The View From Section 241

[Jimmy Serrano]

Isn't it also the coaches job to motivate? No one on this board has any idea what the players are going through, we shouldn't assume that they just quit because that's how you viewed the game. This could be both on the coaches and players. I don't know how I would feel as a defensive player that gives leaves everything on the field only to have the offense stall after every three series. It must be frustrating for the whole team. I'm not about to call the kids quitters. Why not? They quit. I don't think it's even debatable. Forget the reasons why. They quit.

I will say this, Syracuse was all over the wildcat, it's not working, is that McCummings fault or coach p and GDL? I'll put this one on the staff. This package needs to be shelved right next to the leather helmets.

We had -6 yards rushing, is that LM's fault or coach P and GDL for not passing first when they stack 8 in the box? They ran less than 20 rushing plays for God's sake. Most of the negative rushing stats came on sacks. Let's be honest about things.

You can't keep depending on the D to play stellar every game, how many times did the offense keep us in the game and bailed the defense?

Ultimately who are you going to blame, some 20 something year old kid who's still learning and going to class or the 60 year old coaches with 20 years of experience that should know better by know. BL, your defense of coach p on the cuse game is simply not valid. I didn't see anywhere where BL defended this staff. None.

Disagree with a lot here.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Somewhere between the two extremes . . . as it always is. Most fans here have had it with PP and Deleeeeeeee. Past prime, boring, poor clock management, can't recruit, too predictable, boring, too old . . . . and on and on. I'm quite sure both coaches would disagree with this . . . well then . . . . show us different than the 8-12 after one and a half years.

As for the players. . . most fans here want to go easy on them. But . . . we need to see that they are not . . . just "Under-the-Radars" that few others wanted. We need to see that they are not part of a continuous pattern of the 7th or 8th best recruiting classes in a conference that itself is the lowest rated of the BCS conferences when recruiting is analyzed. We need to see that they can make plays when it matters.

Now I'm extremely certain that the players would disagree with this view . . . . well then . . . . show us different than the 8-12 in last year and a half.

 

[B1GEast]

Disagree with a lot here.

Jimmy, from what I read BL put this loss on the players that quit and not on the staff, read the initial post.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Jimmy, from what I read BL put this loss on the players that quit and not on the staff, read the initial post.

Well, I happen to believe that's true for the most part. But I also don't see that as defending the staff.

 

[sportsart]

Not one thing you listed is an excuse for players not giving it their best.

We all work on projects for clients or bosses, most of us have probably at some point played for a coach in some sport growing up, where you disagree with the direction in which you're being taken. If you have any maturity and pride, you put that aside and do the best job you can within the circumstances. You want to blame the coaches on individuals doing the best they can do not producing wins prior to Friday night -- absolutely reasonable. But you want to blame the coaches inadequacies for the kids giving up on the field? I'm not buying it. The coaches not being good enough is not, can not be, ever, an excuse for players not giving it their all.

With all due respect I'm not sure you understand the severity of what is going on here. Go back and read the comment about a veteran leader stepping up to lead and being told to shut up.

Once you act incompetent, as these coaches have shown, and you shut down a leader who is only trying to lead, you have now created an us vs them mentality.

RE may have been tough on his players, but I have heard time and time again that virtually all his players respected them, and wanted team leaders to step it up.

Any boss knows if you want your employees to work even harder you listen to them and if they come up with a good idea you implement it because the employees will take ownership in it and work even harder.

Do anyone think our 2010 team could have even come close to realing off 5 wins in a row, after a not so good, start, unless the players believed in what the coaches were selling? Do you think RE stopped team captains from being vocal?

This is not just a few malcontents. This is much more.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

With all due respect I'm not sure you understand the severity of what is going on here. Go back and read the comment about a veteran leader stepping up to lead and being told to shut up.

Once you act incompetent, as these coaches have shown, and you shut down a leader who is only trying to lead, you have now created an us vs them mentality.

RE may have been tough on his players, but I have heard time and time again that virtually all his players respected them, and wanted team leaders to step it up.

Any boss knows if you want your employees to work even harder you listen to them and if they come up with a good idea you implement it because the employees will take ownership in it and work even harder.

Do anyone think our 2010 team could have even come close to realing off 5 wins in a row, after a not so good, start, unless the players believed in what the coaches were selling? Do you think RE stopped team captains from being vocal?

This is not just a few malcontents. This is much more.

Not often in agreement (OK, maybe a few times), but when you are right, you're right. And you're right on target here.

 

[B1GEast]

Well, I happen to believe that's true for the most part. But I also don't see that as defending the staff.

So you agree that we should pin this loss on 20 year old student athletes?

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

So you agree that we should pin this loss on 20 year old student athletes?

Partially, yes.

 

[gars44]

When people quit on you, it's an indictment of you, not them. When people don't vote for you, it's on you, not them. When people don't think your jokes are funny, it's you, not them. It's all about leadership. That's why leaders get paid such grotesquely large salaries. It is the most valued quality there is in a group. A leaderless group gets slaughtered out in the wild. Corporate leaders make $20 Mill / yr. Top football coaches, even in the Big East, make millions per year. It's not the hours. It's not the overtime. It's the results they bring. Those results are not luck. Just get rid of this clueless duo. Or just get rid of DeLeone and tell PP to be a figurehead.

 

[B1GEast]

Partially, yes.

partially? Didn't I say in my post that both the players and the coaches should accept responsibility? Jimmy are you agreeing with BL? Because it sounds like you are agreeing with me.

 

[jdb50]

Sports Art, just curious, what game did this shut up and follow directions event occur before? As far as quiting the offense did not seem to me to give up we are just incredibly inept mostly on the line. Once Cuse came out and established the run our D got it's faith in itself shaken. There were things going on with the D that looked like the effort was failing. Cuse exploited our weaknesses and it snowballed.

 

[ZooCougar]

What the fecundity is going on here. I agree with SportsArt.

Look, if some of you have never worked or been asked to perform in a toxic leadership environment, then you are lucky. Based on the things I am hearing, that is what is going on here.

People in an environment like that basically seize up. They do enough to get by and stay out of trouble.

It's easy for us to castigate players for thinking that they aren't playing with pride. Their response is: "why should I go the extra mile to make you feel good?,"

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

partially? Didn't I say in my post that both the players and the coaches should accept responsibility? Jimmy are you agreeing with BL? Because it sounds like you are agreeing with me.

Here's exactly what I think: I think the coaching since day one has been completely inept. I think it was inept vs. WMU last year and it was inept Friday night. That is the one variable that has been pretty consistent. Bad coaching. However, the effort the players gave on the field was like nothing else I've seen in the last 2 years. The only other time I saw UConn kids quit was against Navy. So getting blown out by a miserable Cuse team......yeah, I blame the players.

 

[Carl Spackler]

When people quit on you, it's an indictment of you, not them. When people don't vote for you, it's on you, not them. When people don't think your jokes are funny, it's you, not them. It's all about leadership. That's why leaders get paid such grotesquely large salaries. It is the most valued quality there is in a group. A leaderless group gets slaughtered out in the wild. Corporate leaders make $20 Mill / yr. Top football coaches, even in the Big East, make millions per year. It's not the hours. It's not the overtime. It's the results they bring. Those results are not luck. Just get rid of this clueless duo. Or just get rid of DeLeone and tell PP to be a figurehead.

I had a response written up to sportsart's devil's advocate post, but deleted it. Military oriented. But I"ll respond to this.... I completely agree, that a leaderless group, gets slaughtered. An incompetently led group, that gets led into an ambush, put in preposterous situations time and time again, doesn't have great odds of survival, but can survive, and live to fight, as long as everybody focuses on their basic survival instincts and training and makes sure that everybody next to them is doing the same, and eventually that leader is either killed, or removed.

In business, in sport, the consequences of poor leadership are less dire, than in combat, but the principle is the same.

In combat, those that are being so poorly led, if they live long enough, are eventually going to disregard their orders, and rely only on their survival training and instincts as a group. It's the same in business, or in sport. Eventually, they are going to reach the point where they are more concerned about their own safety, job security, etc. is more important than anything else.

I don't know how you fix it, without changing leadership, if anyone knows - tell me.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

What the fecundity is going on here. I agree with SportsArt.

Look, if some of you have never worked or been asked to perform in a toxic leadership environment, then you are lucky. Based on the things I am hearing, that is what is going on here.

People in an environment like that basically seize up. They do enough to get by and stay out of trouble.

It's easy for us to castigate players for thinking that they aren't playing with pride. Their response is: "why should I go the extra mile to make you feel good?,"

That's fair. But if I see a similar type of effort against USF that we saw against Cuse, I'm going to find something better to do than go to the Rent for the last 2 home games.

 

[noeynox]

That was the worst performance by a UConn football team in terms of effort, in a long, long time. The only thing that comes close was in 2007, when we got smoked by WVU in the "BE Championship" game. At least then, you had a team that showed up hungry, was overwhelmed physically, and then simply couldn't muster up the effort to get them off the field. That was painful, hurt to the core, you felt it in your gut every time WVU scored again. What happened Friday was much worse. I watched that game with zero emotion. When we scored to make it 13-10, and the defense gave up a LONG drive for a TD I felt it was over. The second half began the same way. I felt nothing. I'd venture to say that many long time season ticket holders probably feel the same. There is no energy in or around this program. If what Sportsart is telling us is accurate and is the prevailing thought coming out of that locker room, we are in deep, deep shit barring a coaching a change.

 

[ZooCougar]

I had a response written up to sportsart's devil's advocate post, but deleted it. Military oriented. But I"ll respond to this.... I completely agree, that a leaderless group, gets slaughtered. An incompetently led group, that gets led into an ambush, put in preposterous situations time and time again, doesn't have great odds of survival, but can survive, and live to fight, as long as everybody focuses on their basic survival instincts and makes sure that everybody next to them is doing the same, and eventually that leader is either killed, or removed.

In business, in sport, the consequences of poor leadership are less dire, than in combat, but the principle is the same.

In combat, those that are being so poorly led, if they live long enough, are eventually going to disregard their orders, and rely only on their survival training and instincts as a group. It's the same in business, or in sport. Eventually, they are going to reach the point where they are more concerned about their own safety, job security, etc. is more important than anything else.

I don't know how you fix it, without changing leadership, if anyone knows - tell me.

Carl,

If this were war, some of these coaches may have been fragged by now.

George DeLeone marshals the offense into an ambush every game. He runs the Wildcat when the offense is working.

That's like charging the objective with your 9mm pistol when mortars and close air support have been working fine.

 

[B1GEast]

Here's exactly what I think: I think the coaching since day one has been completely inept. I think it was inept vs. WMU last year and it was inept Friday night. That is the one variable that has been pretty consistent. Bad coaching. However, the effort the players gave on the field was like nothing else I've seen in the last 2 years. The only other time I saw UConn kids quit was against Navy. So getting blown out by a miserable Cuse team......yeah, I blame the players.

So you are putting this loss on the 20 year old student athletes, okay that's settled.

The Navy game had nothing to do with players quitting, we lost Cody Brown and didn't have too much depth behind him, Lindsey whitten, a true freshman had to grow up in that game.

Paul Johnson's triple option was tough to defend that year, that loss had absolutely nothing to do with heart.

 

[gars44]

I had a response written up to sportsart's devil's advocate post, but deleted it. Military oriented. But I"ll respond to this.... I completely agree, that a leaderless group, gets slaughtered. An incompetently led group, that gets led into an ambush, put in preposterous situations time and time again, doesn't have great odds of survival, but can survive, and live to fight, as long as everybody focuses on their basic survival instincts and training and makes sure that everybody next to them is doing the same, and eventually that leader is either killed, or removed.

In business, in sport, the consequences of poor leadership are less dire, than in combat, but the principle is the same.

In combat, those that are being so poorly led, if they live long enough, are eventually going to disregard their orders, and rely only on their survival training and instincts as a group. It's the same in business, or in sport. Eventually, they are going to reach the point where they are more concerned about their own safety, job security, etc. is more important than anything else.

I don't know how you fix it, without changing leadership, if anyone knows - tell me.

And I want you to know that I was just kidding about you lighting yourself on fire at mid-field!!! Don't do it.

 

[ZooCougar]

That's fair. But if I see a similar type of effort against USF that we saw against Cuse, I'm going to find something better to do than go to the Rent for the last 2 home games.

Jimmy,

Friday night was the last time I am staying up until 5 am watching this team.
(I say that now).

 

[sportsart]

Sports Art, just curious, what game did this shut up and follow directions event occur before? As far as quiting the offense did not seem to me to give up we are just incredibly inept mostly on the line. Once Cuse came out and established the run our D got it's faith in itself shaken. There were things going on with the D that looked like the effort was failing. Cuse exploited our weaknesses and it snowballed.

I was repeating the incident Fairfield County was reporting from a practice, not a game.

 

[businesslawyer]

Isn't it also the coaches job to motivate? No one on this board has any idea what the players are going through, we shouldn't assume that they just quit because that's how you viewed the game. This could be both on the coaches and players. I don't know how I would feel as a defensive player that gives leaves everything on the field only to have the offense stall after every three series. It must be frustrating for the whole team. I'm not about to call the kids quitters.

I will say this, Syracuse was all over the wildcat, it's not working, is that McCummings fault or coach p and GDL?

We had -6 yards rushing, is that LM's fault or coach P and GDL for not passing first when they stack 8 in the box?

You can't keep depending on the D to play stellar every game, how many times did the offense keep us in the game and bailed the defense?

Ultimately who are you going to blame, some 20 something year old kid who's still learning and going to class or the 60 year old coaches with 20 years of experience that should know better by now. BL, your defense of coach p on the cuse game is simply not valid.

Me "defending" Coach P is simply not a credible reading of what I'm saying. The opposite of not attacking him with a pitchfork for the players quitting is not defending him.

 

[B1GEast]

Me "defending" Coach P is simply not a credible reading of what I'm saying. The opposite of not attacking him with a pitchfork for the players quitting is not defending him.

BL, correct me if I'm wrong, your post absolved coach p of blame for this loss and you pinned it on the players for quitting. Am I missing something here?

 

[businesslawyer]

That was the worst performance by a UConn football team in terms of effort, in a long, long time. The only thing that comes close was in 2007, when we got smoked by WVU in the "BE Championship" game. At least then, you had a team that showed up hungry, was overwhelmed physically, and then simply couldn't muster up the effort to get them off the field. That was painful, hurt to the core, you felt it in your gut every time WVU scored again. What happened Friday was much worse. I watched that game with zero emotion. When we scored to make it 13-10, and the defense gave up a LONG drive for a TD I felt it was over. The second half began the same way. I felt nothing. I'd venture to say that many long time season ticket holders probably feel the same. There is no energy in or around this program. If what Sportsart is telling us is accurate and is the prevailing thought coming out of that locker room, we are in deep, deep **** barring a coaching a change.

The 2007 loss to WVU had little to do with effort. We simply got snowballed by what was, when Pat White was at 100%, was an unstopable offense. So did Oklahoma.

 

[ZooCougar]

Me "defending" Coach P is simply not a credible reading of what I'm saying. The opposite of not attacking him with a pitchfork for the players quitting is not defending him.

With respect, I would say that alot of the players feel they are past the point that a reasonable person would demand that they go 110% for a strategy and philosophy that has failed. Not to mention that they have adult leaders that they have lost respect for.

 

[Srqhusky]

It's lack of wins guys everybody's down. Too much negative energy neon released. We need a win badly, even better would be a streak. Hopefully those that quit will look at the week off as a time to recoup mentally and physically and play hard and beat USF.

 

[jdb50]

Thanks, S Florida gave L-Ville quite a game, we will need a great effort to hang with them and it is going to be back on the D to lead the way effort wise. The decline in our return game for both punt and kickoff is another area that is a disturbing trend.

 

[ktuck911]

I was slow in getting to this because I just didn't know what to say. It took me 48 hours to decide. But here goes. Until Friday night, we were an extremely disappointing 3-4, but we had every chance to win three of those four losses and the team, while disappointing, and full of flaws, was not overall terrible. Friday night changed that. Friday night was humilating. Friday night was ridiculous. Friday night was not something that you can come back from this season. Syracuse had beaten 1 I-A team -- 1 -- in their last twelve or so games. We had beaten them five straight times, and very few of those five were close. Heck -- we even beat them last year by manning up and running the ball down their throats in a year where they started strong and we struggled out of the gate. But if one thing was clear on Friday night, there was no manning up coming from the UConn sideline. None.

I don't know what happened to the D, but it obviously didn't recover from the Temple game. Lost faith in the coaches? Just flat after great efforts on their part didn't produce wins and culminated with losing at home against Temple? Mad about playing their butts off and not producing wins? Who knows. But they came out with no intensity, no emotion, and if there was a good game plan I didn't see it. Frankly, they just looked like they quit. Is that the way our D is going to be the rest of the way? Is it something they recover from after the break? I don't know. But they didn't care, and they quit. I am not getting into the coaching, and certainly not saying anything positive about it, but the coaching didn't change from the entire season to Friday night -- only the players efforts did. We got blown out because of the players. Period. On O, we remained pitiful, doing things and not doing things that we'll never understand, but that has been all year. Nice to see Whitmer throw the ball well. Hard to find anything else worth saying.

So, the bottom line is that getting to a bowl will require a remarkable turnaround that we are probably not capable of. Just winning a game will take reverting to pre-Syracuse effort and hoping some other team turns it over enough that we can squeak out a win. And then see what the offseason should and does bring us. I feel badly that Adam Masters will end a solid career in street clothes. But this senior class needs to stop worrying about the coaching and play with pride. Not one of us will get through life without playing for a coach, or working for a boss, who you lose faith in generally or as to something. You grit your teeth and work through it the best you can. You don't throw in the towel and quit on your school, your team and yourself. We have a team whose arms are sore from throwing in the towel. Time to look in the mirror instead and decide whether or not you want to look back at this season when you're more mature and wonder why you didn't work harder to overcome the stuff you can't control.

Excellent post bro, but the only gripe (if that) I have with it is that I understand that the players need to be held accountable, but one thing we all have to keep in mind is that their still kids, no matter how big and strong they are... Physically, they're men, but mentally, their all still being molded. Which is why you gotta look at the top, the coaches... from the looks of things, Coach P doesn't seem to be too good at motivating his players.. Where's the fire? It'd be nice to see him show some sort of emotion on the sidelines, whether we're winning, or losing... Get in a kids face... Huddle a unit around him and strike a match under their butts... Something... This team severely lacks desire...

 

[businesslawyer]

BL, correct me if I'm wrong, your post absolved coach p of blame for this loss and you pinned it on the players for quitting. Am I missing something here?

This team is not as good as it should be because the coaching isn't good enough. But that explains losing to Syracuse -- not getting blown out. Is the leadership of this coaching regime insufficient? Probably (although I'm a little reluctant to draw conclusions like that from a snippet here and there). But the coaching being not good enough, and the coaching leadership being not good enough, does not excuse the Defense from not showing up. And if you think they showed up and just coaching held them back, you have forgotten how they played against UMass and NC State and Maryland and Rutgers and Temple (for 58 minutes).

And, at least give me credit for what I've been saying here for close to a decade -- for the most part, players win and lose games. Coaches are responsible for the outcome of the season and the direction of the program, but with rare exceptions for dumb game day decisions (like Vanderbilt, thought I know others disagree) players, and not coaches, win or lose games.

 

[businesslawyer]

And I want you to know that I was just kidding about you lighting yourself on fire at mid-field!!! Don't do it.

I can see Carl lighting himself on fire at mid-field. But anyone who thinks that he will do so to communicate a slogan of just a few words isn't paying attention. More likely, the on-field message will be "read the report taped to the buttom of your chair."