And what is not mentioned often, but clearly pointed out by others, probably half of the recent successes are due to the fact that AD David Benedict was able to significantly dumb down the schedule.
Appropriately so. There were 3 teams on this years 12 game schedule that could/should outresource the Huskies: Duke, BC, Syracuse. 2 out of 3 ain't bad(Meatloaf?). Next year there are 4, Syr, UNC, MD and Duke with JMU possibly ahead of our guys also. Not overscheduling allows us to physically and emotionally recover from the "BIG" games. Look at the Delaware effort post Syracuse. Imagine if that was Virginia or Clemson or Pitt instead? It might have been a shellacking rather than a terrible OT loss. At some point WHEN we have ample resources we can play a big boy schedule, dive into the deep end of the pool and see if we can swim. In the meantime, winning is winning. The new coach is going to have their work cut out for them next year with that schedule. It should be tougher than this year and without Fagnano, Bell and Mora. We go 7-5, and I'd call that a successful rebuild!.
And THAT sentiment started in the 70's when the National Championship caliber Men's soccer team played St. Louis U. on the Memorial Stadium turf & wanted to disband football & allocate all football revenue to Men's soccer. It went into dormancy when Lew Perkins was hired & pledged to upgrade football to 1-A status, but rose again like the Phoenix during the Pasqualoni regime...
Does a "name" do as good a job as an up and comer? Is an up and comer able to recruit based on his name? I'm betting with DB. He caught lightning in a bottle with Mora. Anxious(mildly) to see his thoughts on this hire.
I'm not sure I would call that a success necessarily. Depends on who we beat. If for example we lose to the 4 P4 teams and JMU, but win every other game, we would be 7-5 but have beaten nobody of note and our only home W would be UMass. Wouldn't be the worst season but wouldn't feel like a success either. I would call it more averting a potential crisis lol
Agree. Thinking a losing season would be disastrous for alot of reasons. A winning season would be holding serve. 8-4 would be super. Just get the wins, maybe get one of the 5 tough scalps. We lost to Delaware this year, but beat 2 of the teams that on paper "should" beat us. I'd take a WTF loss to go with 2 of the 5 paper losses as wins.
Of course it would be a success. You guys are unbelievable. Not a single G6 program plays 5 P4 games but us. Same with playing 4 or even 3. Maybe somebody plays 3. And only Tulane had 2 P4 wins. We didn’t dumb down the schedule. We are playing a.schedule that is appropriate for what we are. There are some folks like shizzle and rstuthill who want us to only play teams from the Top 25. Then they’ll complain that we are 0-12. Every G team plays mostly other teams from the same level. That’s what we do too. With a preference for those that are regional when possible.
But if we have a P4 guy like Terry Smith we can play in the Big Ten and go 9-3 😉
It’s a balance.
I hear you, but what would be any reason for that. A true Husky fan should want the best for anything affiliated with UConn period.,
Just look at UConn baseball winning the Big East regular season title and getting left out of the tournament.
The truth hurts sometimes. As much as we all want to win a natty in football, where we currently sit in the landscape, we are not set up to do that. It's simply a fact
If losing to every formidable team on the schedule, and having your only home win come against FBS bottom feeder UMass is a successful season to you, then so be it. But I have a totally different standard for success in regards to this team. This isn't a program that struggles to win games anymore, we've shown we can beat the FBS bottom feeders. So while a season where we didn't lose to any of them wouldn't be a failure, not beating any of the good teams on our schedule would be a disappointment. I also think if we struggled to win at home our attendance would take a hit, which I would view as a step back for the program. This scenario would be a middling season at best, not the homerun success you're making it out to be.
If what worked in the past has no applicability and this year we are ranked at 41, and another poster said it would impossible to be a top 40 program, we arrive at the same place … there is no factual basis for the contention, quite the opposite. If you want to argue it costs too much money, at least you have some articulable basis to object to the program, but few do because it’s a very slippery slope.
The goal is to remain attractive for the next conference alignment shuffle.
Probably 98% of diehard UConn basketball fans (not talking about basketball only fans from around the country who jumped on the bandwagon because UConn basketball is a national brand) are UConn fans. They root for UConn in everything and they desperately want them in a P4. People like having 10 times more money.
I think the argument on the other side is more complicated than you’re pretending. Many — certainly I — think our level of P-4 opponents — teams that are usually in the bottom half of their conferences — is totally appropriate. Where many want the schedule upgraded is starting to play at least some G-5 teams that are spread through the Top 100, as opposed to the truly dog poop we’ve played the last two years. That’s not knocking what has been done to date — we were digging ourselves out of a UMass sized hole. But going forward, if we want to truly be one of the more powerful G-5 teams, we have to play and beat the more powerful G-5 teams
I have been thinking about the schedule we play for a while and I give AD David Benedict a TON of credit... We are playing the LOOK how MANY games we won, and we beat 2 P4 teams... but don't look too closely to the teams we actually played.. This year, besides playing Duke I don't think there was another team with a better than 500 record. Have a winning record and you get some press.. "look at the turn around at UConn" We need as much good press as possible to drive more attention, more seats in the stands, more conferences saying maybe UConn can add value. If we continue to get good press and better players and drive more revenue then I think AD David Benedict starts to schedule better teams and can tell a better story to the other conferences.. but at this phase of our rebuild we need good press and not show up in that ridiculous ESPN bottom 10.. Slow and steady growth gets us to the finish line...
I think you just made that up. Number one complaint on the basketball page is the weakness of the Big East and how UConn is carrying it. I think a poll there would be at least 80% in favor of either moving to the Big 12 or ACC, probably above 95% if the B1G was added as an option.
FIU was also 7-5. Duke would be the team you want to beat with a winning record for credibility anyways.
So their vision is to be like Providence or Seton Hall ?
Yes, it seems like some would prefer to be like the other BE teams with no football but I think the vast majority of UConn basketball fans (and I mean >80-90%) would welcome an invite from the B10 or the B12 or the ACC (so long as Dook and UNC remain there). But, the barrier to those invites that we have been told (most recently by the B12) is the lack of football tradition combined with the weakness of the football program since that Fiesta Bowl game (and, I guess for the B10, also not having AAU membership). I mean are we ever going to find a P4 conference commissioner as bullish about us as Brett Yormark? And even that was not enough. Would that change coming off the last two seasons of FB success? Personally, I don't think so.
