I count 8

[Pudge]

Yes, I count 8 Kids that committed to Bob Diaco and the new staff that, most likely, were NOT on the board of the PP staff. Look at that. Yes, we kept 8. But ... you think about Vontae Diggs & the new Florida kids & the NJ Prep, I believe that they glanced modestly at the board Wholley left. The relationships that PP started with kids in that class ... I wonder if any of the 8 BD kids had gone to the Rentschler visits that we saw at the beginning of last Fall or the Junior Day last February.

How is this different than PP? I think there was some continuity from HCRE and then there was a good reach beyond ... but not breaking new ground. We have a new paradigm.

Seeing that we have 2 more Canadians ... Bob ... you ought to keep that Eastern Canada regions in your strike zone - it's worked for us.

 

[sportsart]

Pudge, could you translate your post for me?

 

[Pudge]

Diaco ... didn't use the Pasqualoni-staff board. Totally organic new look at prospects and with their relationships. I have no real evidence; it just is an interesting hypotheses.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Diaco ... didn't use the Pasqualoni-staff board. Totally organic new look at prospects and with their relationships. I have no real evidence; it just is an interesting hypotheses.

I think that Pasqualoni in his 2 1/2 years for recruiting, was essentially relying on 40+ years of being in the business to recruit. To me - it doesn't seem that there wasn't much sales going on, other than picking up the phones and relaying the message that Paul is at UCONN now and is interested in getting some players. That said - we did get some pretty good players out the time Pasqualoni was here.

Randy - Randy started in the old Memorial stadium and field house facilities, moved to trailers, and sold the dream of building something from nothing, and he sold himself - not the school. If he had a large scale sales program, and a systematic plan, I couldn't decipher it......and recruiting is all sales. After winning conference titles and bowl games, it became hard IMO, for Randy to keep selling the dream of building something from nothing, to the same types of players that he was able to get earlier on, and he didn't change his paradigm. That said - Edsall had what appeared to me, as a microscale, and difficult, but effective method of finding quality players, and we got some pretty good players of the time Edsall was here.

If you want to go back further, Skip Holtz, was the first to really start reaching outside of the immediate CT and northeast region to recruit for UCONN football, and identify that we can reach a much wider scope of recruiting range and be successful and rather than a single player here or there occasionally from Florida, Georgia, places in between and around - he actually started actively recruiting out away from the borders.

Diaco came in, and from day 1, started putting a plan together to sell. Target populations. Message. Product. Goals. Substance...........etc. etc. I'm very excited, because IMNSHO, Diaco is the first coach to come in, and truly put the power of what UCONN in 2014 is, into recruiting and develop a real plan of attack in recruiting. The thing about sales, is that a good salesmen can sell anything to anyone. A good salesman, and a good product, with a great plan of targeting and closing, is going to succeed big time.

 

[06029]

Pudge, could you translate your post for me?

New staff good. Old staff bad.

Very difficult from the 8 that signed under the new regime to glean anything useful regarding tactics or plan. The 8 from PP/interim period represent kids that chose Uconn during a bad season. Holding on to them was essential no matter how you look at it since those are some of the best recruits in this class. The 8 from BD, for MOST of them, Uconn was their best offer. All these kids may turn out good to great, but Uconn provided them with the chance to play FBS ball.

This next cycle is big. Watch the Jr. day visitors. Watch summer camp. And watch the offers. That will tell you about geographic focus, athlete focus, style focus and ultimately how well BD turns out as a recruiter. Uconn needs to make a giant leap in recruiting to win the AAC. How good of a game day coach BD is, how well the product shows on the field, how much the team buys into the BD vision and program, those are all big things that need to be positive to gain the recruiting momentum that is needed.

I'm not ready to anoint BD the best thing ever. While he says the right things, doing the right things is way more important. I withhold judgment until he has coached a full season and we see a full recruiting cycle. Even then, I might need two seasons or more.

 

[Joobie]

Something I've noticed & the recruits will no doubt also notice; the spring in the step of the current players, the smiles, the body language...completely different since BD took over. IMO, the best recruitment tool of all!

 

[06029]

Something I've noticed & the recruits will no doubt also notice; the spring in the step of the current players, the smiles, the body language...completely different since BD took over. IMO, the best recruitment tool of all!

Practice hasn't started yet! There will be some fallout from the current roster once practice starts. There always is when a new coach comes on board. Some will be an example, some will be cleaning house to make room for his players down the road and some just won't like him. It happens everywhere.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I disagree that it's hard to glean anything usefull regarding tactics or plan. I think if you've listened to Diaco talk about recruiting at all since the day he was hired and any time since, and then look at how we actually went about recruiting in a single month, specifically how and where and who.....it's pretty darn clear what the tactics and plan are. Now - you are correct in that the players we landed in the past month, UCONN represented a very good opportunity that they were not getting elsewhere. You are also correct in that Diaco is a first time coach, and doing it right and winning, is a lot different than saying it right. He's yet to recruit through a full cycle for the first time as a head coach, and he's yet to coach his first game as a head coach. He's going to make rookie mistakes. My hope is that he's the kind of guy, that gets things right on the first try, a lot more than he gets them wrong, and needs to learn from them to get it right.

I also disagree that we need a giant leap in recruiting to win the AAC. We finished 3-5 in conference last season, in a very, poorly coached and played first 8 games or so. I don't think Diaco is blowing smoke, when he said that we have the players to compete, right now.

I don't think I anointed anything in what I wrote. I'm just happy that we've got a coaching staff in place, that seems intent to actually sell UCONN scholarships to football, and is actually intent on finding student-athletes that will benefit from a UCONN scholarship, and selling them on what UCONN is, and will want one, and has what appears to be a decent plan about going on about it. That's a huge difference from what both Edsall and Pasqualoni did in recruiting. Edsall looked for players with a chip on their shoulder and sold them on building a winner in FBS football from scratch. Pasqualoni simply relied on his 4+ decades of coaching contacts to find players. Diaco appears to actually be intent on recruiting players that actually want to come to UCONN for what UCONN is.....and I like that. That's all I'm saying.....

Whether or not it works, it's pretty obvious that only time will tell.

 

[rich1122]

If I think about it I can draw this conclusion. Randy was former NFL guy and my impression was that he did not do much recruiting prior to coming to UCONN. He and his staff developed into reasonable recruiters, and were really good at evaluating talent. I thought PP landed some good kids, but not sure how good he was a selling the program and he kept most of the old staff. Wholley was turning in to a good recruiter, but PP and GDL probably lacked the ability to walk into a coaches office and get any traction. Was pathetic that he left the OL so thin.

Fast forward. We have a guy who has been in the college game for awhile. He brought guys who have been in the college game for awhile. Their contacts are current and relevant. They open doors and people will listen. So what do we get. I think overall we do NOT see a giant overall uptick. What I do see is maybe a few more difference makers that these guys convince to come - EVERY YEAR. Cumulatively it improves everything. Maybe you get a Bortles or a Stefon Diggs (MD) or somebody like that every year. I was impressed how fast they closed some of these kids with no time left on the clock - especially Diggs and Ron Johnson. Johnson and Newsome competing for the job reminds me of the Dixon, Brown and Todman days. Also the fact that Diaco has three more schollies left next year tells me that he thinks he can find good kids next year.

Watch how they do with Wilkins. Even if he does not choose UCONN, see if we are on the final list.

I do not believe that academic requirements are a problem. I just think that the program has not really had recruiters of this caliber

 

[06029]

I disagree that it's hard to glean anything usefull regarding tactics or plan. I think if you've listened to Diaco talk about recruiting at all since the day he was hired and any time since, and then look at how we actually went about recruiting in a single month, specifically how and where and who.....it's pretty darn clear what the tactics and plan are. Now - you are correct in that the players we landed in the past month, UCONN represented a very good opportunity that they were not getting elsewhere. You are also correct in that Diaco is a first time coach, and doing it right and winning, is a lot different than saying it right. He's yet to recruit through a full cycle for the first time as a head coach, and he's yet to coach his first game as a head coach. He's going to make rookie mistakes. My hope is that he's the kind of guy, that gets things right on the first try, a lot more than he gets them wrong, and needs to learn from them to get it right.

I also disagree that we need a giant leap in recruiting to win the AAC. We finished 3-5 in conference last season, in a very, poorly coached and played first 8 games or so. I don't think Diaco is blowing smoke, when he said that we have the players to compete, right now.

I don't think I anointed anything in what I wrote. I'm just happy that we've got a coaching staff in place, that seems intent to actually sell UCONN scholarships to football, and is actually intent on finding student-athletes that will benefit from a UCONN scholarship, and selling them on what UCONN is, and will want one, and has what appears to be a decent plan about going on about it. That's a huge difference from what both Edsall and Pasqualoni did in recruiting. Edsall looked for players with a chip on their shoulder and sold them on building a winner in FBS football from scratch. Pasqualoni simply relied on his 4+ decades of coaching contacts to find players. Diaco appears to actually be intent on recruiting players that actually want to come to UCONN for what UCONN is.....and I like that. That's all I'm saying.....

Whether or not it works, it's pretty obvious that only time will tell.

I was not suggesting you anointed him. I was just saying I am not going down that path. I listen and I hear. Talk is cheap. Easy to sell kids on their best option when Uconn is it.

As far as needing more talent, I stand by my opinion. Of the 3 wins, only Rutgers had a .500 season and they have a horrible game day coach. Uconn is losing some good players. Not sold on any QB yet and not sure if any QB on the roster fits BD needs especially if he is going to try and adopt any of Kelly's ND schemes. OL needs to get way stronger and better. D gave up an average of 30+ points per game. with a different coach, last year Uconn wins maybe 5 games instead of 3. BD needs a class that has zero no star kids (excluding kickers who never have stars). He needs to beat out 75% of Uconn's peer group teams (Cinci, UCF, USF, Ohio, C. MI, ECU) for kids and win 35% or more of the head to head with P5 teams (RU, BC, Cuse, Pitt, Northwestern, Vandy, Wake, MD) for kids. That kind of recruiting will win the AAC and get national attention.

You may now begin your lecture on stars and their irrelevance (which I do not disagree with). Replace stars with comparison of offer lists and you get my point.

 

[ktuck911]

Practice hasn't started yet! There will be some fallout from the current roster once practice starts. There always is when a new coach comes on board. Some will be an example, some will be cleaning house to make room for his players down the road and some just won't like him. It happens everywhere.

I think there's gonna be a lot of fallout.. because of this coaching change... my opinion... moreso along the lines (OL/DL)... but it will happen over the course of this upcoming season and up and until the 2015 season. It's clear Diaco wants us to be BIGGER up front.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I think there's gonna be a lot of fallout.. because of this coaching change... my opinion... moreso along the lines (OL/DL)... but it will happen over the course of this upcoming season and up and until the 2015 season. It's clear Diaco wants us to be BIGGER up front.

That's been my take on his view of linemen anyway. It seems like the old Nebraska model. Bring in lots of big kids, redshirt them, put them in the weight room, and develop them to get good junior and senior years out of them. Do it every year and you have a never ending pipeline of linemen. I don't think that means a lot of change next year however. I think it's how he sees building the line long term.

The skill positions don't work that way however, so we'll see what happens there.

 

[ktuck911]

That's been my take on his view of linemen anyway. It seems like the old Nebraska model. Bring in lots of big kids, redshirt them, put them in the weight room, and develop them to get good junior and senior years out of them. Do it every year and you have a never ending pipeline of linemen. I don't think that means a lot of change next year however. I think it's how he sees building the line long term.

The skill positions don't work that way however, so we'll see what happens there.

Good assessment bro... Didn't look at the line that way... As for the skill positions, I think we are in a better place there... on O, I like our WRs (two deep).. Hopefully we can get even more production at RB as well.. We look like we have depth there now.. I'm especially looking forward to seeing how Josh Marriner looks... To me, he's the darkhorse for us back there... Hopefully our TEs are more productive now... two darkhorses there as well in Myers and Thompson... QB, for once, I think we'll be OK... I'm all in on Cochran, even though others don't feel that way. Kid has the tools other not having prototypical size. .. on O, CB is going to be pretty interesting. We need someone to take hold of BOTH sides there... and we need a little more size (imo) there too.. 2 guys 5'10 / 5'11 or taller as starters. I like Byron Jones a bunch, but, honestly, not sold on him as a CB... I liked him better at S... I think we have decent depth at S too...

 

[Palatine]

If I think about it I can draw this conclusion. Randy was former NFL guy and my impression was that he did not do much recruiting prior to coming to UCONN. He and his staff developed into reasonable recruiters, and were really good at evaluating talent. I thought PP landed some good kids, but not sure how good he was a selling the program and he kept most of the old staff. Wholley was turning in to a good recruiter, but PP and GDL probably lacked the ability to walk into a coaches office and get any traction. Was pathetic that he left the OL so thin.

Fast forward. We have a guy who has been in the college game for awhile. He brought guys who have been in the college game for awhile. Their contacts are current and relevant. They open doors and people will listen. So what do we get. I think overall we do NOT see a giant overall uptick. What I do see is maybe a few more difference makers that these guys convince to come - EVERY YEAR. Cumulatively it improves everything. Maybe you get a Bortles or a Stefon Diggs (MD) or somebody like that every year. I was impressed how fast they closed some of these kids with no time left on the clock - especially Diggs and Ron Johnson. Johnson and Newsome competing for the job reminds me of the Dixon, Brown and Todman days. Also the fact that Diaco has three more schollies left next year tells me that he thinks he can find good kids next year.

Watch how they do with Wilkins. Even if he does not choose UCONN, see if we are on the final list. I do not believe that academic requirements are a problem. I just think that the program has not really had recruiters of this caliber

This seems a reasonable assessment of the different staffs thus far.

Additionally, Diaco has also had the experience of recruiting at many levels of college football. Recruiting at Western Illinois is vastly different from recruiting at Notre Dame and recruiting at Cincinnati is pretty similar to recruiting at UConn. This depth of experience should serve him well in Storrs.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I was not suggesting you anointed him. I was just saying I am not going down that path. I listen and I hear. Talk is cheap. Easy to sell kids on their best option when Uconn is it.

As far as needing more talent, I stand by my opinion. Of the 3 wins, only Rutgers had a .500 season and they have a horrible game day coach. Uconn is losing some good players. Not sold on any QB yet and not sure if any QB on the roster fits BD needs especially if he is going to try and adopt any of Kelly's ND schemes. OL needs to get way stronger and better. D gave up an average of 30+ points per game. with a different coach, last year Uconn wins maybe 5 games instead of 3. BD needs a class that has zero no star kids (excluding kickers who never have stars). He needs to beat out 75% of Uconn's peer group teams (Cinci, UCF, USF, Ohio, C. MI, ECU) for kids and win 35% or more of the head to head with P5 teams (RU, BC, Cuse, Pitt, Northwestern, Vandy, Wake, MD) for kids. That kind of recruiting will win the AAC and get national attention.

You may now begin your lecture on stars and their irrelevance (which I do not disagree with). Replace stars with comparison of offer lists and you get my point.

Thanks for your permission to lecture! LOL Whether or not this staff (or any staff) is capable of finding players that can compete with our AAC competition, regardless of whether or not they need significant development time or not, has nothing to do with any of that. The only way we fans figure out if they're any good, is over time. The other stuff just passes the time and makes for good argument.

I have no reason to suspect that these players that Diaco's staff brought in the past month are any different than all the other similar guys that Edsall found in the mid/late 2000s that were able to compete in the Big East, that turned out to be very good players. They could also not be very good players. Only time will tell.

The thing here, I suppose, is that maybe you are correct and I'm wrong. Yes - see, I can admit it. We are going to have to do better than Edsall did for the Big East, because the AAC is going to be stronger and better than the Big East was - I think. The league is going to be larger, and stronger. The days of winning a co-title with a 5-2 conference record are gone.

The little I've been exposed to DIaco so far (I have yet to meet the guy), he strikes me as a guy that is going to be successful, it's not an if, it's a when.

My hope, that I"ve re-iterated elsewhere, is that he's the kind of guy that gets the majority of things right on the first try (and I'm not comparing - just giving an example)... rather than a Bill Belichick, who had the Cleveland Browns, before he went to the Patriots. I do not want to be Diaco's version of Belichick's Cleveland Browns. I would rather be Jimmy Johnson's Dallas Cowboys. (I know pro-football is a lot different than college, just illustrating my point)

 

[06029]

My hope, that I"ve re-iterated elsewhere, is that he's the kind of guy that gets the majority of things right on the first try (and I'm not comparing - just giving an example)... rather than a Bill Belichick, who had the Cleveland Browns, before he went to the Patriots. I do not want to be Diaco's version of Belichick's Cleveland Browns. I would rather be Jimmy Johnson's Dallas Cowboys. (I know pro-football is a lot different than college, just illustrating my point)

Jimmy Johnson was also a head coach for a lot of years (with what could be termed success) before the Cowboys. There is something to be said for having some HC experience and then big success at stop #2. Of course, stop #3 and #4 for some head coaches also fail miserably. There are also coordinators that make the transition with remarkable success. The last 6 weeks mean nothing to me for BD other than he filled out a class with some big bodies which can never be a bad thing for depth. I hope 2 or 3 of them start in 3 to 4 seasons. That would be a huge win. This year and how recruiting goes between now an the end of August will be the first good read on him. And how spring practice goes, too.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Jimmy Johnson was also a head coach for a lot of years (with what could be termed success) before the Cowboys. There is something to be said for having some HC experience and then big success at stop #2. Of course, stop #3 and #4 for some head coaches also fail miserably. There are also coordinators that make the transition with remarkable success. The last 6 weeks mean nothing to me for BD other than he filled out a class with some big bodies which can never be a bad thing for depth. I hope 2 or 3 of them start in 3 to 4 seasons. That would be a huge win. This year and how recruiting goes between now an the end of August will be the first good read on him. And how spring practice goes, too.

I knew my examples were flawed, just was giving an idea of what I'm talking about. Johnson was unable to repeat the success he had in Dallas in Miami. I will continue to disagree on getting a "read" on Diaco. I think the guy is going to be successful as a head coach, it's not an If, it's a when. I do agree that how the rest of what you stated turns out, will go a long way as to figuring out whether or not the "when" is going to be with UCONN or not.

 

[Jerry27]

This seems a reasonable assessment of the different staffs thus far.

Additionally, Diaco has also had the experience of recruiting at many levels of college football. Recruiting at Western Illinois is vastly different from recruiting at Notre Dame and recruiting at Cincinnati is pretty similar to recruiting at UConn. This depth of experience should serve him well in Storrs.

Well with the exception of the part where he said Randy was an NFL guy and didn't do much recruiting before UConn, sure. Over Edsalls 31 year coaching career he spent 3 in the NFL everything else was D1, so yeah reasonable, uninformed, but reasonable.

 

[Kgun7]

Well with the exception of the part where he said Randy was an NFL guy and didn't do much recruiting before UConn, sure. Over Edsalls 31 year coaching career he spent 3 in the NFL everything else was D1, so yeah reasonable, uninformed, but reasonable.

I was thinking the same thing, Jerry. Edsall had a cup of coffee in the pros!

 

[uconndogs]

I think the world of what Edsall did here, but I find his situation with the Terps a bit ironic. He clearly was not comfortable with the prospects to recruit at UCONN and that's not an unreasonable perspective. So he takes his "dream job" which provides a pretty fertile recruiting territory. Now he'll be lucky to have a job after next season. Yet, at UCONN he was pretty secure, and while the services never rated his recruits or classes as worth a dam, he recruited a lot of talent and put as many kids in the NFL as any team in the Big East over the past several years.

 

[rich1122]

Well with the exception of the part where he said Randy was an NFL guy and didn't do much recruiting before UConn, sure. Over Edsalls 31 year coaching career he spent 3 in the NFL everything else was D1, so yeah reasonable, uninformed, but reasonable.

Yeah guess you were correct. I thought that he was with the Jags longer before he got to UCONN. But I think that Diaco and staff will bring much more horsepower than any group we have had.

 

[06029]

Yeah guess you were correct. I thought that he was with the Jags longer before he got to UCONN. But I think that Diaco and staff will bring much more horsepower than any group we have had.

This is a serious question - why? He may do that but what makes you think that? The ND part of his resume? There is no track record to point to, yet. BD does seem to be better with the media and the hope is that translates to recruiting. But this quick jump to believe that he can be the best Uconn has ever had is a large jump.

People forget how good RE became from his first season to his last and how he molded teams to be tough, physical and winners. Sure, the way he left was 100% awful and wrong, but if he plateaued at Uconn with a BCS game, that is not a bad way to be remembered.

 

[huskyrob1]

I think that Pasqualoni in his 2 1/2 years for recruiting, was essentially relying on 40+ years of being in the business to recruit. To me - it doesn't seem that there wasn't much sales going on, other than picking up the phones and relaying the message that Paul is at UCONN now and is interested in getting some players. That said - we did get some pretty good players out the time Pasqualoni was here.

Randy - Randy started in the old Memorial stadium and field house facilities, moved to trailers, and sold the dream of building something from nothing, and he sold himself - not the school. If he had a large scale sales program, and a systematic plan, I couldn't decipher it.and recruiting is all sales. After winning conference titles and bowl games, it became hard IMO, for Randy to keep selling the dream of building something from nothing, to the same types of players that he was able to get earlier on, and he didn't change his paradigm. That said - Edsall had what appeared to me, as a microscale, and difficult, but effective method of finding quality players, and we got some pretty good players of the time Edsall was here.

If you want to go back further, Skip Holtz, was the first to really start reaching outside of the immediate CT and northeast region to recruit for UCONN football, and identify that we can reach a much wider scope of recruiting range and be successful and rather than a single player here or there occasionally from Florida, Georgia, places in between and around - he actually started actively recruiting out away from the borders.

Diaco came in, and from day 1, started putting a plan together to sell. Target populations. Message. Product. Goals. Substance......etc. etc. I'm very excited, because IMNSHO, Diaco is the first coach to come in, and truly put the power of what UCONN in 2014 is, into recruiting and develop a real plan of attack in recruiting. The thing about sales, is that a good salesmen can sell anything to anyone. A good salesman, and a good product, with a great plan of targeting and closing, is going to succeed big time.

The biggest recruiting weakness for Edsall IMO, while at Connecticut, was his almost total inability to recruit in state. Two, three, and the occasional 4 star, recruits and there HS coaches avoided HCRE like the plague. He did get some good ones in state eventually, but you can almost count them on one hand during his 11 years in Storrs. The ones he lost out on is even more glaring….Silas Redd, Mike Cox, Khiari Fortt, Kbongo, and many, many, many more. Wisconsin, Penn State, Michigan, Florida, and others IMO saw easy pickings in CT due to FHCRE's seeming ability to rub CT high school coaches the wrong way.

 

[uconndogs]

"Wisconsin, Penn State, Michigan, Florida, and others IMO saw easy pickings in CT"

I don't see that changing, especially with our present conference affiliation. Folks had better get their heads wrapped around realistic expectations and fantasy or the www.firecoachdiaco.com url will be secured on Aug. 29th. at about 10:30PM.

 

[huskyrob1]

"Wisconsin, Penn State, Michigan, Florida, and others IMO saw easy pickings in CT"

I don't see that changing, especially with our present conference affiliation. Folks had better get their heads wrapped around realistic expectations and fantasy or the www.firecoachdiaco.com url will be secured on Aug. 29th. at about 10:30PM.

Yeah, they will still try to steal CT's best players, but I think things are changing in the sense that Connecticut high school coaches will be much more receptive to Bob Diaco than they were to Randy Edsall. That big kid from New Canaan is seriously considering UCONN, which would of been unheard of during Edsall's years.