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The cupboard is bare

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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.
 
Tdaley said:
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.
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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.
 
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Tdaley said:
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.
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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.
 
J187Money said:
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.
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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).
 
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.
 
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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.
 
businesslawyer said:
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).
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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.
 
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.
 
46513723_3678180e88.jpg

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 :D:D
 
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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.
 
Duncan Idaho said:
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.
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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.
 
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).
 
I get a good laugh at some of these posts still trying to knock Edsall after what we've endured the last 4 years. Hate to break it to some of you guys, but Judgement Day has come and gone on Randy. People like myself, whaler, biz law, and wing has been proven to have been right all along. The Apologistas won the war. So stop fighting it.
 
Jimmy Serrano said:
I get a good laugh at some of these posts still trying to knock Edsall after what we've endured the last 4 years. Hate to break it to some of you guys, but Judgement Day has come and gone on Randy. People like myself, whaler, biz law, and wing has been proven to have been right all along. The Apologistas won the war. So stop fighting it.
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Everyone in college football expected the UConn we've seen the past 4 years. Far from perfect, he was the perfect coach for us at a time when we needed him.
 
Analogies Wing? With me hanging around reading? LOL.

Diaco came in and had by any observable means outside the program, had a rotten program to clean up. You begin to peel away the layers of the onion. Only way to get rid of the rot. You peel away the layers and you keep going, and if you get to the core and it's still rotten, you got to throw the onion out. I have heard stories about what players were doing, and one that has been shared on this website is that players were having their own belongings stolen by other players inside the facilities - and couldn't leave something unlocked - fore example. The point that the entire program had degenerated to under Pasqualoni - that's just sad. For that - that is what I do not respect Paqualoni anymore, not anything to do with football - the game. what he let happen to the football players - the people that make up the program. He took a winning culture of players over in 2011, and by 2013 under his watch it had turned into a losing culture of players - mostly from neglect and poor leadership throughout the entire program top down, and by allowing a mean little Troll named Deleone to be the loudest in the room. He recruited new players in high volumes - Pasqualoni - and got as many as he could into UCONN uniforms, but other than building up the defense for big games - he didn't seem to care about much else other than recruiting and coaching the defense. Player development - lack thereof - in the past few seasons had nothing to do with talent level (which was inadequate anyway overall as a full team roster - at least inadequate talent to overcome poor behavior off the field) but with social development. Those 2, 3 star players that become NFL players - are the players that develop well off the field - which translates to development on the field. If your stocked with 85 racehorses, you don't need to concern yourself with that either - but UCONN doesn't have that kind of recruiting profile. In the NFL - you don't have to concern yourself with any of it as a coach. Pasqualoni came in and found a winning culture off the field. He let it deteriorate from neglect. No respect.

Maybe tearing down isn't the right phrase, I agree. I'd go with throwing the rotten onion cores out and picking a new ones from the barrel.

Sooner than later though, it's got to start translating to wins - for real - in games. That's where the actual skill of a coaching staff comes in. Strategy, tactics, game planning, and the ability to teach the players to properly execute with discipline.

That - strategy, tactics, game planning and the ability to teach the players to properly execute with discipline? This is where we need MAJOR improvement. Or it is all for naught.
 
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Jimmy Serrano said:
I get a good laugh at some of these posts still trying to knock Edsall after what we've endured the last 4 years. Hate to break it to some of you guys, but Judgement Day has come and gone on Randy. People like myself, whaler, biz law, and wing has been proven to have been right all along. The Apologistas won the war. So stop fighting it.
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All I ever wanted from Randy Edsall was to continue to work to make the program improve beyond where he had taken it. I do not believe that 8-5 seasons and bowl games in Birmingham are the pinnacle of what this football program, for this university in the current century can be.

That is the current high point though - beating south Carolina in Birmingham in January 2010. It's not one full 5 year cycle of recruiting removed.
 
Carl Spackler said:
I do not believe that 8-5 seasons and bowl games in Birmingham are the pinnacle of what this football program, for this university in the current century can be.
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Nor do the "apologists". We accomplished more in less time than anyone really believed we could. Some of us appreciate and enjoy that. Others wrung their hands that we weren't able to do more.

Coming from the Yankee conference, and considering what we've seen the last 4 years, is 8-5 and a win over an SEC program in a bowl game something that needs to be apologized for?

If your answer is no, then you'll have to agree the "apologists" were right, and the people who mocked us with that name are the ones who should be apologizing.
 
WingU-Conn said:
Nor do the "apologists". We accomplished more in less time than anyone really believed we could. Some of us appreciate and enjoy that. Others wrung their hands that we weren't able to do more.

Coming from the Yankee conference, and considering what we've seen the last 4 years, is 8-5 and a win over an SEC program in a bowl game something that needs to be apologized for?

If your answer is no, then you'll have to agree the "apologists" were right, and the people who mocked us with that name are the ones who should be apologizing.
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I'm not sure why you're directing that at me and I don't know if I'm an apologista or not. But I'll answer your question with - NO, and I don't want an apology for anything, I want this program to reach far higher than we did 4-5 years ago in the months of December and January.

(well - except maybe from Jimmy Serrano for not being my google monkey, and whaler11, for being whaler11 - off the top of my head - they should apologize)
 
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Carl Spackler said:
I'm not sure why you're directing that at me and I don't know if I'm an apologista or not. But I'll answer your question with - NO, and I don't want an apology for anything, I want this program to reach far higher than we did 4-5 years ago in the months of December and January.

(well - except maybe from Jimmy Serrano for not being my google monkey, and whaler11, for being whaler11 - off the top of my head - they should apologize)
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See you can make a point and a funny in 2 paragraphs.

Feels like a breakthrough.
 
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BNich said:
Chandler Whitmer is getting a tryout with the Eagles.
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I'm like one of 4 people on this board that thought that he was a good QB who was put in bad situations throughout his career here. I hope Chandler does well enough to land somewhere and is able to chase down his dream. Kid has a ton of heart, too...
 
UConnDan97 said:
I'm like one of 4 people on this board that thought that he was a good QB who was put in bad situations throughout his career here. I hope Chandler does well enough to land somewhere and is able to chase down his dream. Kid has a ton of heart, too...
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Heart, grit and toughness for sure.
 
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