Our scheduling philosophy going forward as an independent

[ZooCougar]

The UConn football fanbase is notorious for advocating for things that led us to be being one of the worst football teams in Division 1 history.

Diaco? A young attractive up and comer! I like the hire! Randy Ed-Shell of himself 2.0? Awesome! Welcome back! Cancel the 2020 season due to Covid? Smart!

But no more damaging were the people who aggressively pushed to schedule as many home and home's with Power 4 opponents to make up for the "unattractive to the fan" AAC schools after we failed to get in the ACC. That would save the program they said. We needed to so fans who weren't interested in the AAC teams would come they said. UConn as one of the worst teams in the AAC and all of college football was playing the toughest non conference games of anyone in the conference. Games against schools that had more resources than us and talent. And the AAC teams were all better than us. All but ensuring bad years were humiliating and historically bad years. But hey at least Missouri and Purdue came to the Rent (while the fans STILL stayed away).

We just had the best year since 2003. It was by playing 3 ACC teams and all G5 teams. We lost to all the ACC teams BTW. So if we schedule 5-6 P4 games a year you are probably scheduling 4-5 losses. At least. Do not change what we did last year and hopefully this upcoming year. Schedule winnable games. Get as many wins as possible. Get to a bowl. And take advantage of a P4 team resting their best players. That's the best chance we have to get out of our predicament and building respectability. Not to mention building a fanbase.

Love every word of this.

When we play teams that are resourced lil us we look good. When we play UNC who looked like their game prep happened 15 minutes before kickoff we look good.

 

[pepband99]

The UConn football fanbase is notorious for advocating for things that led us to be being one of the worst football teams in Division 1 history.

You mean like yourself and Mr laughing emoji pining for the AAC? We've seen what chasing a basically useless title will get us - we torpedoed our entire AD, despite the momentum of winning a basketball title at the beginning of it. No shocker zoo is pro-UMass to the MAC - it's the same scenario with a worse team in a worse league.

It doesn't strike you simpletons that 3 of our P4 losses were on the road, and 2 of them very competitive, not to mention the bogus home loss to Wake? Scheduling H:H matchups is exactly what will turn this tide.

It's just a lazy argument to pin this on conferences. Boise, Tulane, and JMU would have smoked us last year - do we cut G5 conferences at the drop of a hat?

 

[pepband99]

Love every word of this.

When we play teams that are resourced lil us we look good. When we play UNC who looked like their game prep happened 15 minutes before kickoff we look good.

Again - lazy. How about Wake? Duke? Cuse? Just chalking these up as hopeless L's, compared to what we have been through, isn't telling the whole story.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Four against the P4 is fine. Doesn't have to be historically top 25 teams. Be competitive with the four and knock off one or two. Not getting any consideration for P4 invites by playing a schedule of just blocking sleds and tackling dummies.

 

[AllHusky]

Is there an opening line for our games with BC Duke and Syracuse? Looking at the schedule I only see winnable games. With a veteran QB and a purportedly solid or better Portal year, could be a springboard year. Keep this scheduling philosophy until we are consistently 10-2 with a decent bowl. Does 12-0 give us a sniff at playoffs?

 

[ZooCougar]

Again - lazy. How about Wake? Duke? Cuse? Just chalking these up as hopeless L's, compared to what we have been through, isn't telling the whole story.

We lost all of those games. Cuse obviously limited their playbook because they had a bigger game the following week. They could have beaten us by 3-4 TDs if they opened it up.

You just don't know ball.

 

[pepband99]

Is there an opening line for our games with BC Duke and Syracuse? Looking at the schedule I only see winnable games. With a veteran QB and a purportedly solid or better Portal year, could be a springboard year. Keep this scheduling philosophy until we are consistently 10-2 with a decent bowl. Does 12-0 give us a sniff at playoffs?

Based on SP+ , which is as good as anything, and throwing 3 in for home/away

BCU -8
Duke -8
Cuse -9

For the others
Delaware +4.5
Ball St +18
Buffalo -2.5
FIU +16
Rice +7
UAB +11
Air Force +1
FAU +6

 

[RitzLuce1]

You mean like yourself and Mr laughing emoji pining for the AAC? We've seen what chasing a basically useless title will get us - we torpedoed our entire AD, despite the momentum of winning a basketball title at the beginning of it. No shocker zoo is pro-UMass to the MAC - it's the same scenario with a worse team in a worse league.

It doesn't strike you simpletons that 3 of our P4 losses were on the road, and 2 of them very competitive, not to mention the bogus home loss to Wake? Scheduling H:H matchups is exactly what will turn this tide.

It's just a lazy argument to pin this on conferences. Boise, Tulane, and JMU would have smoked us last year - do we cut G5 conferences at the drop of a hat?

Not once did I ever say I pine for the AAC. The fact you have to start out with that shows how weak the argument being made is.

I just went back and read the OP and it's even a more insane proposal than I remembered. Not only does he want to up the P5 games to 5 with home and homes (ensuring 2-3 road P5 games a year) he only wants to round out the remaining schedule with games vs Pac 12 and AAC teams and eliminate any games vs Sun Belt, MAC, Conference USA, etc. Insanity. Yeah let's go Duke, at Cuse, at Maryland, BC, at UNC with Oregon State, at Boise State, at Memphis, Temple (easy win right?), Tulane, some road game at whatever Texas school is currently in the AAC. But hey he let's us keep the UMass game and FCS game. That is begging for the days of 3-9 records even if Mora continues to improve the quality of play..

While people focus on the competitive near misses vs Duke/Wake, they got amnesia in how fortunate we were to win vs Temple and UAB. We are making progress under Mora. This proposal would set us back. But seeing this is seemingly based on fans own vanity and entitlement (the no games vs Sun Belt, MAC, and CUSA give that away) and not the health and growth of the program that shouldn't surprise anyone.

 

[hardcorehusky]

We lost all of those games. Cuse obviously limited their playbook because they had a bigger game the following week. They could have beaten us by 3-4 TDs if they opened it up.

You just don't know ball.

Teams limit playbook early in the season, not 10 games in. By the time they played us, everyone had seen their playbook.

 

[BlueWolf25]

Based on SP+ , which is as good as anything, and throwing 3 in for home/away

BCU -8
Duke -8
Cuse -9

For the others
Delaware +4.5
Ball St +18
Buffalo -2.5
FIU +16
Rice +7
UAB +11
Air Force +1
FAU +6

It’ll be interesting to revisit this and see what the actual lines turn out to be. I would guess (hope) we’ll be favored by more against Delaware and Buffalo

 

[TheDrifter75]

Seems like this should be in the discussion somewhere. Didn't Duke intentionally not score at the end of the game. So that would have been an 11 or 12 point loss.

 

[pepband99]

Seems like this should be in the discussion somewhere. Didn't Duke intentionally not score at the end of the game. So that would have been an 11 or 12 point loss.

As 17.5 point dogs. Wouldn't have been a big deal if it happened, and it didn't anyway.

We were up 21-17 going into the 4th quarter. Were you guys watching the same game?

 

[AllHusky]

Based on SP+ , which is as good as anything, and throwing 3 in for home/away

BCU -8
Duke -8
Cuse -9

For the others
Delaware +4.5
Ball St +18
Buffalo -2.5
FIU +16
Rice +7
UAB +11
Air Force +1
FAU +6

So 7-4 according to the line. Until we can go 10-2 every year, our scheduling is just fine.

 

[giddyup]

Wanna be a big boy, you gotta play with the big boys. I like the progression. Beating UNC doesn’t happen unless we played through our schedule and we built the confidence to win. This year should be similar to the last. With 2 solid years under our belt, we need to be ratcheting up the quality slowly but surely by scheduling an increasing number of mid/lower tier P4s. It’s hard to do because scheduling is so far out but it needs to happen. Always be improving.

 

[kibblesnbits]

Last season was fun. Last season involved winning. Winning is fun. Being competitive is fun, as long as enough of those competitive games end with a W. The Huskies are walking a very fine line these days. Things are on the upswing. However, we also aren't far from 2023's 3-9. Having a schedule that's aligned with the state of the program to provide P4 measuring stick games while yielding 8-4 or better is a positive thing. I'm fine with 3 or 4 P4 games until that happens. Does UConn get to Fenway if that last play against Temple yields the far more likely offensive TD instead of a miracle runback? The margin is that small.

 

[ZooCougar]

Wanna be a big boy, you gotta play with the big boys. I like the progression. Beating UNC doesn’t happen unless we played through our schedule and we built the confidence to win. This year should be similar to the last. With 2 solid years under our belt, we need to be ratcheting up the quality slowly but surely by scheduling an increasing number of mid/lower tier P4s. It’s hard to do because scheduling is so far out but it needs to happen. Always be improving.

UNC showed up unprepared to play. It was like they held a meeting right before kickoff. Nice win though.

 

[giddyup]

UNC showed up unprepared to play. It was like they held a meeting right before kickoff. Nice win though.

A w is a w. It was a great day and I’ll take it all day long over the decade + of misery I sat through.

 

[Jetskies]

A w is a w. It was a great day and I’ll take it all day long over the decade + of misery I sat through.

2 things can be true. We played our faces off, and UNC-Chapel Hill looked more like UNC-Greensboro on that day. They did not care to be there. We did, and no apologies for being the only team that cared for the game.

 

[giddyup]

2 things can be true. We played our faces off, and UNC-Chapel Hill looked more like UNC-Greensboro on that day. They did not care to be there. We did, and no apologies for being the only team that cared for the game.

True. But, it speaks volumes about how entitled these P4s are. They can say “if we brought out A game then” but they suited up in their powder blue and got a-whipped however you slice it.

 

[ZooCougar]

True. But, it speaks volumes about how entitled these P4s are. They can say “if we brought out A game then” but they suited up in their powder blue and got a-whipped however you slice it.

Nah. They lost a longtime HC, had a bunch of guys transfer and then a new HC. Lots of people had bigger priorities than a bowl game. The program was in disarray. It’s not entitlement. It’s just the way it is.

 

[Jetskies]

True. But, it speaks volumes about how entitled these P4s are. They can say “if we brought out A game then” but they suited up in their powder blue and got a-whipped however you slice it.

absolutely.

Our missions are different (UConn vs. UNC). They ARE entitled, compared to UConn who's still looking for a lifeboat in the aftermath of our conference titanic sinking. They're not worried about their existential future, rather can they get into the fancy BIG/SEC league that inevidably is coming (which maybe they might argue is existential, but again - "entitled").

I say no apologies because I challenge anyone in our situation, to do what we are doing as a football program these last 3 years, and as an AD overall. Apples and P4 oranges.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

Would be nice to get a home and home with Virginia...

 

[Stray_Dog]

True. But, it speaks volumes about how entitled these P4s are. They can say “if we brought out A game then” but they suited up in their powder blue and got a-whipped however you slice it.

Well, granted it was in our backyard but Fenway was glad we were there and the fans that showed up... As for scheduling P-4 I say it bring it on - we wont be playing the top of the P-4, we'll likely play the bottom 2 - tiers so be it. Now if there is a conference that did us ill last year it was the ACC with the bad officiating we got, so yea, maybe we only schedule 1-2 ACC schools. And those schools we played - they were not the best or most excited to play us competetion but were like UNC was in that regard but they had the officials not so in the bowl game. Losing to two teams on the same field (our opponents were not just in school colors but in the black and white stripes). This is why that UNC felt so special. RE: zoo and his brown colored glasses. That season might be a spring board or it might not but that doesn't mean it was NOT a special season. No not like the Dream season of Tate George, Scott Burrell (he actually has an NBA championship ring being able to play and practice with Michael Jordon himself!), and others. And do you think those guys who played in that dream season pictured what would happen 10 years later or what those fans thought would happen in 10 years. But the Coach - he had a vision and yet he didn't know either. But it happened and not because we played cupcakes. Yes we were in the Big East but we were the team that didn't belong as we were notoriously bad back in the day. But we played and and had our Cinderella moment in MBB - now why not in football, why not dream and play who we are scheduled to play and simply ask for it to be a fair contest and see what happens! I'm not pinning for teams that would put our players into the ground with no shot of winning. You act like P-4 competition is OSU the top 50% of the BIG, 80% of the SEC, ot the top4 in the BIG 12.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

2 things can be true. We played our faces off, and UNC-Chapel Hill looked more like UNC-Greensboro on that day. They did not care to be there. We did, and no apologies for being the only team that cared for the game.

Thats true of 90% of all bowl games and nobody ever liked playing against the G5 qualifier or Big East rep..

 

[Drew]

I selfishly am patiently waiting for series to be announced against Charlotte, ECU, App, Coastal, etc. Cmon Dave - the Carolina Huskies are ready!!!