Let UConn football be bad (Hearst Editorial)

[CONN78SEJ]

I think men's basketball fans are upset by UConn's lost decade of men's basketball and blame it on the move to the AAC which many perceive as a football move. In the past 10 years, UConn men's basketball has had 1 final AP top 25 ranking and has made 4 NCAA tournaments (although they may have made the tourney in 2020). With the exception of the national championship in 2014 in which they went 6-0, UConn is 1-3 in the last 10 years in the NCAAs. In other words, in the last 10 years, UConn has won an NCAA tournament game in only 2 years.

And, I'm sure that all of the money spent on upgrading football left a bad taste in people who wanted more money to continue to improve basketball.

IMHO, if UConn had upgraded football in the late 1980s before the Big East football conference was formed in 1991, UConn would be in the ACC right now. In other words, football would have protected basketball.

There would still be a Big East P5 football conference and Uconn would be a part of it if three of the Catholic basketball schools didn’t vote against allowing JoPa and Penn State into the Big East. The football schools making up the conference would’ve been Syracuse, BC, UConn, Pitt, Penn State, Miami, West Virginia, Rutgers, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Louisville and South Florida, Cincinnati, and Villanova which had been FBS would have remained so. So there are lots of what if’s. Not sure how ND’s contract with NBC would have been worked into the league, but I’m sure JoPa would have been involved. The Eastern Football league was JoPa’s dream and would have been a reality had it not been for the three non football schools that voted against them.

 

[Adios]

The Big Ten is still intent on expanding east. They'd probably have to go for UNC and UVA to get to 16, to offset the SEC's additions of Texas and Oklahoma. As of now, there's no other schools the Big Ten could add that would help it hold ground against the SEC. If the Big Ten goes to 18, then maybe we're in a prime situation. Otherwise, as others say, we can do very well in the ACC, even in football.

If UMass can get it's act together and make noise over the next 10-20 years, anything is possible.

 

[storrsroars]

There would still be a Big East P5 football conference and Uconn would be a part of it if three of the Catholic basketball schools didn’t vote against allowing JoPa and Penn State into the Big East. The football schools making up the conference would’ve been Syracuse, BC, UConn, Pitt, Penn State, Miami, West Virginia, Rutgers, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Louisville and South Florida, Cincinnati, and Villanova which had been FBS would have remained so. So there are lots of what if’s. Not sure how ND’s contract with NBC would have been worked into the league, but I’m sure JoPa would have been involved. The Eastern Football league was JoPa’s dream and would have been a reality had it not been for the three non football schools that voted against them.

CR would've still happened, PSU probably would've left for more $ with the B1G, and then others would've been picked off with the outcome probably looking pretty similar to today.

And if PSU didn't bolt, it's highly doubtful USF, Cincy, L'ville or Nova would've been brought into the fold. JoePA would've been offended.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

The Big Ten is still intent on expanding east. They'd probably have to go for UNC and UVA to get to 16, to offset the SEC's additions of Texas and Oklahoma. As of now, there's no other schools the Big Ten could add that would help it hold ground against the SEC. If the Big Ten goes to 18, then maybe we're in a prime situation. Otherwise, as others say, we can do very well in the ACC, even in football.

If UMass can get it's act together and make noise over the next 10-20 years, anything is possible.

Forget about UNC and UVA, not happening. It’s not about football, the Big Ten’s expansion is all about eyeballs.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

CR would've still happened, PSU probably would've left for more $ with the B1G, and then others would've been picked off with the outcome probably looking pretty similar to today.

And if PSU didn't bolt, it's highly doubtful USF, Cincy, L'ville or Nova would've been brought into the fold. JoePA would've been offended.

I don’t think the Big Ten would have big dollars in the this scenario. That eastern league would have been rolling in dough, more so than the Big Ten. PSU would’ve loved playing in the NY and Boston metro areas against Rutgers, UConn, BC, and two games in South Bend every year.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Problem is UConn is so far worse than being just "bad" right now.

 

[kemba]

PP struggled with disciplining kids. He treated them like professionals and was just interested in coaching football, none of the other stuff. He loved being in the NFL BTW. He never talked about his Syracuse years privately, only his NFL years. Always found that odd.

The dude also won five games with McEntee ay quarterback. Randy wouldn't have started McEntee and UConn was probably 7-5 and 7-5 in the two years Paul went 5-7 and 5-7.

What happened that third year? Just fell apart. If they replayed that season, they beat Towson, Beat Michigan, probably beat Buffalo and are 3-1 with Whitmer at QB. The team just didn't play well early on and it just compounded itself. Could have easily been 4-0 and not 0-4.

The coaching staff was crushed and besides themselves, at end of the season since they knew they were better than their record.

I am not one who says PP killed the program. It was Diaco. He came in here and absolutely nuked the place. I mean absolutely NUKED IT. Tim Boyle also would have excelled with PP. PP loved his talent.

If Paul had a QB, and keept Moorehead as OC instead of bringing in George, I think they would have been terrific. The fact Whitmer wasn't good here was crazy too. He was a good QB who just never got consistent here.

I agree the beginning and end of this but not so much the middle.

That 3rd year I remember the Towson game very well unfortunately and it felt like they beat us down not pulled off a fluke upset. Michigan required some big breaks to be in that game. One of our 3 touchdowns came off a punt that took a bad hop and hit a michigan player inside the 10 that we recovered, and another came on a somewhat self inflicted fumble that we returned for a touchdown. Play that game again and I think its more likely to be uncompetitive than us winning. And that team didn't show any significant improvement until they put Casey in. Maybe if we realized how good he was early that season might have been different, but that's a lot of hindsight. I don't see any evidence PP would have been able to develop Boyle. The offensive coaching was terrible and Boyle needed a lot of work.

Diaco certainly took us to new levels of bad that we still haven't come close to recovering from so in that sense he was worse, but PP took over a team with a lot of talent, coming off the Fiesta Bowl, still in the Big East. Much better situation. Diaco took over a team that needed a total rebuild, and clearly he was the wrong one to lead it

 

[storrsroars]

PP struggled with disciplining kids. He treated them like professionals and was just interested in coaching football, none of the other stuff. He loved being in the NFL BTW. He never talked about his Syracuse years privately, only his NFL years. Always found that odd.

The dude also won five games with McEntee ay quarterback. Randy wouldn't have started McEntee and UConn was probably 7-5 and 7-5 in the two years Paul went 5-7 and 5-7.

What happened that third year? Just fell apart. If they replayed that season, they beat Towson, Beat Michigan, probably beat Buffalo and are 3-1 with Whitmer at QB. The team just didn't play well early on and it just compounded itself. Could have easily been 4-0 and not 0-4.

The coaching staff was crushed and besides themselves, at end of the season since they knew they were better than their record.

I am not one who says PP killed the program. It was Diaco. He came in here and absolutely nuked the place. I mean absolutely NUKED IT. Tim Boyle also would have excelled with PP. PP loved his talent.

If Paul had a QB, and keept Moorehead as OC instead of bringing in George, I think they would have been terrific. The fact Whitmer wasn't good here was crazy too. He was a good QB who just never got consistent here.

My memories of Whitmer are mostly him picking himself off the ground. Kid never had a chance here. He had -233 yards rushing for his career. That's a lot of sacks. Unfortunately, Boyle and McIntee were even worse.

Just for fun, I took a look at career QB ratings since Orlovsky to get a handle on just how bad our QBs have been. And it turns out Casey was the best of the lot, with Shirreffs right behind.

Cochran: 134.6
Shirreffs: 134.0
Orlovsky: 127.0
Krajewski: 126.2
Endres: 124.0
Whitmer: 119.4
Pindell: 116.6
Hernandez: 116.5
Lorenzen: 112.5
Zergiotis: 110.8
McIntee: 108.5
Frazier: 106.7
Bonislawski: 96.4
Boyle: 77.9

Not that QB rating is the be-all and end-all way to judge, but in looking at that list, it's kind of astounding that Boyle is the only one currently on an NFL roster, which at least on the surface suggests really poor coaching/development during his time here.

 

[BlueandOG]

PP struggled with disciplining kids. He treated them like professionals and was just interested in coaching football, none of the other stuff. He loved being in the NFL BTW. He never talked about his Syracuse years privately, only his NFL years. Always found that odd.

The dude also won five games with McEntee ay quarterback. Randy wouldn't have started McEntee and UConn was probably 7-5 and 7-5 in the two years Paul went 5-7 and 5-7.

What happened that third year? Just fell apart. If they replayed that season, they beat Towson, Beat Michigan, probably beat Buffalo and are 3-1 with Whitmer at QB. The team just didn't play well early on and it just compounded itself. Could have easily been 4-0 and not 0-4.

The coaching staff was crushed and besides themselves, at end of the season since they knew they were better than their record.

I am not one who says PP killed the program. It was Diaco. He came in here and absolutely nuked the place. I mean absolutely NUKED IT. Tim Boyle also would have excelled with PP. PP loved his talent.

If Paul had a QB, and keept Moorehead as OC instead of bringing in George, I think they would have been terrific. The fact Whitmer wasn't good here was crazy too. He was a good QB who just never got consistent here.

Disagree: PP was the wrong choice. He started the downward decent.

Agree: Diaco is an existential threat to any program he coaches. He is uniquely terrible. He’s like a Stephen king novel bad guy and we were living in Salem’s Lot.

 

[JohnFSilver]

My memories of Whitmer are mostly him picking himself off the ground. Kid never had a chance here. He had -233 yards rushing for his career. That's a lot of sacks. Unfortunately, Boyle and McIntee were even worse.

Just for fun, I took a look at career QB ratings since Orlovsky to get a handle on just how bad our QBs have been. And it turns out Casey was the best of the lot, with Shirreffs right behind.

Cochran: 134.6
Shirreffs: 134.0
Orlovsky: 127.0
Krajewski: 126.2
Endres: 124.0
Whitmer: 119.4
Pindell: 116.6
Hernandez: 116.5
Lorenzen: 112.5
Zergiotis: 110.8
McIntee: 108.5
Frazier: 106.7
Bonislawski: 96.4
Boyle: 77.9

Not that QB rating is the be-all and end-all way to judge, but in looking at that list, it's kind of astounding that Boyle is the only one currently on an NFL roster, which at least on the surface suggests really poor coaching/development during his time here.

One of those qbs is in the nfl. Lol.

 

[JohnFSilver]

I agree the beginning and end of this but not so much the middle.

That 3rd year I remember the Towson game very well unfortunately and it felt like they beat us down not pulled off a fluke upset. Michigan required some big breaks to be in that game. One of our 3 touchdowns came off a punt that took a bad hop and hit a michigan player inside the 10 that we recovered, and another came on a somewhat self inflicted fumble that we returned for a touchdown. Play that game again and I think its more likely to be uncompetitive than us winning. And that team didn't show any significant improvement until they put Casey in. Maybe if we realized how good he was early that season might have been different, but that's a lot of hindsight. I don't see any evidence PP would have been able to develop Boyle. The offensive coaching was terrible and Boyle needed a lot of work.

Diaco certainly took us to new levels of bad that we still haven't come close to recovering from so in that sense he was worse, but PP took over a team with a lot of talent, coming off the Fiesta Bowl, still in the Big East. Much better situation. Diaco took over a team that needed a total rebuild, and clearly he was the wrong one to lead it

That Towson game makes no sense. Just a bad performance by Paul and the team. That was a 6 win team, minimum, but didn’t fire.

 

[Adios]

Forget about UNC and UVA, not happening. It’s not about football, the Big Ten’s expansion is all about eyeballs.

They were the SEC's targets before UT and Oklahoma offered themselves. Say what you want.

 

[hayman522]

The Paul Pasqualoni hire started the spiral. An old, out of touch coach that hadn't been a head coach in years. I'll never understand that hire.

I totally agree with hire a coach with one foot in retirement and expect him to coach and recruit like he was 35 and then hire another coach with you guessed it one foot in retirement and expect him to have the energy of a 35 old. I have been around long enough to know that is not how human nature works. They should of hired a young offensive minded coach with panache the first time. The people making these decisions are morons. I could pick 5 random people from the boneyard and do a better job.

 

[hayman522]

The Paul Pasqualoni hire started the spiral. An old, out of touch coach that hadn't been a head coach in years. I'll never understand that hire.

Yes but at least their golfing buddies from the Connecticut High School Football Coaches Association were happy!

 

[hayman522]

Disagree: PP was the wrong choice. He started the downward decent.

Agree: Diaco is an existential threat to any program he coaches. He is uniquely terrible. He’s like a Stephen king novel bad guy and we were living in Salem’s Lot.

Yes but you have to admit he is a helluva used car salesman!

 

[Redding Husky]

The shut it down people are not rationale. You don't take wins or losses and decide to shut it down. You can make a monetary case to shutter football, but there is no monetary case for FCS.

So it becomes football vs. no football.

At UConn's size, school profile and success as an athletic department there is no peer in the united states that doesn't have football. It really is a non-starter.

UConn can decide to go cheap, cut costs, limit budgets, go cheap on coaches...all rationale moves. But the kill FB crowd doesn't seem to understand the landscape of college sports and just doesn't like football.

It is an odd mix in Connecticut. People like their basketball so much they feel threatened by the football program. I think that is not just fans, but also administrators at the university over the years.

The college football culture does not exist in CT as it does in other states like AL, SC, AR, OR, NE, IA, OK, etc.

It would take moderate success over 25-50 years to establish college football as important in CT.

 

[lgt2019]

There would still be a Big East P5 football conference and Uconn would be a part of it if three of the Catholic basketball schools didn’t vote against allowing JoPa and Penn State into the Big East. The football schools making up the conference would’ve been Syracuse, BC, UConn, Pitt, Penn State, Miami, West Virginia, Rutgers, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Louisville and South Florida, Cincinnati, and Villanova which had been FBS would have remained so. So there are lots of what if’s. Not sure how ND’s contract with NBC would have been worked into the league, but I’m sure JoPa would have been involved. The Eastern Football league was JoPa’s dream and would have been a reality had it not been for the three non football schools that voted against them.

I am not sure why even under those circumstances, Notre Dame would have given up its independence.

 

[gioff2323]

Hugh should stick to things he knows about and leave these issues to the University, alumni, fans and students,

Well considering the university has done a horrific job when it comes to football …..

 

[FfldCntyFan]

It would take moderate success over 25-50 years to establish college football as important in CT.

I don't believe that is true.

All you need to do is look back at when we opened the Rent. The four year lead up to that was three years where we weren't competitive with the lower tier of (then 1A) FBS followed by a .500 season where we showed we may be mildly competitive yet the crowds and atmosphere were miles beyond any reasonable expectation. If the next HC can give a five year run that resembles 2005-2009 nobody would be questioning if we could get sufficient fan support for a major football program.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

I am not sure why even under those circumstances, Notre Dame would have given up its independence.

I don’t think it would have mattered to them as long as they were still getting a big fat check from NBC. They could still schedule OOC games with USC, Bama, Clemson, Michigan or whoever. NBC money plus league money would be a no brainer. Might an NBC clause in the contract giving NBC veto power over joining a league, not sure.

 

[storrsroars]

I don't believe that is true.

All you need to do is look back at when we opened the Rent. The four year lead up to that was three years where we weren't competitive with the lower tier of (then 1A) FBS followed by a .500 season where we showed we may be mildly competitive yet the crowds and atmosphere were miles beyond any reasonable expectation. If the next HC can give a five year run that resembles 2005-2009 nobody would be questioning if we could get sufficient fan support for a major football program.

And that didn't change the opinions of ACC football schools that we were still a basketball school.