Rice post game thread

[How Sway?!]

Interesting data point:

Based off 247 recruit rankings, out of the top 15 HS recruits from Connecticut, UConn has gotten 0 of them in each of the last 3 years (2023-2025)

Last time we got a top 15 in state recruit was in 2022 when we got Victor Rosa and Brady Wayburn.

Reinforces the point that we are relying on the portal too much.

 

[UCan3]

Beat Duke and we may have salvaged some credibility as a potential future P4 but losing to Delaware and Rice are just self inflicted killers. Right now, I’m not even sure we can get by UAB. They seem to be able to put up points. We better get our together.

I can honestly say that there are no guaranteed Ws for us - not with the Defense we have.

What I find most concerning is their inability to rise to the occasion.

They kind of remind me of the Steelers. Both with Mora and Tomlin being eerily similar in their inability to adjust.

We are playing one of the weakest schedules in the nation……
We seem to be making other Offenses dreams come true.

To some extent I feel like we are getting beat with X and Os, they are expecting whatever we are throwing at them.

I am not saying we need trick plays but should be consider alternate approaches depending on who we’re playing. The ride “Cam” to the W is most definitely not working.. Not sure if its him, the defenses expecting him or what but we have to find more answers.

 

[Kembafan]

Mora has done a good job bringing us out of the dungeon with UMass but let’s be honest, despite my username, he isn’t the answer. Need to bring in someone with a WINNING mentality after this season.

Mora's a great leader of the program but he's just a mediocre coach. That said, replacing him is not a good idea at this stage. The AD needs to get in the weeds and figure out what's not working. Maybe we need to pony up the cash for better O or D coaches, or maybe our recruiting/portal strategy needs to change. There's no reason why we should be playing close games against Rice or Delaware, let alone losing to them even if it's on the road.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

The number of you who barely if at all posted after the BC win, who have now posted a dozen+ times the same day as the Rice loss, is disgusting.

Redefining fandom, one POS at a time.

Came here today to post that the staff lost the game this week after not posting after the BC win.

 

[huskymedic]

Interesting data point:

Based off 247 recruit rankings, out of the top 15 HS recruits from Connecticut, UConn has gotten 0 of them in each of the last 3 years (2023-2025)

Last time we got a top 15 in state recruit was in 2022 when we got Victor Rosa and Brady Wayburn.

Reinforces the point that we are relying on the portal too much.

FWIW - we got 2026 RB Malachi Greaves from St Thomas More who was #13 in the class but reclassified to 2025 and enrolled @ UConn early.

But to your point the majority of the ranked kids are not CT natives and are @ the high end Prep schools/not the CIAC high schools. The P4 pull for those ranked kids is significant. At this point (IMO) UConn’s best bet is build the relationships w/ those kids now and catch them on the transfer portal rebound. NIL/Revenue Sharing $ coming out of high school will remain a challenge for UConn.

The staff has shown that CT kids can have a significant place in the program if they give it a chance.

 

[noeynox]

Mora has done a good job bringing us out of the dungeon with UMass but let’s be honest, despite my username, he isn’t the answer. Need to bring in someone with a WINNING mentality after this season.

Bad take. Who do you think you are going to get here that's better?. This guy got us out of the ESPN Bottom 10. There were calls to end FBS football. He frustrates me too at times but he's like 85% good 15% bad. I'll take that on the heels of P, Diaco, and Edsall 2.0

 

[AllHusky]

Mora and coaching staff can do a better job. Offense has to play to win in second halves, defense is trickier, because I don’t believe in the 3-3-5, and Brock does.

 

[noeynox]

Mora and coaching staff can do a better job. Offense has to play to win in second halves, defense is trickier, because I don’t believe in the 3-3-5, and Brock does.

Defense was better last year. McDonald and Tui Brown were better tacklers than any LB this year. Dixon-Williams was better at his position. Overall, the D has taken a step back.

 

[ZooCougar]

Bad take. Who do you think you are going to get here that's better?. This guy got us out of the ESPN Bottom 10. There were calls to end FBS football. He frustrates me too at times but he's like 85% good 15% bad. I'll take that on the heels of P, Diaco, and Edsall 2.0

We’re just going to have to accept his limitations I’m afraid.

 

[psilotic]

Mora has done a good job bringing us out of the dungeon with UMass but let’s be honest, despite my username, he isn’t the answer. Need to bring in someone with a WINNING mentality after this season.

Kelly4Prez? Napier4Prez? Franklin4Prez? 😉

 

[Jetskies]

quick question, were Yates/Stafford/Gourdine, all RE recruits?
more broadly, is 2025 the first year we're leaning predominantly on JM recruits?

• if yes, maybe it's fair to say that this staff hasn't actually proven the ability to recruit well, in the new NIL world.
• If no, then i guess we really are just unlucky this year, but JM has hit home runs before, so he gets grace for this year's team sucking in critical areas.

But If my suspicion is correct ("yes"), does not bode well for JM's abilities to re-load, in DB's eyes - I'm certain DB is tracking all of these levers carefully, to fairly assess his most (or tied for most) critical/strategic job assignment as the AD (level up football by ensure the right coach is here, doing the right things)

 

[psilotic]

Bad take. Who do you think you are going to get here that's better?. This guy got us out of the ESPN Bottom 10. There were calls to end FBS football. He frustrates me too at times but he's like 85% good 15% bad. I'll take that on the heels of P, Diaco, and Edsall 2.0

All 3 losses have several things in common: conservative 2nd half play calling, bad tackling, failure to adjust D to the hot hand (in Sat's case, Action Jackson). If we're in a track meet again I DO NOT want to see that Cam short side run. I keep waiting for counter or boot off that play.

 

[Marbles90]

People on here who talk about the UConn “brand” when it comes to football drive me crazy. This was Rice’s Super Bowl? Really? Yeah, that’s why there were 20 people in the stands. Do you think if they were hosting an actual football brand the place would be empty?

I was at a Bengals tailgate in Cincinnati yesterday with a bunch of U Cincinnati grads. When we started talking college football they absolutely genuinely were surprised UConn still had a football team. “We thought you guys dropped football when you went back to the Big East”. They were dead serious.

You can talk about “brand” when it comes to basketball and you can absolutely say we have come a long way from the dump heap we were post RE1. But let’s get real about UConn football’s “brand”.

 

[huskymedic]

quick question, were Yates/Stafford/Gourdine, all RE recruits?
more broadly, is 2025 the first year we're leaning predominantly on JM recruits?

• if yes, maybe it's fair to say that this staff hasn't actually proven the ability to recruit well, in the new NIL world.
• If no, then i guess we really are just unlucky this year, but JM has hit home runs before, so he gets grace for this year's team sucking in critical areas.

But If my suspicion is correct ("yes"), does not bode well for JM's abilities to re-load, in DB's eyes - I'm certain DB is tracking all of these levers carefully, to fairly assess his most (or tied for most) critical/strategic job assignment as the AD (level up football by ensure the right coach is here, doing the right things)

Gourdine (committed 2/16/19) and Yates (committed 5/15/21) came in under Edsall who “retired” 9/5/21

Mora officially started 11/28/21. Stafford came through the transfer portal under Mora on 5/20/22.

Replacing 9 starters? on defense this year was a tough ask of anyone.

 

[ZooCougar]

quick question, were Yates/Stafford/Gourdine, all RE recruits?
more broadly, is 2025 the first year we're leaning predominantly on JM recruits?

• if yes, maybe it's fair to say that this staff hasn't actually proven the ability to recruit well, in the new NIL world.
• If no, then i guess we really are just unlucky this year, but JM has hit home runs before, so he gets grace for this year's team sucking in critical areas.

But If my suspicion is correct ("yes"), does not bode well for JM's abilities to re-load, in DB's eyes - I'm certain DB is tracking all of these levers carefully, to fairly assess his most (or tied for most) critical/strategic job assignment as the AD (level up football by ensure the right coach is here, doing the right things)

Regardless. Randy’s guys played better for Mora. But we need to have more home grown talent to hedge against portal misses.

 

[BlueWolf25]

Bad take. Who do you think you are going to get here that's better?. This guy got us out of the ESPN Bottom 10. There were calls to end FBS football. He frustrates me too at times but he's like 85% good 15% bad. I'll take that on the heels of P, Diaco, and Edsall 2.0

We could start to improve the 15% if we got someone who specializes in analytics like going for it on 4th down, clock management, etc. We suck at that. There’s a new guy this year on the sidelines who is always next to Mora, I think he’s currently in that role

 

[noeynox]

We’re just going to have to accept his limitations I’m afraid.

The real trick is who do we hire to replace him when he retires or leaves. Can't go through a bunch of duds like the previous 3. It almost killed the program.

 

[UCONNRPh]

I cannot find any specifics. In fact it is hard to find any information on any college football team.

DB was on a Zanetto podcast (Big East Energy I believe)--I thought I heard the 3 number, but am now second guessing myself.
I was under the impression on the 2.5 from readings and adding figures of players and donations (Damelio, etc) and I figured we realized that we need to put money into football to get reallignment, plus Mora seemed pleased with money he had to use to get and retain players-you have me now doubting this $ too.....

 

[Kolumbo]

I don't think anyone could have done a better job than Jim Mora up to this point and I trust Jim Mora to continue to build UConn Football. UConn Football is facing a steady Category 1 climb on many fronts. Maybe the coaching staff could be making better 2nd half decisions. Just imagine if Skyler Bell had hit the transfer portal as he very easily could have done. 105.6 yards per game this year compared to 66.2 last year. The transfer portal is where it's at.

 

[giddyup]

I can honestly say that there are no guaranteed Ws for us - not with the Defense we have.

What I find most concerning is their inability to rise to the occasion.

They kind of remind me of the Steelers. Both with Mora and Tomlin being eerily similar in their inability to adjust.

We are playing one of the weakest schedules in the nation……
We seem to be making other Offenses dreams come true.

To some extent I feel like we are getting beat with X and Os, they are expecting whatever we are throwing at them.

I am not saying we need trick plays but should be consider alternate approaches depending on who we’re playing. The ride “Cam” to the W is most definitely not working.. Not sure if its him, the defenses expecting him or what but we have to find more answers.

Cam seemed to be less dynamic than usual. Might banged up from BC. I think he has a bad shoulder. He left the game at BC for a bit. Nonetheless, we were losing the LOS consistently at Rice. What is obvious is Rice made adjustments and shutdown our O the second half. Not sure how that happens absent failing to make counter adjustments on our side. Im not sold on Sammis. Not sure he can keep up with smart kids in the room. You have an NFL level receiver, good tight ends, good secondary receivers and a top 20 QB, and a decent back firls field. How the hell do you walk away with 3 points?

Hate to say it, but the D is beyond hope. There aren’t many guys worth their keep out there other than Parham, Brinson, Chadwick and, on occasion, Diamonte. Even in the BC game there were a ton of missed opportunities … missed throws on guys wide open that saved our bacon.. Our D gimmicks are an exposed bag of tricks at this point. We get a few sacks but get eaten alive on the run and long ball.

At this point, we win through the O and we can’t ever stop putting the pedal to the metal during a game. Our D couldn’t stop molasses on a cold day.

 

[businesslawyer]

Defense was better last year. McDonald and Tui Brown were better tacklers than any LB this year. Dixon-Williams was better at his position. Overall, the D has taken a step back.

We lost 10 of 11 defensive starters from last year between folks finishing their eligibility and 3 defections. No sane person should have assumed we were going to be as good on defense.

 

[jdb50]

We did get stops in the second half. Our offense was lousy. Wasted so many downs on outside zone runs. And forced the Rosa in the flat passes. Murphy, Porter, our TEs, Neider and Bell need to be the feature of our pass game. Run Lundberg up the middle if Cam is injured. We blew the game with inept offense. And run the QB like every other good program.

 

[UConnDan97]

The better team should still have an advantage regardless of how the teams arrived at the same score. That's how it works.

If we go into OT again the odds of winning that game will be about 50/50, unless it's Duke. Then we are in trouble.

That's not how it works. Sorry. And we were on the road for all 3 games.

If it WAS how it works, then why have I already seen 750 posts about how "Mora should have gone for 2" because we had no chance to win???

 

[Kolumbo]

That's not how it works. Sorry. And we were on the road for all 3 games.

If it WAS how it works, then why have I already seen 750 posts about how "Mora should have gone for 2" because we had no chance to win???

We had a great chance to win. Go for 2. I'll agree though, we were not the better team out there. Maybe someone can explain why in week 8 UConn was 10.5 pts or something favorites on the road.

 

[Hoophound]

If losing 3 overtime games (it’s nearly impossible to lose all 3) doesn’t warrant “sound the alarm” should it at the very least raise some eye brows? Lead to some questions?

It also seems your solution to improve is to build a better team this off season. I agree with that.

We just need to be more aggressive about winning. I don’t think there’s a major “out coaching” problem. It’s just a failure by the coach to understand that his D stinks and the O is his only meal ticket this year. He hasn’t accepted that the D cannot win him the game. Maybe, after this, he’s fully aware.