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Wise words no looking back. Past is in the past. Water under the bridge. ! All that matters is next season.
Coach P
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Let's go! Looking forward to this season. A few good looking pieces have been brought in to bolster the roster, add depth and give viable starting options at positions of need from a year ago. It is hard not to agree this team is, at the very least, better on paper than a year ago.
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See, I just don't get this at all. I thought the entire goal was to win the league this year. Not to win it for the sake of seeing what happens.
UConnDan97
predicting undefeated seasons since 1983
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Oh yeah, well just wait until we win the National Championship. Then someone will DEFINITELY want us!!!
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Unfortunately, that's the position UConn finds itself in for the foreseeable future. Every win, every program needs to do well. The long term success of this institution as a legit athletic program is in a conference like the ACC. The promise of a Big East Championship showdown between SMU and San Diego State (if it were to happen) has zero appeal on the east coast - and probably nationally. So yeah, win the BE this year and make yourself as appealing as possible to others while this landscape upheaval continues in college football. Think of it as the TCU approach - Win enough to free yourself from a lesser-light conference, get an offer from a somewhat disparaged BCS conference, play zero games in that conference, keep winning and hit the jackpot in an offer to a much more prominent (Texas & Oklahoma) BCS conference. That is the Blue Print, unless of course Notre Dame does the decent thing and join the BE for football, thereby guaranteeing stability.
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Context. This thread was started because of the recruiting coup of Graham Stewart. This is a recruiting thread.
BTW IMO the best part of winning the league in 2010 is the subsequent coaching change. No League win = No offer from Maryland / No P / No Whitmer / no Cochran. Get it now?
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I fully agree with that. The Iowa State game was lost by players not making plays.
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No, I said what I meant and I meant what I said. Recruiting is a means to the end of winning football games. Trying to turn that around and implying that winning football games is a means to recruiting puts all the emphasis in exactly the wrong place. It emphasizes what a kid does in high school, and what people think of him as an individual, as opposed to emphasizing the achivements of a team.
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Eggs are a means to getting chickens. Trying to turn that around to say that chickens are a means to getting eggs puts the emphasis in exactly the wrong place. It puts the emphasis on the lovely yellow yolks, as opposed to the welfare of the whole henhouse.
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Well, I guess I think different then you. Nothing wrong with that. To me the end game is a championship. To make a basketball analogy:
NIT championship = improved recuiting / dream season / improved recruiting Donyell and Ray Allen / Khalid and RIP / and finally, as Calhoun put it "pulling the sled over the finish line" vs Duke.
We have different end games in mind. But that's cool. I'll stand with Carl, call me crazy.
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So your end game is a championship, but once we achieved that, the best part of that was getting rid of the coach who led us there.
Yes, you are crazy.
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You had already made your opinion of me very clear. You think I am an idiot.
BTW don't be an idiot, I was refering to a national championship, Edsall was never going to get us over that finish line, he didn't think it was possible here.
sdhusky
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Well, with the kind of recruiting we had before, we stalled at about the top 35 or so in a "peak" season. I think everyone is excited that we are getting players that may help us break into the top 25. We weren't going to do it with just "under the radar" type players.
Finally, we are winning some recruiting battles. Something the previous regime could not do.
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I don't think it's possible here. And you will not find many sane non-UConn fans who think it's possible here. Compare us to Penn State. We have a fraction of its history (which does have an effect on recruiting, fanbase and marketability), a fraction of its fan base, and we are a flagship university for a state with a fraction of itspopulation and less of a high school football culture. So any "goal" of being better in any given year than not just Penn State but fifteen or so other schools with similar huge, unchangeable (at least in the short and intermediate terms) structural advantages is, frankly, a dumb plan. And using basketball in the discussion -- a sport where Butler can get to back to back finals and come within a heave of winning one -- shows how dumb it is.
Would I love to win a national championship? Heck yes. Is there more than a 0% chance of that happening in the next ten years? Sure. Anything is possible in any particular athletic contest, and you could win a national championship is a team that was not the best team in the country. (See, e.g., 2007 West Virginia, which was only two games away and played Oklahoma well enough that particular day to think they could have competed in the championship game that day.) But the goal of thinking we could actually be the best team in the country is so unrealistic at the moment that even throwing it out there shields us from any rational discussion of what we should be accomplishing and how we get there. (And, by the way, would explain much of the entirely irrational criticism of Esall's performance and, I bet down the road, criticism that will quickly be coming of P's performance if we don't get better fast.) I'd love for my law firm to triple profitability per partner from last year to next year. But it's so unachievable as a goal that allowing people to talk about it prevents them from focusing on the achievable goals that could be reached if we weren't wasting time with goals that couldn't be reached.
We need to win the Big East. We need to improve how we rank nationally. And then we need to build our fanbase to where the ceiling rises over time.
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I agree with everything you just said 100%. None of that has anything to do with the fact that winning football games for the sake of winning football games should at all times be the primary focus.
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BL, I half agree. The part I agree with is UConn's chances of winning a national championship. If UConn's chances of finishing ahead of Penn State in any given year are 20%, and if there are 15 Penn States nationally, then UConn's chances of finishing ahead of all 15 are 1 in 5^15 = 1 in 30 billion. So, in 30 billion years we'd win once, but the life of the universe is much less than 30 billion years.
On the other hand, let's say Penn State is competitive with 14 other top programs; then it's chances of winning are 1 in 2^15 = 1 in 32,000. That's much longer than any Nittany fan's lifetime. Does that means Penn State fans shouldn't think of winning a national championship because it's so unrealistic that it would shield them from rationality? But yet their team would have as good a chance as any other team.
Here's what I believe: "Let your reach exceed your grasp." "Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." We should seek perfection, even if it is unattainable. Seek to be the best possible. Then enjoy the journey of falling short. Stay rational, but stay hopeful, and keep your goals high.
Yes, we need to win the Big East. We need to improve how we rank nationally. We need to build our fanbase. We need to reach the level Penn State is at. And then we need to compete for the national championship.
On the other hand, let's say Penn State is competitive with 14 other top programs; then it's chances of winning are 1 in 2^15 = 1 in 32,000. That's much longer than any Nittany fan's lifetime. Does that means Penn State fans shouldn't think of winning a national championship because it's so unrealistic that it would shield them from rationality? But yet their team would have as good a chance as any other team.
Here's what I believe: "Let your reach exceed your grasp." "Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." We should seek perfection, even if it is unattainable. Seek to be the best possible. Then enjoy the journey of falling short. Stay rational, but stay hopeful, and keep your goals high.
Yes, we need to win the Big East. We need to improve how we rank nationally. We need to build our fanbase. We need to reach the level Penn State is at. And then we need to compete for the national championship.
sdhusky
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We need to have a run like what Coach P did at SU.
He does that over the next decade and we'll all be thrilled and hopefully not feel as entitled as the SU fans were in screaming that he be replaced by GROB after his first losing season.
He does that over the next decade and we'll all be thrilled and hopefully not feel as entitled as the SU fans were in screaming that he be replaced by GROB after his first losing season.
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Oops, my math was wrong. Chances are much better because quality is not randomly distributed. If UConn is better than Penn State in any given year, it's probably better than a lot of the leaders too. Penn State's chances would be 1 in 15 and UConn's would be more like 1 in 100. Definitely worth aiming for a national championship!
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That is a reasonable opinion. I disagree with you and I am glad you are not the coach.
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I don't think you're an idiot. You're just very wrong on a couple of issues.
Do you know there were grumblings in the late 90's that Calhoun could never get us to the Final Four?
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And the only thing that matters is the coach never believed that. Calhoun is an unreasonable certified maniac and we as fans owe him a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.
I don't think P is crazy, but he seems to have surrounded himself with a couple of lunatics in DeLeone and Brown. It's probably by design.
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UConnDan97
predicting undefeated seasons since 1983
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At risk of continuing a somewhat pointless discussion about the national championship...
If we are going to really compare our chances of a national championship vs. Penn State, then it has to be said that our chances are better, given equivalent teams. Biz's point about fanbase is only partially true; the part that leads to recruits that can go undefeated in any given year. But the reason that UConn's chances are better than PSU with equivalent teams is that our chances of going undefeated in the Big East are better.
Let's say Penn State goes 10-2 or 11-1 (loss to OSU or a Wisconsin type). With that same team, we likely go 12-0. Then it is up to those idiot voters whether we or PSU go on to play that 1-loss SEC team (that will get in no matter what) and give us a "puncher's chance" at the title. So long as our schedule contains Louisville, Cincy, Rutgers, USF, Pitt or Boise, and a couple of non-conference like NCState, we will likely be chosen.
Now let the "you're wrong!" begin...
If we are going to really compare our chances of a national championship vs. Penn State, then it has to be said that our chances are better, given equivalent teams. Biz's point about fanbase is only partially true; the part that leads to recruits that can go undefeated in any given year. But the reason that UConn's chances are better than PSU with equivalent teams is that our chances of going undefeated in the Big East are better.
Let's say Penn State goes 10-2 or 11-1 (loss to OSU or a Wisconsin type). With that same team, we likely go 12-0. Then it is up to those idiot voters whether we or PSU go on to play that 1-loss SEC team (that will get in no matter what) and give us a "puncher's chance" at the title. So long as our schedule contains Louisville, Cincy, Rutgers, USF, Pitt or Boise, and a couple of non-conference like NCState, we will likely be chosen.
Now let the "you're wrong!" begin...
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Eh. Am I glad Calhoun thought he could win a national championship? Of course I am. But he could.
If I were a Belgian, would I be happy if my Prime Minister believed that, with just a few more tax dollars, he could make Belgium more powerful than the U.S.? No, I wouldn't because he would be throwing resources away towards an unreachable goal.
You want leaders to be aggressive in their goals. But leaders who are stupidly aggressive in their goals fail, and normally only give up after they have taken their institution down with them.
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A national championship should be the stated goal of the program. We have as much chance as BYU did when they accomplished it.
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No, you are right. It is far more likely that we win a national championship than that we are the best team in the country (determined by being able hypothetically to win a best of seven, neutral site series against any other team in the country). Or, as I said about WVU, you happen to go undefeated in a year where only 1 other BCS team goes undefeated, the polls and computers give you enough respect and you beat a team that is "better" than you one time. Under the system that is going away at least, that is possible. But still well under a 1% chance of happening in any year.
Nor is my point, at all, about how far we one day will go as a program. I hope it is further than reasonably possible. My point remains that you don't win and lose games in order that you can get more excited about recruiting. You get excited about recruiting as a means to win more games. Unless, as someone else so aptly pointed out, you are a fan of Rutgers.
UConnDan97
predicting undefeated seasons since 1983
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100% agreed. Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing...
Dann
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isnt that just a gem
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if you look at the list of national champions in the past there's no reason to think we couldn't join them one day. obviously it seems unlikely, but so does Washington, BYU, SMU, and plenty of other teams that have been awarded one in the past. if anything can be learned from Boise it's that the disadvantages of having no tradition and a small stadium in a worthless TV market can be overcome. It seems to me that the "traditional powers" look more vulnerable than ever. Texas had a losing season not long ago, Miami hasn't really been relevant since leaving the BE, USC and PennState had their issues, and so forth.
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