I don't doubt it makes me care more, but if we are truly "UConn Nation", we all should care more about these players and their families-- as well as our coaches. As for objectivity, I'm all for discipline and even dismissal for egregious conduct. No one gets a break from me. And when it comes to football performance, I simply don't tolerate snarky opinions of our talent on the field when, too often, it's compromised by poor coaching schemes and play calling mishaps. As a final note, despite my affection for Dhameer, I'd like you to show me where I "lost my objectivity" and lobbied for his getting more playing time.
Did I say you lost your objectivity with regards to Dhameer? No.
Did I say you lobbied for him to get more playing time? No.
My only point is that you will always default to "we have enough talent it must be coaching". I'm sure Mrs. Diaco would say "wow Bob if you just had more talent you'd be 8-2 - hang in there". I'm not sure that I'd take her word for it though.
The possibility that we have good coaches teaching the proper concepts in the proper way to players who sometimes a) fail to grasp the concepts or b) don't have the talent to execute them consistently on game day seems to elude you. It is impossible that on a team largely filled with 2-3 star players that it is ALWAYS the coaching.
And perhaps if each one of our kids were coached individually and had a scheme that was solely tailored to his individual talents that would be great. But we don't have 85 coaches, and unfortunately we have to have 11 players on the field at 1 time, acting as 1. So you could argue that because we have 3 sets of recruits on this team mean that we can't win because all of the kids are talented but can't all run the same types of offense/defense that they were "mis-recruited".
But your "bolded" text says a lot. You are objective with regards to discipline / dismissal. But not evaluation of performance. I'm assuming that you aren't a D1 or NFL talent evaluator, so what is your basis of evaluation with regards to anyone's individual talent level?
You don't go to practice. If they run something in practice 20 times and they do it right and then do it wrong in the game you will blame play calling / coaching. 100% of the things that go right are due to the players and 100% of what goes wrong is on the coaches. That just doesn't reflect reality.
I'm 1000% in favor of supporting the players as people. I'm 1000% in favor of supporting them as players and hoping that they do better. I'm not the kind of person who thinks that a kid that makes a mistake should be nailed to the bench for the rest of his life, or that if he doesn't stack up that makes him a bad person.
I simply believe that sometimes players aren't good enough. That's real life. Oh well.
BTW - if you can't be critical of a player's performance because of your relationship to the players or their families? That's fair. I will just take everything you say with a grain of salt.
To recap:
In some cases it is coaching.
In some cases it is lack of talent.
It is not always one or the other.