I think it's an overreaction... | Page 2 | The Boneyard

I think it's an overreaction...

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nelsonmuntz said:
Diaco coaches almost entirely on emotion. He gambles in strange places and with low probability of success. For example, the fake field goal attempt in the 4th worked, but it was a low probability play call. Rather than going for it, or kicking the fieldgoal, Diaco elected to go for it with the long snapper throwing his first college pass I believe. It didn't fool anyone, Navy simply blew the coverage.
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Navy blew the coverage BECAUSE they were fooled by the fake. We had 2 guys wide open on that play. I'd say it worked pretty well.
 
Thing is, we burned our last 2 TOs on Navy's side of the field during plays where the clock had just stopped AND the Navy D was on their heels and reeling. If the offense is in rhythm, you don't stop action and let their defense get a breather. The first TO you can live with, the last TO call at the 1 was inexcusable. If anything it gave time for the previous catch to be reviewed - why not hurry it in and force Navy to burn their TO? And what happened after the run got stuffed was total incompetence. How do so many players have no clue what to do when they're lying in the pile and the clock is ticking down? That was infuriating. Unacceptable to do that at any college football level. Navy could have gotten flagged for delay of game if UConn did what they were supposed to do - get up quick and to the line for the next play. But too many of them looked clueless.

Look, I'm not calling for Wacky Bob's head like many folks are - it's not going to happen this year anyway and he's built enough good vibes around the program that he'll get the benefit of the doubt, and his players will have his back. But that loss was on him yesterday - he took the ball out of his players' hands and made a couple critical bonehead decisions (running on 3rd & 7 from inside our own 10.) You can't play scared, and you can't put that on your players. He's gotta own it, and actually attempt to learn from it, or this will only continue to cost us football games.
 
How much credit should/shouldn't Diaco receive for what I consider the best executed 2 minute drill in UConn football history (minus that last half yard). I'd think he deserves some, no?

I think we have out best QB since Dan-O (at least since Cody when he wasn't high). Granted, Shireffs is now 22, basically a senior, but he's showing he can hit most of the throws and would likely do very well in a West Coast offense.

There have been other instances of poor late game clock management, but none as bad as this. There have been other instances of late game far-too-conservative play calling, but none as bad as this. So what, if anything, does Diaco learn from this - if he's capable of learning?

Does he employ someone who only deals with the clock at end of halves - or make that a priority for an existing assistant?

Does he recognize Shireffs' capabilities in an uptempo offense and loosen the throttle?

If he learns nothing, then maybe this is his last season. But it would be silly to suggest firing him this week.

I was at PSU-Pitt yesterday. It wasn't quite as obvious, but in 2nd half, PSU, which was down 14, started to play more uptempo. It wasn't quite no-huddle, but it was damn close. And at that point they started dicing and slicing Pitt's D. PSU only lost due to a receiver dropping a pass when he was wide open, followed by the QB not hitting either of two wide open receivers in the end zone but hitting the defender between them. Narduzzi made many of the same mistakes for Pitt.

Conditioning is conditioning. I'd like to see what UConn can do in a Jim Kelly hurry up offense as it seems UConn may have the players for it.

So if we're going to fire the coach, let's go get a nutcase that could execute something like that. A Todd Graham type w/o being as big a douchenozzle as Todd Graham.
 
the abridged version of my earlier post: the consensus description in the chat room of our performance for the first 25 minutes of this game was "no show". two weeks in a row, we wait until we're down to turn the dogs lose. it'd be nice to see us come out aggressive from the start.
 
In struggling with his decisions on the second to last drive. The mindset should have been to get a few first downs use a ton of clock and make it really tough on a team that moves the ball 3 yards at a time to come down the field. He seemed to want to give them the ball back ASAP and in the best possible field position. I think he legitimately forgot some teams actually do return punts.
 
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whaler11 said:
I don't see calling for Diaco's head.

He coached them into a loss today. There really isn't anything to debate on that topic.

It's one game though - and to his credit when they looked dead and buried they put themselves in a position to win. A lot of teams quit down 21-0 on the road. They came up with a blocked FG and built from there.

They need to learn how to use timeouts and manage a clock. They need to understand they need to compete on punt returns.

His flaws can be corrected. Maybe most people weren't paying attention the last time UConn hired a first time head coach - it turned out ok... and 27 games into his tenure they were way further behind the curve than this.

Hell it took Edsall until 2010 and a 3-4 start before he finally started to make good decisions like he did against Pitt and WVU.

If you remember the era when Brian Sanchez was returning punts - this isn't our first brush with complete incompetence on punt returns.

I don't buy into the idea that the team is going to roll over after this. They are sitting on two winnable games against ACC teams at home.

Firing Diaco would be like cutting off your leg because you sprained your ankle. I'd say check back in two weeks. 3-1 will take a lot of the sting out of this one.
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I'm with you. That's why I said borderline.

But he's got to start getting it together.
 
The situation dictates that we can't afford to wait like we did for Edsall. And it's not just the clock management. Diaco made at least four decisions that. Absent those decisions, we likely win. Combine that with an overall failure to improve, and I've seen enough.
 
Excalibur said:
an overall failure to improve, and I've seen enough.
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I'm frustrated by the loss, too. But an "overall failure to improve?" When he got here, we had nothing. This was a total rebuild job in a downgraded conference and he went to a bowl in Year 2 and is widely expected to get back to one this year. How does +4 wins from Year 1 to Year 2 constitute a failure to improve?

I'm not the biggest Diaco cheerleader. He's got plenty to work on. But let's try to be a little more objective here.
 
The bigger problem with CFB is that when you fire a coach you set your program back at least 2 years due to recruiting alone. We aren't a school, kids are lining up to play for no matter who the coach is. Due to this, letting go of Dico would harm this program even more then having him lose a game for us here and there.

I know a lot of reactions were instant feelings due to how terrible that call and end was. However, we need to see if Diaco learns from this and builds. Like someone else said, if he shows no improvement then maybe reassess but hopefully he saw that this team is capable of a lot more then they were allowed to do in the first game and first half. Only time will tell and I just hope this was a growing pain and not the start of a disturbing trend.
 
walker11 said:
The fact that so many intelligent posters are calling for Bob's head is mind blowing. It just lacks perspective in a huge way.
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Its all raw emotion. Diaco seems to be really good at building a program and players. He almost hyper ventilates in crucial end of clock situations.

At heart of it all however, remains fact that he still cant get plays in without burning tomeouts. More than anything that is what caused them the game. Its frigging Chinese fire drill in end of clock situations.
 
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Oh and another thing: The same people who predicted an 8 win season are the same people calling for Diaco to be fired because he's an "idiot", a "genius", he's "stupid", etc. But you all think this unqualified coach will win 8 games and battle for a conference championship. Lol, Boneyard.
 
Shierffs fumbled and it was a TD. He had an awful under thrown ball that would have been a TD if he hit the receiver in stride which would have meant they only needed a FG to win since that drive resulted in a FG. 90% of his throws are dumps or screens, but so are Tom Brady's so no criticism there.

He's certainly better than guys like Whitner and Tyler Lorenzen.
 
We ate really bad at offensive clock management and play calling at ends of games.
He really needs an assistant coach just focused on this area of the game on the sideline or in his earpiece. He appears to be too emotional and he doesn't function with a level head in these situations.
 
I am much better today than yesterday. Diaco has done a lot of good things, but he continues to try to mold this team into a type of team he wants, regardless of the talent he has. He wants this team to be clock eating, run the ball team, but quite frankly the talent on this team is much better suited as a spread/open it up kind of team.

In both the Maine and Navy game, the UConn offense struggled trying to move the ball on the ground. It wasn't until the team's backs were against the wall, when they were forced to open it up. After opening it up, the team moved the ball unimpeded. Yesterday, with the lead and around 7 minutes on the clock, Diaco or Verducci decides to run the ball three times, couldn't move the ball and punted. 17 seconds left, burned time out, why not pass, pass, run? or pass, pass, pass? I don't understand the mindset.

On the other hand, the fake field goal play was brilliant. Adjustments to the defense at halftime were great. Sheriffs, Thomas, Walsh, Meyers, Fatukasi, Carrezola were warriors yesterday. The defensive front totally took away the fullback yesterday. Ayala starting to emerge.

I have more confidence in this season after yesterday's loss, than the opening win.
 
I tweeted #FireDiaco in the moment, but of course it was out of frustration with losing in the last minute with the ball yards away from a GWTD. I do not think firing the staff in game 2 of year 3 is a good idea, and I suspect 90% of the people who posted that are also expressing their frustration with Diaco in that particular moment.
 
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Excalibur said:
The situation dictates that we can't afford to wait like we did for Edsall.
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So what would you like to do, call up Nick Saban and get him here by the UVA game?
 
I can't buy into the "this is only 1 game" narrative. In most jobs your track record is how people around you formulate expectations until you show clear evidence of progress or decline. We've been stuck in this pattern going on year 3 and all the positive attributes of this coach and the hard work of this team are being overshadowed on most weeks by timid play-calling and game mismanagement.

On the other hand of course most of this is fixable. I sincerely hope our AD is having a productive talk with our coach today or tomorrow that results in a recognition that basic changes to his approach are required. Until then it seems logical to defer to what we've seen on the field and our Coach's post game reactions of admitted confusion and lack of confidence in his team. That needs to change yesterday.
 
uconnric said:
Les Miles has had issues with clock management at LSU and Addazio made the same mistake in a game last year. Yes it's frustrating but he has the program on the right track overall.
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Miles is on the hot seat for his game management, offensive playcalling and inability to develop a QB and that guy has way better talent then we do. And the problem hasn't gone away.
 
junglehusky said:
I suspect 90% of the people who posted that are also expressing their frustration with Diaco in that particular moment.
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That's why it's nice the Boneyard gives a timestamp for posts. There are still people doing it this morning who have, presumably, slept on it.
 
Reflection mode today. I'm frustrated by the loss, because the team did so much to come back and win that game.

Two huge and one small mistake from HCBD, but the fake was great and overall play calling was pretty good. The run on 3rd and 7 was inexcusable, as was the use of the last TO. The run at the end? Not what I would have done, but let's remember that Pete Carroll took huge criticism for doing the opposite. He threw in that situation.

In the end, they were an underdog on the road and by the end of the game I thought they were clearly the better team. He has gotten them here, so deserves much credit for that.
 
walker11 said:
The fact that so many intelligent posters are calling for Bob's head is mind blowing. It just lacks perspective in a huge way.
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Just calling for him to start fixing things still broken in year 3. Don't think that is too demanding.
 
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People shouldn't even try the "Diaco had nothing when he got here" argument. Diaco inherited a team on a 3 game winning streak.
 
walker11 said:
You are the embodiment of the stereotypical reactionary basketball poster I mentioned above. And you are one of the best and most informed posters on our board. You aren't the only one calling for his head by any means but it lacks perspective.
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I've watched every football game I've been able to watch since we went D1. How am I a reactionary basketball fan? I find it absurd how some are trying to play if off like this is an isolated incident or the final play yesterday was the only problem with his coaching. He has had these same glaring weaknesses since he arrived in Storrs and instead of getting better, in year three it seems to be getting worse. . . . . . . . . . Unfortunately he isn't going to get fired right now but Benedict needs to sit down with him and delegate certain duties to the other coaches. Bob has proven unable to manage end of half situations for three seasons and he simply won't let his playmakers make plays. If nothing is addressed now this will continue to happen and he will give away more games. . . . . . . . .If you could listen to his post game quotes and not come away disturbed I don't know what to tell you. He doesn't seem to think his play call at the end was wrong, chalks it up to you're damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. Also has no clue what down in the game it was. His failure to address what went wrong after the game is somehow even more disturbing than what actually took place on the field.
 
Jimdish255 said:
I can't buy into the "this is only 1 game" narrative. In most jobs your track record is how people around you formulate expectations until you show clear evidence of progress or decline. We've been stuck in this pattern going on year 3 and all the positive attributes of this coach and the hard work of this team are being overshadowed on most weeks by timid play-calling and game mismanagement.

On the other hand of course most of this is fixable. I sincerely hope our AD is having a productive talk with our coach today or tomorrow that results in a recognition that basic changes to his approach are required. Until then it seems logical to defer to what we've seen on the field and our Coach's post game reactions of admitted confusion and lack of confidence in his team. That needs to change yesterday.
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When someone new is hired into a position and has never had the responsibility for a position of that level, you base the hire on the expected successful learning curve. The issue, as I see it, is Bobby hasn't learned, in three years, some very critical aspects of his position. At $ 1.7 how long can an organization afford to ride that horse? There are so many MAJOR athletic variables riding on the success of this experiment that one cannot imagine a whole lot of additional rope.

I hate incompetence. In most other fields of endeavor, this would have been rectified by now one way or another.
 
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