Maryland post game thread

[Greg]

This is nonsense. If you don't think coaching matters I don't know what to tell you.

Coaching matters but not enough for the UCONN program in its' present situation. They just do not have the athletes to win yet. A good conference will eventually help them. It is hard to get enough quality players on a roster for any team with no conference affiliation except Notre Dame. The smartest move would be for Connecticut and the ACC to bury whatever hatchet exists and move forward. It is stupid that UCONN and the ACC are not together. UCONN hoops has value and football would be helped by playing away games with other northeast teams. The Big 12 sounds promising but the ACC would be a much better fit. No matter what it will take a while for UCONN to build a good football team. It does take the right coaching but there are too many factors weighting against success for coaching to make UCONN a good program right now. Ask your self, you are a 4 or 5 star stud player Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Michigan and Connecticut are offering you great NIL money and a UCONN says you can play right away. Maybe BC, Rutgers and Syracuse can make the same pitch. The other schools are telling you that you will red shirt year one may sniff the field year two and compete for a spot year three. All of UCONN's competition are in big conferences. You are not a fan of any particular program, and everybody is offering more money than your family has ever seen. If I am that player I want to see which team gets me to the NFL the fastest. Where will I learn the most and be developed properly. Does UCONN have the head and position coaches to compete with those programs, the facilities and training staff? How much more money would need to be pumped into the program to maybe recruit a top level staff and build better facilities. I think UCONN fans just need to support the team as best they can and hope for better days.

 

[Rich]

But she makes $600,000+ and certainly half of that could go to NIL. I’m being facetious but my point is that money can be spent when it wants to be.

600k is not close to Big 12 money.

 

[Stinger92860]

In the Northeast, football recruits aren't as developed as in places like Texas and Georgia. For UConn, there are tons of football players within 300 miles of UConn. Unfortunately, UConn does not have the football tradition to get the top recruits and you can only change that by winning. Kind of like how Calhoun had to go outside of the footprint to recruit players to change the narrative about UConn basketball.

Smith, Burrell, Williams, Pikiell from CT. Nadav found us. Glynn from MD, Depriest from MI, Sellers from SC. Tate from NJ. I guess we need to define footprint. Getting Smith and Burrell was huge at the time.

CT produces some damn good basketball talent. We had really good players in state during the 70s and 80s. Jim got a few to stay home.

Remember the guys who committed or came back: Aleksinas, Dulin plus Mckay, Thompson, Abromatis, Kelley, and more

Ones that got away Bagley, Matthews, Gminski, Campbell, Garris, Williams, Williamson, Foster, Semo, Olynek, and many more

 

[ConnMan74]

If we have so many programs why are we near the bottom in top recruits produced? What do you think our problem is?

We should naturally be higher then given the sheer population alone

Location. Warm weather states/areas allow for year round training, the population is more interested in physical fitness in general and athletes tend to retire in these places where they not only raise their kids but coach/advise the next generation. Having said that, there is talent available everywhere if coaches are willing and able to develop it.

 

[Madmannsucks]

This isn't true.

"The Huskies raised and spent about $100,000 last season through NIL efforts. This season, the number is up ten-fold, to somewhere between $1-1.25 million. That is something Benedict was willing to discuss.

“We’re going to double it next year, at least,” he said. “We’re going to pour gas on it. We’re going to win in football. I’m tired of being disrespected as a brand, nationally, because of football. And I get it. But the difference as we sit here today is we have NIL and revenue sharing now. And before, when we were a BCS affiliate with the old Big East, we could recruit differently. When that went away, it really impacted this university in a way that is probably unique because of the location. There are very, very good recruits here. But there are a limited number. And they all go, if you look at the top 10 every year, there’s one thing in common — all of them are going to power [conferences]. Whether NIL and revenue sharing will help us keep some of those kids will be determined, but we can recruit in a totally different way. We have an unbelievable university. We have great facilities. We have great coaches. And we’re going to start providing people with great opportunities in other ways.”

As Big 12 expansion rumors boil, UConn pours NIL money into football: ‘Tired of being disrespected’

So this thread is about bashing the coaches. He says we have great coaches. At this point they are much closer to the worst team in the NCAA than the best. Maryland is not a very god team and blasted them off the field. The solution to me is simple. The team needs a conference. If they had 50 million in NIL they might be a respectable team, but likely not. In my life, the number of Independents going way back to the 60's who have had national success?...Fighting Irish, BYU, Penn State before they joined a conference, Syracuse before they joined a conference....a few others who did well....Pitt comes to mind. Football drives the bus and requires a conference. Otherwise they remain outside looking in.

 

[AllHusky]

January 2023 hoops lost 6 or 7 BE games yes? Hurley couldn’t coach. Turned out ok. Haven’t much to offer to discussion other than practice hard, be excited to compete and improve.

 

[UConnJim]

CT produces some damn good basketball talent. We had really good players in state during the 70s and 80s. Jim got a few to stay home.

Remember the guys who committed or came back: Aleksinas, Dulin plus Mckay, Thompson, Abromatis, Kelley, and more

Ones that got away Bagley, Matthews, Gminski, Campbell, Garris, Williams, Williamson, Foster, Semo, Olynek, and many more

I don't think you can compare Aleksinas, Dulin, McKay, Thompson,... with Bagley, Matthews, Gminski, Campbell, Garris, Michael Adams,... as the players that got away had more talent than the ones UConn got. The talent level that left was well above the talent level that played for UConn. Gminski 14 years in NBA, Bagley 12 years NBA, Adams 11 years NBA, Matthews 9 years NBA, Williamson 8 years NBA, Sly Williams 8 years, Charles Smith 10 years,

Calhoun's NIT champion had 2 recruited players from Connecticut, Murray Williams and Pikell, and that championship lead the way to better recruiting. UConn football needs to change the narrative.

 

[Tdaley]

I've never been a fan of the 3-3-5 (going back long before we attempted it with Crocker seven yers ago) but to some extent I understand why, with the direction this sport is taking having some variant of that defense is necessary.

The biggest problem with the 3-3 front is that if the opponent can sucessfully block each of the three defensive linemen one on one, you're cooked. That's what happened for the most part yesterday, hopefully we won't see anyone else who can do the same.

We did switch off quite a bit to 4-2 up front (which we were told would happen a lot this season0,) which makes it a bit easier for the front line to battle the offensive line, but this is at the cost of flexibility in attacking from the LB's and, if the offensive line can hanbdle the front four, you're left trying to matchup with a safety at linebacker.

I'm not ready to give up on the season nor am I ready to give up on Brock as a defensive coordinator but I was hoping that we would be a bit more cohesive at this point than we were. There was thing they showed on TV yesterday, that each of the past five recruiting classes for Maryland were all top 40, two being top twenty, so yes, there was quite a bit of talent on the other side.

Time will tell on the remainder of the season.

Its not just the alignment that you have to look at. Its the type players that you get to come to Uconn. Our history is that we lineup 4 decent run stopping linemen who can't get anywhere near the quarterback on the pass rush. Brock's defense allows him disguise his pass rushes better and place a hybrid defensiveend/linebacker on the field that gives us more speed and hopefully more of a pass rush. My guess is that we will see better pass rushes and more sacks this year than last year. The risk of course is that we don't stop the run as well as we have the last two seasons. The theory is the extra speed on the field will offset the the one less beefy player. Stopping the run has historically been a strength of Uconn over the years. The pass rush not so much. I am more open than others on this board to the idea that the 3-3-5 will work this time because we have better personnel than we had in 2017 and 2018. . Also, the critics of the 3-3-5 forget that Edsall change to 4 down linemen in his second year ( 2018) and we ended up having the worst defense in the history of Uconn. It was the personnel not the defense that we ran that year that lead to such a poor performance.
I do agree with you. Time will tell. I just hope that the fans give Brock's defense a fair shot.

 

[Buffett10]

January 2023 hoops lost 6 or 7 BE games yes? Hurley couldn’t coach. Turned out ok. Haven’t much to offer to discussion other than practice hard, be excited to compete and improve.

People wanted to run Danny out of town especially after the early tourney exits.

 

[Patman]

Location. Warm weather states/areas allow for year round training, the population is more interested in physical fitness in general and athletes tend to retire in these places where they not only raise their kids but coach/advise the next generation. Having said that, there is talent available everywhere if coaches are willing and able to develop it.

I think athletics culture makes a difference in terms of mindset. Builds a more general athletic base. If your talent gets discouraged at an early age (say like 9) they'll never become the 19 year old stud player.

It would also seem you can't build active players into monsters anymore.... a lot of hidden talent is due to poor development, I would think. No longer can you take a guy who didn't touch the weight room or the track field into a monster. No diamonds in the rough because high schools know the basics on polishing.

Hell, there's a kid who was playing broomball in my rec league this summer who is turning into a small monster but he'll be nothing other than in the band because everybody else in high school is a monster at 16 already

Edit: I ain't projecting the kid to be any level of college level athlete but I am jealous of somebody who came into weight training before developing my current anxiety problems. As a competitive guy I wish I had those talents

 

[superjohn]

I think athletics culture makes a difference in terms of mindset. Builds a more general athletic base. If your talent gets discouraged at an early age (say like 9) they'll never become the 19 year old stud player.

It would also seem you can't build active players into monsters anymore.... a lot of hidden talent is due to poor development, I would think. No longer can you take a guy who didn't touch the weight room or the track field into a monster. No diamonds in the rough because high schools know the basics on polishing.

Hell, there's a kid who was playing broomball in my rec league this summer who is turning into a small monster but he'll be nothing other than in the band because everybody else in high school is a monster at 16 already

Edit: I ain't projecting the kid to be any level of college level athlete but I am jealous of somebody who came into weight training before developing my current anxiety problems. As a competitive guy I wish I had those talents

It's never too late to get into weightlifting, it gets even more important as we get older. How is anxiety keeping you from lifting weights?

 

[DawgEnjoyer]

I wondered that too. Nagging injury?

Edwards is better and Rosa is mistake prone

 

[cttxus]

It's never too late to get into weightlifting, it gets even more important as we get older. How is anxiety keeping you from lifting weights?

Agree. Some level of regular resistance (weight) training as you get older (i.e. past age 30) is important, as I've discovered over the last few decades since then. Among other things, it's one of the best ways to burn calories, reduce stress, and even keep your T level and maybe your self-esteem from slowly slipping away like a thief in the night.