First-Year College Coach Grades (Matt Brown)

[huskymedic]

Never heard of him but fair assessment in my opinion.

>>It is important never to judge a coach too harshly in just one season, as, depending on the status of the program one inherits, it can take years to establish a new identity, with time needed for a coach to get his preferred types of recruits on a team, and time needed to develop them. In other words, no definitive judgments can be made about a coach now. Three years, really, seems like the minimum amount of time to get a true sense of a program's direction.<<

http://www.sportsonearth.com/articl...ead-coach-grades-charlie-strong-bobby-petrino

>>Bob Diaco, UConn: D. Fortunately UConn somehow beat AAC co-champion UCF, because otherwise this season would be have been a complete disaster. It's not that Diaco deserves much blame; he inherited an absolute mess that began when UConn foolishly replaced Randy Edsall with Paul Pasqualoni. It was undoubtedly difficult rebuilding job for Diaco, the former Notre Dame defensive coordinator. That doesn't make what happened in 2014 any easier to take. The Huskies' only win aside from UCF was a 19-16 victory over Stony Brook, a 5-7 FCS team. UConn lost to previously winless SMU to end the season, ran 36 plays in an entire game against South Florida and ranked 125th in scoring and 121st in yards per play. With acclaimed offensive coaches Philip Montgomery (Tulsa), Chad Morris (SMU) and Tom Herman (Houston) joining the league, the climb might not get any easier, either.<<

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

"Fortunately UConn somehow beat AAC co-champion UCF, because otherwise this season would be have been a complete disaster."

Sorry, but not even that win salvages the season. It was a complete and utter disaster. All we can hope for is that I'm completely wrong and we have a PJ Fleck like WMU turnaround season next year.

 

[noeynox]

The hiring of dynamic offensive coaches in this league concerns me. Based on what I've seen Diaco wants to win like Edsall did, ball control, time of possession, protecting the ball. These guys coming in want to break the scoreboard.

 

[Mr. Conehead]

This is true. While the coaching staff is not fully at fault for the 2014 results, some of the blame has to land on them. The defense was OK, even with the injuries and departures. The offense as a complete mess, even before Cochran had leave due to serious health concerns. UConn needs an OC with experience and vision enough to at least do something besides draw plays.

 

[sub legacy]

These guys coming in want to break the scorebook.

As they should. Dynamic offense wins you games in this league, not just defense, ball control and time of possession. It's all about offensive style points at the end of the day. A halfway respectable defense is just icing on the cake, but is still rendered useless without a competent offense.

 

[noeynox]

Yeah not disagreeing at all. I'm concerned. I don't want to hear how broken we continue to be if Chad Morris has his team in bowl contention in year one which is possible in this league.

 

[Carl Spackler]

The only thing that gives me a positive outlook for the future is that Diaco has demonstrated a very good understanding of recruiting for UCONN. He was able to identify and address very quickly, a very, very bad situation we had with the OL in the time from his hiring in December 2013, to signing day Feb. 2014, by stabilizing a recruiting class, and closing on new recruits in short orders, and bringing in 5 OL's and 2 TE's, of which most contributed to game time play in 2014. He's got a 2015 class, that is going to be maxed out in NLI signing numbers. By continuing like this, by fall of 2016, we will have a full roster of 85 players that have all been identified, and recruited through an NLI signing cycle process, for the first time since about 2007-2008. We've been scrambling to fill out rosters with walk ons, JUCO's, and transfers for several years now, which is expected through coaching staff transition, but was starting already at a major deficit, the way that Edsall's 2009, 2010, and 2011 recruiting classes were put together.

Our win and loss record since that high point of Edsall's recruiting years in 2007 and 2008, is no coincidence. If Diaco's recruiting classes turn out to develop into the kind of team speed, that Edsall was able to recruit in the latter have of the double zero's, at the size of player he is bringing in - we are set up for good things. Contrary to what people around here write - the players that Pasqualoni recruited, that are on the field - have speed.

It is a good positive thing to hang your hat on though, to try to generate any positive feelings going forward, because the players are the foundation of a program, not the coaches. Coaches just drive and provide the maps. AD provides the opponent destinations.

You can just hope that the players coming in have the speed and actual practice and preparation for game day, and the execution on game day from both coaches and players improves dramatically.

 

[Perfect Hair]

The only thing that scares me about his recruiting is it seems most of these recruits are more along the lines of "projects", I think someoone on here quoted one of the recruiting gurus saying just that. I know, I know, the gurus aren't perfect but we can see with our own eyes he's been recruiting guys with big frames that need to be shaped up and added onto. That's great, but those type of guys need 2-3 years to become contributors, we need more immeidate help than that. As for speed, have we seen much speed recruited?

 

[ZooCougar]

Never heard of him but fair assessment in my opinion.

>>It is important never to judge a coach too harshly in just one season, as, depending on the status of the program one inherits, it can take years to establish a new identity, with time needed for a coach to get his preferred types of recruits on a team, and time needed to develop them. In other words, no definitive judgments can be made about a coach now. Three years, really, seems like the minimum amount of time to get a true sense of a program's direction.<<

http://www.sportsonearth.com/articl...ead-coach-grades-charlie-strong-bobby-petrino

>>Bob Diaco, UConn: D. Fortunately UConn somehow beat AAC co-champion UCF, because otherwise this season would be have been a complete disaster. It's not that Diaco deserves much blame; he inherited an absolute mess that began when UConn foolishly replaced Randy Edsall with Paul Pasqualoni. It was undoubtedly difficult rebuilding job for Diaco, the former Notre Dame defensive coordinator. That doesn't make what happened in 2014 any easier to take. The Huskies' only win aside from UCF was a 19-16 victory over Stony Brook, a 5-7 FCS team. UConn lost to previously winless SMU to end the season, ran 36 plays in an entire game against South Florida and ranked 125th in scoring and 121st in yards per play. With acclaimed offensive coaches Philip Montgomery (Tulsa), Chad Morris (SMU) and Tom Herman (Houston) joining the league, the climb might not get any easier, either.<<

Should be an F.

 

[CL82]

I wouldn't put a whole lot faith in a quick turn around. This is one frickin' deep hole we need to climb out of.

 

[UCFBfan]

Yeah not disagreeing at all. I'm concerned. I don't want to hear how broken we continue to be if Chad Morris has his team in bowl contention in year one which is possible in this league.

Yeah if any of those guys turn around SMU or Tulsa then there really is no excuse for Diaco. I get that Texas has tons of talent in state as does Oklahoma but they're still schools really low on the pecking order. If they turn it around in year one then Diaco should be viewed as more of a failure in his first year. Here's to hoping he turns it around better in year two and we see growth. Not expecting a bowl next year or even 4 wins or more but I wanna feel at the end of the season what I had felt at the end of 2013. Hope that the following season (2016) could be special or bowl worthy.

 

[uconnbill]

The hiring of dynamic offensive coaches in this league concerns me. Based on what I've seen Diaco wants to win like Edsall did, ball control, time of possession, protecting the ball. These guys coming in want to break the scoreboard.

Defense wins championships, just look back in college bowl games and the NFL. Yes UCONN needs better offense, but defense is key to UCONN ending up where we all want UCONN to be winning conference championships and going to BCS bowl games.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Others have nailed the point that has bothered me so much this past season. We are not in a league, where any single team or group of teams is so dominant that we have no opportunity to win a conference title and at minimum compete the duration of the season, for the opportunity to at least go bowling. We see this year, that 6-6, is no longer a given, but it undoubtedly the barrier/hurdle/no mans land between being labeled a loser or a winner.

It will be very interesting to see what programs like SMU, Tulsa do with first year head coaches. A little compare/contrast. Houston, is a bowl team this season. No idea what their depth and recruiting has been like for the future, but that is a program that will be interesting to watch with a first year head coach too.

I just hope everything was worth it, because attendance is going to suffer, without a doubt. We may have a winning season next year, but unless we start sustaining winning games regularly at home again, not many people going to be there to watch it.

 

[bobbyinaz]

Defense wins championships, just look back in college bowl games and the NFL. Yes UCONN needs better offense, but defense is key to UCONN ending up where we all want UCONN to be winning conference championships and going to BCS bowl games.

The 5 BCS games last year had scores of:
24-20
52-42
45-31
40-35
34-31

In addition, of the other 30 bowl games last year the winning team scored more than 30 or more points in 21 of the games.

College football today is built around offense. If you cannot score it is very difficult to keep up. For the 2014 regular season 58 FBS teams averaged 30 or more per game. Trying to play a conservative, defensive style will not produce a winning product plus it makes it that much more difficult to recruit skill position kids when they have a chance to go play in a run & gun system.

 

[uconndogs]

I have to be honest, Diaco scares the hell out of me. The level of incompetence on offense this past season surpassed anything we had seen previously. Then Army and SMU kicked our a**es in the second half of each of those games. And if there is speed in this incoming class it is very well hidden. I hope he's great and my concerns are completely unfounded.....

 

[UconnFamily]

The only thing that scares me about his recruiting is it seems most of these recruits are more along the lines of "projects", I think someoone on here quoted one of the recruiting gurus saying just that. I know, I know, the gurus aren't perfect but we can see with our own eyes he's been recruiting guys with big frames that need to be shaped up and added onto. That's great, but those type of guys need 2-3 years to become contributors, we need more immeidate help than that. As for speed, have we seen much speed recruited?

Exactly the point I was trying to make with the star system. Two star recruits ( whether some here believe it or not ) are projects most 3, 4, and 5 star recruits are capable of contributing right away and that's what we need, immediate contributors. Seventeen 2 star athletes and four 3 star athletes to me isn't a good ratio.

 

[Dooley]

Fair assessment by Brown that I agree with. 2014 was essentially punted away for the sake of progress and foundation building. That's fine, as long as we don't have to hear the same "colossal mess" excuses in 2015 that we heard throughout this past season. If 2014 was a practice year, then 2015 needs to show improvement in the W/L record or changes need to be made. Again. I would say that 5 wins is the floor expectation for this program in 2015. Depending how far we miss that mark, then the changes become more/less drastic.

As for our league, I completely agree with everyone who has said that this is a league that affords the opportunity to go from to sugar from year-to-year. I have no idea if Diaco's beliefs in how to win football games is going to produce wins, but there is certainly much more pressure on Mike Cummings and the offense in '15 because of the plethora of offensive coaches in this league now. If our plan is to win games by ball control, field position, and defense, that's fine. But we also should begin to prepare for playing "catch up" when we fall behind in games. Ball control, defense and field position doesn't work as well when you're losing by 2+ TDs.

I agree with Carl and the staff's recruiting philosophy. For the first time in years, there is a plan in place. Size and athleticism in skill positions. Size and wingspan in strength positions. The OL showed improvement as this past season progressed and, hopefully, that unit will hit the ground running in 2015. I like our running game with Johnson as our 1A and Newsome as our 1B. If we run more read-option plays, then this could be a real strength of the team. That seems to be the way the staff is recruiting anyway. Whether or not it will pay off with immediate dividends remains to be seen, but the first two games of the year will provide us all with a great sample size.

Needless to say, 2015 is a HUGE year for this program and university. 2015 needs to produce wins, not more excuses.

 

[Kevin Caliendo]

The way to win in the northeast is to have a great offensive line and to be able to run the ball on all three downs. then have a defense that can stop the run, tackle well and has a couple playmakers at LB/DB. Add in great special teams (all coaching) and no stupidity (penalties and TOs) and you can have a successful program. Having a great QB is a luxury but when you can run effectively it opens up the passing game.

Sadly, I think this is exactly what Addazio is implementing at BC

 

[noeynox]

Defense wins championships, just look back in college bowl games and the NFL. Yes UCONN needs better offense, but defense is key to UCONN ending up where we all want UCONN to be winning conference championships and going to BCS bowl games.

Yeah that's the cliche. Were not playing for a national title, were playing for a conference title. You better be able to outscore people in this conference. Not saying defense isn't important, just that we better not be hoping to win 13-10, games going forward.

 

[jdb50]

We need to upgrade the QB position, this goes without saying but if you are a big time QB are you going to one of the schools that has a head coach that was a successful Offensive Coordinator at a P-5 school or one that has a DC as the Head Coach? Bob the Builder had better be right with his choice of coaches on the offensive side of the ball. We aren't going to hold many programs under 24 points in this league. It is an arms race, like the rest of College Football.