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First, this is just going to be about yesterday. Some type of season review and discussion of where we’re going with the coaching changes will wait for another time. So congratulations to the football players at the United States Military Academy. We had gone 24 straight games without a team beating our butts. They did. They were by far the better team yesterday. That we didn’t come with an A team and they did is our problem, not theirs, just like it took nothing away from our win last year when UNC had a bunch of players sit. And these players, who have duties few other division 1 football players have in addition to playing, should have our respect as persons and earned it yesterday as football players.
Second, the depth chart that someone posted and I copied in the Wasabi Bowl thread yesterday morning didn’t do justice to the number of players I didn’t see on the field yesterday (and my apologies if I missed someone who played a bit, but the site lines aren’t good at Fenway for football, and if someone was injured I have no way of knowing it). But in addition to those who appeared to be not playing from the depth chart, and without bothering to go back and check who I left out, add Bell, Honig, Juice and Malachi Graeves, and maybe Hanson on offense (I saw him play, but not much — mostly saw Churchi) and on defense Branch, Renwick, Wylie and Key (I swear I saw Key once but not much). In hindsight, we had no backups for the front 7, and when playing Army which can (and did) mount long drives, and recognizing given how mediocre our Defense has been even at full strength, there was only one way we were going to have a chance to win: we needed to control the ball on offense, limit possessions and give the D long rests between possessions. Like we played the second half against Air Force. And, given our inability to throw the ball at all, that meant running it down their damn throats. And we did run successfully. Add Rosa’s, Brown’s and Lundberg’s carries to Cam’s unbelievable numbers and the yards per carrry numbers were enough to do that. But we wouldn’t stick with running the damn ball. Cam Edwards carried the ball 11 times. Eleven friggin times. (Now, if he was on a carry count, whether medical or his decision, then this is unfair to Sammis except that, of course, i would have no way of knowing that — more on that later). Instead, we’re wasting drives with “ceremonial” decisions — Skyler’s ceremonial pass, Rosa getting to start and have the first carry each half — instead of trying to run the ball down their throats, mostly with Cam, and give ourselves a chance. The best I can tell Sammis ran this like a preseason game and while he had a great year as OC I would never have him back here in any capacity. Despite all this, we got to the locker room at the half very much in the game at 14-10, and then the long 75 yard run on the second play of the second half with at least four missed tackles broke our back. We were never going to be able to play from more than one score behind. But without long, ball controlling drives of our own, what then happened defensively was inevitable.
Offense, defense and specials. Our kickers ended their careers on a day when special teams play both ways was largely irrelevant. Freeman went out with a 49 yard FG on a wet field in sub freezing weather. If we ever see another kicker like him we’ll be very lucky.
I’m not going to beat up on the D. The players who showed up and played were trying their best but were never given a chance by the offense and the “teammates” who didn’t. Ethan Hogg never should have been put in the position of having to play basicallly every snap against an option team having never played a meaningful down prior. I know Pringle’s first responsibility yesterday was helping on the run and daring them to throw but damn, did he get burned when they threw it. Lee Molette had a chance to make a pick six before the game was over, read it perfectly and just didn’t make the play. But again that’s just analysis. The players who showed up tried their best but were put in a position to fail. One positive note — maybe the only one on D — was Trent Jones’ play. If he had been healthy from the start of the year, quite possible we make one more defensive play and beat Syracuse and Delaware.
On offense, quite obviously that was the most incompetently QB’d game since Zion Turner just choked at the start of the Marshall bowl game. I will say this — Farrar showed me more tools than Zion showed as a true freshman, and I do see the physical ability to develop into a good starter down the road (Zion never showed the potential or developed that way). But he was way overmatched yesterday. And Sammis can say what he wants — I will never be convinced that McDonald was physically ready to get into that game. From the little garbage time we’ve seen of him, he could do more than that. Any talk of him getting in was misdirection either aimed at Army or giving fans a reason to think we had a chance. I think the reshuffled OL did fine all things considered, Cam was great. Man, I hope we can get him back. But, as I said, he was our horse and he needed to be ridden into the ground like the horse at the end of True Grit. And with offseason coming up, I would need him to tell me that was all the carries he had in him to believe it. And he got 11 friggin touches. And we called a game more designed to make people happy than to try to win. As if we needed to reward those who showed up instead of trying to win the damn game. That we sacrificed the opening series and presumably valuable practice time to give Skyler Bell a victory lap? Please. Play or don’t play, but don’t ask the team to “honor” you by sacrificing the opening series of the game. That Sammis agreed to that is criminal. As great a year as he had, and he had a great year, I would never hire him for anything after that.
So I’ve spoken for a week and a half about how absurd this is, and I’m not going to spend too much time on it, but let me make a few last points. Yes, I know that players and teams sitting out bowl games is a college football problem and not primarily a UConn problem, but that doesn’t make it understandable to me. I think about rushing myself back from injuries more quickly than I should have as a high school and college wrestler because I wanted to be able to help my teammates win, and I just can’t fathom the selfishness of what is going on today. I’m not beating up individuals, because people act within their culture, and this is today’s culture, but I don’t get it. If Joe F was banged up and wanted to be healthy for all star games, I do understand that (not sure that really happened but I’d get it). But some of these decisions are just dumb whatever you think of the morality. Is any OL going to sacrifice their body blocking for Evers somewhere else knowing he ghosted teammates (if that’s what happened)? Players like Murawski who play hard for 12 games think a 13th is a material risk to their next season somewhere else? But let’s forget college football as a whole — in some respects, this problem is unique to UConn. Every other Division 1 team in the country, FBS or FCS, plays the season for a chance to win a national championship, or at worst a conference championship. What does UConn play for? Nothing more than a chance to get into the best bowl game we can and show a larger audience we can play this game. Us sacrificing the opportunity to win the bowl game is not like Notre Dame or whatever mediocre P-4 teams pass after a disappointing year. It’s very different. It’s much worse and more destructive.
And now one last word about the school, because I am ticked off (and if any of you choose not to be, good for you). I know that when Mora walked out on the team (I get it, within the present “morality” of the sport) AD David Benedict had a primary goal of hiring a new coach. And I think he did a good job on that and I’ll discuss that in another 241 in the near future. But he, not Sammis and Brock worried primarily about THEIR futures, is the steward of the UConn football program. It was on him to be speaking to the players about staying together for one more game, and if they have eligibility left giving the program time to bring in the next coach before irrevocably deciding to bail out. It was on him to measure the pulse of the players as to whether in the absence of coaching leadership the decision on where and when to play a bowl game was going to be important to the players. And, most specifically, it was on him to manage the resource that ultimately determines what level football and basketball players will be able to compete on — the fans and donors who supply the money. Maybe, maybe, if the fact that we were going to have mass defections could be kept secret, he could have stayed out of it. Maybe, maybe, if we had a coach to be responsible for this, he could have stayed out of it. But with no coaches but coordinators who already had their next job, and rumors running wild for a full two weeks, all of that fell on Benedict. And he failed miserably. MISERABLY. Will it effect dollars from me going forward — I will give it a little time to decide that (nor am I a big donor by any stretch). But will some people who committed a day (or a weekend) and a few hundred (or if it was a weekend a few thousand) bucks to watch a game in below freezing weather in a stadium with lousy sightlines for football to that a third of the players wouldn’t bother to show up and the coaches, at least on offense, didn’t appear to be coaching to win without knowing how bad the defections were and whether UConn had any chance to win the game vote with their wallets? There are very few products and services in this world that you can sell without telling your customer base the quality of the product/service is going to be substandard in this one case and not have it blow back and damage your brand. Frankly, I hope that I’m the unicorn here and the brand has not been damaged by this. But if the UConn Athletic Department is assuming that they have not spit in the eye of the folks they need to succeed and pay their salaries, I think they are making a bad mistake. When you lose folks who kept buying tickets and making donations through the lost decade, ….
Second, the depth chart that someone posted and I copied in the Wasabi Bowl thread yesterday morning didn’t do justice to the number of players I didn’t see on the field yesterday (and my apologies if I missed someone who played a bit, but the site lines aren’t good at Fenway for football, and if someone was injured I have no way of knowing it). But in addition to those who appeared to be not playing from the depth chart, and without bothering to go back and check who I left out, add Bell, Honig, Juice and Malachi Graeves, and maybe Hanson on offense (I saw him play, but not much — mostly saw Churchi) and on defense Branch, Renwick, Wylie and Key (I swear I saw Key once but not much). In hindsight, we had no backups for the front 7, and when playing Army which can (and did) mount long drives, and recognizing given how mediocre our Defense has been even at full strength, there was only one way we were going to have a chance to win: we needed to control the ball on offense, limit possessions and give the D long rests between possessions. Like we played the second half against Air Force. And, given our inability to throw the ball at all, that meant running it down their damn throats. And we did run successfully. Add Rosa’s, Brown’s and Lundberg’s carries to Cam’s unbelievable numbers and the yards per carrry numbers were enough to do that. But we wouldn’t stick with running the damn ball. Cam Edwards carried the ball 11 times. Eleven friggin times. (Now, if he was on a carry count, whether medical or his decision, then this is unfair to Sammis except that, of course, i would have no way of knowing that — more on that later). Instead, we’re wasting drives with “ceremonial” decisions — Skyler’s ceremonial pass, Rosa getting to start and have the first carry each half — instead of trying to run the ball down their throats, mostly with Cam, and give ourselves a chance. The best I can tell Sammis ran this like a preseason game and while he had a great year as OC I would never have him back here in any capacity. Despite all this, we got to the locker room at the half very much in the game at 14-10, and then the long 75 yard run on the second play of the second half with at least four missed tackles broke our back. We were never going to be able to play from more than one score behind. But without long, ball controlling drives of our own, what then happened defensively was inevitable.
Offense, defense and specials. Our kickers ended their careers on a day when special teams play both ways was largely irrelevant. Freeman went out with a 49 yard FG on a wet field in sub freezing weather. If we ever see another kicker like him we’ll be very lucky.
I’m not going to beat up on the D. The players who showed up and played were trying their best but were never given a chance by the offense and the “teammates” who didn’t. Ethan Hogg never should have been put in the position of having to play basicallly every snap against an option team having never played a meaningful down prior. I know Pringle’s first responsibility yesterday was helping on the run and daring them to throw but damn, did he get burned when they threw it. Lee Molette had a chance to make a pick six before the game was over, read it perfectly and just didn’t make the play. But again that’s just analysis. The players who showed up tried their best but were put in a position to fail. One positive note — maybe the only one on D — was Trent Jones’ play. If he had been healthy from the start of the year, quite possible we make one more defensive play and beat Syracuse and Delaware.
On offense, quite obviously that was the most incompetently QB’d game since Zion Turner just choked at the start of the Marshall bowl game. I will say this — Farrar showed me more tools than Zion showed as a true freshman, and I do see the physical ability to develop into a good starter down the road (Zion never showed the potential or developed that way). But he was way overmatched yesterday. And Sammis can say what he wants — I will never be convinced that McDonald was physically ready to get into that game. From the little garbage time we’ve seen of him, he could do more than that. Any talk of him getting in was misdirection either aimed at Army or giving fans a reason to think we had a chance. I think the reshuffled OL did fine all things considered, Cam was great. Man, I hope we can get him back. But, as I said, he was our horse and he needed to be ridden into the ground like the horse at the end of True Grit. And with offseason coming up, I would need him to tell me that was all the carries he had in him to believe it. And he got 11 friggin touches. And we called a game more designed to make people happy than to try to win. As if we needed to reward those who showed up instead of trying to win the damn game. That we sacrificed the opening series and presumably valuable practice time to give Skyler Bell a victory lap? Please. Play or don’t play, but don’t ask the team to “honor” you by sacrificing the opening series of the game. That Sammis agreed to that is criminal. As great a year as he had, and he had a great year, I would never hire him for anything after that.
So I’ve spoken for a week and a half about how absurd this is, and I’m not going to spend too much time on it, but let me make a few last points. Yes, I know that players and teams sitting out bowl games is a college football problem and not primarily a UConn problem, but that doesn’t make it understandable to me. I think about rushing myself back from injuries more quickly than I should have as a high school and college wrestler because I wanted to be able to help my teammates win, and I just can’t fathom the selfishness of what is going on today. I’m not beating up individuals, because people act within their culture, and this is today’s culture, but I don’t get it. If Joe F was banged up and wanted to be healthy for all star games, I do understand that (not sure that really happened but I’d get it). But some of these decisions are just dumb whatever you think of the morality. Is any OL going to sacrifice their body blocking for Evers somewhere else knowing he ghosted teammates (if that’s what happened)? Players like Murawski who play hard for 12 games think a 13th is a material risk to their next season somewhere else? But let’s forget college football as a whole — in some respects, this problem is unique to UConn. Every other Division 1 team in the country, FBS or FCS, plays the season for a chance to win a national championship, or at worst a conference championship. What does UConn play for? Nothing more than a chance to get into the best bowl game we can and show a larger audience we can play this game. Us sacrificing the opportunity to win the bowl game is not like Notre Dame or whatever mediocre P-4 teams pass after a disappointing year. It’s very different. It’s much worse and more destructive.
And now one last word about the school, because I am ticked off (and if any of you choose not to be, good for you). I know that when Mora walked out on the team (I get it, within the present “morality” of the sport) AD David Benedict had a primary goal of hiring a new coach. And I think he did a good job on that and I’ll discuss that in another 241 in the near future. But he, not Sammis and Brock worried primarily about THEIR futures, is the steward of the UConn football program. It was on him to be speaking to the players about staying together for one more game, and if they have eligibility left giving the program time to bring in the next coach before irrevocably deciding to bail out. It was on him to measure the pulse of the players as to whether in the absence of coaching leadership the decision on where and when to play a bowl game was going to be important to the players. And, most specifically, it was on him to manage the resource that ultimately determines what level football and basketball players will be able to compete on — the fans and donors who supply the money. Maybe, maybe, if the fact that we were going to have mass defections could be kept secret, he could have stayed out of it. Maybe, maybe, if we had a coach to be responsible for this, he could have stayed out of it. But with no coaches but coordinators who already had their next job, and rumors running wild for a full two weeks, all of that fell on Benedict. And he failed miserably. MISERABLY. Will it effect dollars from me going forward — I will give it a little time to decide that (nor am I a big donor by any stretch). But will some people who committed a day (or a weekend) and a few hundred (or if it was a weekend a few thousand) bucks to watch a game in below freezing weather in a stadium with lousy sightlines for football to that a third of the players wouldn’t bother to show up and the coaches, at least on offense, didn’t appear to be coaching to win without knowing how bad the defections were and whether UConn had any chance to win the game vote with their wallets? There are very few products and services in this world that you can sell without telling your customer base the quality of the product/service is going to be substandard in this one case and not have it blow back and damage your brand. Frankly, I hope that I’m the unicorn here and the brand has not been damaged by this. But if the UConn Athletic Department is assuming that they have not spit in the eye of the folks they need to succeed and pay their salaries, I think they are making a bad mistake. When you lose folks who kept buying tickets and making donations through the lost decade, ….
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