Commit #7 - Aaron Mclean

[Dynasty]

Aaron Mclean ‏@AaronMcLean_15 5m
Officially committed to play football at #UCONN next year!

Aaron McLean (WR/FS) - St Mark's High School, Southborough, MA St Mark's High School

6'6" 205 lbs. Certainly keeping up with the big theme.


http://www.hudl.com/athlete/1634185/aaron-mclean

 

[ShakyTheMohel]

Sigh....BD sucks....can't find anyone 6' 7"?


Welcome aboard Aaron!

 

[cohenzone]

This has to be the tallest class on the average in school history.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Walk on for KO?

 

[Dynasty]

He also plays basketball for the NE Playaz AAU team. Here's a scouting report about it (definitely has football traits):

McLean is a tough two sport student-athlete that excels at both basketball and football. On the football field he plays wide receiver and safety, and uses those same instincts to excel on the basketball court. McLean has a relentless motor, and at 6’6″ runs the floor better then most other players at his position. McLean uses his motor to out work his opponent on the glass, where he is capable of finishing through contact for easy buckets. McLean uses his speed to drive past slower post players in the half court set, and to beat his man down the court for easy transition points. McLean’s biggest asset to a team is his toughness and ability to cause havoc on the offensive glass.

 

[Dynasty]

John Silver @JohnFSilver · 4m
Aaron McLean recruited as a WR for UConn. Massive athlete who at 6-6 is going to put on a ton of weight.

 

[ktuck911]

John Silver @JohnFSilver · 4m
Aaron McLean recruited as a WR for UConn. Massive athlete who at 6-6 is going to put on a ton of weight.

Hopefully he ends up as our version of Jeff Samardzija

 

[sportsart]

John Silver @JohnFSilver · 4m
Aaron McLean recruited as a WR for UConn. Massive athlete who at 6-6 is going to put on a ton of weight.

I wonder if he turns into a TE. He obviously is good for the "jump ball" in the corner of the end zone passes, but he does not show speed and he'll need to work on his routes. Looks like he has good hands.

 

[LRock34]

I think I'm most impressed with the wood he is laying on defense. Tough kid...he will be a great blocking WR and a kid we should be able to hit with jump balls in the endzone. He's not the fastest on tape but at 6-6 he looks plenty fast enough to play at this level.

Welcome aboard Aaron! I'm loving this class.

 

[epark88]

I got first dibs:

Aaron 'Optimus' McLean!...

 

[Carl Spackler]

Something tells me that Diaco has reached a stage of the recruiting process in this cycle where he's at the closing point of the "sale".

I've been called insane around here before.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Something tells me that Diaco has reached a stage of the recruiting process in this cycle where he's at the closing point of the "sale".

I've been called insane around here before.

The last time being when you proclaimed 2 years ago that for the first time in its FBS history, UConn has a roster of BCS looking players.

But, you're insane again. Diaco doesn't sell. I won't state the reason why we're getting a slew of commits right now because it will hurt people's sensitivities.

 

[Carl Spackler]

The last time being when you proclaimed 2 years ago that for the first time in its FBS history, UConn has a roster of BCS looking players.

But, you're insane again. Diaco doesn't sell. I won't state the reason why we're getting a slew of commits right now because it will hurt people's sensitivities.

Well - you know what never mind - can't wait until we match up with the likes of an Oklahoma or Michigan, etc. on a very big stage again.

Cuckoo Cuckoo


Welcome to 2015-7

 

[APA]

Aaron Mclean ‏@AaronMcLean_15 5m
Officially committed to play football at #UCONN next year!

Aaron McLean (WR/FS) - St Mark's High School, Southborough, MA St Mark's High School

6'6" 205 lbs. Certainly keeping up with the big theme.


http://www.hudl.com/athlete/1634185/aaron-mclean

Not found in Scout. In Rivals with no eval. One other offer per Rivals was Bryant.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

The last time being when you proclaimed 2 years ago that for the first time in its FBS history, UConn has a roster of BCS looking players.

But, you're insane again. Diaco doesn't sell. I won't state the reason why we're getting a slew of commits right now because it will hurt people's sensitivities.

Because we're recruiting a roster full of patriot league offer types?

I want to have faith in the staff, but man, talk about under the radar.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Because we're recruiting a roster full of patriot league offer types?

I want to have faith in the staff, but man, talk about under the radar.

We need a big class, and I don't mean tall.

 

[uconndogs]

Because we're recruiting a roster full of patriot league offer types?

I want to have faith in the staff, but man, talk about under the radar.

Here we go with the recruiting sites again. These kids just finished their junior year in HS and some don't have offers or P5 offers. First, that doesn't mean they won't get them or wouldn't have gotten them. Second, the sites are often wrong.

Here's how we will know if Diaco is recruiting well. When we see the kids play. Everything else is speculation. Sure, Alabama's #1 rated class has better athletes. But, just because some kid supposedly picked up an offer from Purdue, or Rutgers or Syracuse, etc. and got three stars after his name doesn't mean much of anything.

I would have thought we would have learned this by now. Folks, UCONN put a string of LBs and CBs in the NFL over the last several years. Every single one of them was a 2 star recruit.

 

[fgbrault]

Based on Rivals we got our 7th commitment on January 19th for this year's class. Diaco is running ahead of schedule.

 

[noeynox]

Because we're recruiting a roster full of patriot league offer types?

I want to have faith in the staff, but man, talk about under the radar.

You're just going to have to wait till they take the field. Again see my earlier post, if you accept the Edsall years as the glory years, these recruits don't look much different than what he was bringing in. UConn football for the time being is going to be about developing, raw players with the physical tools to compete at this level from my point of view. They seem to be targetting and getting commits from tall, rangy, fluid players, early in the process. UConn FB is not UConn BB, where we can go head to head with anybody in the country for polished, cream of the crop type talents. One day it can be that, if these players now pan out. I like the regional approach to under recruited talent. It worked with guys like Reyes and Griffin before.

 

[Dynasty]

Based on Rivals we got our 7th commitment on January 19th for this year's class. Diaco is running ahead of schedule.

Well there wasn't a permanant head coach then but so be it. A better tidbit is that Diaco has gotten more commits in 2 weeks than the rest of AAC (including Louisville and Rutgers as well as future members) has except for Houston and Cincinnati.

 

[sportsart]

Because we're recruiting a roster full of patriot league offer types?

I want to have faith in the staff, but man, talk about under the radar.

I understand what you are saying and on paper it doesn't look like a P5 type class. But I think we have to look at it this way. Diaco and his staff have mega experience, much more so than RE's coaching staff.

I think they are using the approach of finding athletic, high character, overachievers who can be molded into quality players. As I've said before, there are basically 2 types of players. The first kind are those who are close to peaking and show they can play at a high level. The second are those who show improvement from year to year but aren't quite there yet.

I keep thinking of Albert Fincher and others like him. He was hungry, had no offers to speak of and played with a chip on his shoulder. I have no doubt Diaco has a plan and knows exactly who has the "DNA" to succeed with this team.

If this staff can coach up, and I think they can, we will be just fine.

 

[uconndogs]

You're just going to have to wait till they take the field. Again see my earlier post, if you accept the Edsall years as the glory years, these recruits don't look much different than what he was bringing in. UConn football for the time being is going to be about developing, raw players with the physical tools to compete at this level from my point of view. They seem to be targetting and getting commits from tall, rangy, fluid players, early in the process. UConn FB is not UConn BB, where we can go head to head with anybody in the country for polished, cream of the crop type talents. One day it can be that, if these players now pan out. I like the regional approach to under recruited talent. It worked with guys like Reyes and Griffin before.

Exactly right.

 

[Carl Spackler]

You're just going to have to wait till they take the field. Again see my earlier post, if you accept the Edsall years as the glory years, these recruits don't look much different than what he was bringing in. UConn football for the time being is going to be about developing, raw players with the physical tools to compete at this level from my point of view. They seem to be targetting and getting commits from tall, rangy, fluid players, early in the process. UConn FB is not UConn BB, where we can go head to head with anybody in the country for polished, cream of the crop type talents. One day it can be that, if these players now pan out. I like the regional approach to under recruited talent. It worked with guys like Reyes and Griffin before.

I agree - our opportunity to begin to go head to head with the big boys and really have a good chance at success came with Fiesta Bowl in January 2011, and left pretty much as quickly as it came. I had myself convinced that Pasqualoni would be able to bridge us over and continue on the upward curve, but the guy was just too far gone from the college game. Terrible. We can get back there again, where we were headed, but we've got to start from the ground up again. Edsall let the program coast in recruiting, and Pasqualoni, it seems to me ignored everything about a successful football program except recruiting for his 2 1/4 seasons.

I do not buy the hype that UCONN is a recruiting deficient region of the country for football. What we are in, is a recruiting region where high school football players are not pumped out by high school programs in high volumes to be ready to play college football. We have a HUGE talent pool around us of multisport high school players that are smart and good athletes and that clearly seems to be the target demographic so far.

FOotball is a sport (unlike soccer I"ve been watching a lot past couple weeks) where you can pick the game up as an adult, and be a very good player. With a highly effective physical training regimen, effective coaching and practice - we can be playing on New Years Day again. We did it before.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I understand what you are saying and on paper it doesn't look like a P5 type class. But I think we have to look at it this way. Diaco and his staff have mega experience, much more so than RE's coaching staff.

I think they are using the approach of finding athletic, high character, overachievers who can be molded into quality players. As I've said before, there are basically 2 types of players. The first kind are those who are close to peaking and show they can play at a high level. The second are those who show improvement from year to year but aren't quite there yet.

I keep thinking of Albert Fincher and others like him. He was hungry, had no offers to speak of and played with a chip on his shoulder. I have no doubt Diaco has a plan and knows exactly who has the "DNA" to succeed with this team.

If this staff can coach up, and I think they can, we will be just fine.

We're back where we started from Sportsart. We got to a new years day game, and we're back where we started from. My hope is that when we get there again, we've learned from the past.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Because we're recruiting a roster full of patriot league offer types?

I want to have faith in the staff, but man, talk about under the radar.

Not specifically that but we've clearly moved to page 2 of the board.