On Recruiting in state
The best CT players, Gatorade players of the year would not sniff top 50 in NJ, PA and top 200 in Florida.
Conn. is never going to entirely stock a team.
That being said, there are 10-15 players from Conn. in the NFL, and some of them are damn good, like Terrence Knighton, some are still playing and were once stellar, like Dwight Freeney, some are pretty decent, like Matt Shaughnessy and Chris Baker, some were excellent in college and have hung on in the NFL, like Dan Orlovsky and Donald Thomas, some of them are in jail, like Aaron Hernandez.
Scoff at them, but the state produces a few really good players every year.
The best reason to recruit Conn. is that you stand a better chance of landing a top talent from the state than you would from Pennsylvania. The top PA kids aren't coming to UConn. Occasionally, you can convice a Dan Orlovsky to come to UConn instead of the B1G.
That's the reason right there.
Beyond that, consider that UConn has passed on kids like Matakevich, Harrison and Knighton, kids that did very well in college. We passed on Spievey too.
In other words, you have 4 NFL talents that UConn thought weren't worthy of an offer.
