Incoming...

[Jimmy Serrano]

Rivals didn't have much competition back then, and the services weren't nearly as efficient at tracking offers then as they are now.

Not to mention the explosion of social media. Twitter was only created in 2006. The whole recruiting cottage industry is built on hoodwinking people who pay subscription rates. UConn never had a high subscription rate on Rivals (because most of us are smart) and because of this, Farrell didn’t put a whole lot of effort into evaluating these kids or putting together accurate offer lists.

Baffling why people follow this stuff as close as they do.

 

[Nextmanup]

Yes they are. But the highlights draw them to the games.
If you haven’t gone to any of the invited Rivals camps then you don’t have a chance to get stars. No stars means no major programs are sniffing around you.
Doesn’t mean the guy can’t play.
Most of it starts with the rivals camps.

Agree 100%.Hornet. all those stars are from Rivals and other camps.. if you don't attend a bunch of those camps your not highly recruited as far as getting stars.
RE knows that.. I know he could care less about the stars and how many each kid accumulates..He goes on meeting the kid, getting that gut feeling,looking at potential and basic fundamentals on the kid and if he can work with what he has to develop and watching the kids tape..That's how he picks his recruits..

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Maybe Moore did. But, he was listed as a 2* rated 5.0 on Rivals and 2* 0.7222 on 24/7. That is about as low as a high school recruit can be rated, so he was not a highly rated recruit. As we all know, the recruiting services can be wrong.

Yeah, someone mentioned it earlier. Us “offer list” guys put a lot more faith in coaches who make 6 or 7 figure salaries than we do some fat slob sitting behind a laptop watching hudl tape.

 

[Hornet22]

Agree 100%.Hornet. all those stars are from Rivals and other camps.. if you don't attend a bunch of those camps your not highly recruited as far as getting stars.
RE knows that.. I know he could care less about the stars and how many each kid accumulates..He goes on meeting the kid, getting that gut feeling,looking at potential and basic fundamentals on the kid and if he can work with what he has to develop and watching the kids tape..That's how he picks his recruits..

Agreed. So in essence all RE does is what the Rivals Camp directors do. They evaluate talent.
The Rivals guys are usually good at evaluating. That’s never in question. Sure they may miss on a few that they’ve seen or over hyped someone as well.
The same goes for RE. He evaluates and goes with his experience. He may miss on a few or bring in someone that may not pan out. But that’s normal.
Gotta trust the process.

 

[Hornet22]

Yeah, someone mentioned it earlier. Us “offer list” guys put a lot more faith in coaches who make 6 or 7 figure salaries than we do some fat slob sitting behind a laptop watching hudl tape.

And RE is a 7 figure guy who has tons of experience at this level and on Sundays.
I trust that. Seems like you don’t

 

[Exit 4]

So the recruiting agencies have bias - that's old news - but is it a coincidence that we have been finishing in the bottom 3 of the AAC recruiting wise every year thus far which matches our on field performance? No. The services on average have some validity.

Where the recruiting services tend to make the most egregious mistakes i) is overrating kids based on their junior year and failing to drop the kid down based on their senior year (they never drop a kids rating even when its pretty clear they over shot the first time (Bemiy) or ii) when they elevate a kid for the subscriber base (Rigiani) after ignoring the kid prior to said offer. Both of those tend to happen on the fringe, leaving the big picture somewhat accurate.

So will RE 2.0 blow up the star system by elevating us to a 7 or 8 win team while continuing to score at the bottom of the league by the recruiting services? Well- we are poised to find out between now and 2021.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

And RE is a 7 figure guy who has tons of experience at this level and on Sundays.
I trust that. Seems like you don’t

Ok.

 

[Pudge]

This is pretty simple. If they don’t start beating other legitimate programs for players 3-9 is going to be a permanent condition.

If you think you are going to put together some ragtag group of underdogs and win 7-8 games a year in this league it’s time to pull your head out of the sand.

What if I told you ... that HCRE staff is near the best formed for his targeted recruited. With some success, he will recruit better ... but only marginally on the Offer/Star qualification scales. We can get from 3-9 .... to 8-4 and maybe a few 9-3 years in this conference. WHEN we were moving and shaking in 2006-2010, we never got the Offers/Stars that Pitt got ... nor Rutgers or USF; but, we were more than competitive. And I think we are getting a far better quality QB these days.

Sunk? Or can we rebuild the Fanbase. Because, my simple calculation is that goes parallel to improving the recruiting to a better than 8th place in this conference per Offers/Stars.

 

[Hornet22]

So the recruiting agencies have bias - that's old news - but is it a coincidence that we have been finishing in the bottom 3 of the AAC recruiting wise every year thus far which matches our on field performance? No. The services on average have some validity.

Where the recruiting services tend to make the most egregious mistakes i) is overrating kids based on their junior year and failing to drop the kid down based on their senior year (they never drop a kids rating even when its pretty clear they over shot the first time (Bemiy) or ii) when they elevate a kid for the subscriber base (Riagini) after ignoring the kid prior to said offer. Both of those tend to happen on the fringe, leaving the big picture somewhat accurate.

So will RE 2.0 blow up the star system by elevating us to a 7 or 8 win team while continuing to score at the bottom of the league by the recruiting services? Well- we are poised to find out between now and 2021.

Agreed Exit. Valid points. But remember you’re attaching our rankings with how we finished in the AAC minus one factor. RE didn’t bring in these guys. Clearly Diaco was in the same boat as he was forced to search outside the box in order to fill a class. But I reckon to think he wasn’t as good as evaluating/developing talent.
Just look at the strength and agility metrics of the past couple years. And that hasn’t nothing to do with stars or talent. Freakin get in the weight room and lift. Eat more.
What were the coaches doing and how were they holding players accountable?

 

[Pudge]

Most of us concentrating on offers don't care much about stars and rankings.

You can talk about Edsall's first stint all you want, but many if not most of our best players had other offers, even if they weren't ranked by the recruiting services, and the availability of film to evaluate has only increased since then. It's pretty simple -- if multiple coaching staffs think a kid can play, it's more likely that the kid can actually play.

Today ... we are discovering on some Florida kids that they have far more Offers than the services reported. Then ... on Northeast kids who don't go to the combine and are not even called by the service's evaluators nor are their coaches in that network, how do you know who is talking to them. It is a inefficient market with modest public information. Can we know more because of Twitter and Film than 2004-2009? 100%. But, it is what it is. We are speculating. I wonder what we'd find in a 20 minute conversation with Aaron Smith or Jon Wholley; and YES, I find this stuff fascinating in spite of the mystery.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Agreed Exit. Valid points. But remember you’re attaching our rankings with how we finished in the AAC minus one factor. RE didn’t bring in these guys. Clearly Diaco was in the same boat as he was forced to search outside the box in order to fill a class. But I reckon to think he wasn’t as good as evaluating/developing talent.
Just look at the strength and agility metrics of the past couple years. And that hasn’t nothing to do with stars or talent. Freakin get in the weight room and lift. Eat more.
What were the coaches doing and how were they holding players accountable?

When you walked on the hoops team at CCSU did the recruiting guru’s snub of you fuel your fire to win CPOY?

 

[Hornet22]

When you walked on the hoops team at CCSU did the recruiting guru’s snub of you fuel your fire to win CPOY?

Yo I just ate a blueberry muffin that was off the chain!!!!
Wasn’t too sweet. Best ever.

 

[uconnphil2016]

Edsall is in a near impossible situation in that he's pitching a school who hasn't been competitive for nearly a decade and isn't in fertile recruiting ground like UCF, USF, SMU, and Houston. If he can be a good enough evaluator to make this group into a 7 win bunch, then we can build on it and get better recruits in the future.

 

[HuskyDogArt]

Just like his first stint? Seems to me that’s what RE did the first time.

So in other words what you’re saying is he’s not a good judge of talent? That’s what this all boils down to. It doesn’t matter who else offers a kid. There are lots of kids who have multiple offers that don’t pan out either. The NFL is full of guys that got drafted in the way late rounds that turned out ok.
This whole offer crap is annoying. I get it. Four and Five Star guys are shiny and nice. But those aren’t the only good players out there. Period.
Most coaches aren’t blue collar enough to trust their eye and bring in a kid and develop them.
Most programs don’t even allow the signing of a no star kid because they are driven by their 247 and ESPN recruiting rankings and that type of kid will lower that number. Boosters don’t wanna hear that.

So true about NFL players drafted in the late round... Does Tom Brady ring a bell? 6th round...

 

[whaler11]

The allocation of talent isn’t perfect therefore there is no difference in anyone’s class.

Plus Tom Brady got picked in the 6th round.

Sounds like it’s going to work.

 

[Hornet22]

Edsall is in a near impossible situation in that he's pitching a school who hasn't been competitive for nearly a decade and isn't in fertile recruiting ground like UCF, USF, SMU, and Houston. If he can be a good enough evaluator to make this group into a 7 win bunch, then we can build on it and get better recruits in the future.

Agreed.
But again, according to Whaler he’s bringing in a bunch of misfits and rag tags. That’s where all of his experience and productivity with evaluating college players has led him

 

[Ldandy]

UConn is in a very tough spot. They are recruiting players to come to a perceived lesser conference against opponents who are all situated in far better recruiting areas than themselves. Edsall is going to have to prove that he can win with these types of players before the higher rated ones will show interest. There are very few kids that hold multiple offers that are going to choose UConn as it is currently presented. That isn't a slam its reality.

Every school is going to sell playing time, pro potential, education, facilities etc. At the end of the day these kids were in elementary school the last time UConn fielded a nationally competitive program. In the meantime they have watched any number of MAC, MWC, and AAC Schools perform at high levels and go to bowls. At this point trusting Edsall knows what he's doing is the only thing you can do.

 

[Palatine]

So the recruiting agencies have bias - that's old news - but is it a coincidence that we have been finishing in the bottom 3 of the AAC recruiting wise every year thus far which matches our on field performance? No. The services on average have some validity.

Where the recruiting services tend to make the most egregious mistakes i) is overrating kids based on their junior year and failing to drop the kid down based on their senior year (they never drop a kids rating even when its pretty clear they over shot the first time (Bemiy) or ii) when they elevate a kid for the subscriber base (Rigiani) after ignoring the kid prior to said offer. Both of those tend to happen on the fringe, leaving the big picture somewhat accurate.

So will RE 2.0 blow up the star system by elevating us to a 7 or 8 win team while continuing to score at the bottom of the league by the recruiting services? Well- we are poised to find out between now and 2021.

It's the coaching. Pasqualoni took a team with 1o future NFL players and couldn't produce a winning record.

Darn few of these kids had P5 (or P6 at the time). Once you get past the four and five stars, it's a cr#pshoot. Heck, we wer all excited when we got a Florida four star WR. is career was very poor.

Kendall Reyes
Blidi Wilson
Yawin Smallwoood
Shamar Stephen
Sio Moore
Dwayne Gratz
Ryan Griffin
Trevardo Williams
Nick Williams
Kashif Moore

 

[uconnphil2016]

The allocation of talent isn’t perfect therefore there is no difference in anyone’s class.

Plus Tom Brady got picked in the 6th round.

Sounds like it’s going to work.

Depends on how you define working. I doubt Randy thinks this class is a 10 win class, but we dont have the cache to recruit a class like that to begin with. All we need is to build from where we are now. Can this class do that? I think we can. If RE is one thing, it's that he's a good talent evaluator. No one is good enough to totally transcend rating systems, but I do believe RE is good enough to build a team that looks better on the field than on Rivals. When RE1 built the team up, it was a slow and methodical process. Hopefully that's what we're seeing here

 

[Exit 4]

Darn few of these kids had P5 (or P6 at the time). Once you get past the four and five stars, it's a cr#pshoot. Heck, we wer all excited when we got a Florida four star WR. is career was very poor.

Because every highly rated kid we ever picked up was a misfire by the recruiting services....there was a reason that highly rated kid landed here and not elsewhere. The services over rate some of the kids based on their junior years and never correct it thereafter. When the kids with stars don't get P5 offers their senior years you know what just happened....overrated. The services are more right than wrong, but there are certain situations to look out for like the highly rated kid who suddenly has few suitors to match the rating....that was Difton and some others like Jerrell Miller.

 

[LRock34]

You guys have to remember RE's late bloomer philosophy. The big FBS programs grab their guys after the players Junior seasons. By the fall those programs are almost completely filled up. Randy has always focused on the guys that developed as Seniors and we have found quite a few guys over the years that didn't have any D1 offers but ended up playing on Sundays....some of those guys even started out as walk-ons. RE has pushed for an early signing period because many times we've found late bloomers with no offers and a top 25 program has swooped in at the last minute and stolen a guy who's only D1A offer was from UConn.

My problem with RE 1.0 was his offensive philosophy and his inability to recruit QBs. I never doubted his ability to find a diamond in the rough. Sure I would have liked to have seen more guys with 3 and 4 stars but frankly all of the guys we got who were ranked that high never worked out. I think he's solved the QB and offensive philosophy issues so lets see how these guys work out instead of getting hung up on who offered.

 

[Hornet22]

You guys have to remember RE's late bloomer philosophy. The big FBS programs grab their guys after the players Junior seasons. By the fall those programs are almost completely filled up. Randy has always focused on the guys that developed as Seniors and we have found quite a few guys over the years that didn't have any D1 offers but ended up playing on Sundays....some of those guys even started out as walk-ons. RE has pushed for an early signing period because many times we've found late bloomers with no offers and a top 25 program has swooped in at the last minute and stolen a guy who's only D1A offer was from UConn.

My problem with RE 1.0 was his offensive philosophy and his inability to recruit QBs. I never doubted his ability to find a diamond in the rough. Sure I would have liked to have seen more guys with 3 and 4 stars but frankly all of the guys we got who were ranked that high never worked out. I think he's solved the QB and offensive philosophy issues so lets see how these guys work out instead of getting hung up on who offered.

I love reading sensible posts devoid of a jaded tinge or cynicism.
I don’t believe this will magically turn around in a year because the great RE has returned. I believe it will slowly rebound and the look of the team will be different and resemble more like team’s past.
Patience.
These seem like good kids that will work hard and give everything they have on Saturdays. The wins will come as long as that remains a constant

 

[UConnJim]

Not to mention the explosion of social media. Twitter was only created in 2006. The whole recruiting cottage industry is built on hoodwinking people who pay subscription rates. UConn never had a high subscription rate on Rivals (because most of us are smart) and because of this, Farrell didn’t put a whole lot of effort into evaluating these kids or putting together accurate offer lists.

Baffling why people follow this stuff as close as they do.

I agree that Rivals didn't put much effort into UConn recruiting and kids weren't rated. But, if kids UConn recruited had BCS/P5 offers, why didn't the other school's BCS/P5 rivals site list the offer on the recruit's bio? It doesn't make sense.

 

[uconnbill]

HCRE threw a large net as do most coaching staffs do in the beginning looking to see who is interested and who isn't.

He missed out on some players, but then again he hit on some players who in some people's opinion shouldn't be coming to Storrs like Krajewski, Jones, and Ofori-Nyadu

 

[Stainmaster]

And RE is a 7 figure guy who has tons of experience at this level and on Sundays.
I trust that. Seems like you don’t

So was Diaco (minus Sundays).