A.J. Liddell

[gioff23]

A.J. Liddell, a 6’3” wide receiver for Westlake High School in Atlanta, Georgia, has penciled in trips to ECU and Connecticut on his January 2012 calendar. He plans to announce his choice in the middle of January. In individual testing, the receiver ran the 40-yard dash in 4.53 seconds.

Liddell has received offers from East Carolina, Connecticut, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Middle Tennessee State, and University of Alabama in Birmingham. He is attracting interest from Auburn, Tennessee and West Virginia. He expects Auburn and Tennessee to make an offer.

 

[ktuck911]

more good news...

 

[Dann]

offers from GT and Vandy. sounds good to me. this is like the 10th different WR that has come into the uconn media rush for recruiting in the past 2 weeks.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

If you were a blue chip H.S. WR, and wanted the quickest way onto the field, why not UConn? Not exactly like the position is steeped in tradition and the "wait-your-turn" scenario exists here. If you are truly good, heck, the Huskies could have used you this past season - somebody who can stretch the field, someone who can create separation and somebody who (wait for it) can catch the ball. This is a precious commodity that is in short supply at Rentschler.

 

[JaYnYcE]

Pretty hard to catch a ball when your fingers are frozen.


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[NutmegState]

Pretty hard to catch a ball when your fingers are frozen.

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Inaccurate depiction of Connecticut football. September and October are not typically cold months. Sure, late November or first week in December games are usually cold, but let's not pretend we live in Alaska. It's 50 degrees in Stamford right now.

 

[EdgewoodNHV]

Pretty hard to catch a ball when your fingers are frozen.

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Yeah, it sure seems to be bothering Wes Welker and Hakeem Nicks.

 

[gioff23]

n

Yeah, it sure seems to be bothering Wes Welker and Hakeem Nicks.

.... not to mention the Green Bay wideouts.

 

[Dann]

doesn't GT run the option? why would a wr want to go there? Vandy offers anyone that can play with good grades. maybe were in this one to win it!

 

[BlueMAB]

Yeah, it sure seems to be bothering Wes Welker and Hakeem Nicks.

I agree with your point, but in fairness to Jay, 1) the Giants and Pats don't have to recruit, they can draft, trade, and sign WRs. and 2) our WRs shouldn't be judged against two of the better WRs in the world.

Weather is a factor, but it is a small factor. It's fair to say it has a bigger impact on how well we recruit WR than OL. It's likely to be more accurate to say the prior coaching staff was the real reason we couldn't recruit WR (and QB), we'll find out in the next few recruiting classes. It's cold and snows in Cincinatti, we should be able to get a guy like Armon Binns.

 

[JaYnYcE]

Just sayin. Cold weather could be a factor for them southern wideouts. Add the fact that it's a common belief that if you play football in the northeast, you have to be good at running the ball. Maybe they think if you're good at it, that's all we do?

Just throwing it out there, you can throw it back if you dont like it.


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[UConnRock]

Liddell's recruiting has been a little whacky. He committed to Maryland relatively early and then decommitted when it lookd like UGA was going to offer, which didn't happen. He switched HS to Westlake (alma mater of Cam Newton, Pac Man Jones and several other NFL players) and didn't put up great numbers this season. If he has all these offers (Maryland, Ga Tech, Vandy, UConn) w/ interest from Tennessee and Auburn (said he expects offers), why is he visiting ECU. I think several offers were pulled. His size is nice, but I don't know about his skills.

 

[HuskyFan16]

Add the fact that it's a common belief that if you play football in the northeast, you have to be good at running the ball. Maybe they think if you're good at it, that's all we do?

Just throwing it out there, you can throw it back if you dont like it.

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To be fair P has shown unlike our previous coach that running the ball is not all we do. Our offense this year was much more evenly distributed between running and passing, even when it might have been more beneficial to run a more conservative offense. But I agree with Wing.. weather is certainly a factor for southern recuits, especially for the WR position, and there certainly seems a higher percentage of BCS kids from the south at that position, but we should still be able to pull in at least one or two quality receiver a class. Thats not unrealistic. Other northern schools have produced at least this on the recruiting trail.

 

[noeynox]

What is kid committed elsewhere before?

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[HuskyBarker]

Just sayin. Cold weather could be a factor for them southern wideouts. Add the fact that it's a common belief that if you play football in the northeast, you have to be good at running the ball. Maybe they think if you're good at it, that's all we do?

Just throwing it out there, you can throw it back if you dont like it.

Some football players want to get experience playing in cold weather in case they play in the NFL and it could be for a cold weather team. just sayin.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Pretty hard to catch a ball when your fingers are frozen.
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Now that's old school thinking. First off, UConn's final home game this season was Nov 26 (the Saturday after Thanksgiving). I watched the game in a short sleeve tee shirt, it was that mild. Granted not always like that, but the NFL has demonstrated that you can operate a high powered passing game in the coldest climates (games regularly played in these sites throughout January).

Maybe the recruiting pitch for these southern WR's ought to be that this is prelimary training for an NFL career where the odds favor being picked in a city that has cold weather.

 

[BlueMAB]

If you want to get to the NFL you're better off in a warm weather school assuming they throw more often. You're also better off in a BCS conference that gets much more media coverage and has more games on national TV (basically any other BCS conference).

That said, we should be doing better recruiting WRs, we need to do better and I believe we will with coach P.

 

[EdgewoodNHV]

I'm just saying there are schools that recruit big time players in the north. Wisconsin, anybody? They make this place look downright tropical.

 

[Dann]

he took the sats in early december, waiting for results...

 

[TouchdownHusky]

If you want to get to the NFL you're better off in a warm weather school assuming they throw more often. You're also better off in a BCS conference that gets much more media coverage and has more games on national TV (basically any other BCS conference).

That said, we should be doing better recruiting WRs, we need to do better and I believe we will with coach P.

Gee that's a great pitch for UConn going forward. How about changing the mentality and image - "If you want to get to the NFL you better have demonstrated in college that you can play (get open and catch the ball) in cold weather. And just so happens that UConn can help provide that exposure for you".
Also will help if the forward pass is integrated as an essential component into UConn's offense. Huskies' stats were misleading this season - yes, they threw the ball more on offense than in prior years, but a lot of that was late in games that were already decided and/or in the 2 or 3rd and long yardage for a first down situations. Early in these games and/or early in a "new set of downs" it was "same old UConn". Bottom line you want playmakers (passing QBs and talented WR) you have to use them as cornerstones of the offense.

 

[noeynox]

If you want to get to the NFL you're better off in a warm weather school assuming they throw more often. You're also better off in a BCS conference that gets much more media coverage and has more games on national TV (basically any other BCS conference).

That said, we should be doing better recruiting WRs, we need to do better and I believe we will with coach P.

Randy is that you? That is a hell of a recruiting pitch and probably what Randy told Aaron Hernandez. Just kidding. Get me a Marcus Easly type every other recruiting class and we should be good to go. Can't be that hard to find. The kid walked on for crying out loud.

 

[BlueMAB]

Gee that's a great pitch for UConn going forward. How about changing the mentality and image - "If you want to get to the NFL you better have demonstrated in college that you can play (get open and catch the ball) in cold weather. And just so happens that UConn can help provide that exposure for you".
Also will help if the forward pass is integrated as an essential component into UConn's offense. Huskies' stats were misleading this season - yes, they threw the ball more on offense than in prior years, but a lot of that was late in games that were already decided and/or in the 2 or 3rd and long yardage for a first down situations. Early in these games and/or early in a "new set of downs" it was "same old UConn". Bottom line you want playmakers (passing QBs and talented WR) you have to use them as cornerstones of the offense.

It's not a pitch for UConn because it's not my job to pitch UConn to recruits. It's the truth.

21 of the 28 wide receivers selected in last year's draft came from "warm" weather schools.

I don't recall making an argument that we don't want talented WRs or QBs. In fact NOBODY makes that argument on this board.

 

[BlueMAB]

Randy is that you? That is a hell of a recruiting pitch and probably what Randy told Aaron Hernandez. Just kidding. Get me a Marcus Easly type every other recruiting class and we should be good to go. Can't be that hard to find. The kid walked on for crying out loud.

Like I told the broken record.

I don't work for UConn, I'm not a recruiter for UConn, it's not my responsiblity to pitch UConn. Unfortunately it's frowned up on on this board, but forgive me for telling the truth.

http://www.chinstrapninjas.com/2011-nfl-draft-all-28-wide-receivers-drafted/

21 of 28 came from "warm" weather schools. The 7 that didn't?

Boise St x2
Pitt
Indiana
Mount Union (OH)
Nebraska
Colorado

The other 21?
Georgia
Alabama
UNC
Maryland
Kentucky
Miami
SDSU x2
Troy
Georgia
Abilene Christian (TX)
Hawaii x2
Tennessee
TCU
Stanford
ECU
SMU
USC x2
West Texas A&M

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Still need to have the talented WRs, so if Randy couldn't get them, then maybe Paul can. If not . . . get somebody who can. Start running an exciting offense that attracts attention (fans, news media, television, etc) and maybe some of these kids want to be a part of it.

 

[NutmegState]

Like I told the broken record.

I don't work for UConn, I'm not a recruiter for UConn, it's not my responsiblity to pitch UConn. Unfortunately it's frowned up on on this board, but forgive me for telling the truth.

http://www.chinstrapninjas.com/2011-nfl-draft-all-28-wide-receivers-drafted/

21 of 28 came from "warm" weather schools. The 7 that didn't?

Boise St x2
Pitt
Indiana
Mount Union (OH)
Nebraska
Colorado

The other 21?
Georgia
Alabama
UNC
Maryland
Kentucky
Miami
SDSU x2
Troy
Georgia
Abilene Christian (TX)
Hawaii x2
Tennessee
TCU
Stanford
ECU
SMU
USC x2
West Texas A&M

13 of the 28 did not even come from BCS conferences, so you proved your comment about WR's wanting to play in the NFL being better off in any BCS conference not called the Big East, totally incorrect.

Furthermore, five of the above WR's come from teams that will be in the Big East Conference starting in 2013. That ties with the SEC for most of the BCS conferences.

Breakdown of your above list, by school, by future conference.

Big East (5)
Boise x2
SDSU x2
SMU 1

SEC (5)
Georgia (2)
Alabama
Tennessee
Kentucky

Big 10 (2)
Nebraska
Indiana

ACC (4)
Pitt
Maryland
Miami
UNC

Big 12
TCU

Pac 12
Colorado
USC (x2)
Stanford