Improvements to take the next step

[TouchdownHusky]

What I can't understand is why we cant find a QB? Hell there are better QBs playing 1AA. I mean since Dan O we haven't had a QB that could consistently hit the side of a barn from 20ft.

Been saying that for years. Got to find someone who can throw.

 

[cttxus]

So, I guess I was a little bored last night after all the holiday festivities had wound down, so I decided to pull some data together into a spreadsheet. Yup, I was really bored.

Anyway, I thought I'd see how the AP Top 25 ranked teams stacked up from a total defense and total offense standpoint using NCAA statistics from all CFB games played through 12/26/2015, to see if there were any correlations. BTW, there was little difference in the rankings between all the final polls.

My objective was to try and determine what it would take for our beloved Huskies to crack the Top 25. As of 12/26 UConn was ranked #35 in total defense and #123 in total offense out of 127 FBS teams.

Was this a scientifically sound study? No. And should our goal be to crack the AP Top 25? I'd argue it should be, along with winning the AAC east division and league championships. To support that claim, 3 other AAC teams were ranked in the AP Top 25 including Houston (14), Navy (21), and Temple (24), so those goals do compliment each other.

After all the analysis, here are my observations and conclusions:

1. Our ranking for total defense at #35 is better than 12 of the AP Top 25 teams. However, those 12 teams averaged 40 pts/game on offense, and none averaged under 31 pts/game. Conclusion: our defense is good enough to achieve the goals stated above.

2. The 13 teams ranked ahead of us in total defense also averaged 32 pts/game on offense. Of those 13 teams, only 3 teams averaged less than 30 pts/game (WI=27, FL=25, Northwestern=21), and those 3 teams had the #3, #6 and #11 ranked defenses, respectively. Conclusion: Even the top ranked teams on defense find a way to score roughly two touchdowns more/game than UConn. Again, we're good enough on defense already--we need to score a lot more points.

3. The 13 teams ranked ahead of us in total defense averaged 189 rushing yds and 222 passing yds/game on offense vs.our 125 yds rushing and 186 yds passing/game. They also averaged 10 yds/punt return vs our average of 0.4 yds, which was dead last in FBS.

In summary, all of the above analysis simply supports with facts what all of us have been saying here for a long time. We need a big improvement on offense to have any chance of taking this program to the next level. How we do that is for people with better football smarts than me to figure out. I just hope the coaching staff has significant improvements on offense as their #1 priority going into 2016.

 

[mauconnfan]

Been saying that for years. Got to find someone who can throw.

You have to love a QB who can keep drives going with his feet and Shireffs can do that. He's a tough tough kid and I give him a lot of kudos for that. But 17 pts a game ain't making it in today's college football offensive showdowns I'm afraid. You need a better line to run the ball with your backs and a kid who isn't afraid to hang in the pocket and has an arm to make plays - that's required in this day and age to make it to the big time. Sheriffs was the best they had, they need better though to be as goos as people around here would like.

 

[weyuo]

This years team was so young and only into year two of the Diaco regime/experience/experiment(call it what you will) that it's hard to judge whether the level of recruits that they are attracting can, by junior year compete on a top 25 level. I'm not talking about one or two making it to the next level(NFL), I'm talking about the bulk of the starters being able to compete with top 25 caliber opponents. I think the best recruiting Diaco did last winter was getting Balis. If they can improve the over all strength and speed of the team over the next 8 months that should go a ways towards fixing "most" of the problems on offense. I believe that if the defense could play from a position of having a decent lead for a change you'd see more blitzing and tighter coverage on receivers. This year it was bend but don't break by necessity because there was no room for error. Lets see just how improved this team is come next September. If the O-line is still the Achilles heel next season then something in the coaching staff has to change.

 

[Scoe]

Coaching-Clock management clock management , clock management. We need to seriously open up an offense it seems every team in FBS even FCS has one except us.

Players
Oline, Oline, Oline its pretty sad that a defensive player (Graham Stewart) is the one who is the reason we scored our only TD today.

WR,TE- Need to make plays, its gotten better but guys other then Noel Thomas have to step up.

RB-Improve the depth chart

QB play- Sherrifs needs to develop a qb clock, be a better decision maker and work on his accuracy, he's one tough qb though. Our Qb depth needs to be addressed asap, I'm sorry but Boyle shouldn't be any higher then 3rd string on our depth chart.

Defense- We need to wrap up on tackles, lets be honest the turf tackled Davis on that one conversion near the end. The D still kept us in the game and gave us a chance.



Special Teams- God awful and thats being nice, too many 10-30 yard punts.

Time to revisit this thread, we've taken steps alright we fell all the way down the stair case, and stuck in a dark dungeon.