Recruiting Under Diaco By The Numbers

[whaler11]

Well ... We are heading towards grading on a curve now.

The "flavor of the moment guys" seem to be promoting that we can SELL 3/4 star highly desired recruits over Maryland, BC, Pitt, Rutgers and/or Syracuse ... and others.

First? Randy Edsall rarely won those type of recruits. Second ? Many of those kids (poster child Tim Boyle) never rose at UConn to stellar college careers. Shamar Stephen, Kendall Reyes, Scott Lutrus, Sio Moore, Jordan Todman, Marcus Easley, Andrew Adams, Byron Jones, Geremy Davis, Blidi Wreh-Wilson, Ryan Griffin, Dwayne Gratz, Moe Petrus, Ryan Crozier, Obi Melonfonwu, Etc ... None of these kids are this category.

We can win with the thoughtful harvesting of kids LIKE Edsall. Great evaluation skills. Good closing with key Assistants that know PA, NE, FL, GA, NJ, MD.

It would be great to win more battles with the P5 universities in our core. But that's not ultimately why we won in the past 10 years.

There seems to be a strain of boneyard guys that are reduced to "Give up Football" if we don't play the 3/4 Star 5 offers win. We aren't trashing $200m investment in big football. Think reboot a different way.

Waylon would be impressed by your strawman building skills lately.

 

[WestCoastHusky]

The bottom line is Diaco is not getting it done. His recruits don't look very impressive, to say the least. I thought one of the reasons we got him was because he is a good recruiter. The result on the field says otherwise.

I hope we got something prepared on Jan 2nd. Hopefully, he will get the axe but I am not holding my breath.

 

[jbdphi]

PP was an awful coach.

But his recruits are why we went bowling last year.

I'd credit turnover ratio for our bowl appearance more than the extraordinary performance of those recruits...

 

[CTMike]

Then why didn't they succeed this past season? If I'm doing the math right, 4 of the 6 players that departed the Defense were recruited by Edsall and redshirted in 2011 (Campenni, Adams, Vann, and Adeyemi) and one was a transfer (Stewart). Samra was a Pasqualoni recruit and before the season, I would have counted him as addition by subtraction.

Touché to you and Excalibur - fair point.

Coaching was terrible this year amongst other things. But it's not like it was great last year either.

 

[Pudge]

Waylon would be impressed by your strawman building skills lately.

You have never convinced me with your understanding of how kids are going to get to wear our uniforms.

What? World class salesmanship?

Our best kids (2004-2011) would have our team competing for a bowl today. With obviously the right coach - say Joe Moorehead. Right offense.

It's basically Iowa-like. 1/3rd CT/ NY/NE (most all not 3 star because the ratings agencies don't rate commensurate to talent in this region) AND 2/3rds elsewhere (PA & NJ & MD & FL). I do not see tons of 3 star kids yield from the latter geography given our last 6 years.

You seem to believe in magic beans.

And then ... it swirls down the toilet to just collapse the program with $200m+ sunk costs.

You can snidely say Waylot or whatever. I just think you have lost the pragmatic construct that makes this Program work. Better than Syracuse or BC with the right coach. Better than a F&acknowledged Rutgers. Top in the AAC? Nope. We are in a frigging tough league with less name recognition for our Fanbase. But we need to Win. And waiting on Diaco makes zero sense. I believe David Benedict sees this as a transformative moment as an AD.

 

[whaler11]

You have never convinced me with your understanding of how kids are going to get to wear our uniforms.

What? World class salesmanship?

Our best kids (2004-2011) would have our team competing for a bowl today. With obviously the right coach - say Joe Moorehead. Right offense.

It's basically Iowa-like. 1/3rd CT/ NY/NE (most all not 3 star because the ratings agencies don't rate commensurate to talent in this region) AND 2/3rds elsewhere (PA & NJ & MD & FL). I do not see tons of 3 star kids yield from the latter geography given our last 6 years.

You seem to believe in magic beans.

And then ... it swirls down the toilet to just collapse the program with $200m+ sunk costs.

You can snidely say Waylot or whatever. I just think you have lost the pragmatic construct that makes this Program work. Better than Syracuse or BC with the right coach. Better than a F&acknowledged Rutgers. Top in the AAC? Nope. We are in a frigging tough league with less name recognition for our Fanbase. But we need to Win. And waiting on Diaco makes zero sense. I believe David Benedict sees this as a transformative moment as an AD.

You think we need magic beans because you think people are asking to outrecruit Maryland rather than Temple.

You don't think UConn can win the AAC? A league that UCF and Temple have won? Wow.

Recruiting is a lot about salesmanship by the way. It's how Greg Schiano took over the worst team in the country and became a NFL HC.

 

[Pudge]

You think we need magic beans because you think people are asking to outrecruit Maryland rather than Temple.

You don't think UConn can win the AAC? A league that UCF and Temple have won? Wow.

Recruiting is a lot about salesmanship by the way. It's how Greg Schiano took over the worst team in the country and became a NFL HC.

If Schiano is your ideal ... then this isn't a debate.

And no amount of salesmanship is going to get UConn Football to win the right kids in the near term. It took Calhoun about 7 years to get in a groove in a different sport. Schlub Schiano, btw, took a good 5 years.

No. We shouldn't be out recruited by Temple. That's a scary urban school on the wrong sides of Broad Street & the neighbors look like "The Wire" abandoned homes. But read closely: the others on this board do expect Maryland type total recruits.

We can win this conference. I do see some promise with our former Assistants - Orlando or Moorehead - but Diaco isn't totally flummoxed.

Also ... going back to Hun & Deerfield is evidence that he's not done well with standard track kids in markets we should harvest. Benedict should know this kind of stuff.

 

[UConnDan97]

This year's team was mostly P recruits. You can't have it both ways.

Name the most important players to this year's team, and with the exception of Shirreffs, which ones were BD's? (Because Cochran, a PP guy, couldn't continue to play)

The reason you can have it both ways is because we have now lost impact players from PP recruiting and it shows (Campenni, Vann, Stewart, etc.). So now, we are less than half of PP's guys, but with almost none of BD's guys making major contributions.

And under BD's tutelage, the team continues to disintegrate. Try to consider what this team will be without players like Obi, Thomas, Jhavon, Myers, etc. It might change your views...

 

[UConnDan97]

Then why didn't they succeed this past season? If I'm doing the math right, 4 of the 6 players that departed the Defense were recruited by Edsall and redshirted in 2011 (Campenni, Adams, Vann, and Adeyemi) and one was a transfer (Stewart). Samra was a Pasqualoni recruit and before the season, I would have counted him as addition by subtraction.

Campenni and Vann were both PP's guys...

 

[Excalibur]

Touché to you and Excalibur - fair point.

Coaching was terrible this year amongst other things. But it's not like it was great last year either.

You'll get no argument. Again, our two best weapons in 2015 were smoke and mirrors . . .

 

[Excalibur]

Name the most important players to this year's team, and with the exception of Shirreffs, which ones were BD's? (Because Cochran, a PP guy, couldn't continue to play)

The reason you can have it both ways is because we have now lost impact players from PP recruiting and it shows (Campenni, Vann, Stewart, etc.). So now, we are less than half of PP's guys, but with almost none of BD's guys making major contributions.

And under BD's tutelage, the team continues to disintegrate. Try to consider what this team will be without players like Obi, Thomas, Jhavon, Myers, etc. It might change your views...

You're trying to make a comparison and I'm not. The only comparison is $hi++y vs. really $hi++y.

 

[whaler11]

You're trying to make a comparison and I'm not. The only comparison is $hi++y vs. really $hi++y.

If you had Edsall's staff coaching up PP's staff's recruits you'd actually be in business.

In that world UConn could compete with Temple!

 

[UConnNick]

You think we need magic beans because you think people are asking to outrecruit Maryland rather than Temple.

You don't think UConn can win the AAC? A league that UCF and Temple have won? Wow.

Recruiting is a lot about salesmanship by the way. It's how Greg Schiano took over the worst team in the country and became a NFL HC.

But we don't have a helicopter like he did. That's the missing piece we need to recruit like.....Temple?