The Low Point in UConn's BCS History

[Kevin Caliendo]

Manuel can talk about what is and is not acceptable. But the reality is that if Uconn is stuck in NBE, there is a lot less incentive to change staffs and try to win. The money to truly compete nationally won't be there and the fans are not going to come to see a mediocre team play the teams in conference. College football is the northeast is basically dead. Uconn had a chance to be THE program in the area, but through idiotic decisions (hiring PP, ignoring/oblivious the expansion stuff) made by the previous administration, they have been rendered irrelevent.

IF PP is still coaching this team in December, after another non-bowl year, you know full well that 1) UConn is not going to a legitimate conference; 2) the AD and President don't care about football because they cannot/will not swallow the $1.75M buyout

 

[ruskin]

What's your definition of horrendous? Minnesota and Illinois are horrendous teams compared to the quality that is supposed to exist in the B1G. They at least took care of business against the lower tier competition. Given how bad Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan State, etc. are this year, they both could end up bowl eligible.

Regardless, all I'm saying is that Western Michigan, for a MAC team, isn't horrendous. They are probably in the middle of the 124 FBS pack, as are we. If you expect UConn to be a Top 25 team then I can understand the disappointment but we have never really been a Top 25 team and if it was to happen, I would think it would take gradual improvement over several years. Right now, I'm hoping for improvement over last year and I'm not 100% convinced we can't do that.

My definition of horrendous is losing TWO YEARS IN A ROW to a team that plays in a crappy stadium similar to our old Memorial Stadium, doesn't have a $50 million football facility, has an athletic budget less than half of ours, is barely an afterthought in its state's college sporting consciousness, and doesn't have a signature win like, oh, say, winning at Notre Dame. That cover it?

 

[zls44]

Don't get in a land war in Asia. Always have a plan. Always have an endgame.

I honestly have no idea what the plan is right now. I have nary an idea what the goals are for the program. But I do think 28,000 for UConn-Buffalo on the first Saturday in October might cause some folks to try and figure one out real quick.

 

[UCFBfan]

Manuel can talk about what is and is not acceptable. But the reality is that if Uconn is stuck in NBE, there is a lot less incentive to change staffs and try to win. The money to truly compete nationally won't be there and the fans are not going to come to see a mediocre team play the teams in conference. College football is the northeast is basically dead. Uconn had a chance to be THE program in the area, but through idiotic decisions (hiring PP, ignoring/oblivious the expansion stuff) made by the previous administration, they have been rendered irrelevent.

IF PP is still coaching this team in December, after another non-bowl year, you know full well that 1) UConn is not going to a legitimate conference; 2) the AD and President don't care about football because they cannot/will not swallow the $1.75M buyout

You do realize that UConn can;t just walk up to a conference HQ and ask to be let in right? There's a lot of crap that needs to go down and if you think Herbst/Manuel haven't done all they can then wow...I have no words. While it doesnt make sense why RU would be considered over UConn in some of the future re-alignment scenarios, I dunno how you can claim that Herbst/Manuel ignored/oblivious to expansion stuff. Do you think they just sat around and twiddled their thumbs? The reality is that outside of the Olympic sports (which generate little money) UConn can't offer the cash cow like other schools can. Yeah, 'Cuse and Pitt have been bad for awhile but they are still in The Good Ol Boys Club for a long time. Until UConn can sustain a high level of play, it's going to be hard to attract attention from any other conference.

Uconn can still be THE Northeast program and I highly doubt that anyone in the athletic department is going to just sit around and let UConn football lose ALL the momentum it had going for it before PP was hired. I know today's loss was bad and demoralizing but this response is a little over the top...

 

[jbdphi]

My definition of horrendous is losing TWO YEARS IN A ROW to a team that plays in a crappy stadium similar to our old Memorial Stadium, doesn't have a $50 million football facility, has an athletic budget less than half of ours, is barely an afterthought in its state's college sporting consciousness, and doesn't have a signature win like, oh, say, winning at Notre Dame. That cover it?

Let's break down what you just said. Losing two years in a row to Western Michigan is horrendous because:
- Their stadium sucks - tell me, does our stadium make any tackles? Does it score TD's?
- Their practice facility wasn't as expensive as ours - same as above but substitute practice facility for stadium.
- People in their state don't care about the program - so do the fans make tackles or score TD's?
- They don't have a signature win in their history - at least this is somewhat related to playing a game - but as important as many here think the Notre Dame win was for UConn and I enjoyed it as much as anyone, that game had virtually no impact at all in the national conversation other than "How soon will Charlie Weiss be fired?" - nobody outside of CT said that was a signature win for UConn.

That's your definition of a horrendous team??? Nothing about the offense, the defense, the special teams, the players or the coaches? Listen, I don't think W Michigan is particularly great nor particularly horrible. There are 124 teams in FBS right now. They are probably somewhere in the 60's to 80's and we're probably in the same ballpark.

You want to know who is horrendous this year? UMass comes to mind. Memphis - horrible. Maryland could be pretty epically bad this year. Temple is down there. So is BC. I save horrendous for the bottom 25% or in that ballpark. The two teams we beat this year were probably in that category. NC State will probably end up somewhere in the Top 40-50 and we barely lost to them at home. Not sure how W Mich ends up but I wish them the best of luck.

Why so many people judge a team by its conference affiliation when we all get so jacked up when others do it to us is a bit pathetic. Not every team from the MAC or Sun Belt sucks. Not every team from the SEC or B12 is awesome. And sometimes (and a lot today), teams from the lower conferences beat teams from the higher conferences. And the world goes on.

 

[ruskin]

The point is the University of Connecticut, and the state, and you and I the season ticket holder and taxpayer, have invested MUCH more in this football program that Western Michigan University has in theirs. Never mind all the bells and whistles, I'd suspect their recruiting budget is also a third of ours. In basketball terms, they're a mid-major. And losing to a mid-major in hoops generally isn't horrendous. But football is a much different matter. I'm sorry, in a sport with a 12-game season you can't lose to the same mid-major two years ago when you have the resources UConn has. That is horrendous.
Did WMU have better athletes yesterday? No. Maybe more motivated athletes. Did they have better coaching? That is painfully apparent.. Put their coaches on our sideline and we win, and probably handily.
I applaud WMU and its coaches and players for their effort in both years. But in the quickly growing list of bad losses in the PP era, the two to this team are 1A and 1B.

 

[Uconnalliance]

God imagine how bad we could get if one of our weak OL goes down, gonna see Chandler spending the rest of the season running for his life.

 

[Adios]

- People in their state don't care about the program - so do the fans make tackles or score TD's?

I know of a WMU alum who happens to be a ND fan.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

The point is the University of Connecticut, and the state, and you and I the season ticket holder and taxpayer, have invested MUCH more in this football program that Western Michigan University has in theirs. Never mind all the bells and whistles, I'd suspect their recruiting budget is also a third of ours. In basketball terms, they're a mid-major. And losing to a mid-major in hoops generally isn't horrendous. But football is a much different matter. I'm sorry, in a sport with a 12-game season you can't lose to the same mid-major two years ago when you have the resources UConn has. That is horrendous.
Did WMU have better athletes yesterday? No. Maybe more motivated athletes. Did they have better coaching? That is painfully apparent.. Put their coaches on our sideline and we win, and probably handily.
I applaud WMU and its coaches and players for their effort in both years. But in the quickly growing list of bad losses in the PP era, the two to this team are 1A and 1B.

Sad but too true. Time to become very impatient with our bad hire at head coach.

 

[gars44]

We've looked fine until today. The season isn't over, but we are not winning more than 6-7 games this year.

I don't think we've looked fine until today. Our offense was poor against Umass and UNC, and fair against MD. It was actually good in the second half yesterday. My fear, and belief, is that GDL and PP will go right back to the same bs offense that we've been running. And it is poorly designed. Whitmer showed he is damn good. Our receivers showed us something. What was WMU's offense? Alex Carder throw, throw, throw. And if he hadn't got hurt, this game would not have been as close as it was. We need to get to the West Coast Offense pronto. That would make room for McCoombs. We have the receivers and the QB for it.