It’s early in a soap opera that started innocently enough Friday, but it seems Connecticut’s athletic director is being made to pack his bags.

It’s been an eventful time in Storrs — BCS game, Big East and NCAA title in men’s basketball, another storied season for the women’s team, a furtive exit by the football coach and a major NCAA case and consequences for the basketball coach — and a new president is reportedly asking questions, perhaps with an answer in mind.

This is a juicy story, though, again, in its infancy. Depends how it breaks, but it may ultimately surpass what WVU has held up and others have challenged this summer.  

The unique and extenuating factor here? The tug o’ power between the now-embattled AD and the long-embattled men’s basketball coach.

New presidents make changes. It happens. Hathaway has to live with his failure to hire a new fundraiser after Paul Pendergast left. Yet without Calhoun’s vengeance, without his lobbying, without some basketball donors calling in to stab Hathaway, I am convinced Herbst doesn’t act this quickly. Not when Paul Pasqualoni and Geno Auriemma would be in favor of Hathaway staying.

This was a perfect storm. Calhoun won a national title and has re-emerged in all his power and glory. Herbst has just come through the door. And anybody with a gripe, legitimate or not, has voiced them to the outside firm. With a large segment of UConn fans also eager to blame any and all woes on Hathaway, how do you rehabilitate his image? There’s no way he survives long-term. He is done like dinner.