Ryan Dickens Article Critical of UConn Football | Page 4 | The Boneyard

Ryan Dickens Article Critical of UConn Football

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First there is no good way to say we don't want your son in our program. We were hired to improve the level of playing at State U and unfortunately you are not part of it. This is the business we are in as quoted from the Godfather. As a taxpayer I don't want the state at any level to pay upwards of $20,000 per year because I'm a nice guy.
 
huskymedic said:
Jim Fuller: Ramblings from The Runway: Not exactly great PR for new UConn staff. (worth the read but here's a snippet)

>>This is not a good look for UConn. First of all, since Dickens is not signed, there's nothing UConn can say on the record to refute this report. I know this happens in recruiting. I just saw a tweet that said there were 189 football decommits last January. Still, it's a part of the recruiting process that is hard to deal with and harder to defend regardless of how often it happens. My hope is that Dickens (who tweeted that he was offered by URI) and Byczko land on their feet and have a great four or five years of college both on and off the field.

I also get the other side of the story. Randy Edsall is trying to salvage this recruiting class and improve the talent level of a program coming off a 3-9 season. There was already a perception that Bob Diaco's staff weren't the best at identifying talent (although one UConn decommit started as a redshirt freshman at South Florida and another one recently was offered by Baylor). Edsall and his staff do have the right to look at the players who committed to UConn when Diaco was running things and determine that those players either don't fit the scheme or don't have the talent or aren't as good of a fit as other players the Huskies are recruiting. There's not a painless way to navigate through this process especially when a coaching hire is made in late December and the staff is being finalized as the open recruiting period gets underway. Certainly this is not exactly the kind of press the UConn program is looking for especially with some national media types posting about it on social media. Ten years ago something like this would generate a little initial attention that would quickly subside. In this age of social media and blogs, the heat on UConn figures to be more sustained and more intense.<<
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SB Nation: It seems that each January, we hear another story about a high school football recruit claiming a college football head coach pulled his scholarship shortly before Signing Day. The latest? Apparently new UConn head coach Randy Edsall.
 
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Excalibur said:
And local high school coaches. And every school recruiting against us . . .
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Every school recruiting against us has done this. Every one.

Other than the kid's own HS coach, I highly doubt any of them will really hold this against us.
 
JSM1970 said:
I still think this was a favor to the family or something, someone knew someone who knows someone

Look at the picture of the kid, he looks smaller than the kickers
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I had the same thought, that kid does not have the body of a FBS linebacker. Which begs another point, nowhere in the NJ article or anywhere else was there any question of if UConn offered him a walk-on spot at a different position or any other kind of contingency that would still allow him to play here. It may not have happened, but it'd be good journalism to ask the question of the family and write the response.
 
Jax Husky said:
Every school recruiting against us has done this. Every one.

Other than the kid's own HS coach, I highly doubt any of them will really hold this against us.
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Yep, and it's especially well known among all high school coaches that this kind of thing happens when there's a coaching change.
 
End of the day, Diaco screwed up the DE/LB/TE recruiting.

First on the defensive side. We have 2 returning scholarship defensive linemen that are <265 lbs and 9 returning scholarship LBs that are 240lbs or more. Diaco recruited size over speed, but Edsall usually recruited speed. With a new attacking defense, UConn's defense needs more athletic LBs and DEs with speed.

As for TEs, UConn already has 5 TE/Fs on the roster and they are generally on the bigger/heavier side.

So, the first 2 kids who decommitted from the new coaching staff were LB/TE types. Not surprising as we already have lots of DE/LB/TEs and the kids probably didn't fit the new schemes. The new coaching staff is actually doing these kids a favor by letting them know that they don't fit the new schemes and that they should find a better fit at another school. It's better to find out now than to find out when you are on campus.
 
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An early signing period would solve almost all of this. Sucks for the kid, bad press for UConn, but in the end, both parties are probably better off.

Any story of this kid losing his offer, should include the names of the kids who backed out on UConn. It goes both ways.
 
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Stairmaster said:
Scroll down to "Sports":

"CFB team withdraws scholarship at last minute"
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LOL. Last minute except for the weeks remaining until signing day. I can't wait for the article about all of the kids who changed their college commitment in the hours leading up to signing day.

I am sure the kid is heartbroken, that's tough news. Like any situation where there is a change at the top, there is a risk. If my boss left tomorrow, I'd be weary. I hope he gets a scholarship elsewhere and plays with a chip on his shoulder. I also hope that he and his family can forgive and forget with UConn. They'd do the same if he changed his mind and switched to Rutgers on signing day.
 
Stairmaster said:
I wonder if Matt will now begin a social media crusade against the program, since he is more loyal to these recruits than the institution itself.
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ThisIsUConnCountry ‏@MattSchonvisky Jan 16
ThisIsUConnCountry Retweeted Ryan Dickens

Dickens committed to Huskies in June. Wouldn't be surprised to see him w/Nebraska offer in future:

ThisIsUConnCountry ‏@MattSchonvisky 16h16 hours ago
ThisIsUConnCountry Retweeted jake byczko

Another decommit from the 2017 #UConnFootball recruiting class as signing day approaches-good luck in the future!:


ThisIsUConnCountry ‏@MattSchonvisky 3h3 hours ago
ThisIsUConnCountry Retweeted NJ.com HS Sports

Talked with Dickens yesterday AM, he's not the only one this happened to since the change:


ThisIsUConnCountry‏@MattSchonvisky
@JohnFSilver @EdDaigneault at least 5 others including commits & those who were scheduled for OV's over next 2 weeks

ThisIsUConnCountry ‏@MattSchonvisky 34m34 minutes ago
ATTN #UConnNation-please realize remaining commits in class can see what you're saying about a player they respected & wanted 2play w/@UConn
 
FDNY99 said:
I feel bad for this kid...it happened to 2 of my friends who ended up playing at UConn. I also feel bad for him that he was offered a scholarship by a guy who really was in over his head as a HC. At the end of the day if Ryan Mickens was good enough to play LB in the AAC at UConn..he is good enough to get a scholarship form Diaco at Nebraska. But let's look at things like 40 times and then see if that is truly accurate.
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Brandon Spikes and James Laurinitas both had 40's over 4.9 and they seemed to do pretty well at their schools...
 
FDNY99 said:
ThisIsUConnCountry ‏@MattSchonvisky Jan 16
ThisIsUConnCountry Retweeted Ryan Dickens

Dickens committed to Huskies in June. Wouldn't be surprised to see him w/Nebraska offer in future:

ThisIsUConnCountry ‏@MattSchonvisky 16h16 hours ago
ThisIsUConnCountry Retweeted jake byczko

Another decommit from the 2017 #UConnFootball recruiting class as signing day approaches-good luck in the future!:


ThisIsUConnCountry ‏@MattSchonvisky 3h3 hours ago
ThisIsUConnCountry Retweeted NJ.com HS Sports

Talked with Dickens yesterday AM, he's not the only one this happened to since the change:


ThisIsUConnCountry‏@MattSchonvisky
@JohnFSilver @EdDaigneault at least 5 others including commits & those who were scheduled for OV's over next 2 weeks

ThisIsUConnCountry ‏@MattSchonvisky 34m34 minutes ago
ATTN #UConnNation-please realize remaining commits in class can see what you're saying about a player they respected & wanted 2play w/@UConn
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I hope we cut Matt off from media access. He's clearly just a Diaco fanboy
 
Do I fel bad for this kid? Sure, it sucks to have something like this happen but that's life. Life isn't fair. At the end of the day, he clearly wasn't good enough to play at the FBS level. I mean Monmouth couldn't even make room for him.

This isn't RE's fault. This is just part of the nature of recruiting.

I put the blame on Diaco, his parents and his HS coach for leading him to believe he was good enough to play at the FBS level. Just because you have good stats and earn distinctions doesn't automatically make you good enough for D1 football. Shame on the HS coach for not giving him a realistic evaluation of his talent.
 
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JMick said:
I hope we cut Matt off from media access. He's clearly just a Diaco fanboy
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I am seriously concerned that he has the potential to cause the program significant harm. He's used his position to curry a lot of favor with the families of recruits. Think of how he could use that to screw the new staff over.
 
Stairmaster said:
I wonder if Matt will now begin a social media crusade against the program, since he is more loyal to these recruits than the institution itself.
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Begin? Matt's been on a nonsensical Twitter tirade since the day Diaco was fired. I have nothing against him personally, but his coverage of the team starting this year and since Diaco was fired has been insufferably ignorant.
 
Buffett10 said:
Brandon Spikes and James Laurinitas both had 40's over 4.9 and they seemed to do pretty well at their schools...
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LOL, those dudes were 250+ lbs run stuffers
 
brasssbonanzaa said:
Begin? Matt's been on a nonsensical Twitter tirade since the day Diaco was fired. I have nothing against him personally, but his coverage of the team starting this year and since Diaco was fired has been insufferably ignorant.
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There is a rather large contingent of BY posters who have been strangely overly protective of him from day 1. There have been numerous red flags but the BY morality police would always step in to defend him. No idea why but I don't read any of his crap anymore.
 
Stairmaster said:
I am seriously concerned that he has the potential to cause the program significant harm. He's used his position to curry a lot of favor with the families of recruits. Think of how he could use that to screw the new staff over.
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If he knew better he'd be shutting up. To go from Homer to program enemy isn't a good look, and most of his clicks come from here. Wouldn't be opposed to banning his articles from here like we do with TOS
 
Buffett10 said:
Brandon Spikes and James Laurinitas both had 40's over 4.9 and they seemed to do pretty well at their schools...
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Laurinitis was actually under 4.9...he ran a 4.72 and 4.78 at his pro day.
 
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