A positive (?) thought on Diaco | The Boneyard

A positive (?) thought on Diaco

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Oct 14, 2014
Messages
9
Reaction Score
18
I'm new to the board and more of a basketball fan than football but I still follow football fairly closely. Don't all of the hysterical folks calling for Diaco's head have to give the guy a chance to get his own recruits on the field before we declare his hiring a disaster? He followed a regime that was asleep at the wheel and left him with a seemingly bare cupboard. Whatever you want to say about Pasqualoni (and he seemed like a real quality guy the one time I met him and spoke with him for 10 minutes) I think everyone can agree that he was not burning the midnight oil recruiting-wise. I'm not a fan of Diaco nor a critic - I just think it's way too early to tell if this guy has what it takes to succeed and calls for his firing are premature as are declarations that his hiring was a mistake. With the current roster, I'm not sure Bill Belichick, John Madden or George Halas would be doing much better. At the end of the day recruiting is what wins games ("it's a lot more about the Jimmys and the Joes than the Xs and the Os" - truer words were never spoken). If this guy proves he can recruit - and it at least seems that there's a lot more recruiting energy on the current staff than the prior one - then he's got a pretty good chance to win given the relatively weak schudule we play, at least as compared to the power 5 teams. I'm not saying he's Bear Bryant but I think you have to let him get his own recruits on the field for a couple years before you can start calling for his head. And yes, he probably has made some questionable in-game decisions. But that's all part of being a first-time head coach. You take the good (pedigree, energy, etc.) with the bad (some questionable in-game decisions). Next year is likley to be pretty ugly too since Diaco's own recruits will mostly be freshmen who are redshirting. But 2016 should see the tide turn and we should be looking for a quality bowl game in 2017.
 

Bonehead

'Ollie North of the Cesspool'
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
9,360
Reaction Score
8,261
A positive (?) thought on Diaco

His hygeine is impeccable!

He has my support and I don't think anyone is looking for him to be released from his contract but there have been many head scratching moments and valid concerns about his process and such. Now giving him four years which you state, to have all his recruits might be asking too much, time will tell. The good coaches coach up what they have, play to those strengths and show improvment...
 

Husky25

Dink & Dunk beat the Greatest Show on Turf.
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
Messages
18,505
Reaction Score
19,477
By many accounts, Pasqualoni's issue was not his recruiting. It was 1) how he developed players and 2) Putting them in the best possible position to succeed.

His play-caller subjected a QB who was already suspected of being pre-concussed to another concussion. Manuel should have fired former "Coach" Pasqualoni (and Delone) right then. During the game.

I'm not normally one to fall back on all the "They're only kids" and "Support the players no matter what" crap. That's B.S. If they want the accolades when they're earned, they are old enough to understand that it's Next Man Up when they aren't. But what happened to Whitmer vs. Cincinnati that day, put his future in danger...Not as a football player, but as a person. They called the play and the next thing you knew Whitmer thought he was Batman for the second consecutive week.

Alas, he wasn't fired and UConn is in the position it finds itself right now.
 
Last edited:

whaler11

Head Happy Hour Coach
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
44,376
Reaction Score
68,269
If you watch the games and look at the roster it's pretty clear the idea of a recruiting uptick was a mirage.
 
Joined
Aug 28, 2011
Messages
26,919
Reaction Score
65,069
We all want Diaco to be great.

But this is just nuts, "I'm not sure Bill Belichick, John Madden or George Halas would be doing much better."
 

Husky25

Dink & Dunk beat the Greatest Show on Turf.
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
Messages
18,505
Reaction Score
19,477
If you watch the games and look at the roster it's pretty clear the idea of a recruiting uptick was a mirage.
I watched the Roster. I saw Xavier Hemmingway gain nary a pound. That's not a good start for 250 lb. high school tackle playing in a BCS conference. That's not a good start for 250 lb. tackle playing in the NEAC!!

I know for a fact that the players didn't develop as they once had. I believe they quit (See: Buffalo 2013.).

I haven't clue 1 if the recruits had hit their ceiling coming out of high school. You can point to star ranks all you want, but a 2-3* high school recruit can take a redshirt year and become a high 3-4* recruit by the time he hits the game field.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
13,380
Reaction Score
33,684
If you watch the games and look at the roster it's pretty clear the idea of a recruiting uptick was a mirage.

The recruitniks on this board love every single commits film and think every class is better than the last one.
 

Husky25

Dink & Dunk beat the Greatest Show on Turf.
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
Messages
18,505
Reaction Score
19,477
Well Newsome sure wouldn't have fumbled if Belichick was coach. I've never seen Belichick call for a fumble. :rolleyes:
 

ConnHuskBask

Shut Em Down!
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
8,936
Reaction Score
32,588
The whole "uptick" was a joke to begin.

For P it was all 2* and 3* kids, with very little interest from the regional peers. This Diaco class, most the kids don't have any offers from regional peers either.

If your team is made up of MAC/FCS recruits and you have a bad coach, you're going to suck. There's no way around it.
 

whaler11

Head Happy Hour Coach
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
44,376
Reaction Score
68,269
Every objective piece of evidence would lead you to believe that recruiting fell off under Pasqialoni.

Not sure why anyone would hold onto the fantasy it was better.
 

Husky25

Dink & Dunk beat the Greatest Show on Turf.
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
Messages
18,505
Reaction Score
19,477
Every objective piece of evidence would lead you to believe that recruiting fell off under Pasqialoni.

Not sure why anyone would hold onto the fantasy it was better.
If this was direct at me, I never said recruiting was better. I said other people said it was better. I believe also people who say this were equally happy that Edsall (who they also said ignored CT) was gone.

I am reasonably sure that development was not a top priority of that regime. The former head "Coach" said as much when he said he wanted prototypical players. He'd been in the NFL too long. Those men's livelihood depend upon being a prototype. High school players still have a choice and if there is no drive (whether internal or external), then better go do something else.

That said, I will now quote Major League in saying, "Who gives a f v < !< ? it's gone!"
 
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
1,542
Reaction Score
4,814
Well Newsome sure wouldn't have fumbled if Belichick was coach. I've never seen Belichick call for a fumble. :rolleyes:
We have seen him call a safety on purpose though!
 
Joined
Sep 3, 2011
Messages
3,639
Reaction Score
2,872
Every objective piece of evidence would lead you to believe that recruiting fell off under Pasqialoni.

Not sure why anyone would hold onto the fantasy it was better.
It fell off a lot. If UConn is beating out Harvard, New Hampshire, Bowling Green and Akron for recruits . . . enough said. Until they can beat P5 schools (and I'm not talking about the elite programs in those conferences) UConn will remain awful.
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
6,374
Reaction Score
16,572
Look ...

You are never going to get a rational coherent review of how we recruit. It starts with the fact that there is NO GOOD INFORMATION. The rivals & scout sites are run to make money & the rankings are more tied to that than their ability to evaluate players; the offers reported are bogus as we have seen kids make up things & lots of smoke from some sources & the ... hold hold ... the money factor again.

Even if we do get the kids we want, as we have seen, that largely comes down to how ONE specific coach wants to teach & develop. Clearly Edsall - on probably 85% of the positions - has a clear idea of how he can win in this decade given who UConn is & where we can harvest kids. Pasqualoni, clearly, has a mindset that no longer worked. PERIOD. He probably got kids that he wanted. But, his targeting (even with some of Edsall's leftover staff) was not as well defined. For both, there are positions (Like QB and WR) that neither of their concepts impress me hugely. Edsall was great at putting Florida athletes in the DB or developing them around the roster; he found raw not-high-ranked kids to coach up in the OLine, TE, DLine. Pasqualoni struck out, imho, on position after position. Your fantasy choices from HS players watching minimal film, would do better.

Diaco? You really can't say. To throw bricks now is stupid. I like the stories - frankly. Bigger. Better Programs. I don't think the fact that he won over 4 Power 5 or not is all that significant. We need to keep winning on kids like Scott Lutrus. That kid proves that this is a highly inefficient market.
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
26,122
Reaction Score
31,435
Pasqualoni was so fire and forget. The college game shifted in his later years in Syracuse and they got left behind. Look at how long it took for them to dig out, they are still digging. Ed Orgeron was on P's staff at Cuse and then left to work for Pete Carroll, at some point. Orgeron said that Pasqualoni just didn't understand how hard you had to work at recruiting and that they didn't put the effort in.

Then they hire GRob, who once read a children's story book at a press conference. What scares me is that I could see Diaco pulling some sort of stunt like that.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Online statistics

Members online
83
Guests online
2,581
Total visitors
2,664

Forum statistics

Threads
155,799
Messages
4,032,044
Members
9,865
Latest member
Sad Tiger


Top Bottom