The cupboard is bare

[freescooter]

Under Edsall and Foley we had not 1 but 2 walk on linemen drafted by the NFL. Edsall could find talent about as well as anyone.

 

[Pudge]

OK ... can we get consensus.

It is RE recruiting COMBINED with solid development that got us to a very good platform in a short amount of time. THE PP years pulled some good Stars but we saw meager development at key Line spots and no better QB play. And, HCRE was far better in putting RBs in positions that they could succeed.

Foley was good. But ... I suspect that his undoing was the same lack of development through the previous 3 years.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

You can rightfully ding Edsall for not recruiting skill players (QB/WR/DE). But, that's about it. His first full recruiting class as a BCS school won a conference title as seniors and two years later he won it again.

DEs?
Osunde, Tyler King, Cody Brown, Trev Williams, Julius Williams, Dan Davis, Lindsey Whitten, Jesse Joseph til hurt. Not to bad.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Under Edsall and Foley we had not 1 but 2 walk on linemen drafted by the NFL. Edsall could find talent about as well as anyone.

Who was the second after Thomas?

 

[businesslawyer]

I sort of understand blaming a LOSING coach for losing seasons four years out. Blamng a WINNING coach for it is beyond absurd.

I don't have all day but three points will have to do.

1. Enough with the lack of TBs coming in the fall of '11. When that recruiting season stated a year earler, we had four -- FOUR -- TBs we were happy with coming back for the 11 season. Todman, who left early for the NFL, Wylie and Shumate, who lost their 5th years due to injury and Robbie Frey, who departed for grad school in his home state. You can't always be ready for four players at the same position in the same class to leave a year early. Stuff happens.

2. Spackler continues with this false narrative about a critical shortage of OL because we didn't have a competent two deep. We never had a real, ready two deep on the OL. If you followed our roster over a decade, HCRE's philosophy was clearly I only need 7 or 8 deep on the OL for any season because I'm only playing 5 barring injuries, and I'd rather go 3 deep at positions like WR, and DB, and LB, where if you don't play you can help me on specials. Our team was always built that way. It's just that when we changed coaches, the new staff couldn't make it work because we didn't develop the same percentage of underrecruited OLs into solid players that Edsall and staff did.

3. We didn't thrive with one core group of OL, as Spackler said. We ran the ball effectively (sometimes more effectively than others obviously) from the moment '03 until HCRE left, with the single exception of the year and a half when Edsall stubbornly played a post-injury TC. And that problem was solved immediately when TC got hurt and Donald Brown stepped in and went from bench to 200 yards a game behind the same OL in '06.

 

[whaler11]

How great would it be if Bizlaw was spelling DJs name wrong on purpose all along?

 

[businesslawyer]

I never said we only had 2 productive OL classes. I've said we weren't adequately recruiting for a full OL depth chart in bare minimum simple numbers from about 2006-2011 5 year cycle. That's not subjective, it's objective. subjectively - I can't see how anyone can conclude that we recruiting adequate speed, size, talent in the OL in the numbers we did recruit.

Edsall was able to get away with it because guys like Moe Petrus and Mike Hicks rank #1 and #2 for UCONN in consecutive starts - ALL TIME. They rank in the top 5 in career games played - ALL TIME. When you look further down those two lists - you see the names of the players they lined up with from 2006-2011 on both lists in the top 15-top20 - for UCONN players - ALL TIME.

For the record - the winningest 5 year period in UCONN history - is still the 1986-1990 seasons. THe guy with most starts there - DeGennaro. In the early 2000s, you don't see the OL's in that list - you see Dan Orlovsky.

Mixed in those lists are scattered long term defensive starters from each period too - Lawrence Wilson, James Hargrave - fantastic player. It's highly unusual to have multiple OL's bee in those lists.

Look - Edsall was able to win without recruiting a solid long term QB at UCONN because he lucked out in recruiting several long term starters on the OL.

I can't tell you how much I long for the days when -- like with basketball -- we criticized ourselves for how we were winning instead of how we are losing.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I can't tell you how much I long for the days when -- like with basketball -- we criticized ourselves for how we were winning instead of how we are losing.

One of my critiques of winning, was the recruiting coming on the tails of winning. Harbinger of sorrow.

 

[Kgun7]

Under Edsall and Foley we had not 1 but 2 walk on linemen drafted by the NFL. Edsall could find talent about as well as anyone.

I may be splitting hairs ... but Edsall didn't find Donald Thomas ... he may have developed him ... but Donald Thomas (with the help of Danny Lansanah) found Edsall ...

 

[Tdaley]

WR had a lot of talent when PP/GDL took over: Kashif Moore RSr, Geremy Davis RFr, Tebucky Jones RFr, Nick Williams Jr, Leon Kinnard So, Isiah Moore RJr, Mike Smith Sr, Gerrard Sheppard RJr, Malik Generett RSo. You had one 6th round draft pick and 4 WRs (Smith, Williams, K. Moore, and Sheppard) who were signed by NFL teams. So, out of the 9 WRs PP/GDL inherited, 5 were thought highly enough by the NFL to sign and one, Jones, might be signed after leaving Fordham. And, PP/GDL inherited TE Ryan Griffin who they couldn't figure out how to utilize, yet he was drafted and plays for the Houston Texans.

As for QB, PP/GDL ran off the two best QBs on the roster. Michael Box had a good college career and even had some NFL draft consideration. He was rated the #68 QB coming out for the draft in 2014 by one service and was signed by the Redskins as an UFA. Mike Nebrich had a very good career at Fordham. By one service he was rated the #31 QB coming out this year and #46 by another. The QB position was serviceable when PP/GDL got to UConn, but they couldn't figure out how to make it work.

As for recruiting, I just don't see it with PP/GDL's recruits. They lost so many of the recruits after signing day and didn't develop what they had. WRs? Edsall left a better group than PP/GDL. TEs? Edsall left better talent. QBs? I think Edsall left better talent but Box and Nebrich left, although Cochran showed promise. OL? No question Edsall left better talent as it was a disaster last season and we were playing true freshmen. RBs? Kind of a push because Todman left early. Defense? Edsall left so much more talent than PP/GDL that it is not even debatable.

Guys, please stop with the "cupboard was empty" crap. Disco inherited a bare cupboard, not PP/GDL. PP/GDL were beyond their prime and not a good fit to return to college football.

 

[Tdaley]

I don't like to get in debates on this site because I know I'm never going to change your mind or the other people that agree with you. My point is that after that great year when we went to the Fiesta Bowl we did have some major holes in the roster. Edsall did a good job here, but even if he stayed we were most likely looking at a couple of down years. In all likelihood though, the team would have performed better for Edsall than what they did under Pasqualoni during his 2 and a half years here. There were problems in the talent in the offensive line and although McCombs was a decent running back he was not on par with Todman or Brown. Your argument that we were loaded at the wide receiver position is unconvincing to me. Davis developed into a great receiver for his junior and senior years. Mike Smith and Kashif Moore were productive but only played one year for coach P. Isiah Moore hand poor hands and dropped as many passes as he caught. Nick Williams was a great punt and kickoff returner but a very average receiver. I still maintain that the current crop of receivers have more speed, better hands and more athletic ability than the group that you mention although until the offensive line and the quarterback position is fixed your not going to see great production from this group. Your argument on the quarterbacks Box and Nebrich who had success after transferring down to lower competitive level of football again doesn't change my mind. Neither of them were great throwers of the football although their running ability would have made them more suited to Edsall's offence than Pasqualoni's pro style offense. Again, I think Carl Spackler makes some good points as to where the program was in terms of talent when Edsall left. The fact that Pasqualoni did a terrible job here doesn't alter those facts.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I don't like to get in debates on this site because I know I'm never going to change your mind or the other people that agree with you. My point is that after that great year when we went to the Fiesta Bowl we did have some major holes in the roster. Edsall did a good job here, but even if he stayed we were most likely looking at a couple of down years. In all likelihood though, the team would have performed better for Edsall than what they did under Pasqualoni during his 2 and a half years here. There were problems in the talent in the offensive line and although McCombs was a decent running back he was not on par with Todman or Brown. Your argument that we were loaded at the wide receiver position is unconvincing to me. Davis developed into a great receiver for his junior and senior years. Mike Smith and Kashif Moore were productive but only played one year for coach P. Isiah Moore hand poor hands and dropped as many passes as he caught. Nick Williams was a great punt and kickoff returner but a very average receiver. I still maintain that the current crop of receivers have more speed, better hands and more athletic ability than the group that you mention although until the offensive line and the quarterback position is fixed your not going to see great production from this group. Your argument on the quarterbacks Box and Nebrich who had success after transferring down to lower competitive level of football again doesn't change my mind. Neither of them were great throwers of the football although their running ability would have made them more suited to Edsall's offence than Pasqualoni's pro style offense. Again, I think Carl Spackler makes some good points as to where the program was in terms of talent when Edsall left. The fact that Pasqualoni did a terrible job here doesn't alter those facts.

I used to make the same kinds of arguments. Then I changed to talking about simple numbers, and filling an 85 man roster through an NLI recruiting cycle process because some people just never are able to change their minds about things. People still disagree - based on their beliefs that we were a better program all around than we really were.

The reality of what it took and how difficult it was a struggle to get to .500 or above in any given season after Dan Orlovsky graduated? The reality of how thin our roster really was to get there - especially on offense? We relied RELIED on scoring from our defense and kick return units to get to where we were. Not the kicker - the kick RETURN units. Any single defensive mistake late in games, was often the difference between winning and losing.

Edsall's program had the propensity to find and develop defensive backs really well at UCONN - not offensive lineman. Beatty and Thomas didn't make it to the NFL because of development. They made it because they had fast feet and the bodies and strength to play on the line in the NFL. They had to develop in the NFL to even have a concept of pass blocking. I won't talk about why I know that - but it's the truth.

There is a myth out there that UCONN developed offensive lineman regularly productively. I actually believed it a few years ago too. The truth is we did not. It's undeniable now. We were lucky enough to have a handful of big time players that started the majority of their careers on the OL, and at least one Donald Thomas - was never recruited. One of the best WR's to come out of UCONN - Easley was never recruited.

Edsall at one point when talking about the offense after Easley graduated, was quoted as saying the biggest missing piece of the offense was Marcus Easley's production! Easley was a walk on!!

THese players found the program - the program did not find them. Then when those long term starters on the OL graduated progressively from 2009-2011 we didn't have much talent on the OL anymore. The belief there is that they weren't developed properly. Development doesn't fix slow feet. We are struggling now to build that back up, and Diaco's recruiting plan and program? I'll take what Diaco is doing with recruiting over Edsall any day.

Diaco has to start showing improvement though when ti comes to actually coaching to play the game. Time to come out of the induced coma - as somebody else wrote. Metamorphosis.

 

[J187Money]

I don't like to get in debates on this site because I know I'm never going to change your mind or the other people that agree with you. My point is that after that great year when we went to the Fiesta Bowl we did have some major holes in the roster. Edsall did a good job here, but even if he stayed we were most likely looking at a couple of down years. In all likelihood though, the team would have performed better for Edsall than what they did under Pasqualoni during his 2 and a half years here. There were problems in the talent in the offensive line and although McCombs was a decent running back he was not on par with Todman or Brown. Your argument that we were loaded at the wide receiver position is unconvincing to me. Davis developed into a great receiver for his junior and senior years. Mike Smith and Kashif Moore were productive but only played one year for coach P. Isiah Moore hand poor hands and dropped as many passes as he caught. Nick Williams was a great punt and kickoff returner but a very average receiver. I still maintain that the current crop of receivers have more speed, better hands and more athletic ability than the group that you mention although until the offensive line and the quarterback position is fixed your not going to see great production from this group. Your argument on the quarterbacks Box and Nebrich who had success after transferring down to lower competitive level of football again doesn't change my mind. Neither of them were great throwers of the football although their running ability would have made them more suited to Edsall's offence than Pasqualoni's pro style offense. Again, I think Carl Spackler makes some good points as to where the program was in terms of talent when Edsall left. The fact that Pasqualoni did a terrible job here doesn't alter those facts.

I'm 100% with you. We had a top notch defense under PP/Don Brown, loaded with NFL talent. Edsall would have done better with the offense (without question) but without Don Brown the defense might have been worse. Two 5-7 teams probably were 7-5 with HCRE, maybe 8-4. And in hindsight, people would have taken that in a heartbeat, but if it unfolded that way, the same people screaming now would have been screaming that "HCRE can never get us over the top".

We never would have been 3-9/2-10 under HCRE, especially against those schedules. That's the only thing I am really sure of.

 

[Tdaley]

I agree all the points that J187Money makes in this post.

 

[businesslawyer]

I'm 100% with you. We had a top notch defense under PP/Don Brown, loaded with NFL talent. Edsall would have done better with the offense (without question) but without Don Brown the defense might have been worse. Two 5-7 teams probably were 7-5 with HCRE, maybe 8-4. And in hindsight, people would have taken that in a heartbeat, but if it unfolded that way, the same people screaming now would have been screaming that "HCRE can never get us over the top".

We never would have been 3-9/2-10 under HCRE, especially against those schedules. That's the only thing I am really sure of.

This exactly, which makes the post you were responding to disingenous. It pretended that you can measure talent from one side of the ball only.

Had Edsall stayed after the Fiesta Bowl, our D would have been better in '11 than it had been in '10 and maybe at any time in our history. Yes, we would have lacked big playmakers on O, and lost talent to some degree on the OL. But maybe Frey and/or Meme Wylie come back for their 5th years. Maybe Box and/or Nebrich did more than Johnny Mac did. And even if they didn't, Edsall lets the D carry the team the next two years and we're fine.

Is it possible Edsall never took us above 9 wins in the old Big East? Yes, it's possible. But nothing but people's imagination here is evidence that any coach could have done a lot better given the disadvantages of this program (no important football history, a smaller stadium than the teams we competed against for recruits and being the flagship of a small population state that doesn't value high school football the way it's valued in other regions).

 

[freescooter]

Carl
I take your point but we were never a program that struggled to get to .500, at least not after the 2 post Orlovsky down years. I'm not saying we were a Top 10 program at all but we were a consistent 8 win program in a better than credited league. Top 40ish program. Or as they say in the basketball tournament, we were always a tough out. We weren't world beaters but we were a solid program. I think our best team was 2009. That was a Potential breakthrough year that was lost with the murder of Jazz Howard. An emotionally exhausted, and justly so I'll add team lost 2 games late that I think they were primed to win. After having a week off to recover they went out to South Bend and put together a terrific end of the year run. That's just one example. To see where the program has gone and seems stuck is very depressing.

 

[gioff23]

it's the "and seems stuck" in freescooters note that, IMO, frames this debate. Was the cupboard bare? No. Did PP believe it to be so - absolutely. We all know HCRE would have gotten that next team in to a low- to mid-tier bowl, and maybe the next team. At some point, you can't further extrapolate as you've no idea who would have been on the roster and what they would've done.

The problem is that we regressed at the exact worst possible time. The regression a decade ago was fine - the BE was solid, we were young, and maybe we were cutting corners looking for 3 star guys that were anything but. But many feel that had we remained a perennial bowl bound team post-the Fiesta, we would be sitting in the ACC, talking about the steps we needed to make to get to the FSU/Clemson/ND level, and not how the heck did we lose to Tulane and SMU, in the same year.

I do think we can at least agree that the cupboard was pretty darn bare when HCBD was hired.

 

[Carl Spackler]

This exactly, which makes the post you were responding to disingenous. It pretended that you can measure talent from one side of the ball only.

Had Edsall stayed after the Fiesta Bowl, our D would have been better in '11 than it had been in '10 and maybe at any time in our history. Yes, we would have lacked big playmakers on O, and lost talent to some degree on the OL. But maybe Frey and/or Meme Wylie come back for their 5th years. Maybe Box and/or Nebrich did more than Johnny Mac did. And even if they didn't, Edsall lets the D carry the team the next two years and we're fine.

Is it possible Edsall never took us above 9 wins in the old Big East? Yes, it's possible. But nothing but people's imagination here is evidence that any coach could have done a lot better given the disadvantages of this program (no important football history, a smaller stadium than the teams we competed against for recruits and being the flagship of a small population state that doesn't value high school football the way it's valued in other regions).

Funny - because I'm the one around here that has shifted to actually looking at reality, rather than speculation and imagination. It's nothing but people's imagination to discuss anything about the previous years, that didn't actually happen.

It's imagination, to go back to 2010,and try to predict what would have happened. Would we have beaten a top 25 team on the road with team we had and a different coach? Maybe. Maybe not.

Funny, because I am actually writing what IS - what WAS - not imagination. We had one recruiting class that was deficient in numbers in the time frame I've discussed regarding the OL, and it was failed to be addressed adequately, really - until Diaco brought 4 OL's into the program directly as freshmen NLI signees in Feb 2014. Pasqualoni tried, in volumes of numbers of recruits, but failed to get them all to campus and in uniform, because the concept of being both an athletic and academic qualifier didn't matter much other than in interviews with the head honchos and blowing smoke for the press. Diaco has made his recruiting actions speak louder than the words - when it comes to value of academics. I haven't even talked about the TE's in any of this yet. Two senior TE's splitting playing time graduate-- multiple year starters - both - who's behind them? QB throws a pass to a wide open TE in the endzone against USF homecoming game and the guy drops it. He's a walk on, and a walk on senior nonetheless. Not Jackie Harris in the Superbowl.

 

[J187Money]

I will say this - for all of Spackler's ranting, I'd rather have him in charge of building a recruiting plan than most of the rest of you guys.

 

[whaler11]

I will say this - for all of Spackler's ranting, I'd rather have him in charge of building a recruiting plan than most of the rest of you guys.

Yeah but by the time you finished reading it, March would have arrived and you didn't sign anyone.

 

[huskymedic]

NHRJimFuller 6:11pm via TweetDeck
Receivers Tebucky Jones & Andrew Opoku, who both started careers at#UConn invited to camps with Titans & Ravens
http://runwayramblings.blogspot.com/2015/05/two-more-former-uconn-players-headed-to.html

 

[RedSoloCup]

View attachment 9462
NHRJimFuller 6:11pm via TweetDeck
Receivers Tebucky Jones & Andrew Opoku, who both started careers at#UConn invited to camps with Titans & Ravens
http://runwayramblings.blogspot.com/2015/05/two-more-former-uconn-players-headed-to.html

Grenade!!

 

[Duncan Idaho]

I'm guessing many people just don't like having Diaco blow sunshine up their arses while he is tearing down and trying to rebuild the program. Debating the method is fine. Extraordinary circumstances often dictates extraordinary measures and you get something that was managed like last year. Not everyone is going to agree with it. I'm sure he shared the game plan to and it was supported by his boss which further supported some fans' opinion of the AD's incompetence too.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I'm guessing many people just don't like having Diaco blow sunshine up their arses while he is tearing down and trying to rebuild the program. Debating the method is fine. Extraordinary circumstances often dictates extraordinary measures and you get something that was managed like last year. Not everyone is going to agree with it. I'm sure he shared the game plan to and it was supported by his boss which further supported some fans' opinion of the AD's incompetence too.

It's all for naught Duncan, if we don't start winning home games again regularly. Crowds under 10k and no students? Not something I want to think about.

 

[BlueMAB]

I'm getting tired of the "tear-down" analogy. He didn't tear anything down. He brought in his own coaches. He kept over 90% of the same players and brought in as many new ones as he could find. That happens to virtually every program, every year. It's the nature of college football. Teams bring in new coordinators and playbooks change all the time. Every year each team has its own personality based on the players in it. Teams always have to be rebuilt and managed with every outgoing/incoming class. He's not reinventing football here, he's doing what always has to be done. I'm not saying he has an easy job, or that we didn't have major problems that needed to be fixed. But I think his "tear down" analogy is one he's using to excuse the fact that winning games last year was not his first priority.

The only "tearing-down" he did was in the media when he repeatedly said what everyone already knew: "we're not a good football team".

Balis did some tearing down by having guys shed bad weight and put on good weight, but that necessary physical strategy doesn't translate to the entire program (nor was it even necessary for the entire team).