Felt like Christmas again | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Felt like Christmas again

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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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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rich1122 said:
Bio says sub 11. If he’s sub 10 he’s somewhere else. I’ll take sub 11 though.

Only God can run sub 10.
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World record is
rich1122 said:
Bio says sub 11. If he’s sub 10 he’s somewhere else. I’ll take sub 11 though.

Only God can run sub 10.
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world record is 9.58 100m Usain Bolt was god like! 6’5 with that speed, surprised nobody tried to see if he could catch. Bob Hayes.
 
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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Without knowing anything else about them than their listed size, they seem a little larger on the line and linebacker crews, and taller on the receivers. If we’re lucky, they’ll be faster and smarter too.
 
uconnfan68 said:
Without knowing anything else about them than their listed size, they seem a little larger on the line and linebacker crews, and taller on the receivers. If we’re lucky, they’ll be faster and smarter too.
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Many had some pretty P4 offers out of high school.
 
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!
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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
 
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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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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.
 
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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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)
 
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
 
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