It has to be all about recruiting what Diaco is doing. Retaining Foley is a good move for a variety of reasons. One of which, you can't underestimate is public relations. He might be the most beloved coach UCONN football has ever had, and I'm not joking about that. Not saying that is THE reason, because I have no idea what the reasons are, but to me, in my chair, it makes perfect sense to keep Foley for a whole number of reasons, of which his ability to coach the game, specifically the OL play, and recruit is just one.
As for recruiting, I've written this elsewhere but will try to sum up in as few words as possible for me.
We are sitting right in the most dense population area in the entire country in the northeast corridor from D.C. to Boston. Our local recruiting footprint is this: New England, the Tri-state metropolitan area, upstate New York, the I-95 corridor to D.C. and eastern PA. That's our local region. A 350 mile (6 hour drive approx.) radius from Hartford gets you to Wilkes/Barre Scranton region of PA, Harrisburg, PA, (state college, PA)....... Washington D.C. (Philly, Baltimore,) Buffalo, (Toronto/Montreal - as we know we've recruited Canada before),
Get a map and connect the dots between all those cities and New England. That's our recruiting circle for a day drive.
It's 1 1/2 hour flight to Pittsburgh out of Hartford. A few minutes literaly more flight time to Ohio. it's a 4 hour flight to Miami out of Hartford. Approximately the same to Dallas and Houston.
That's our longer reach.
That is our recruiting territory, and there are plenty of players in it. We need people that can find the best players that fit the profile we want in a student/athlete football player, and sell UCONN to the players in those regions.
and here is the take home point - these are my opinions only - the rest of that I just wrote is FACT.
#1. Randy Edsall recruited IMO with a sales pitch of building something from nothing, and sold himself as the program, and did not sell the school. It was an effective sales pitch, and he found lots of players that played with a chip on their shoulder and built this program into a regular bowl game winner. It basically started with convincing Dan Orlovsky to come to UCONN, and he used the same plan for the next several years. His plan didn't seem to work that well anymore after we actually started winning titles. You can't sell someone the process of building a winner from nothing, when you've got conference titles.
#2. Paul Pasqualoni started taking the resources that UCONN has, and put them to work in recruiting, but his was a half ass effort, based entirely on 40 years of coaching contacts and the promise of getting his contacts scholarships for his players. THe truth is that pasqualoni brought in 2 pretty good classes that are already contributors, in a big way, to winnign games, but he did it based on his resume and contacts.
#3. Diaco - is the first coach in the 1A era to show up and clearly lay out a plan to put the full weight of the University of Connecticut in 2013, and what it can offer to student athletes behind recruiting for football in our region. Edsall didn't do it, nor did Pasqualoni. They each were successful, as there are many ways to recruit, but I like the way we're moving now.
And make no mistake about this - what the University has to offer, and how it's grown over the past 25 years, is entirely about the success of the basketball programs. Football needs to take what has been built and run with it.
Diaco needs to bring in a staff that he knows will have the same direction, motivation and plan on building that he has.
