Jacobs: Don’t blame the AAC for the sad reality of UConn football

[huskymedic]

Don’t blame the AAC for the sad reality of UConn football

>>Jeff Hathaway, Paul Pasqualoni, Warde Manuel, Bob Diaco, Dave Benedict, Edsall, they all share in the blame of turning UConn football from something into nothing. Knock yourself out apportioning the liability, but they are all baked in one pie and marked with an L. They didn’t hire the right guys. They didn’t recruit well enough. They didn’t game coach well enough. They didn’t figure it out. If they won more, UConn wouldn’t be looking at 25,000-30,000 empty seats at the Rent every week. That’s reality.<<

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[WrenchFan69]

Some guy with a bunch of drivel, but at least I learned Edsall has no buyout. Let's get this thing moving.

 

[SubbaBub]

Lost access to the major bowl games with the formation of (don't say move to) the AAC. Everything else flows from there. If UConn still had an auto-bid to the NY6 by winning a league of mostly northeastern programs, we could have survived PP (nothing could have saved us from Diaco).

Being an isolated program in a FL and TX based league of mostly lesser academic institutions that DGAF about admissions further hindered the program. If a kid can stay closer to home for the same FB league they in general will. We also lost our PA pipeline. Those kids came here because the BE was a BCS league and filled in the two-deep. Many became stars.

The league hindered finding better personnel and coaches. PP was a mistake that stunted momentum, Diaco killed the program and Edsall 2.0 doesn't have the same cache as the new upstart program.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Team effort fail from elected officals to past presidents, ADs and coaches. I recognize the aac as a good football conference but id rather go to Oxford than Memphis or Chapel Hill than ECU or West Point than Tulsa...
His pooh poohing of the 2020 scedule is thoughtless. The teams leveraged their P5 status and our need to fill out a somewhat attractive schedule for fan interest. There is seven home games that should provide fans with some much needed win experiences. If this is a stepping stone toward more attractive future scheduling then I'm fine with it. Rutgers. Rutgers had probably the least accomplished athletic department in the Big East. The Clampetts of college sports, only Jed's family is nicer.

 

[ZooCougar]

It’s not the AAC’s fault. I dislike the conference as much as anyone, but with more competent leadership we would have been and should have been more competitive.

The AAC didn’t force us to hire Pasqualoni who killed the momentum and then Bob Diaco who knocked it off the rails.

The AAC didn’t force us to bring back ultra conservative Edsall who doesn’t even act like he is playing to win sometimes.

The conference was a bad fit for UConn holistically, but yeah it’s not the conference’s fault that we started recruiting on an FCS level and totally suck now.

 

[SubbaBub]

The recruits that came here from FL and other hotbeds went to UCF, SMU, Memphis etc, once those programs were elevated to the same level conference wise.

The program that has questions to answer is USF. UConn's situation is not the same.

 

[ZooCougar]

The recruits that came here from FL and other hotbeds went to UCF, SMU, Memphis etc, once those programs were elevated to the same level conference wise.

The program that has questions to answer is USF. UConn's situation is not the same.

I guess we shouldn’t have hired Grampa and his sidekick and then follow it up with Wacky Bob and his band of loser schmucks.

UConn owns this. Blaming the conference sounds nice and all but it doesn’t get at the root cause.

 

[Purple Stein]

Team effort fail from elected officals to past presidents, ADs and coaches.

Exactly this. UConn admin screwed up our transition from the Big East to the AAC in just about every way possible. There's enough blame to go around that there's really no point figuring out who or what to blame anymore.

Except for one more conference tournament in Texas, the AAC days are behind us. We'll never forget ya, David Pindell, but we're better off looking ahead than behind, IMHO.

 

[ZooCougar]

Exactly this. UConn admin screwed up our transition from the Big East to the AAC in just about every way possible. There's enough blame to go around that there's really no point figuring out who or what to blame anymore.

Except for one more conference tournament in Texas, the AAC days are behind us. We'll never forget ya, David Pindell, but we're better off looking ahead than behind, IMHO.

We had a chance to big the big dogs in a smaller conference. We had bigger revenue, bigger resources and everything except a fertile football recruiting territory. This could have been addressed by hiring people that can actually recruit.

It wasn’t a golden opportunity but it was a legit chance to make Lemonade.

 

[UConnTrumbull]

Yes, all of the hires were (are) part of the problem. The conference is also part of the problem. It’s not rocket science.

 

[gampelcrazies]

It all stems from the conference. Sure UConn made mistakes but ultimately if we were in a p5 we would be able to survive those mistakes.

 

[ZooCougar]

It all stems from the conference. Sure UConn made mistakes but ultimately if we were in a p5 we would be able to survive those mistakes.

The fact that we fell so far showed that we weren’t P5 worthy. This school has made terrible hiring decisions.

 

[gampelcrazies]

The fact that we fell so far showed that we weren’t P5 worthy. This school has made terrible hiring decisions.

True. But who knows if fans and donors would have left if they had taken us. Losing in the AAC is different than losing in the ACC/B10.

 

[huskysupporter]

Team effort fail from elected officals to past presidents, ADs and coaches. I recognize the aac as a good football conference but id rather go to Oxford than Memphis or Chapel Hill than ECU or West Point than Tulsa...
His pooh poohing of the 2020 scedule is thoughtless. The teams leveraged their P5 status and our need to fill out a somewhat attractive schedule for fan interest. There is seven home games that should provide fans with some much needed win experiences. If this is a stepping stone toward more attractive future scheduling then I'm fine with it. Rutgers. Rutgers had probably the least accomplished athletic department in the Big East. The Clampetts of college sports, only Jed's family is nicer.

present ADs, coaches and presidents as well.

 

[ZooCougar]

True. But who knows if fans and donors would have left if they had taken us. Losing in the AAC is different than losing in the ACC/B10.

We should have knocked it out of the park in the AAC. Instead we did the opposite.

it can’t be pinned on one person or one decision. It was a series of terrible ones.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Team effort fail from elected officals to past presidents, ADs and coaches. I recognize the aac as a good football conference but id rather go to Oxford than Memphis or Chapel Hill than ECU or West Point than Tulsa...
His pooh poohing of the 2020 scedule is thoughtless. The teams leveraged their P5 status and our need to fill out a somewhat attractive schedule for fan interest. There is seven home games that should provide fans with some much needed win experiences. If this is a stepping stone toward more attractive future scheduling then I'm fine with it. Rutgers. Rutgers had probably the least accomplished athletic department in the Big East. The Clampetts of college sports, only Jed's family is nicer.

You lost me with elected officials.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

It all stems from the conference. Sure UConn made mistakes but ultimately if we were in a p5 we would be able to survive those mistakes.

Louisville took our spot. Louisville was willing to do things to get into the ACC that we were not, and they got the last spot. Herbst and Warde blew it, and everything else anyone did doesn't really matter. Louisville is an academic wasteland and one of the dirtiest programs in college athletics, and we should have never lost out to them.

 

[gampelcrazies]

Louisville took our spot. Louisville was willing to do things to get into the ACC that we were not, and they got the last spot. Herbst and Warde blew it, and everything else anyone did doesn't really matter. Louisville is an academic wasteland and one of the dirtiest programs in college athletics, and we should have never lost out to them.

People say this all the time. What exactly did they do that we didn't? Maybe UConn (like others on here have said before) is not a p5 caliber program.

 

[buddy]

Louisville took our spot. Louisville was willing to do things to get into the ACC that we were not, and they got the last spot. Herbst and Warde blew it, and everything else anyone did doesn't really matter. Louisville is an academic wasteland and one of the dirtiest programs in college athletics, and we should have never lost out to them.

I agree with you 100%.

 

[buddy]

People say this all the time. What exactly did they do that we didn't? Maybe UConn (like others on here have said before) is not a p5 caliber program.

They had an aggressive AD who lobbied the ACC south vigorously while ours was buffeting in the Bahamas. BC was against us from the beginning and ESPN was also no help.

 

[ZooCougar]

People say this all the time. What exactly did they do that we didn't? Maybe UConn (like others on here have said before) is not a p5 caliber program.

We were until Hathaway decided to rest on his laurels and appoint a caretaker like Pasqualoni.

Maybe even before that actually. We were losing successful assistants to bigger programs. Edsall was frustrated because he needed money to keep people around and he was begging Burton for money.

In college football it’s a never ending battle of talent acquisition, development and growth.

The minute you stop is the everyone else that is on the right path will fly right by you.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

It’s not the AAC’s fault. I dislike the conference as much as anyone, but with more competent leadership we would have been and should have been more competitive.

The AAC didn’t force us to hire Pasqualoni who killed the momentum and then Bob Diaco who knocked it off the rails.

The AAC didn’t force us to bring back ultra conservative Edsall who doesn’t even act like he is playing to win sometimes.

The conference was a bad fit for UConn holistically, but yeah it’s not the conference’s fault that we started recruiting on an FCS level and totally suck now.

This post is right on the money in every aspect. Biggest culpability: UConn could have solved a lot of their current headaches by fielding competitive - winning - teams. And for that they needed to be able to recruit better. Should have seen this coming when HCRE left and PP had to resort to starting a walk on at QB.

 

[noeynox]

People say this all the time. What exactly did they do that we didn't? Maybe UConn (like others on here have said before) is not a p5 caliber program.

Is this for real? They were providing prostitutes on recruiting visits? They rehired Petrino.

 

[kemba]

It is our own doing.

And part of the reason our fanbase has never come around to the american even though its turned into a decent conference, at least for football, is because we haven't been competitive during our entire time here. Can't build rivalries or history when you are so bad. We were never going to find a new Syracuse level rival here but we could have at least built some history with some of these other schools. USF for instance had been developing into a bit of a rivalry with all the memorable games we played against them in football in the big east. That seems like ancient history now. If we were one of the teams competing for conference championships we might appreciate the success ucf, houston, memphis, etc. had been having if we were used to playing big games against them. As it is, I legit don't even know who's in our division because I've never really had a reason to look at the AAC standings.

Conference was always going to be a step down for us but it didn't need to be a program killer like it has been.

 

[BlueDogs]

Doesn’t matter at this point. The question is do we continue to make choices by riding dead horses expecting something remarkable to happen. There is no risk whatsoever in hiring a new coach, because there is nothing left to lose. We keep thinking there is something special to protect, but there is nothing left to protect. We are kings of a sandcastle that long ago washed out from under our feet.