how many RE recruits remain?

[Jetskies]

wondering how we're progressing in the transition from past to present/future. How many players on the 2023 roster, are RE recruits?

• what % of the team is it?
• are those guys making a difference?

 

[NYtoCT]

We’ve only had one year of Mora high school/transfer recruits play actual games.

There’s still a lot of RE players who are major contributors. Christian Haynes, Noel Ofori-Nyadu, Devontae Houston, Eric Watts, Pryce Yates, Jackson Mitchell, Durante Jones, etc.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

wondering how we're progressing in the transition from past to present/future. How many players on the 2023 roster, are RE recruits?

• what % of the team is it?
• are those guys making a difference?

Including the ones Mora convinced to stay after committing to Edsall... up to 45 players and very much making a difference

 

[Blades]

This is what I have from the Rivals lists (28) over that time period, only the strong (and talented) survive ! ....May have been some portal guys, etc., not on Rivals, but I think this is about it. ( Mora signings/ recruits started in DEC 2021)

 

[Bongo Fury]

This made a difference. Mora did the same at UCLA by not driving out inherited talent. RE was hoping to play freshman and they’d be experienced in a couple of years. Calling his inherited players bad was a little bit of an exaggeration. They were more mature and experienced than what he bought in and could have been more successful year 1 especially on defense. Some of those are playing in the NFL.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

This is what I have from the Rivals lists (28) over that time period, only the strong (and talented) survive ! ....May have been some portal guys, etc., not on Rivals, but I think this is about it. ( Mora signings/ recruits started in DEC 2021) View attachment 90029

There are many more; Bechtle, Branch, Senn, Wayburn, Meyers, Lundt, Flynn, Brinson, Jaylen Jones, Gourdine, Voorhis, Clercius...

 

[jayfromfla]

The talent RE left was a lot better than what he inherited from red pants. AAC coaches knew our talent. That is why ltey vote us last in the preseason rankings

 

[Guru13]

The talent RE left was a lot better than what he inherited from red pants. AAC coaches knew our talent. That is why ltey vote us last in the preseason rankings

I agree and that is the only credit I will give Edsall, he left the program in better talent than before.

 

[Bongo Fury]

Maybe, but RE plays his players. He did not play the best players the first year. At MD he did the same and they were awful the first year.

 

[Hoophound]

That’s the summary. Edsall knew talent. He brought in some good players.

He seemed to have major insecurity issues that led him to bury guys he didn’t recruit on the bench and to ignore the advice of his coordinators, whom were better coaches than he was. That’s what really hurt him.

 

[DoctorWho85]

Edsall's second go around was a failure for sure on the field, but he absolutely left Mora with more talent than when he took over from Diaco. He's a good evaluator of talent so he recruited relatively good compared to the previous regime

 

[Husky68]

Edsall's second go around was a failure for sure on the field, but he absolutely left Mora with more talent than when he took over from Diaco. He's a good evaluator of talent so he recruited relatively good compared to the previous regime

Talk about having a low bar to exceed.

 

[upstater]

I dont follow this board a lot but in retrospect, Edsall's first go around with UConn had a lot of talented coaches helping him. Not just Orlando and Moorhead. Maybe it was difficult to see at the time, but a subsequent coaching tenure can easily go south if you don't have the same caliber of help.

You see this a little with the Patriots in the NFL. Belichick simply does not have the same caliber of assistant that he had 5 years ago, as many of the guys left after being promoted, and so he can't delegate the way he used to.

 

[businesslawyer]

Maybe, but RE plays his players. He did not play the best players the first year. At MD he did the same and they were awful the first year.

He did the same here, the first time. No one complained because there weren't enough people who cared while we were transitioning.

No one should have thought hiring Edsall for the second go round was going to be a quick fix. However, there's a difference between building for the long term without worrying about wins and losses at the beginning and literally putting out on the field one of the worst teams in the history of football. Edsall was far, far too quick to do the latter and either thought he had more time to get us to decent than he did, or just came back having lost the fire that he had the first time. Who knows.

 

[UConnJim]

As much as we want to trash Edsall for his second coaching stint, UConn was not investing in football which put the whole program behind the 8 ball. Edsall made more in 2009 than he made in 2019. I would think no other FBS program pays their head football coach less than they did a decade ago. As for assistant coaches, during 1.0 UConn was in a BCS conference and paid salaries relatively in line with that. For 2.0, what was the attraction for assistant coaches? Edsall’s management style didn’t help, but he really didn’t have the resources to build a good staff.

 

[Bongo Fury]

Probably wasn’t about the money. He was paid well @ MD. If he was successful then he would have gotten paid more at UConn.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

RE2 was an abject failure here. I know there is a lot of agreement that he didn't play the best players but who are all of these players that got jumped over for the less talented? Was there that many of them? A QB, a couple of receivers, OL ?

 

[Bongo Fury]

Enough, especially on defense. They were young and based on performance and results they were not better. Not going to defend what he inherited but there were “some” pretty good players that were not utilized and driven off.

 

[kemba]

RE2 was an abject failure here. I know there is a lot of agreement that he didn't play the best players but who are all of these players that got jumped over for the less talented? Was there that many of them? A QB, a couple of receivers, OL ?

I don’t know if there’s any of diaco’s guys who didn’t get to play that we can say 100% were better. But you can’t come in and say I’m going to play my recruits instead of the upperclassmen because they are the best guys, and then be the worst team in the country and historically bad on defense. No one is going to buy it and in todays game if completely overhelmed freshmen truly are your best guys you need to hit the transfer portal and do something about that

 

[mymustang]

I dont follow this board a lot but in retrospect, Edsall's first go around with UConn had a lot of talented coaches helping him. Not just Orlando and Moorhead. Maybe it was difficult to see at the time, but a subsequent coaching tenure can easily go south if you don't have the same caliber of help.

You see this a little with the Patriots in the NFL. Belichick simply does not have the same caliber of assistant that he had 5 years ago, as many of the guys left after being promoted, and so he can't delegate the way he used to.

I'm a Patriot season ticketholder, so needless to say a big fan. I agree that Belichick doesn't have the same quality of assistants right now, But the ones he has lost were people whom he groomed to become what they were. Much like Parcells did

 

[Guru13]

RE2 was an abject failure here. I know there is a lot of agreement that he didn't play the best players but who are all of these players that got jumped over for the less talented? Was there that many of them? A QB, a couple of receivers, OL ?

On top of my head, Steven K, Noel Ofori-Nyadu, Caleb Thomas, barely ever played Burns, Nate Carter, Aaron Turner, Clercius, Malik Dixon. Now I will say the 2019-2020 season Edsall did play more of his guys over Diaco kids, especially on defense. You don’t see significant changes on the depth chart till the Wyoming games where spanos did replace a lot of guys

 

[DoctorWho85]

Talk about having a low bar to exceed.

I mean you're not wrong. Lol but Mora did go 6-6 with pretty much all Edsall recruits so Edsall may have failed as a coach second time around but he did improve the talent in the team which Mora is absolutely building off of

 

[History Geek]

Case in point - the offensive line. All Edsall recruits except for the PG Guidone. One of the worst OLs in college football 2 years ago. A bright spot last year. Raw material was there. Needed a year of quality, dedicated OL coaching from Sammis (nice to not have the OL coach also double as the OC), plus a year of physical/mental maturity.

Even more specific case in point, Lundt. A revolving door as a freshman 2 years ago. Very solid last year.

 

[hardcorehusky]

When RE 2 came back, his new DC (who we thought was terrible) said at the time that on film, the guys Diaco had playing were a level too slow for his defense. The DB's had LB speed, the LB's had DL speed and that they didn't have the guys to run the defense. That is partially why things went off the rails. Not sure why they didn't work a D around the personnel except W and L's didn't matter the first few years.

 

[Patman]

When RE 2 came back, his new DC (who we thought was terrible) said at the time that on film, the guys Diaco had playing were a level too slow for his defense. The DB's had LB speed, the LB's had DL speed and that they didn't have the guys to run the defense. That is partially why things went off the rails. Not sure why they didn't work a D around the personnel except W and L's didn't matter the first few years.

I just never understood why Diaco recruited as he did... did he just aim too low?