Question of vision of UConn administration

[storrsbred1]

I offer an opinion that neither Warde nor Susan has articulated their vision of UConn athletics going forward, other than the usual BS of how they want to be competitive, etc..

If there is no change in the coaching staff before the end of the year, I think we have an answer as to what their vision is. UConn will have reached its' high water mark in football several years ago. It will take a decade for UConn to recover from another season like we have just experienced. That is assuming that the powers want to play with the big boys. I am not convinced they do at this point in either men's BB or football.

 

[CTBballfan243]

I agree with your sentiments. Susan and Warde need to step up and provide their plan and vision for UCONN's academic future and athletic future. They need to let the public know if their plan is to tone down the athletics and become a mid-major. If that is UCONN's ultimate vision, that's fine, but at least state it publicly. I would like to know, as a consumer, what that vision is so I can decide whether or not to invest anymore money or time in the program. There are plenty of other mid major college programs closer to where I live that I can watch if they choose to go the mid-major root.

 

[superjohn]

I'm sorry but it's absolutely not fine if they want to make us a mid-major, are you ducking kidding me? We have one of the best basketball programs in the country and did have an up and coming football program before Pasqualoni ruined it. Any fan that is fine with us becoming a mid-major is not a real fan. We built something great and now you are fine with becoming UMass?

 

[gopher2]

I offer an opinion that neither Warde nor Susan has articulated their vision of UConn athletics going forward, other than the usual BS of how they want to be competitive, etc..

If there is no change in the coaching staff before the end of the year, I think we have an answer as to what their vision is. UConn will have reached its' high water mark in football several years ago. It will take a decade for UConn to recover from another season like we have just experienced. That is assuming that the powers want to play with the big boys. I am not convinced they do at this point in either men's BB or football.

They have no vision. Herbst is about academics. WM is about nothing.

 

[ZooCougar]

I agree with your sentiments. Susan and Warde need to step up and provide their plan and vision for UCONN's academic future and athletic future. They need to let the public know if their plan is to tone down the athletics and become a mid-major. If that is UCONN's ultimate vision, that's fine, but at least state it publicly. I would like to know, as a consumer, what that vision is so I can decide whether or not to invest anymore money or time in the program. There are plenty of other mid major college programs closer to where I live that I can watch if they choose to go the mid-major root.

It's fine if they state that. Because if it were true, the school and the state would start the process of replacing the both of them.

I don't believe that is their intent.

The original poster is correct. Warde Manuel has not articulated his vision and intent. If he is doing what we think we want him to do, then it is "the long game" as Susan Herbst has stated.

There is only so much low hanging fruit to be harvested. At some point we have to stop being the farmer and start being the hunter.

If Warde Manuel is not firing P because he wants to set up the next Head Coach to have a greater position of stability then he cannot say that in public. However he can at least say some carefully chosen words indicating that the current staff is being closely monitored and that current results are not acceptable.

I think that Warde strategically feels that he is between a rock and a hard place. The hard place is Pasqualoni's performance, the rock is program instability and the prospects of not really seeing anyone out there that we can compete for. If this is the case, then he truly is paralyzed with inaction.

Good leaders don't accept unfavorable conditions. They do what they can to set new ones.

1. Find the resources to attract the coach and staff that we need. Change the pecking order in the level of desireability of this coaching opportunity. Or just plain look harder.

or.

2. Take more direct control of the program. Get GDL out. Force Pasqualoni to gravitate back to what has worked well for UConn. This gives us the stability, but it still isn't going to win more games.

At the end of next season, Warde will still be between the same rock and a hard place. He's better off blowing one to smithereens now. Otherwise he is just kicking that can down the road.

 

[freescooter]

I worte something about this last week after the ACC debacle.At the time I said they want to de-emphasize athletics but I don't think that's exactly true. I think it is more a case where for Susan Herbst and her team, it simply isn't important. Manuel is probably a pretty good AD, but he is extremely limited in what he can do since he doesn't have much influence with the administration. he was brought in to "manage" the department, keep embarrassments like the APR scandal from occurring in the future, not to grow it. Now occassionally something will come along like the Hockey East invitation, (and that was in the works for a while before he arrived and the Governor wanted it) or the basketball practice gym, and he'll act. But he is more manager than anything else.

I agree that Herbst and her team have not really put forth any definition of their vision for UConn athletics, but I think that is mainly because they don't have one. It is somewhere between the quality of food in the dining halls and the color paint on used in the classrooms in their list of priorities. In a perfect world, we land an ACC bid, have some good years, some bad year, nor academic issues, no disciplinary issues and she doesn't have to worry about anything on that side.

 

[Waquoit]

I worte something about this last week after the ACC debacle.At the time I said they want to de-emphasize athletics but I don't think that's exactly true. I think it is more a case where for Susan Herbst and her team, it simply isn't important.

I see no evidence of that at all. Examples, please.

 

[freescooter]

Fair question, waquoit. And I can't point to any one thing. Just a general feeling I get from her various comments and the way UConn handled the ACC debacle, twice, Herbst's response to the latest dis, the way Manuel has acted over all. And a sense I get that they are constantly getting blindsided by events. Examples in addition to the ACC situation include Calhoun's retirement, where I've heard that it was pretty common knowledge months before it happened, before the bike accident that he wasn't coming back, but rather than press for a decision they just kind of let it hang around festering.

 

[Adios]

The right coaching hire can turn this program around in 2 years. With PP for another year, we might have to wait three years. Unless PP miraculously becomes enlightened.

 

[storrsbred1]

I see no evidence of that at all. Examples, please.

While there is no direct evidence of de-emphasizing athletics there is also no evidence of maintaining our purported loftier goals.

All I would like to see is a declarative, definitive statement of what UConn athletics is aiming for. In another post I just read a response by WM to a boneyarder of a question on the direction of athletics. If he can respond to an individual (and I am not sure what exactly he said other than the normal BS) why can't he or Susan come out publicly and make an unambiguous statement?

UConn fans are going crazy right now and it would seem prudent to quite the fears of where our programs are heading before the fan base is destroyed along with the teams.

 

[Fishy]

UConn is definitely not de-emphasizing athletics - no way, no shape, no how. They're killing themselves to get the hoop facility built, we're going all-in in hockey and there are serious plans soccer, baseball, etc. I won't go into detail - you can find it all yourself pretty easily. (Although, I suspect that if you actually cared that much, you'd already know.)

I don't really know what people expect Herbst or Manuel to say - I think people want assurances that we'll be okay and I think they've tried, but really, they don't know what's going to happen. Our conference affiliation is a huge problem and it's one that we cannot directly control.

I don't need any assurances from either of them - I know that it's up in the air and that we're probably in the Big East for the next half-decade or more. What I would like is for the athletic department to have a more public face. It seems that we can't get away from some athletic directors - Jurich, Pernetti, Gross, etc., are always in the media, always talking up their programs.

We need that. If Manuel is a 'rock star', let him be a rock star. No one is going to talk up UConn athletics and we've done a great, great job in letting ESPN and Yahoo define us - that s*** has to stop.

 

[CTHUSKY74]

Herbst is running the University. She's trying to get all of the academic ducks in a row to show that we really are a top 20 public research univ. Hopefully those efforts result in us getting an invite from the AAU as well as the current international research organization we are a member of. Hopefully the initiatives at the health center and at Storrs involving research bring in additional research funding to put us higher up into the group of schools that are in the AAU already and those that are being considered. (I noticed that BU recently got added). As much as she wants to field top teams that can't be her priority. She is concerned with making UCONN and even stronger academic institution and one that can contribute to the State's economic recovery. Although she may be furiously working the back channels to get us in a better conference, athletics can't be her focus unless she is derelict in her responsibilities. Her vision has been to get all teams players up to par with academic progress, enhance compliance so we can clean up our image there (primarily men's basketball) since the other teams have done pretty well and work on facilities and fund raising to promote overall success in supporting athletics.

Manuel on the other hand is the key here. He's the one who should be developing the vision of what UCONN sports can be and how we intend to achieve that. I want the PP and GDL replaced and I won't be happy if only GDL is fired but it would show good faith if they had a plan and brought in a good offensive coordinator as a start. Although 5-7 is a terrible result this year (coaching failure), we certainly had a recruiting failure as well that led us to not restocking the Oline with enough depth and talent. If you can't use the players that are your back-ups because they don't measure up in performance/size/speed/strength to what is needed, then who is to blame for that? Manuel has to set the tone for what is expected. Recruiting, coaching and developing players is all a part but if the efforts are a failure in any important aspect he has to jump in and make sure that is addressed sooner rather than later. He has to be sure that the plan will work and that it will work quickly. So far the plan of this coaching staff hasn't worked. I don't believe age of the head coach is an issue but I do believe that their stubborn belief that what had worked well in the past will work with this team, is an issue. They don't adjust well like their successful counterparts on opposing teams. If Manuel accepts excuses for why things didn't work well this year, and expects that getting better players will solve all the issues, he will become part of the problem. We do need to continually improve our roster - that's not untrue. But what we need to do more is put an OC in place who can run the offense and work with competent OLine, QB, RB coaches. Another idea would be to replace the head coach with a great OC and hire an additional OC to work with or promote one of the current staff. I feel like P is deferring too much to GDL on offense because that's not his area of strength. Manuel's vision has to include efficient, effective coaching from the staff - NOT what we have been seeing the past two years! There are many other issues needing to be addressed having to do with scheduling, attendence, stadium capacity, booster support, etc. but it starts with the coaching leadership. If this staff is not doing the job how will that be addressed going forward? How long will the AD allow for corrective action and what will that look like? The WVU and UL examples show us what can happen to good programs when the wrong coaches are in place and also when the right coaches are in place. It's critical at this time that Manuel correctly assesses whether this staff can be successful in the short term and long term and what they need to do to accomplish this. If not, start the changes now.

 

[Waquoit]

We need that. If Manuel is a 'rock star', let him be a rock star. No one is going to talk up UConn athletics and we've done a great, great job in letting ESPN and Yahoo define us - that s*** has to stop.

Unfortunately, when it comes to publicity our rock star is more like Van Morrison.

 

[freescooter]

Fishy,

I don't disagree with lot of what you're saying. But the fact that no one is talking up UConn athletics, the fact that they got played by Louisville and the ACC, that they did nothing to try and counter any of this, that we're stuck in what is effectively C-USA version 2.0, all that suggests to me that they really aren't paying attention to what's happening and either don't have a clue as to what's happening or don't care that much. I can't ever remember hearing less from an AD than we've heard from Manuel on anything. Heck, even Hathaway made more public comments on things. But I agree, if he's a rock star,let his inner Elvis loose.

 

[ruskin]

We're kind of seeing at this very minute what separates us from the world we'd like to be a part of. By Monday noon after a bad football season a school that was serious about footbll would issue a statement saying the coach has been fired or the coach is returning. We've had neither. There's time for deliberation and time for decisive action. This is time for decisive action. The silence is becoming more deafening by the minute

 

[freescooter]

By the way, I still think Manuel is a goner. Not immediately, but pretty soon. He took a huge hit with the Ollie situation, though I don't think it was his fault, and he took another huge hit with the ACC debacle. And he'll take another huge hit if he doesn't give Ollie an extension regardless of the performance of this team. If he does and UConn falls on its face next year, he'll get blamed for that, too. And for not replacing Pasqualoni. If at least DeLeone isn't forced out, he'll take yet another. Deservedly or not, he comes across as a guy who is totally clueless, ineffective and out of touch. I personally think a lot of it is coming from the president but it doesn't matter. He'll take the fall. My guess is that he's already looking around and being strongly encouraged to do so. Sometimes you can be the wrong guy for a particular situation. I think that's what happened to Manuel.