. Difference makers aren't coming to play football here inside an empty stadium 20 miles from campus playing an Independent schedule with no bowl tie-in. The program is dead.

And somewhere George Santayana gets to deliver a rather absorbing "I-told-you-so," recalling his notable line, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Indeed. UConn leadership's decision to imperil the football program over the summer happened here before. It was just dressed differently. Nothing has changed. Edsall's leadership abandoned him during his first foray here, even during days of success. It's what led to the program's collapse, helped along by subsequent bad decisions from the offices of admissions, the president and athletic director.

Edsall's departure after the Fiesta Bowl in early 2011 came with the requisite hyperventilation from the galleries. It's easier, presumably, to tee off and call him a scoundrel for leaving rather than exploring the reasons.

Edsall's departure was tied to what he perceived a lack of support from the suits who sat above him, from admissions to former athletic director Jeff Hathaway to, ultimately, former president Michael Hogan.

A history lesson: In 2003, UConn was the only public I-A school to graduate at least 90 percent of its football players. In 2005, UConn was one of only eight schools to graduate 70 percent and win a bowl game. In 2007, UConn's APR, the measure of academic progress at the time, placed the Huskies among the top 20 percent of all football programs in the country. In 2008, the APR was in the top 30 percent.

And if football were measured by academic progress, the UConn-Wake Forest bowl game in 2007 would have been a "BCS" game.

Jordan Todman, one of the program's best players, said once: "(Edsall) wants us to graduate and get a degree. If we don't go to class, we're in trouble."

I spoke to professors and teaching assistants at the time. They confirmed that, yes, football players were always in class.

And yet as players kept graduating and the program kept winning, Edsall realized that he was losing players to Big East rivals Louisville and West Virginia, among others. They were players whose transcripts used to get them admitted to UConn. He feared a competitive imbalance was beginning.

During one weekly media session, Edsall (off the podium) talked about how he spent UConn's first bye week of that season talking to admissions. His message: More stringent admittance requirements were imperiling the program.

Edsall said, essentially, the university was beginning to require its prospective athletes to have higher grade-point averages and higher standardized test scores "than a few years ago," on top of a more rigorous "second review" process for athletes who didn't meet the increased standards.

Later, Edsall showed me the "Admissions Athletic Review Procedures for Fall 2011," dated Sept. 23 of that year, detailing the requirements. Edsall said even players who earned their degrees in previous seasons probably wouldn't be admitted under this new plan. He said that making a kid wait on UConn was recruiting suicide because they'd just go somewhere else. Moreover, he wasn't sure other schools in the league were as discerning.

Edsall was most irritated, though, at having the conversation with admissions without Hathaway. He believes Hathaway should have been there to support him and perhaps keep discussions heading toward compromise. He believed he'd earned that much, given how the football program was lauded frequently — and nationally — for academic achievement.

That's why he left. He honestly believed that his commitment to academic achievement should have earned him the benefit of the doubt with admissions and he simply wanted his boss there with him for support. He got neither.

UConn's leadership followed Edsall's departure with the hirings of Paul Pasqualoni and Captain Queeg Diaco. Pasqualoni was a nice fellow who couldn't recruit. Diaco was knitting with one needle from the time he arrived.

Edsall took over for Diaco looking at an overmatched roster in a league that had its share of decent teams, but hardly the same sex appeal of the Power Five. It would have been hard enough to resurrect this project in the American. Now with the decision to placate basketball and give football its independence?

You know what happens on Independence Day, right?

Boom.

And here is where we are.

They imperiled the program during Edsall's first time around. They've officially killed it now. Forget about the money pit that is the FCS, as some have suggested. UConn football is dead.

I feel for Edsall who has always stood for the right things. He deserves better.

But, hey, basketball is right around the corner.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro