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No, many are just waiting on the Villanova game before they pickup their pitchforks.
No, many are just waiting on the Villanova game before they pickup their pitchforks.
Other than "everyone loves to pile on against Whaler"... I don't see what is so awful about his OP. Is there anyone here that would be upset if we were winning recruiting battles against BC, Cuse, Pitt, Rutgers? Even against peers in our league? We'd all be thrilled if we were doing that, and we are not. You are being dishonest if you say otherwise.
We are a bad football team in a league that doesn't get respect. That is our reality. That makes recruiting that much harder. Diaco has the deck stacked against him. Now some might say - tough, you are the coach, figure out how to get more "vetted" recruits - but he's taking the only approach he can right now. Good, hungry, overlooked kids with chips on their shoulder who want to work hard. It can work. I think he's crazy enough and smart enough to pull it off given enough time - but we will have to see if Diaco earns more time this year. I blame no one for being concerned after year 1.
We are prone to like our recruits because we are fans with no other option. We would all be lying if we said we wouldn't feel better if we were beating out BC for recruits in the process.

I've been on these boards far too long. Seems to me we've always recruited this way. Athletes that we red shirt and develop. I don't think anyone in the AAC is leaps and bounds ahead of us in recruiting with the exception of the two highly rated recruits Houston has got verbals from and we all now how verbals can go.
We are simply not going to beat out Cuse, BC and Rutgers very often with our current conference affiliation. We never faired all that well against them anyway.
The two recruits for this 2016 class are very interesting. HS QBs tend to be the best athletes on their teams and these kids are long. Can they run, throw and hit. We'll know in about 2-3 years.
To my eye, last year's disaster was far more about transition, and in my opinion a poorly managed one by Diaco, and poor conditioning. P was a total and utter disaster and I have it on some reasonably good account that summer conditioning programs were not a point of emphasis with the stupid twins. Hence, OLmen who can't bench press more than your average LB or DB - to say nothing of the DL.
I disagree that we never faired well against them. That is just not true.
Going back to 2003, below is UCONN's record against Cuse, BC, Rutgers and Pitt.
vs. Cuse UCONN is 6-3
vs. Rutgers UCONN is 4-6
vs. Pitt UCONN is 4-4
vs. BC UCONN is 0-2
Overall Record against above 14-15. I call that holding there own.
Recruiting to CT is always going to be a challenge regardless of what conference your team is affiliated with. The talent pool in state and throughout New England is shallow and is recruited hard by all of the "local" programs in competition with UCONN for resources. The handful of truly elite prospects such as Redd, Fortt, Wilkins, Clark etc. will all be recruited nationally as well. The only thing UCONN can do at this point is develop a method of scouting that allows them to pinpoint athletes and be able to coach them up once they get them to Storrs. Once the team starts winning again, recruiting will pick up with higher rated players.
TCU has an interesting philosophy where in they are less concerned with positions and more concerned with athletes coming out of HS. They will take a bunch of dual threat QBs, RBs, and WR with some eventually growing into tight ends, LBs, or moving to CB or S. Patterson loves having players with ball skills on both sides of the field, and although their teams are often undersized they make up for it with speed and skill. This system was born out of necessity from when they joined the MWC, and they were not able to go head to head with the major programs of the region for top recruits. It worked very well for them, and their consistent winning has allowed them to up their recruiting game while staying true to their philosophy.
I do have one question for those who follow the program closely. Given whomever else potentially may have been available at the time, would Bob D. have been your choice for HC? I see the qualities that would make him attractive to an AD, such as youth, charisma, local ties, and pedigree. That said he is such a strange bird, who lacked experience on the offensive side of the ball, and who's defenses often benefited from being paired with great offenses.
I wonder would it not have made more sense to go after an offensive mind who could have installed his system and then recruited to it? Maybe a MAC, CUSA, or even FCS HC or a top FBS offensive assistant? Looking at recent AAC Hires that definitely seems to be the line of thinking. I think both SMU and Houston will see big jumps in offensive performance.
Please keep in mind I'm not advocating that Diaco be let go, he deserves a shot to see if he can make it work. I'd give him a full cycle of recruits, and with that a few seasons to hopefully cultivate an offensive identity. If after 4-5 seasons UCONN is a middling AAC Team and missing bowls, I'd go after offensive minds only. You can win with scheme in college football even with a large disparity in talent. You can't win with lesser talent and no discernible offensive philosophy.
I could be wrong but I believe he was talking about recruiting, not games.
Or what about the fact that it's June and there's only 13 spotsI just want to make sure that I get this right. And this is not meant to be a shot at Whaler or anyone else who agrees with him.
We are concerned about an early commit 3-star prospect who is a top40 player in the state of Virginia because he doesn't have a lot of big offers???
Unlike in the past when we were concerned with late-committing 2-star players or unrated players with FCS-only offers, I'm not at all worried about this pick. Granted, I haven't seen more than a minute of his highlights, but it seems that he got ratings love even without the other offers. Otherwise, he wouldn't be a 3-star, top40 Virginia player. This is likely a very solid pickup, and I'm glad he was smart enough to immediately choose the greatest university in the world rather than to wait for offers from lesser universities to "pad his stats"...![]()
Or what about the fact that it's June and there's only 13 spots
For the life of me, I can't figure out why there are only some 50 posters, if that, who post regularly on this forum. Being that there are thousands who have registered over the years..oh wait....now I remember.![]()
For the life of me, I can't figure out why there are only some 50 posters, if that, who post regularly on this forum. Being that there are thousands who have registered over the years..oh wait....now I remember.![]()
I agree passive aggressive clowns who use eye roll emojis in 75% of their posts are tiresome.
I wonder what the reason is that 500 people saw the end of the last two games and they might not sell 10k non student season tickets is?
Ummmmm....that's how many people in CT are willing to stay and watch the end of a 41-0 no show of a game, and then stay to the end of a loss to an 0-11 team and then renew a full season of tickets again?
For the record, I think pissing and moaning about attendance when we have sucked as bad as we have and progressively worsened for 4 consecutive years is a waste of time. Attendance issues with a winning program would be a problem, but we've never had that yet since 2003.
As for rdcruiting, i've said my piece before. Recruiting is not what concerns me about Diaco.
Its too early too panic is my point. Diaco did some nice recruiting in a short time. I think all thirteen spots will be filled nicely. Can we beat p5 schools now. No. I agree with whaler on that. Our best bet is to beat mid tier power 5 schools like Syracuse and pit and Maryland. That may happen in like one recruit a season. If diaco can build his rep by winning that will changeI'm not sure what you're getting at. I can't tell if you agree with me or not.
Just in case you don't; Am I to assume that all 13 spots will be filled by players with better credentials than 3 stars and top40 Virginia-type talent? Because the only way that anyone can be mad about picking this kid up is if they truly believed that ALL of the spots would be occupied by people with better credentials. And to that, I would say to them that they should check our recruiting history over the last....ever....
You've sort of answered your own question. And then you indirectly blame Diaco right before saying 'I blame no one'....Other than "everyone loves to pile on against Whaler"... I don't see what is so awful about his OP. Is there anyone here that would be upset if we were winning recruiting battles against BC, Cuse, Pitt, Rutgers? Even against peers in our league? We'd all be thrilled if we were doing that, and we are not. You are being dishonest if you say otherwise.
We are a bad football team in a league that doesn't get respect. That is our reality. That makes recruiting that much harder. Diaco has the deck stacked against him. Now some might say - tough, you are the coach, figure out how to get more "vetted" recruits - but he's taking the only approach he can right now. Good, hungry, overlooked kids with chips on their shoulder who want to work hard. It can work. I think he's crazy enough and smart enough to pull it off given enough time - but we will have to see if Diaco earns more time this year. I blame no one for being concerned after year 1.
We are prone to like our recruits because we are fans with no other option. We would all be lying if we said we wouldn't feel better if we were beating out BC for recruits in the process.
Bob Diaco is not overly concerned about recruiting. He has said that in the core region there are like 50,ooo,ooo people. (Boston -Washington/VA west to PA). He also talks about direct flights to all AAC cities from Bradley. He stated on signing day that the UCONN brand was solid and they actually turned away some good players who couldn't qualify or were not RKG's that want what UCONN (top 20 public University) had to offer.
Asking at this point in time if Diaco was the right choice for Head Coach is way too premature. Give him 2-3 seasons under his belt with his players. Making a value judgement after 1 year is silly.
1)He should be concerned. Recruiting is the lifeblood of all college sports. Maybe he did turn away some non qualified prospects, and if so bravo to him. That said he has a monumental task in front of him which may require taking a few risks here or there in order to infuse talent into the ranks. When he was at ND this was a non starter, because acquiring talent there is never an issue. The program sells itself. However, when you find yourself outside the P5 or even at the lower end of it, this may be the only way to field competitive teams.
2)My question remains. Was Diaco the fan's preference leading up to his hire, or were there other candidates preferred by posters on this board?
3)I openly stated that since he is the HC, he should be afforded(but not guaranteed) 4-5 seasons to prove if he can get it done with his recruits and his O/D systems. That's not a value judgement after 1 year. That being said, if he lays an egg next season while continuing to make head scratching decisions on and off the field would it be fair to be critical of him as HC then?
Whaler may not be wrong, but it is a tad douchey to time this post after our first commit. What would you think if you were the kid's parents and you happened to visit the board for the first time the day after he signed? I don't know what the solution is, fans should be free to criticize the coach and definitely the coach should be held to a standard. But over time, it does reflect on the brand.
You complain about recruiting...The irony in these threads always amazes me.
The boards is filled with thousands of posts about how great UConn is. How UConn should be in the Big 10. How UConn should be in the ACC. Mocking of Rutgers, Syracuse and BC...
Yet when I point the coaching staff should be held to a higher standard in their recruiting because of what the school is and offers I'm a bad guy.
For someone who is supposed to be the ultimate sales guy - why doesn't that show up in the place where being a sales guy would pay the highest dividends?
As for the narrative that Diaco and the staff are going to coach up underdog RKGs with high GPAs... this isn't Hoosiers or the Mighty Ducks. You have completely disconnected how college football works versus reality. You also must have stopped watching last season at 14-0 BYU.
As for the idea this is how we've always recruited... um yeah that's the problem it's not good enough. Bob Diaco isn't concerned about recruiting lol - it's a wild coincidence they flipped an FCS verbal for their first commit half way through June.
For the Art's and Marty's who don't want to hang out. Don't worry I wasn't asking. Why not hit the ignore button instead of personally attacking me because you can't attack my content?