The Program Doesn't Need A Coach. It Needs A Salesman

[zls44]

Season tickets are down a THIRD over the last 7 years*. I think of them as The Lost Ten Thousand. The team is currently stuck in the Modern Purgatory Conference. It's located in an area heavily saturated by Giants/Pats/Jets coverage. It's a very, very easy program to just forget if we're honest.

PP is a bad enough football coach, but that isn't the real problem. The problem is that there's no enthusiasm, no excitement around the program. It's not just that the team has had two bad years...it's that they've been bad AND boring. Just unbelievably boring.

Boring will work when you win. They aren't winning.
That can work when you're at a school with decades of tradition and 80,000 in the stands. UConn isn't that.

The program needs an aggressive face, someone with a clear passion for the university. Someone with some fire, someone who will work donors and the Lost Ten Thousand and see what the hell it's going to take for them to get back.

The Lost Ten Thousand believed in the program once. It's up to the school to give them a reason to believe in it again. They have to find a leader who can re-instill that belief, that pride, again. Or they'll just keep sliding deeper into irrelevence.


*Season tickets down from 32,000 to 22,500 per Jeff Jacobs

 

[zls44]

Also, Warde: if the Connecticut High School Coaches Association tells you that they want Paul to keep his job, ignore them. Their opinion is worthless.

 

[Dann]

did espn tell u Tyler Phommachanh post this? they would try to have uconn keep P so that uconn falls off a cliff. espn is devaluinguconn and now telling its employees to do the same. UNREAL...


/s

 

[hungry husky]

We want a leader not a loser.

PP looked lifeless out on there, can't see how any college kid would be fired up to play for him when you have people like Mike Gundy and Will Muschamp out there coaching their dicks off to get the most of out their guys. At this point, I don't care who the next coach is, I just want there to be a next coach.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

 

[uconNYC]

Coach PP just has no upside

His recruiting is average. He is a bad communicator and does not energize the fan base . He is a veteran coach, so it is unlikely he will improve his coaching as a result of more experience. I really don't see a case for keeping the guy.

Looking at past BigEast coaches, guys like Dave Wannstedt and Greg Schiano burned it up on the recruiting trail and had a great rapport with Alumni so at least there was some optimism amongst fans. Doug Morrone is relatively young so there is a sense that he will learn from his mistakes. With PP what in the world leaves us optimistic about the future?

 

[businesslawyer]

This can't be a choice between salesmanship and coaching. We need both.

 

[Uconnalliance]

This can't be a choice between salesmanship and coaching. We need both.

And for some of us a psychiatrist.The feel good is feel gone.

 

[Palatine]

Zls (who I rarely agree with) makes a valid point. Sometimes a program needs a zealot, an advocate, a firebrand. Someone who will stand up for the program.

The University of Connecticut reflects the land of steady habits. Be quiet. Don't expect too much. Everyone stays in line.

You know who broke that mold --Jim Calhoun. He stopped taking sh#t from the Big East. He made a huge stink when the program was shafted by the officials in a Pitt game back in the 1980s. He told the BE we were not going to take that crap any more. He demanded excellence.

The year after we won the NIT, I attended a pre-game cocktail hour with Dee Rowe. He talked about how winning the NIT was a miracle. Then Calhoun got up. He said it wasn't a miracle and it wasn't enough. That it was hard work and there was lots more hard work that needed to be done.

The next coach needs to say that our goal is a National Championship. Anything less is aiming too low.

 

[rich1122]

This my friends is not about support. It's about the state of the state and the migration of the people who have money and the fact that many grads either can't find job or have left. You guys don't see it, but I do - in a big way. The loyalists are leaving slowly but surely. Basketball used to sell out every game. The crowd that used to go to woman's games are gone or can't budget it. 8k against New Hampshire.

It has happened to both basketball and football.

Less and less people go, because there are less and less people who fit the demographic.

Sell to who? Unless you offer packages for Alum to come back and go to games, we have a long-term problem.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

With PP what in the world leaves us optimistic about the future?

That he is reasonably close to retirement age?

 

[ArmyHuskyFan]

Sad to say it, but we need a Greg Schiano.

 

[NEforceUConn]

Take a look at what Chuck Amato did at NC State. An average to bad coach but he hyped that program up, increased donations, and put fans in the seats.