Carl,
Pretty sure about the Patriot League schollie limits. I think the level of opponents will dictate the level of recruits. As long as UConn plays Navy, Army, an AAC schedule and decent OOCs we will not be competing as much with recruits with the Patrioit league. Will there be some that would opt for Fordham or a Holy Cross or GTown, sure. Could see a kid(s) like a Casey C. go to places like that and be very successful. Im very happy that a lot of kids in the region will get full rides at some of the best schools in the country. I think that you may find that alot of the more succesful programs at the FCS/D1A level and below like Delaware, Appalacian State, Towson are stocked with many D1 or FBS transfers. Especially at the skill postions. I think Towson had 12-15 last year, that almost 25% of the schollie limit.
Fair enough. It's all just interesting stuff for discussion I think though. For many, many years the Patriot league followed the Ivy league model - so called - but actually did do it the way that Ivy's professed to hold standards to regarding athletics, football and scholarships. BUt the Ivy's for years and years have been doing exactly the same things with financial aid and admissions that people get on programs in the SEC etc. about. Admitting students lower in academic standing than normal students, athletes getting benefits as much as possible within rules academic support, etc. etc. THey don't have to adhere to NCAA rules regarding NLI's, scholarship awarding, all that - because they say they don't award official grant in aids, but they are giving essentially free rides to people that qualify economically - and have you seen what a Yale or Harvard tuition / room & board goes at these days?
Anyway - there was discussion around here about the Fordham football program, and it was Fordham that basically said - screw this - we're awarding scholarships and we'll do it our way, and see where it takes us - and the entire league followed.
In the long run I think it will be very healthy for UCONN, as more and more high school coaches and administrators realize that football, is a actually a very good thing to invest in for the health of the academic/athletic union, and more and more better athletes are produced out of high schools throughout the entire region.
I do think though, that we will have competition for athletes at the 2 star, NR rating level (if you put merit on those things) like we have never had before though since upgrading. We'll just have to disagree on that.
Either way - if we are a Big 10 or ACC program, none of this matters.
ANd most of all, our new head coach, needs to be a very good salesman of the UCONN program, and IMNSHO, the primary focus on the sales job needs to involve getting as many high quality athletes, and lower level coaches (and that includes D-3, D2, D1-AA coaches as well as high school coaches, to come through UCONN on campus visits, and football camps.
The one thing Pasqualoni did right, that Edsall tried to do from the beginnning once we had the facities going, but let slide in the latter 2000's, was run the football camps and get people to campus, recruits, coaches, entire programs and other administrators, but Edsall let it slide. We only had 2 seasons of it under Pasqualoni, and we brought some high profile high school programs and football players through, who's eyes were opened to what we actually have here. It needs to continue to grow with the next coach so that when high school players in coaches, and lower division, and division 1A college coaches, start seeing UCONN on the recruiting trail, they know what it we have, and are interested.
