rain dance

[Dann]

join me this week. u know where. full court press just because.

 

[B1GEast]

I'm confused

 

[Dann]

I'm confused

thing have gone quiet accept for a couple small notes on the recruiting front. time for us fans to get the news and keep uconn fresh in the media on our own.

-we haven't sent out a new offer in over 10 days. something tells me were going to wait on a couple kids and then send our a 2nd round of offers to a lot of kids
-we do have 5 commits right now, but this class is only going to be like 20 kids and u have to remember that we have our eye on alot of juco kids this fall. sylva, neally, booges come to mind among others. the staff has been very smart in its approach and it knows what could happen this fall. if whitmer turns into anything this fall then the rest of the team is so good that we could have a great year and make a run potentially. but we lose alot next winter in kids graduating. so in order to keep momentum they are going to use the juco route and 2 huge recruit classes to try to make up for it somewhat.

all the haters here on this board happy now with a flurry of commits? are u now sold on the dean stuff i have been talking about?

You da man bro, when it comes to the recruiting stuff. With the amount of work you put in, you should hit up John at UConn Report for a P/T gig. I'm not kidding, though You'll probably be asked to use capital letters from time to time

if i was getting paid or have some type of value to info writing, i would do a fine job and care about my writing. i just do it for fun here.

 

[pj]

thing have gone quiet accept for a couple small notes on the recruiting front. time for us fans to get the news and keep uconn fresh in the media on our own.

Oh, so the rain dance is for news. I thought it would be for recruits. I'll do a rain dance for a 4* commitment.

 

[CTMike]

I thought it was for the thunderstorm that dumped over Manchester around 5:30 tonight.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Maybe time for a new dance fellas?

I don't follow recruiting as closely as some others here so I'm looking for opinions. Is anyone else worried that we only have 5 commits right now? Camp season is over and not a peep.

 

[B1GEast]

Not too worried Jimmy, we are still in it for several recruits that will be announcing soon, let's see how that works out first. I am surprised that we didn't get more commiits after camps and 7 on 7's.

 

[rich1122]

No actually we are a little ahead I think. We have 16 slots and filled 5 - a little more than 30% of this class in the books. I said in other posts, with only 11 left (assuming no losses) then we have to be particular. We need a RB and another TE and the rest seem to be needed on the Def side, although I need to look at the new depth chart in August to see where the holes are exactly.

 

[noeynox]

all the haters here on this board happy now with a flurry of commits? are u now sold on the dean stuff i have been talking about?

You da man bro, when it comes to the recruiting stuff. With the amount of work you put in, you should hit up John at UConn Report for a P/T gig. I'm not kidding, though You'll probably be asked to use capital letters from time to time

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

all the haters here on this board happy now with a flurry of commits? are u now sold on the dean stuff i have been talking about?

Who are the haters on this board?

 

[huskypantz]

Dan is the man. Rain dance brings a flood of new huskies to Storrs - good stuff.

 

[HuskyFan16]

anyone ever watch that movie man of the house about the indian guides?

rain dance song.

 

[businesslawyer]

Who are the haters on this board?

Apparently, you are a "hater" if you don't think we're setting the world on fire with our recruiting. Either that or if you don't stalk teenagers on twitter.

 

[johnhuskies95]

Who are the haters on this board?

Have you seen rumrunners posts?

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Have you seen rumrunners posts?

No. What did he say? The worst I've seen on this board is some people stating they have not noticed an uptick in recruiting. That to me doesn't make someone a hater.

 

[Dann]

Apparently, you are a "hater" if you don't think we're setting the world on fire with our recruiting. Either that or if you don't stalk teenagers on twitter.

i dont think were setting the world on fire. but thats not going to stop me form following the trail and updating stuff. when we land a psu type class, then were FIRE.

Who are the haters on this board?

to many people just whining about how its been a while. couple weeks without much news and all of a sudden we have 5 commits vs the rest of the teams around us with 10 and rutroh were gonna drop to d2 fball. this staff is washed up and they can't recruit blah blah. once again were on pace for a improvement in actual recruiting class as a whole. we have 3 new england kids who all HAD other bcs offers. we have a qb from texas, and we got a piece of eca and so on... let the staff do its think and lets see what happens. years ago we could have 3 2 weeks spans during a summer without news, now this is the first time i have seen a span like this, its a lot more fun to be a fan media wise. we clearly had a strategy and it seemed to somewhat work i guess based on the last couple days. we have a couple rb's on the ropes right now and clayton is doing work in texas. more is coming soon.

is the class FIRE? no. but its another improving year. i'll take this as each year another step forward until i see otherwise. now its time to get it done on the field.

O.K., I will bite. Who is trying to stop you from following the trail and updating? I think everyone is very appreciative of your efforts. But what does being appreciative of your efforts have to do with how well UConn (not HuskyfanDan but UConn) is doing on the recruiting trail?

no one will stop me, but all the negative stuff that came out the past week will stop others and new faces. i was simply getting tired of the post about how few commits and what the heck no news type stuff. there were several here in threads, some 1 actually wrote dez so that embarrassing q and a was all over the internet for the world to read, i got multiple pms about how "were struggling, so whats up" in several places and so on. im trying to build a following, not of me but of uconn recruiting. for every new fan, i see a fan that says something like stop stalking kids on twitter and facebook and instagram or w/e. well guess what, its not 1980 and the kids enjoy it. they love talking to fans and getting exposure. nobody is on there laptop with there pants down clicking thru some kids pictures beating it on this site. its a bunch of uconn fans showing there presence to the kid and showing him and his family that this school, this fanbase has a pulse and cares about its fball and bball. as we get older, more experienced and improve as a program every year, we will start to land bigger and better recruits. when that starts to happen somewhat consistently i expect more fans to follow the trail more. with young alum being a big part of this fan base the next 5 years, i expect some things to really catch on soon.

I still fail to see what all this talk is about lack of commits. We have verbals for over 50% of the class - 9 or 10 out of 16 open slots. The perception is that we have to have 16 of 16 before camp?

It seems that we are doing admirably with kids/juniors who have other offers or at least have high interest levels from other schools. Except for the kid from Denmark who is under the radar?? Great additions to the program!!

I guess the glass is always half empty for some.

add in a couple more juco's and its really silly how ppl think were behind this year. neally and sylva and booges are just quietly on are list. just gotta hope each 1 gets his stuff taken care of. if we can get 2 of the 3 in year 1 and the other for 2014 class i would consider that a good day.

i feel more rain coming. dance!

Is that a hunch? Or is it based on info you have?

i watch dr mel

just did some work on twitter. join in again and lets have another good day soon...

 

[businesslawyer]

i dont think were setting the world on fire. but thats not going to stop me form following the trail and updating stuff. when we land a psu type class, then were FIRE.

O.K., I will bite. Who is trying to stop you from following the trail and updating? I think everyone is very appreciative of your efforts. But what does being appreciative of your efforts have to do with how well UConn (not HuskyfanDan but UConn) is doing on the recruiting trail?

 

[pj]

I can understand the concern about lack of commits, as I was feeling some of it myself. We had like 13 commits during June of 2011, and I was expecting a flurry of commits after all the visits and camps, and when it was slow in coming I got a bit concerned. But in looking into the recruiting picture, I could see that there were a lot of quality players the staff was holding off from offering. They have a plan and are following it. Since they were holding off from offering quality players, they were clearly not desperate. I wasn't worried about not being able to field a team, or lacking players with talent and potential. But it would have been nice to see a strong uptick in recruiting immediately, and as top players committed elsewhere it became clear this wasn't going to happen right away.

It's too early for a postmortem, but in general I think the staff has done everything right with a lot of top recruits, except close. I like the process they've followed. I think also the new staff is instituting an exciting pro-style offensive attack with plenty of passing, and an exciting aggressive defense with a lot of looks. Both will be fun to play in and will prepare guys well for the NFL - they remind me of Bill Belichek's approach with the Patriots.

I think we need two or three things to get to the next level in recruiting:
1. Demonstrate success on the field - an ability to compete with the top programs, and be in the picture for major bowls. Top athletes want to compete at the highest level, and you have to show them they'll have that opportunity. This would also remove concerns about whether Coach P is too old or no longer a top coach.
2. Demonstrate that the New Big East will be a prestige conference able to put teams in major bowls and on national television. Athletes want to be seen and respected.
(3. Possibly - P may have to improve his closing skills. Seems like we're getting in the top 3-4 with a lot of top players but only closing <5% of the time instead of 25-30% in a random draw, plus we've had two decommits. Maybe the lack of closes is just due to factors 1 and 2, but maybe also the head coach can improve his approach. There are consultants you can hire for training in sales/closing who could help analyze the current approach and improve it. He may just need to communicate more excitement - to get more emotionally "up" when talking to recruits.)

I think we can't be discouraged, as we're getting equal or better classes than Edsall got in a much more difficult environment - with schools like Temple, UCF, etc upgraded to our conference level, UMass picking off local recruits who could have been fallback candidates for us like Holines and Zeff, the perceived ACC-BE gap elevating BC in NE and Syracuse in NYC and hurting us in our home recruiting territory. Hopefully in six months we'll have a good contract with NBC/Comcast and a 10-3 or 11-2 season and things will look totally different for the 2014 class. Maybe we get some top 2013 players late after they see us perform this year.

 

[rich1122]

I still fail to see what all this talk is about lack of commits. We have verbals for over 50% of the class - 9 or 10 out of 16 open slots. The perception is that we have to have 16 of 16 before camp?

It seems that we are doing admirably with kids/juniors who have other offers or at least have high interest levels from other schools. Except for the kid from Denmark who is under the radar?? Great additions to the program!!

I guess the glass is always half empty for some.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

I can care less about quantity. I do care about quality.

I'm not a recruiting expert nor do I follow it as closely as some others here do, but I just don't see us landing a lot of kids with other BCS offers. That, more than stars or film or anything else, is what I look at when I evaluate where we are in terms of recruiting.

In fairness, I'm also one of the guys who, when asked what I think of a particular class, replies "Ask me in 3 years".

 

[junglehusky]

all the haters here on this board happy now with a flurry of commits? are u now sold on the dean stuff i have been talking about?

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

i feel more rain coming. dance!

Is that a hunch? Or is it based on info you have?

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

i watch dr mel

From the other side? What's it like over there?