How This Week's Depth Chart Was Assembled

[Exit 4]

The talent arbitrage is still there. The P5 programs are going to go after developed football players. They will take very few if any 265 lb OL like William Beatty, DL like 220 lb Kendall Reyes, or CB like 165 lb Blidi Wrey-Wilson or 152 lb Jasper Howard. Or undersized skill players like Nick Williams, Larry Taylor, Jordan Todman, or Terry Caulley. Or Canadian players. Those players wouldn't have been helped by HUDL as they were passed over based on size and development.

Look at Todman. He was very well known in Massachusetts as he rushed for over 2000 yards his JR and SR seasons averaging over 10 yards per carry and 61 TDs. But he was a 5'10" 180 lbs RB, so he was somewhat overlooked. BC offered him, but to play DB and he wanted to play RB.

This is from Larry Taylor's Wikipedia page:
"Taylor's speed—measured at 4.3 seconds on the 40-yard dash—made him an attractive target for Division I football programs;[5] his diminutive size—5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m) and 157 pounds (71 kg)—caused that interest to abate. [6] Schools such as Tennessee and Mississippi State evaluated Taylor but eventually declined to offer a scholarship. In the end Connecticut, Eastern Michigan, and Middle Tennessee State made scholarship offers. After making his only official visit to Connecticut, Taylor opted to sign with the Huskies."

Look at our starting DL in the Fiesta Bowl:

Kendall Reyes 220 lb recruit to 298 lbs.
Shamar Stephen 260 lb recruit to 300 lbs.
Twyon Martin 260 lb recruit to 292 lbs.
Jesse Joseph 230 lb recruit to 255 lbs.

They weren't recruited because they were undersized and not developed.

The Fiesta Bowl team is full of undersized and undeveloped players like:

Scott Lutrus 196 lb recruit to 245 lbs.
Ryan Griffin 220 lb recruit to 243 lbs.
Zach Hurd 260 lb recruit to 325 lbs.
Blidi Wrey-Wilson 165 lb recruit to 191 lbs.

Many of the kids in GA, TX, FL are highly developed in high school, so they do deserve their recruiting ratings. There are lots of good players in those areas, but you have to project how good will they be in 4 years. Many are already fully developed based on being redshirted in high school and advanced high school training programs.

The next 4 years will be a test to see if the talent arbitrage remains. I am hopeful it does, but I am concerned the opportunities for arbitrage have diminished. We really can't afford to see any such gap narrow. Our past winning seasons were narrow winning seasons, not ones of great dominance.

 

[RSTuthill]

Sorry ... I am a believer in the EFFICIENT MARKET THEORY on the stock market.

In my opinion the EMH has been discredited because it fails to account for psychological effects in markets.

 

[Pudge]

In my opinion the EMH has been discredited because it fails to account for psychological effects in markets.

Efficient Market Theory + Option Pricing Model

You do know that the Modern Trading algorithms used by all the Hedge Funds, Traders, IBanks ... came out of work from Eugene Fama, Richard Roll, Fischer Black, Myron Scholes etc. including several Nobel Prize for Economics.

When you flip on the computer screen ... and buy stocks based on the VALUE that pops up, all that is Math. Derived from lots of work that changed Wall Street. The EMT is right there. And ... And Yes. You can Value many other Assets in a similar manner. Real Estate. Equipment. Etc etc

And then ... you can't make the case that this Value of Recruits has much credibility. Bad info. No info. And zero evaluation of loads of prospects. You can say that UConn recruiting is absolutely the CASE study why this is inefficient.

Then ... this explains Byron Jones, Darius Butler, Sio Moore, Obi, etc etc.

Yearn for 4 stars. I'm excited that HCRE is back with a better complement of assistant. And a better statistical staff. And grind it through. We will be 110% better than any other previous year. With wins ... we will do better.

 

[Pudge]

Laughable.

UConn has been in an FBS conference in 2004. UConn has consistently finished near the bottom of their league in recruiting rankings and recruits holding comparable regional offers nearly every season during that time.

In those 14 seasons, UConn has finished with a winning record in their league 2 times. UConn has finished with an overall winning record 5 times.

Edsall, who had an ability to develop lesser recruits was responsible for those 5 winning seasons.

Since then, with our new staff and still poor recruiting we went from the Fiesta Bowl to 5, 5, 3, 2, 6, 3, and 3 (and counting) win seasons.

Tell me again how there isn't a talent problem and the recruiting sites have been just so wrong?

Apparently Math and Statistics and Valuation methodology is not something you do.

The most valid post is whaler11. We can't miss. We need 50-60 healthy good players that play like 3 Stars. We've never been there. At Edsall 1.0 we were a score short of that - imo. And that's dangerous in a long CFB season. But he knew how to get closer to that bar certainly than the two idiots.

 

[whaler11]

One variable that I think makes it harder this time around that we ignore:

A 12 team league is much harder to win than an 8 team league without having the ‘best’ team.

More teams = more leagues games = less influence from variance. Also 12 teams makes it more likely that you have outliers to the top and bottom quality wise.

In the Big East you could have the 3rd best
team - catch the right teams at home, see someone else get upset and steal the league at 5-2. That ain’t happening anymore.

An additional challenge is the concussion issue. Youth and high school participation is going to drop in UConn’s natural recruiting territory faster and sooner than our new conference peers.

Biggest advantage UConn may have is stability - if we do put together a contender it’s not a Frost or Norvelle or Taggert situation.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Apparently Math and Statistics and Valuation methodology is not something you do.

The most valid post is whaler11. We can't miss. We need 50-60 healthy good players that play like 3 Stars. We've never been there. At Edsall 1.0 we were a score short of that - imo. And that's dangerous in a long CFB season. But he knew how to get closer to that bar certainly than the two idiots.

So after all your ridiculous parallels and pontificating, you've reached essentially the conclusion I've been hammering on here for years?

We need a vast majority of our players to be ranked 2*or 3* and have mostly G5 offers, with the occasional P5 offer.

We can't have a roster full of unranked players who have no other FBS offers.

If we can get UConn's recruiting ranking in the 70s - we can win with Edsall.

If UConn's recruiting is going to stay in 90s/100s - we won't be able to win.


From TOS - UConn's football recruiting rankings the past 4 seasons and the current class.
2014 - 100+
2015 - 99
2016 - 100+
2017 - 89
2018 to date - 78

And people wonder why we have games where we give up 70 points?

 

[BlueMAB]

Edsall (and the coaches he finds) can get teams to consistently outperform their ranking (at UConn). But as @ConnHuskBask said, classes in the 80s and up won't do it. He'd be competitive in the AAC, maybe get to a bowl once or twice cycle, but recruiting has to improve, period. It has already started, and will continue to with the group of coaches we have now.

 

[UConnJim]

So after all your ridiculous parallels and pontificating, you've reached essentially the conclusion I've been hammering on here for years?

We need a vast majority of our players to be ranked 2*or 3* and have mostly G5 offers, with the occasional P5 offer.

We can't have a roster full of unranked players who have no other FBS offers.

If we can get UConn's recruiting ranking in the 70s - we can win with Edsall.

If UConn's recruiting is going to stay in 90s/100s - we won't be able to win.


From TOS - UConn's football recruiting rankings the past 4 seasons and the current class.
2014 - 100+
2015 - 99
2016 - 100+
2017 - 89
2018 to date - 78

And people wonder why we have games where we give up 70 points?

Here are the UConn recruiting rankings before we went to the Fiesta Bowl:

2004: 83
2005: 69
2006: 93
2007: 60
2008: 81
2009: 81
2010: 84

Average = 79

Edsall has proven that he can win with recruiting classes ranked 79 which is about where he has been in his first 2 recruiting classes.

 

[Exit 4]

Here are the UConn recruiting rankings before we went to the Fiesta Bowl:

2004: 83
2005: 69
2006: 93
2007: 60
2008: 81
2009: 81
2010: 84

Average = 79

Edsall has proven that he can win with recruiting classes ranked 79 which is about where he has been in his first 2 recruiting classes.

But as Whaler11 just pointed out, now that our conference is bigger, its going to require we have a 2 loss season or less to finish at the top.

Edsall delivered a 3 loss season just once, all our other 'great years' were 4 and 5 loss seasons.

Connecticut Huskies Index | College Football at Sports-Reference.com

I believe in Randy and I believe in his diamonds, but I think this time around it will take more to get to the top of this conference and achieve success than last time. Need top 70 recruiting classes whether you believe in the rankings or not, they are some sort of crude indicator.

 

[pepband99]

One variable that I think makes it harder this time around that we ignore:

A 12 team league is much harder to win than an 8 team league without having the ‘best’ team.

More teams = more leagues games = less influence from variance. Also 12 teams makes it more likely that you have outliers to the top and bottom quality wise.

In the Big East you could have the 3rd best
team - catch the right teams at home, see someone else get upset and steal the league at 5-2. That ain’t happening anymore.

An additional challenge is the concussion issue. Youth and high school participation is going to drop in UConn’s natural recruiting territory faster and sooner than our new conference peers.

Biggest advantage UConn may have is stability - if we do put together a contender it’s not a Frost or Norvelle or Taggert situation.

The other side - what you lose in a sneaky win, you gain back in a sneaky schedule. You "miss" playing the right/wrong team, and your schedule might just help you enough (at least until the championship)