uconnbill
A Half full kind of guy
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admit it, you just like to complain.
Some people will complain no matter what, especially when they don't like the coach.
Good Feelings Again
- Thread starter UConnDan97
- Start date
admit it, you just like to complain.
Some people will complain no matter what, especially when they don't like the coach.
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I'm not going to say that we are going on a 10 game win streak, but the U game was a great win. 3 wins? Maybe...if we can beat ECU we'll win an AAC game, too.
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It’s nice to be nearing good enough that we could surprise someone. Illinois is not good and they beat Wisconsin. We’ve been so bad you really couldn’t even hope to get a surprise win. It appears after the UH and UMass games that we are now good enough to make having a little hope for a win seem less insane. That’s a sobering yet pleasant feeling.
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It appears to me that we’ve been demonstrably improving In that aspect over the last few games. It’s no longer run, run, pass. The overthrows have likely overshadowed and masked the creativity of the play calls. For example the missed pass to Jay Rose v Houston. That was a new twist from the playbook. The continued maturation of our QB (Jack Zergiotis) will certainly help but just consider the lateral to QS and his pass to Rose for the TD vs UMass. It was not only creative—it actually worked!
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It's also a play that every midget football team runs at least once during practice just for fun. When I was coaching midgets, we ran it as the last play before sprints & dismissal of the kids back to their parents.
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I always enjoy coachcap's posts on tailgating, local food etc. He’s a solid poster and I’m sure I’d like him a lot in real life. That’s said, this post was “spit my coffee all over my desk” funny. Not sure if he intended to be funny or just more snarky, but that was hilarious to me.
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Having just mocked the "revisionist history" thread, I am now going to offer some "revisionist future" because I am a hypocrit mostly.
There have been calls for Edsall to be fired on this board. Any sane person kinda knows that is lunacy for many reasons, but I'm here to renew a call for patience.
Here are my arguments
Lets Get Real
This is Edsall's 3rd Year. Let's be real, with no disrespect to the players recruited by Diaco, this entire program was a smoldering ruin when he got here. He had bad players, that didn't fit his system(or any system, for that matter). When he got here, we were in a conference that was actively hurting our ability to recruit, our scheduling flexibility, and our revenue potential. It was the worst possible situation as a football program. The conference both is actively derided but sneakily has good teams. That is the worst case. Ok, that is what he walked into. Then, we went independent, and are figuring that out. Randy works for a $1m salary, well below basically every other D1 coach. Not crying poor for the guy, but a nod in his favor and in favor of our budget. He has dealt with massive staff turnover during this entire process as well. You may say that's partly his fault I say . He hired some impressive people thus far, retaining them at underwater salary and conference affiliation has been a struggle. Not his fault.
Performance- Expectations vs Reality
The first question we need to ask ourselves is simple - what are our expectations? My expectation is that he can replicate Edsall 1.0 results. That is to say, that at the end of his first 3-4 recruiting classes that Edsall will have a fundamentally sound team with a few diamond in the rough-types, that will will 6-7 games a year. They will beat up on the teams they should beat up, and they will lost to the teams they should lose to. I want to be clear - I WOULD BE VERY HAPPY WITH THAT OUTCOME. I do not seek a world-beater for a football program. I want a team that I can justify making 6-7 trips a year to Renschler to tailgate with family and know that I will see competent, non-embarrassing football. If we steal a win here or there that we don't deserve, more power to State U. I think everyone on this board needs to think very hard about their expectations, because if they are realistic, Edsall is a safe bet to deliver with patience. If not, well, I think you need your head examined.
The second question is, relative to talent, have we performed as expected? Are we on plan? Given the fact that in years 1-2 we essentially fielded a JV team with the Varsity schedule, I'm not going to worry about W/L for this. It is what it is. I expected to get crushed, and mostly we got crushed. So let's look at my expectations for progress. 1 - Have we seemed more competent generally, fundamentally sound? I would definitely say yes. While we bottomed out on defense last year with all freshmen, I think we are showing pretty good improvement this year, particularly on the DL and CB. We aren't world-beaters, but you can see a more cohesive team, playing their keys better. Our offensive line isn't as offensive, even sometimes downright good-ish. Again I'm not even saying we are any good, but we are playing the game in a more sound way. Everything looks in order on the field. 2 - Have we built a more solid roster, with a few diamond-in-the-rough types starting to peek through? Here I think is the biggest feather in Edsall's cap. He was always a solid evaluator of talent, and his first couple recruiting classes are no exception - We've found 2 pretty good QBs in Kraszewski(sp?) and Zergiotis. Say what you want about their freshmen mistakes, but those guys showed some skills that no recruited QB has done in ...checks watch... 15 years? Travis Jones is a beast and will be an NFL draft pick. I very much enjoy what I am seeing from all of the young DEs, especially Eric Watts, Kevon Jones, and Dillon Harris. Jackson Mitchell and Jordan Morrison look good as young LBs, and I think some of the young DBs, especially guys like Keyshawn Paul and Myles Bell are just plain going to be flat good in a couple of years. On offense it looks like the young receivers have a lot of ability, espeically Cam, Maurrisea, and Jefferys. I'm not an evaluator of OLine or TE play, but we seem to be solidifying our depth there as well. In addition to the solid talent at the bottom of the pipeline, Edsall is being pretty smart about grad transfers. A solid D2 qb? check. A Starting WR from D2. check. A starting Safety and OLB via JucO? check. A player at MLB from Notre Dame? Check. He's filling holes where it makes sense to bridge the gap to the young kids.
now lets look at his history - He starts out poorly as he recruits and implements his plan - and notice that the strength of schedule in this rebuild is particularly strong, especially compared to his first stint at UConn. After building and recruiting, his teams then are solid, around .500 or just above. That's what we need!
Ok, So here is my case - you people who want him fired are ridiculous. Edsall will not get us to another fiesta bowl, but with his methodical and detail oriented approach he can definitely deliver us what the vast majority of us seek. A competitive, respectable team that we can enjoy watching in person, tailgating before games, and maybe every couple years going to a fun bowl.
End of rant.
There have been calls for Edsall to be fired on this board. Any sane person kinda knows that is lunacy for many reasons, but I'm here to renew a call for patience.
Here are my arguments
Lets Get Real
This is Edsall's 3rd Year. Let's be real, with no disrespect to the players recruited by Diaco, this entire program was a smoldering ruin when he got here. He had bad players, that didn't fit his system(or any system, for that matter). When he got here, we were in a conference that was actively hurting our ability to recruit, our scheduling flexibility, and our revenue potential. It was the worst possible situation as a football program. The conference both is actively derided but sneakily has good teams. That is the worst case. Ok, that is what he walked into. Then, we went independent, and are figuring that out. Randy works for a $1m salary, well below basically every other D1 coach. Not crying poor for the guy, but a nod in his favor and in favor of our budget. He has dealt with massive staff turnover during this entire process as well. You may say that's partly his fault I say . He hired some impressive people thus far, retaining them at underwater salary and conference affiliation has been a struggle. Not his fault.
Performance- Expectations vs Reality
The first question we need to ask ourselves is simple - what are our expectations? My expectation is that he can replicate Edsall 1.0 results. That is to say, that at the end of his first 3-4 recruiting classes that Edsall will have a fundamentally sound team with a few diamond in the rough-types, that will will 6-7 games a year. They will beat up on the teams they should beat up, and they will lost to the teams they should lose to. I want to be clear - I WOULD BE VERY HAPPY WITH THAT OUTCOME. I do not seek a world-beater for a football program. I want a team that I can justify making 6-7 trips a year to Renschler to tailgate with family and know that I will see competent, non-embarrassing football. If we steal a win here or there that we don't deserve, more power to State U. I think everyone on this board needs to think very hard about their expectations, because if they are realistic, Edsall is a safe bet to deliver with patience. If not, well, I think you need your head examined.
The second question is, relative to talent, have we performed as expected? Are we on plan? Given the fact that in years 1-2 we essentially fielded a JV team with the Varsity schedule, I'm not going to worry about W/L for this. It is what it is. I expected to get crushed, and mostly we got crushed. So let's look at my expectations for progress. 1 - Have we seemed more competent generally, fundamentally sound? I would definitely say yes. While we bottomed out on defense last year with all freshmen, I think we are showing pretty good improvement this year, particularly on the DL and CB. We aren't world-beaters, but you can see a more cohesive team, playing their keys better. Our offensive line isn't as offensive, even sometimes downright good-ish. Again I'm not even saying we are any good, but we are playing the game in a more sound way. Everything looks in order on the field. 2 - Have we built a more solid roster, with a few diamond-in-the-rough types starting to peek through? Here I think is the biggest feather in Edsall's cap. He was always a solid evaluator of talent, and his first couple recruiting classes are no exception - We've found 2 pretty good QBs in Kraszewski(sp?) and Zergiotis. Say what you want about their freshmen mistakes, but those guys showed some skills that no recruited QB has done in ...checks watch... 15 years? Travis Jones is a beast and will be an NFL draft pick. I very much enjoy what I am seeing from all of the young DEs, especially Eric Watts, Kevon Jones, and Dillon Harris. Jackson Mitchell and Jordan Morrison look good as young LBs, and I think some of the young DBs, especially guys like Keyshawn Paul and Myles Bell are just plain going to be flat good in a couple of years. On offense it looks like the young receivers have a lot of ability, espeically Cam, Maurrisea, and Jefferys. I'm not an evaluator of OLine or TE play, but we seem to be solidifying our depth there as well. In addition to the solid talent at the bottom of the pipeline, Edsall is being pretty smart about grad transfers. A solid D2 qb? check. A Starting WR from D2. check. A starting Safety and OLB via JucO? check. A player at MLB from Notre Dame? Check. He's filling holes where it makes sense to bridge the gap to the young kids.
now lets look at his history - He starts out poorly as he recruits and implements his plan - and notice that the strength of schedule in this rebuild is particularly strong, especially compared to his first stint at UConn. After building and recruiting, his teams then are solid, around .500 or just above. That's what we need!
Ok, So here is my case - you people who want him fired are ridiculous. Edsall will not get us to another fiesta bowl, but with his methodical and detail oriented approach he can definitely deliver us what the vast majority of us seek. A competitive, respectable team that we can enjoy watching in person, tailgating before games, and maybe every couple years going to a fun bowl.
End of rant.
Last edited:
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Incorrect. I describe things the way they were rather than how we all want them to be. The defense was atrocious. The offense showed a glimmer of improvement, but in two minutes of the first quarter when I tuned in there were four turnovers, two by each team. One every 30 seconds. I turned the radio off until late in the first half. Couldn't take it.
And, btw, I am on record saying UConn should keep Edsall. Remember? The NYT article? I'll dig it up if you need me to.
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1.0 was also a slow ride and rise. Starting to see a base to build off.
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Sometimes teams play to the game situation. If they have a big lead, they’ll often let up on the defensive side. 35 points allowed to UMass is not good but their defense is much worse and we hung 56 on them.
Let’s just enjoy the W before we come crashing back to reality Friday night.
Let’s just enjoy the W before we come crashing back to reality Friday night.
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I wish Omar Fortt was built more like his brother. I think if were he'd be an absolute beast for us at LB
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UMass must be a REALLY BAD football team!