Berry Tramel: My advice to Connecticut — invest heavily, HEAVILY, in football or get out of the rat

[djct1999]

Mangini is a control freak. He is also extemely inflexible. He frequently rubs people the wrong way and doesn't care. I think that when it comes to Xs and Os he's brilliant. However, when something went wrong, it always snowballed out of control. He reminds me of Bobby Valentine, to be honest.

We play in the AAC people. Why would any coach with stature agree to be our head coach? At best, we have to go after a young upstart from an FBS school looking to make that next jump. We aren't getting Mangini. We couldn't even get Charlie Weiss.

 

[freescooter]

the Sporting News rnked the 125 FBS coaches. PP came in 89th. Cincinnati, who has lost two coaches better than anyone UConn will ever have, hired Tuberville, who was ranked 44th. Coaching is about 80% of college football, maybe more. If I was the Big12, I'd invite Cincy first. Louisville hired Charlie Strong after the disaster that was Kragthorpe.

this stuff is not brain surgery. Keeping PP is admitting defeat. But its too late to fix that

A couple of things here, though...Kragthorpe was a worse disaster than P...and he stayed 3 seasons. this is Pasqualoni's 3rd. We'll see who replaces him assuming he doesn't turn things around this year.

I agree that we need to be combing the JUCO ranks for every available player. That is what KState did. its what Boise does and its what TCU did. Boise had something like 15 JUCOs last year. TCU had 7-8 plus 6 transfers from ohter schools. UConn had 2. We just need to land those kind of guys. We built a successful basketball program by recruiting scum of the earth if they could hit a 15 footer, and not worring in the slightest about whether they even knew where the academic building were. That is the model. Miami has used it. Auburn uses it. the whole friggin' SEC probably uses it. Well maybe not Vanderbilt...just do it. People might not like us, but after we kick their butts they'll respect us. I once heard a comparison of recruiting at Michigan vs. Florida. the guy said "If he's a player you can get a plant into Florida. And that's the difference." We need to be Florida.

 

[upstater]

4 seasons for Kragthorpe

A couple of things here, though...Kragthorpe was a worse disaster than P...and he stayed 3 seasons. this is Pasqualoni's 3rd. We'll see who replaces him assuming he doesn't turn things around this year.

I agree that we need to be combing the JUCO ranks for every available player. That is what KState did. its what Boise does and its what TCU did. Boise had something like 15 JUCOs last year. TCU had 7-8 plus 6 transfers from ohter schools. UConn had 2. We just need to land those kind of guys. We built a successful basketball program by recruiting scum of the earth if they could hit a 15 footer, and not worring in the slightest about whether they even knew where the academic building were. That is the model. Miami has used it. Auburn uses it. the whole friggin' SEC probably uses it. Well maybe not Vanderbilt...just do it. People might not like us, but after we kick their butts they'll respect us. I once heard a comparison of recruiting at Michigan vs. Florida. the guy said "If he's a player you can get a plant into Florida. And that's the difference." We need to be Florida.

 

[metsfan2323]

We play in the AAC people. Why would any coach with stature agree to be our head coach?

The x factor with Mangini is that he grew up in the Hartford area, lives here now and has his family here (I assume). The AAC isn't as bad as you make it out to be, all of our games will be on ESPN and it offers a somewhat winnable but competitive schedule which would be attractive to a young coach looking to re-boot his coaching career, the salary we offer our coaches isn't that bad either and we have a great fan base (hater blog aside).

You may have noticed that Tubberville did leave the Big 12 to coach in the AAC.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

I absolutely agree - I want to see them throw them throw the football like the running backs all called in sick.

I want to win games 63-3, but if that doesn't work, I'd rather lose 66-63 than 10-7.

I also think we should cheat really hard.

Yes! At least a three point loss (66-63) would be exciting. 10-7 loss last year was so painful . . . . like, crap, the game clock just ran out and we weren't through yet.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

A couple of things here, though...Kragthorpe was a worse disaster than P...and he stayed 3 seasons. this is Pasqualoni's 3rd. We'll see who replaces him assuming he doesn't turn things around this year.

I agree that we need to be combing the JUCO ranks for every available player. That is what KState did. its what Boise does and its what TCU did. Boise had something like 15 JUCOs last year. TCU had 7-8 plus 6 transfers from ohter schools. UConn had 2. We just need to land those kind of guys. We built a successful basketball program by recruiting scum of the earth if they could hit a 15 footer, and not worring in the slightest about whether they even knew where the academic building were. That is the model. Miami has used it. Auburn uses it. the whole friggin' SEC probably uses it. Well maybe not Vanderbilt...just do it. People might not like us, but after we kick their butts they'll respect us. I once heard a comparison of recruiting at Michigan vs. Florida. the guy said "If he's a player you can get a plant into Florida. And that's the difference." We need to be Florida.

Agreed. Clear the road for the Juco Bus. We DO need to be like Florida.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Hiring Pasqualoni was like teeing off with a 3 Iron. It showed that we had no balls, and we still shanked it into the woods.

P was like teeing off with a 3 Iron and not being able to hit a decent iron.

 

[freescooter]

P was like teeing off with a 3 Iron and not being able to hit a decent iron.

Not sure I agree with this. It might have been more like teeing off with a hickory shafted spoon...
Definition: The spoon was the wooden-shafted club in (primarily) pre-20th Century golf history that is most equivalent to today's 3-woods. A modern 3-wood is not a spoon, however. Spoons were called that because their clubfaces were concave (shaped like a spoon, in other words). But in appearance, loft and purpose, the spoon is the antique golf club that most resembles today's 3-woods.

 

[chiller99]

Three or four times during the NFL draft coverage different commentators on different channels said"I cant believe UCONN didnt win the Bigeast with all this talent" hmm

 

[EdgewoodNHV]

Pasqualoni is a Hathaway thing. He gets no passes.

Honestly curious: If you were the Maryland AD, would you fire Randy Edsall, two-year record of 6-18?

 

[noeynox]

Honestly curious: If you were the Maryland AD, would you fire Randy Edsall, two-year record of 6-18?

I would. He has been an absolute train wreck.

 

[ZooCougar]

Honestly curious: If you were the Maryland AD, would you fire Randy Edsall, two-year record of 6-18?

I would have fired him after his first season.

You're funny. Trying to pin Edsall on me. What a hoot.

 

[EdgewoodNHV]

I would have fired him after his first season.

You're funny. Trying to pin Edsall on me. What a hoot.

Not trying to pin anything on anyone -- just curious what you'd do as AD. Personally, I'm glad people like our AD give people time to invest in the program and try to build it up. But you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

 

[ZooCougar]

In this case, Pasqualoni is building the program down.

 

[djct1999]

Pay Bobby Petrino, take the baggage that comes along with it. Guy can turn this around in 1 year. Will make UConn football fun to watch and definitely to play for.

 

[The Funster]

And here is the trap: you have a guy like P and maybe he recruits well but makes a bad choice or two on his staff. So the offense struggles for a couple of years and it drags the team down a bit. He has a good class or two so you keep him but force him to make some coaching changes. He shows some improvement, maybe enough to give him one more year but he still has some flaws in his coaching system so finally you have to make the decision to let him go. But, the problem is that 4 freaking years have gone by.

You expect your HC to have some vision, to see issues and take the appropriate steps to correct them. GDL as OC was not working and our HC didn't take the necessary steps until forced to do so. That shows a lack of vision. A strong argument can be made that P should have been gone already. If the team doesn't show marked improvement he should be gone after next season. The desire is to keep looking at the recruiting class and give the HC the time to achieve success. But the trap is that the HC does not have the vision to make it happen and that is how a team gets lost in a loop of 4, 6 or 8 years of mediocrity.

 

[freescooter]

Funster, I'm inclined to agree with you. Here's a variation on a theme, though. What level of improvement is considered acceptable? Is 6-6, against a somewhat tougher schedule, good enough? 7-5? And what if we're 7-5, 6-6, 7-5 the next 3 years? At some point you have to aske, "does this coach have what we need to get to the next level?" I think this is the year to make that decision. If the answer is yes, you need to be prepared to ride it out for a few more seasons. If it is no, then he needs to be gone when the final whistle blows on the season.

 

[The Funster]

Funster, I'm inclined to agree with you. Here's a variation on a theme, though. What level of improvement is considered acceptable? Is 6-6, against a somewhat tougher schedule, good enough? 7-5? And what if we're 7-5, 6-6, 7-5 the next 3 years? At some point you have to aske, "does this coach have what we need to get to the next level?" I think this is the year to make that decision. If the answer is yes, you need to be prepared to ride it out for a few more seasons. If it is no, then he needs to be gone when the final whistle blows on the season.

From what I've seen from PP, the team has to go 8-4. Anything less and he's out. He'd have to coach his ass off to get us to 8-4. Anything less isn't good enough. We don't have the time to screw around. 7-5, 6-6, 7-5 the next 3 years is not goood enough. It's three years that didn't move the program forward and three years we can't get back. That's why PP has one more year to really impress. If he can't, we look someplace else. We have to. Time's a wastin'

 

[freescooter]

I can agree with that.

 

[geordi]

From what I've seen from PP, the team has to go 8-4. Anything less and he's out. He'd have to coach his ass off to get us to 8-4. Anything less isn't good enough. We don't have the time to screw around. 7-5, 6-6, 7-5 the next 3 years is not goood enough. It's three years that didn't move the program forward and three years we can't get back. That's why PP has one more year to really impress. If he can't, we look someplace else. We have to. Time's a wastin'

Then he's gone! The best I can see this team doing against this schedule is 6-6, and that will be tough.

 

[freescooter]

by the way they are not going to hire Mangini. No way no how. We've just gotten through with an NFL guy with local ties. By the time we hired him, pasqualoni was much more an NFL guy than an NCAA guy. Not making that mistake again. Our next coach will be a guy with strong college connections, probably a coordinator at a major program though a MAC/Sunbelt level head coach could be in the mix, too. But it will be a college guy first and foremost. think Charlie Strong type rather than Eric Mangini.