Felt like Christmas again | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Felt like Christmas again

Shamar said:
Is there anyone in the boneyard who isn't blown away by this recruiting class so far? This is just nuts! Every day truly feels like Christmas morning. I know this year is the wild west, but this has to be the best recruiting class in UConn football history right? I was so down and out when I heard Mora was leaving, however, if I knew what was to come, I would have been elated! Candle may be the guy that finally takes us to the conference promised land!
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I have a strong suspicion that he will end up doing a lot more than that in his time here.
 
He is doing an amazing job so far in the portal. Bringing in some quality guys on the defensive line. Hope he’s able to land a quarterback with experience.
 
Shamar said:
Is there anyone in the boneyard who isn't blown away by this recruiting class so far? This is just nuts! Every day truly feels like Christmas morning. I know this year is the wild west, but this has to be the best recruiting class in UConn football history right? I was so down and out when I heard Mora was leaving, however, if I knew what was to come, I would have been elated! Candle may be the guy that finally takes us to the conference promised land!
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Like the great Ace Hunter said in the one of the bestest cheesiest 80's flicks evah:
1768261763185.png

We've had a lot of commits lately (the words part), and today's number is encouraging. The skeptic in me is worried about further portal losses later this year. I'll be convinced (the deeds part) when I see the starters come August and we get some wins (minimally I want more wins than CSU and BCU), but I do feel very much better now than I did over a month ago when we had no coach.
 
DoctorWho85 said:
I honestly feel like I should thanking Mora for leaving at this point because Candle is recruiting his cheeks off
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Maybe Mora left knowing his work here was done…. Maybe…. Candle IMO is the perfect coach - somebody with something to prove - great recruiter and experience making things happen at a school not in a great position to recruit.

We’ll see what happens next year but I will say is that there is no “drop off” from Mora to Candle - we were going to struggle a bit this next year w/ departures either way. I like what’s happening thus far!
 
Shamar said:
Is there anyone in the boneyard who isn't blown away by this recruiting class so far? This is just nuts! Every day truly feels like Christmas morning. I know this year is the wild west, but this has to be the best recruiting class in UConn football history right? I was so down and out when I heard Mora was leaving, however, if I knew what was to come, I would have been elated! Candle may be the guy that finally takes us to the conference promised land!
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Sure seems like the roster might be a lot better under Candle next year than it would have been if Mora returned. Some of the guys we lost to the portal are going to be tough to replace, but as an aggregate across the board, everything looks pretty damn good.
 
Shamar said:
Is there anyone in the boneyard who isn't blown away by this recruiting class so far? This is just nuts! Every day truly feels like Christmas morning. I know this year is the wild west, but this has to be the best recruiting class in UConn football history right? I was so down and out when I heard Mora was leaving, however, if I knew what was to come, I would have been elated! Candle may be the guy that finally takes us to the conference promised land!
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I’m not blown away for only one reason, an extreme lack of experience from a lot of these kids. That’s not saying his recruiting is bad. I’m just saying I’m hesitant to be blown away when a lot of these kids never played a down or played minimal minutes at their previous schools. Sure they have pretty offer sheets, but that doesn’t always translate to success at this level. We’ve seen it with tons of high school recruits here. The one thing Mora did was he brought in experienced players. That came at the expense of massive roster turnover every year but they had experience. I just worry in this day and age that having a team of young players who can develop isn’t t always the way to go. We need a mixture and I feel like we are heavier on the inexperienced side.

I’m not saying his recruiting is bad. If over half of these kids pan out as solid starters then we will be really good based on the potential they offer. I’m just not blown away and don’t think we’re going to be winning 8-9 games again next season.
 
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UCFBfan said:
I’m not blown away for only one reason, an extreme lack of experience from a lot of these kids. That’s not saying his recruiting is bad. I’m just saying I’m hesitant to be blown away when a lot of these kids never played a down or played minimal minutes at their previous schools. Sure they have pretty offer sheets, but that doesn’t always translate to success at this level. We’ve seen it with tons of high school recruits here. The one thing Mora did was he brought in experienced players. That came at the expense of massive roster turnover every year but they had experience. I just worry in this day and age that having a team of young players who can develop isn’t t always the way to go. We need a mixture and I feel like we are heavier on the inexperienced side.

I’m not saying his recruiting is bad. If over half of these kids pan out as solid starters then we will be really good based on the potential they offer. I’m just not blown away and don’t think we’re going to be winning 8-9 games again next season.
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We have also seen the issues that cause do to the experience players not working out and the money that definitely was attached and we have also seen recruiting deficiencies due to so many departures ( the d-line) that has big effects on your entire offenses/defense. There is a lot of inexperience which I agree has some concerns but we need to find the balance between both as Candle is known as a developer and I don’t think UConn is at a stage where they can just get a ton of quality experience yearly without big drop offs
 
UCFBfan said:
I’m not blown away for only one reason, an extreme lack of experience from a lot of these kids. That’s not saying his recruiting is bad. I’m just saying I’m hesitant to be blown away when a lot of these kids never played a down or played minimal minutes at their previous schools. Sure they have pretty offer sheets, but that doesn’t always translate to success at this level. We’ve seen it with tons of high school recruits here. The one thing Mora did was he brought in experienced players. That came at the expense of massive roster turnover every year but they had experience. I just worry in this day and age that having a team of young players who can develop isn’t t always the way to go. We need a mixture and I feel like we are heavier on the inexperienced side.

I’m not saying his recruiting is bad. If over half of these kids pan out as solid starters then we will be really good based on the potential they offer. I’m just not blown away and don’t think we’re going to be winning 8-9 games again next season.
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I think Candle knows he has some breathing room to build/coach up a team the way he wants. He’s notorious for identifying and developing under-the-radar talent so maybe he has more of a 2-3 year plan with guys who haven’t had a chance to prove themselves on the field yet.

Not saying I necessarily love this approach, especially because we may have a relatively difficult schedule next season. But who are we to question a guy who’s largely been a winner for the last 10+ years at the FBS level, at a place with fewer resources nonetheless. Trust in 🕯️
 
uconnfan68 said:
If we’re lucky, they’ll be faster and smarter too.
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smarter?
I've accused our 2025 boys of many bad things, mainly on the defense. but never thought they were dummies, lol.
 
RayIsTheGOAT said:
I think Candle knows he has some breathing room to build/coach up a team the way he wants. He’s notorious for identifying and developing under-the-radar talent so maybe he has more of a 2-3 year plan with guys who haven’t had a chance to prove themselves on the field yet.

Not saying I necessarily love this approach, especially because we may have a relatively difficult schedule next season. But who are we to question a guy who’s largely been a winner for the last 10+ years at the FBS level, at a place with fewer resources nonetheless. Trust in 🕯️
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interesting. if indeed Candle's approach is longer term development of the boys, wonder if Candle has been already given the grace by UConn/DaveB to have a trash season next year, with the higher difficulty and whatnot. I hope this is not the case, since there's absolutely no guarantee those young guns will stick around beyond 2026 anyway. I'd rather just win now and play the recruitment carousel game over and over every winter (i don't actually want that but the landscape forces me to choose that).
 
Jetskies said:
smarter?
I've accused our 2025 boys of many bad things, mainly on the defense. but never thought they were dummies, lol.
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Everyone makes mistakes. We had 3 losses. Hoping we can eliminate that stuff.
 
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I can’t read all these individual threads. I see so many transfers coming in and a lot of them from P4 programs. Does anybody have a holistic view of where we are? We lost a lot. Candle seems to be working portal miracles but is he? I don’t have a good sense of whether this is impressive or merely looks impressive to someone like me who doesn’t know who these guys are.
 
HuskyHawk said:
I can’t read all these individual threads. I see so many transfers coming in and a lot of them from P4 programs. Does anybody have a holistic view of where we are? We lost a lot. Candle seems to be working portal miracles but is he? I don’t have a good sense of whether this is impressive or merely looks impressive to someone like me who doesn’t know who these guys are.
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Update prior to weekend/yesteday’s flurry > Should be accessible w/o subscription -

storrscentral.com

First Week of the Portal Provides Big Dividends for UConn Football

HC Jason Candle has been very busy recruiting his former roster, as well as the rest of college football
storrscentral.com storrscentral.com

Running Portal Out/In List only: 2026 UConn Football Outbound/Inbound Transfers (List Only)
 
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HuskyHawk said:
I can’t read all these individual threads. I see so many transfers coming in and a lot of them from P4 programs. Does anybody have a holistic view of where we are? We lost a lot. Candle seems to be working portal miracles but is he? I don’t have a good sense of whether this is impressive or merely looks impressive to someone like me who doesn’t know who these guys are.
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@HuskyNan made a post regarding a searchable portal tracker. I looked at it and found that it's not fully up to date (for instance it doesn't list Rosa as committing to Ohio). That said I queried the entries and sorted based who we lost vs. who we gained (again, it's not up to date as we have about 39 inbound as of this post). Based on the player ratings and taken at face value, we're a bit lower but then again the list is incomplete and we're likely to balance out what we lost:
1768316640765.png
 
Will check out HuskyNan site later. Agree Purple Stein, overall feels like quality will be comparable if not better. Until we start playing, inconceivable that we will “replace” the 3 musketeers of Joe Skyler and Cam. Have a lot of hope for both OL and DL. Will we take a step back or is it possible we don’t miss a beat? Inexperience individually and as a program look to be limiting factors. Candle may have brought enough coaches and players that we lean towards not missing a beat. Gonna be fun to watch!
 
Jetskies said:
interesting. if indeed Candle's approach is longer term development of the boys, wonder if Candle has been already given the grace by UConn/DaveB to have a trash season next year, with the higher difficulty and whatnot. I hope this is not the case, since there's absolutely no guarantee those young guns will stick around beyond 2026 anyway. I'd rather just win now and play the recruitment carousel game over and over every winter (i don't actually want that but the landscape forces me to choose that).
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I doubt there was any grace given to not be competitive next season. Benedict/Candle knows that won’t fly with UConn fans. I’m just thinking that maybe Candle has more of an eye for high ceiling guys that maybe need a bit of development than going all in on immediate impact 1 year guys for next season.

Who knows, he still has a lot of roster spots to fill, maybe he plugs in some more immediate impact guys. It’s not like he’s gone all in on guys who haven’t played, it’s been somewhat of a balance.
 
The take that he’s been given grace to build the program is not one I share at all. I think his actions prove otherwise.
He has addressed the QB position,DL, LB, TE, WR and OL needs with guys we can expect to be very good. Yes we lost good RB and OL talent, but he’s done a great job addressing those losses. I’m excited for what this team can do NEXT year and beyond.
Regarding “unproven” comments; not going to get P4 starters to jump ship very often, so yes some guys may not step up to the opportunity. No guarantees ever.
 
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HuskyHawk said:
I can’t read all these individual threads. I see so many transfers coming in and a lot of them from P4 programs. Does anybody have a holistic view of where we are? We lost a lot. Candle seems to be working portal miracles but is he? I don’t have a good sense of whether this is impressive or merely looks impressive to someone like me who doesn’t know who these guys are.
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I'm going to use context clues. Candle has a rep for recruiting talent. That he's bringing in the players he's choosing to bring in speaks more to their ability than some rando internet nobodies, imo.
 
Lotsa new folks, lotsa interesting back stories and backgrounds. Sure seems like he's got some ballplayers in there! Osborne and K'Van Sherman still seem to me the most potentially impactful individuals, and they were two of the first portalers to commit.
 
UCFan1513 said:
Relatively novice football fan here (mostly MBB) so this is a genuine question. What makes Candle’s transfers and recruits markedly better than Mora’s? It seems a lot of the transfers have limited on-field experience from what I’ve seen - are they more highly rated coming out of high school than a Mora recruit?

Looking at 247 Sports a similar proportion of last year’s recruits to this year’s are 3-stars vs unranked, and this year has a slightly higher average rating, but not a huge jump. Not tapped in to the world of football recruiting - what am I missing?
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You apparently missed this year's rose colored glasses ceremony. It is an annual affair in which we all partake. We normally remain in this state, fed constant optimistic press releases and Courant stories until the first game of the season against a P4 opponent comes around. Then our heads explode.
 
So, according to our outbound
/inbound list, there are 5 guys still uncommitted from our portal that I'd like to hang onto

Diomande-Produced for us last year, 2 years left
Mills-Some production, mystery dnp much after
Mollette-Experienced solid player
Hoffman-Didn't he get decent amount of snaps?
Toy-How good is he?? I'd be guessing
 
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