Mike Anthony On The Diaco Flameout

[ktuck911]

he lost me at red pants

me too.. kinda knew we might be in trouble then...

 

[ZooCougar]

Diaco lost everybody after the Navy game. I was still listening to college sports on Sirius back then and Rick Neuheisel said that he followed every program in the country, but stopped paying attention to anything UConn after that debacle. Someone on the inside of the industry confessing that just shows how damning that mistake was.

All of the warning signs were there. Diaco had all of this exuberance and energy but it never coalesced into results. My warning lights clicked on with him in year one when he couldn't stop talking about Vitamin D.

 

[IMind]

All of the warning signs were there. Diaco had all of this exuberance and energy but it never coalesced into results. My warning lights clicked on with him in year one when he couldn't stop talking about Vitamin D.

You're absolutely right. The line that always bothered me was that crap about BYU being our partner/helping us get better. "They were wonderful in our service." That still makes my skin crawl. Thanking someone for beating your ass. Talk about capitulation. Ugh. That certainly made me think something wasn't right, but I still bought in....

 

[uconndogs]

The all time worst may have been him defending his 4th & 18 attempt from the BC 20, down 7-0 with a freshman QB playing his 2nd game ever.

I was right their with some BC fans when that happened. We all just looked at each other and said WTF was that. My wife was there and doesn't really understand football and when she asked what happened I said, "you just watched someone commit career suicide".

I honestly don't think he had control of himself during the games.........which is a bit of a problem for a football coach.

 

[ZooCougar]

You're absolutely right. The line that always bothered me was that crap about BYU being our partner/helping us get better. "They were wonderful in our service." That still makes my skin crawl. Thanking someone for beating your ass. Talk about capitulation. Ugh. That certainly made me think something wasn't right, but I still bought in....

It's one thing to go way outside the box. But that only needs to happen when the box is holding you back. What we need was a better, more modern and effective box.

Diaco gave us a psychedelic slinky and a staff full of losers who really had never done anything.

I actually take back the Vitamin D comment. I knew we could be in trouble with Mike Cummings.

 

[Exit 4]

I was right their with some BC fans when that happened. We all just looked at each other and said WTF was that. My wife was there and doesn't really understand football and when she asked what happened I said, "you just watched someone commit career suicide".

I honestly don't think he had control of himself during the games....which is a bit of a problem for a football coach.

Between that 4th down play, inserting D Williams (in retrospect - maybe Bisack should have been given the ball) and replacing Verducci midseason with someone with even less coaching skills, it was obvious Diaco believed in hail marys and god didn't answer his request. And in December, blocking Jerry Kill was his way of pulling the plug on himself.

 

[IMind]

Between that 4th down play, inserting D Williams (in retrospect - maybe Bisack should have been given the ball) and replacing Verducci midseason with someone with even less coaching skills, it was obvious Diaco believed in hail marys and god didn't answer his request. And in December, blocking Jerry Kill was his way of pulling the plug on himself.

Thank god he did... I mean there's no way he was going to... Diaco wasn't about bringing in anyone who might show him up/disagree with him. If I was in Diaco's shoes I would have loved the Jerry Kill move. Here's a guy who's been successful, is well thought of, has won everywhere, his strengths are your weaknesses... and has absolutely no interest in head coaching and maybe even medically unable to really take on the job as HC. His ego clearly was more important than actually doing the best job he could as head coach.

 

[ZooCougar]

Thank god he did... I mean there's no way he was going to... Diaco wasn't about bringing in anyone who might show him up/disagree with him. If I was in Diaco's shoes I would have loved the Jerry Kill move. Here's a guy who's been successful, is well thought of, has won everywhere, his strengths are your weaknesses... and has absolutely no interest in head coaching and maybe even medically unable to really take on the job as HC. His ego clearly was more important than actually doing the best job he could as head coach.

It's crazy.

Here's a head coach, with his status on life support. Fanbase hates you and you have probably lost the locker room. Your boss goes out and finds an OC who can make your offense better because you had the worst offense in America and still somehow have a job, has no designs on your job and can mentor you behind the scenes.

Diaco is either stupid or he wanted to be fired.

 

[Exit 4]

Diaco is either stupid or he wanted to be fired.

<--its both!

 

[UConnJim]

Thank god he did... I mean there's no way he was going to... Diaco wasn't about bringing in anyone who might show him up/disagree with him. If I was in Diaco's shoes I would have loved the Jerry Kill move. Here's a guy who's been successful, is well thought of, has won everywhere, his strengths are your weaknesses... and has absolutely no interest in head coaching and maybe even medically unable to really take on the job as HC. His ego clearly was more important than actually doing the best job he could as head coach.

Thank God Diaco didn't hire Jerry Kill! No offense to Jerry Kill, but if Diaco had hired him, he would still be the head coach!

 

[freescooter]

I originally thought Diaco was a good choice. But he started to lose me with the key starter presser. Then he made some strange substitutions in the BYU game most notably at quarterback, them moved on to the thanks to our partners crap. But he totally lost me with the loss to Army followed by the SMU loss in year 1.

 

[UConnNick]

It's crazy.

Here's a head coach, with his status on life support. Fanbase hates you and you have probably lost the locker room. Your boss goes out and finds an OC who can make your offense better because you had the worst offense in America and still somehow have a job, has no designs on your job and can mentor you behind the scenes.

Diaco is either stupid or he wanted to be fired.

He didn't know anything about the fanbase because he was "spectacularly insulated" from the criticism. The guy was completely cuckoo.

 

[freescooter]

I have a sense that by the end of last year he knew this wasn't the right move for him and may actually have wanted to be fired. It didn't make sense for him to leave although I bet UConn would have waived any buyout. I don't think he ever got being a head coach but I also don't think he ever quite understood just how good AAC football actually was or how good UConn had been. He viewed it as a big step down from where he had been and barely above 1AA. Showed in his recruiting and in his game management and his staff.

 

[uconnell]

I have a sense that by the end of last year he knew this wasn't the right move for him and may actually have wanted to be fired. It didn't make sense for him to leave although I bet UConn would have waived any buyout. I don't think he ever got being a head coach but I also don't think he ever quite understood just how good AAC football actually was or how good UConn had been. He viewed it as a big step down from where he had been and barely above 1AA. Showed in his recruiting and in his game management and his staff.

I totally agree with your first sentence.

 

[metsfan2323]

or he wanted to be fired.

Everything he did from mid October on screamed he wanted to be fired.

 

[L Train]

Sorry to be lazy, I tuned out there last season, but I have a question, why did Williams start over Anderson? Even though, come to find out later, that Williams was actually hurt? Right?

Disco started losing me at Navy too, I just could not bring myself to watch pretty much the second half of the season.

 

[UConnNick]

Sorry to be lazy, I tuned out there last season, but I have a question, why did Williams start over Anderson? Even though, come to find out later, that Williams was actually hurt? Right?

Disco started losing me at Navy too, I just could not bring myself to watch pretty much the second half of the season.

I think that was the equivalent of a hail Mary on Diablo's part. He apparently thought Williams had more talent and a better chance to show something at the end. It never happened, but that might have been why he went with Williams. Another reason why might have been the seemingly concocted story about Williams supposedly lobbying to blow his redshirt. The narrative fit the circumstances.

 

[jdb50]

First August training camp, Diaco running around in the bucket hat and long sleeves like he was afraid of the sun. I thought that was odd and last year no bucket hat at all. Nebraska must have been really desperate or stupid to hire the cupcake trashing nutjob. I had forgotten about subbing out the QB leading a successful drive as he was too close to the goal line in game one vs BYU. So many strange decisions by that guy.

 

[Jimdish255]

Sorry to be lazy, I tuned out there last season, but I have a question, why did Williams start over Anderson? Even though, come to find out later, that Williams was actually hurt? Right?

Disco started losing me at Navy too, I just could not bring myself to watch pretty much the second half of the season.

I asked the same question at the time and like most reasonable questions reacting to head-scratching decisions we'll never know except to say he made lots of mental "errors". Then we saw Anderson look pretty decent in a post-season game...whatever.

 

[freescooter]

The Williams decision was just one of a long line of bizzare decisions especially related to quarterbacks going back to the key starter/key back up press conference. He had zero idea about running an offense. He basically subbed it out to his oc but didn't hire a competent one.

 

[ShakyTheMohel]

I asked the same question at the time and like most reasonable questions reacting to head-scratching decisions we'll never know except to say he made lots of mental "errors". Then we saw Anderson look pretty decent in a post-season game...whatever.

At the time, we all just figured that Williams was the real deal and he was ready. BD said things like DW was as good as anyone in the country at his position. So, we didn't question too much why it wasn't Anderson, we just assumed (hoped) that the coaches watch them in practice and they had determined that Williams was good enough to burn the red shirt.

I am sure this failure was on the list of reasons why Diaco is now able to baffle another fan base.

 

[Blaneylover]

I am not surprised to hear that he lost the locker room after Navy. That was abysmal play calling and clock management at the end. I will never understand what the thought process was with the QB shuffle late in the year. In retrospect, the Bob Diaco fiasco here is a good argument for those that preach always hiring someone with HC experience. On paper, Bob Diaco was everything you would want in a HC. He was young, enthusiastic, had great big program experience, and hungry. It turns out that he just wasn't ready to be a head coach. HCRE knows how to run a program. More specifically, he knows how to run THIS program. On to Friday!

 

[joey3$trike$]

Paranoid early last year, Diacoism!

 

[Waquoit]

How the hell did we win 6 games that year?

 

[CTMike]

How the hell did we win 6 games that year?

We were exceptionally fortunate in the turnover department and that masks a lot of what ails ya...