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I have a lot to say, so if you don't have the patience to read through a long post feel free to spend your time elsewhere. This is going to start as a normal 241, with a little more than usual because it's the end of the season, and then talk about our coaching situation (so if that is all you care about feel free to skip to the last two paragraphs).
First, the day itself before getting to the game. If you were parked in the Blue lot 8, about three rows from the stadium, a little to the student section side from the 50, and you saw that idiot who started a huge grease fire burning out of control for ten minutes on his portable grill, running the risk of starting a fire that could spread right through the dry grass of the parking lots -- well, if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. Sue me. My defense is that male Jewish lawyers can't be expected to clean out their old grills, eight years collection of grease at the bottom notwithstanding. I ought to charge all of you for the free heat I provided (and if anyone sues me just because their ten year old has third degree burns -- well, get ready for that countersuit little Sally!). Almost no one in the stadium for the Senior Day honors, but that is par for the course and not a reflection on the season. The in seat attendance, however, was later arriving than normal, smaller than normal, less enthusiastic than normal and left earlier than normal. A combination of our situation right now with the enthusiasm deficit and the day. Because it was cold. It was even if you dressed for it cold. And, to boot, the floor of the stadium, at least where I was, had a thin layer of ice on it making it difficult to walk to and from your seats. If you are a student at UConn, whether you were there or not, you should be embarassed. The student section being less than half full for the start of a meaningful senior day game at 3:30 on ABC makes me really wonder if the student body cares enough for us to have big time athletics. But, in defense of the students and everyone else, it was cold, and the fact that, with two I-A programs in all of New England, we seem to average more than a home game a year post-Thanksgiving, and you can't even count on them starting at noon when we have them, is absurd. I know the fans in the stadium are unimportant to the TV executives, but if we control no other part of our schedule can't we play less home games after Thanksgiving, and when we have to play them at least start them at the warmest part of the day?
As to the game, in some ways it was absolutely typical of the season and in other ways it was totally atypical. I gave four keys to the game: their running game, turnovers, first score and emotion. Well, I think they out emotioned us, but I think each team gave it their best effort despite feeling like the world was crapping on them. We were in a one possession game when turnovers were even at 1, and then got blown out late because we turned it over twice more. We did totally stop their running game, but couldn't turn that into a win. And we finished a season where, in 12 games (and excluded the OTs at LV which don't count) we did not come back, even once, to tie a game that we were behind at any time during the game. Remarkable. I wonder if that has ever happened to anyone other than a 2-10 or worse team before. But the single key to the game was Trevardo Williams was, despite what we heard, not recovered from the rolled ankle against LV. He didn't start, and he only played 3rd and long situations and was clearly not o.k. and couldn't do anything when he was in. (The best I could tell, he played at all only because they kept doubleteaming him, and as long as he was drawing double coverage he was doing more for our pass rush than anyone else). Without T Will, no pass rush and without any semblance of a pass rush, an opposing QB who got way too comfortable in the pocket and had no trouble picking us apart even as their offense became one dimensional. That became the single key to the game.
Why was this a typical game? We lost the turnover battle, we lost the red zone battle (at least on D), we burned times out because our coaches have no clue what they're doing, and we couldn't run the ball a lick. And, we give up a huge amount of points compared to total yardage allowed (I'll do a statistical analysis of the season in a week or two but this was a beyond obvious factor this year). But in many ways, we played a game that was very atypical of UConn football. We ran far more plays and had more time of possession, despite our inability to run the ball. We had more yards, although not be a huge amount. And we had not one but two huge YAC plays, which for us seem like they come about once a season. And yet, for all the statistical good and big plays, we weren't even close at games end. To some degree it is hard to explain. Statistically, I think a review will blame it on turnovers and poor red zone D. But it's more than that. And I'll give you an example. The 50 yard or so pass and run to Michael Smith ended with us, down 14-settling for 3. But why didn't Smith score? When he beat his man on the left sideline, the two defenders who were covering Shaq Phillips in the middle of the field turned, ran 40 yards and cut him off. With Phillips standing there. Go back to Marcus Easley's 83 yard catch and run in Morgantown that put us up with 4 minutes left in '09. He scored because when he started running free Brad Kanuch and Kash Moore ran 35 yards from another part of the field to get where the deep DB help was coming from and throw blocks. Terrence Jeffers wouldn't have stood there in years past. But this year, no one was making those kinds of unnoticed, out of the boxscore hustle plays.
And individual players not making plays will be part of the story of this season. Do I think that we put our players at a schematic disadvantage each and every game that they had to climb out of? Yes. Look at how Cincy had precise passing routes where receivers ran at full speed to certain spots, and the ball was thrown to the spots, and they knew where the hole in the zone would be. Compare that to JM's huge third down conversion to Nick Williams, where Williams found the hole in the zone, stopped, and waited forever for the ball to get there. But that schematic disadvantage does not excuse players from not making plays when they are available. It does not excuse Nick Williams from dropping a wide open third down conversion. Or Martin Hyppolite from taking 7 points off the board on a Nick Williams return by blocking in the back. Or Sio Moore dropping his umpteenth potential interception of the year. Or Michael Smith catching a square in, needing only to turn and lunge forward to get a big 1st down and instead running laterally (a favorable spot bailed him out on that). Or four defenders stopping play on Cincy's second TD on the intial lateral, when they easily could have interfered with the throw, because they saw him trap the ball and no one continued to play to the whistle. Or Bobby Puyol kicking a kickoff out of bounds at a moment we had cut the lead to 4 and had momentum. I could go on but I won't. I thank the senior class for their contribution to this football program. Many of the seniors played a huge roll in taking us to the Fiesta Bowl as youngsters in 2010. And as the Louisville game showed, in terms of effort these guys played their hearts out most of the time. But we didn't go 5-7 just because our coaches weren't good enough. We also went 5-7 because players did not make enough plays that were within their power to make.
O.K., let me do offense, defense and specials. Let's start with offense and start with personnel. Gus Cruz did not play. Tyler Bullock shifted from C to RG and Mateas went back in at C. Don't know if it was injury or a change (although if we changed the OL coming off a 2 game winning streak where we ran it better -- well, I have trouble believing even George is that dumb but who knows). Was that part of the running game not working yesterday? I don't know. I thought I saw Mateas make a play or two, but without seeing a replay (and I'm not about to) who knows. When Griffin went out banged up twice, in each case we saw McQuillan come in and get on the field. As to personnel, no Tebucky Jones that I saw, no Delorenzo, and Hyppolite for one or two plays. Sigh. Congratulations to Ryan Griffin for showing an unbelievable desire to score on his TD. Can't remember a TE at any level running 70 yards with a short seam pass and not being caught from behind. I thought Whitmer was o.k. -- not as good as earlier in the year, and I think the cold has affected him -- and JM, for the second straight game, took us into the end zone as QB (and completed 3 passes to finish that drive). But the JM pick, when we were still only down 7, was a blown read by him and cost us a chance to win. McCombs -- not enough blocking for him to read anything into his performance. I don't think he got worse from last week -- I just think he never had a chance this year.
Defense, as I said, just couldn't overcome a one legged Trevardo. Willman and Pruitt just couldn't generate a pass rush, and we couldn't overcome that. At some point in the 3rd Tymeer Brown must have gotten hurt, because Adams was on the rest of the way. A great effort against the run, but not against the pass. And, the total confusion on their trick play was, frankly, disheartening. There was a huge amount of talent on this side of the ball this year, and their performance based on total yardage was very, very good. But it didn't translate into either takeaways or red zone stops like it needed to. And, thus wasn't enough to overcome our offense. The bad news is we have more talent to replace On D than we can, and the D won't be as good in preventing yardage next year. But, ironically, we could give up a lot more yards and still produce more for the team if we can figure out where the takeaways went and make some red zone stops.
Special teams, nothing to talk about covering or returning kicks except the Hyppolite penalty. I congratulate Bobby Puyol for playing in his first game in a year where he clearly was planning to redshirt, in frigid weather that he had never played in, and making that FG (and his EPs). But he showed zero leg strength. Hopefully, that was a combination of nerves and weather, but he'll have to demonstrate in two years when he plays again that he has the leg strength to get this done.
O.K., so what about the staff. This paragraph will state what I would do, and then I'll go on to what I anticipate will happen. First, in the interests of fairness and in case someone doesn't know, I was very pleased at the job our prior coach did and was not in favor of this hiring. I didn't say it was a stupid hire -- P's record, to me, made that too harsh a statement -- but I didn't expect it to work either. Last year, I thought the staff's start was disastorous, but I gave them a little credit for "dialing back" the changes in the second half of the season and coming out of the Big East at 3-4 with limited talent at the offensive skill positions. It gave me some hope. This year, I became convinced that the hope was false. We didn't improve at obvious and easy things to fix like clock management and getting the right personnel on and off the field in a timely manner and, far more importantly, and as evidenced by the change in the OL scheme and coaching, we continued to force what we thought should work theoretically on our players instead of figuring out what would work for them and doing it that way. When we had our last off week following the Pitt game, I came to the conclusion that I would not fire P after this year because it just wasn't right to fire a coach who took a team averaging 8 wins a year and fireing them after back to back 5-7 years, not when they are good men doing a fine job other than not winning enough, and because making a move that quickly says bad things about the program that will make it harder for the next guy to be hired and to succeed. But, events of the last 20 days have convinced me that I was dead wrong and, if I were AD, I would hand him his papers. Why the change? Well, the reasons are both internal and external. Externally, we have to get out of this conference nightmare and I think changing coaching, and having a more energetic salesman as the face of the program, may be necessary both to change perception out of state and to keep selling tickets in state. Now, I hate the though of terminating a good man and a loyal employee for these reasons, and don't know that I would have been able to write this before yesterday. But yesterday gave me enough to conclude that regardless of external circumstances P is not the right guy and our problems can't be solved just with a new OC. The difference in the way the players interacted with their coaches on the two sidelines. The blown timeouts, repeatedly, in the 12th game of the season show systemic problems that aren't going to get better. And, most importantly, having your concussed QB run the two QB, double reverse throw across the field to your backup QB play -- well, let me say this. If it were my son who had been knocked out on that play, I would have emailed personal injury lawyers this morning asking if we can talk on Monday. I don't think that what they did to Whitmer is a tort, but you know what -- it should be. Because it showed a level of irresponsibility that it's hard for me to understand how a good man with a long and distinguished career could have possiblly had. But he did, whether it was his idea or he just allowed it. And as far as I'm concerned, if the University decides it is not in the University's interest to keep him, well, I think he has blown any right to have anyone feel sorry for him or talk about how it was unfair to him. Because it will be a lot more fairness than he showed his starting QB.
Having said that, do I think there is any chance that the University of Connecticut fires P this week? Unfortunately, no. You don't fire coaches after two years, he hasn't gone 2-10, 1-11 (said another way, he is not Greg Robinson) and I don't think that this school wants to be the kind that fires coaches this soon. And, as a general matter, I'm fine with that. Further, I think a good case can be made that no one should have thought that P would succeed with Edsall's players (I certainly didn't), and that hiring him meant giving him 4 years to see if he could take this program to a different level with kids he recruited. And, from all indications, I don't think he is failing (and while the jury is out he may be to some extent succeeding) on the recruiting trail. I expect Manuel (and Herbst if she is involved) to come down in this camp. I do, however, expect Manual as a football guy to talk to P and tell him that changes need to be made. If P doesn't get GDL out, P must know he will be gone in a year anyway. So I expect GDL to get a non-coaching position, a new OC to be brought in from the outside and Foley to be told that the school and P apologize for humiliating him the way they did, are giving him a raise and hope it's enough to keep him around. I do expect something like that to happen. I don't think Warde is ready, on the heels of the realignment fiasco, to take the hits he will take on this if he does nothing.
For those who read this, thank you for letting me get it out. I will try to come back and do a statistical analysis on the season, and how it compares to prior seasons, and then start talking about our roster in the next few weeks.
First, the day itself before getting to the game. If you were parked in the Blue lot 8, about three rows from the stadium, a little to the student section side from the 50, and you saw that idiot who started a huge grease fire burning out of control for ten minutes on his portable grill, running the risk of starting a fire that could spread right through the dry grass of the parking lots -- well, if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. Sue me. My defense is that male Jewish lawyers can't be expected to clean out their old grills, eight years collection of grease at the bottom notwithstanding. I ought to charge all of you for the free heat I provided (and if anyone sues me just because their ten year old has third degree burns -- well, get ready for that countersuit little Sally!). Almost no one in the stadium for the Senior Day honors, but that is par for the course and not a reflection on the season. The in seat attendance, however, was later arriving than normal, smaller than normal, less enthusiastic than normal and left earlier than normal. A combination of our situation right now with the enthusiasm deficit and the day. Because it was cold. It was even if you dressed for it cold. And, to boot, the floor of the stadium, at least where I was, had a thin layer of ice on it making it difficult to walk to and from your seats. If you are a student at UConn, whether you were there or not, you should be embarassed. The student section being less than half full for the start of a meaningful senior day game at 3:30 on ABC makes me really wonder if the student body cares enough for us to have big time athletics. But, in defense of the students and everyone else, it was cold, and the fact that, with two I-A programs in all of New England, we seem to average more than a home game a year post-Thanksgiving, and you can't even count on them starting at noon when we have them, is absurd. I know the fans in the stadium are unimportant to the TV executives, but if we control no other part of our schedule can't we play less home games after Thanksgiving, and when we have to play them at least start them at the warmest part of the day?
As to the game, in some ways it was absolutely typical of the season and in other ways it was totally atypical. I gave four keys to the game: their running game, turnovers, first score and emotion. Well, I think they out emotioned us, but I think each team gave it their best effort despite feeling like the world was crapping on them. We were in a one possession game when turnovers were even at 1, and then got blown out late because we turned it over twice more. We did totally stop their running game, but couldn't turn that into a win. And we finished a season where, in 12 games (and excluded the OTs at LV which don't count) we did not come back, even once, to tie a game that we were behind at any time during the game. Remarkable. I wonder if that has ever happened to anyone other than a 2-10 or worse team before. But the single key to the game was Trevardo Williams was, despite what we heard, not recovered from the rolled ankle against LV. He didn't start, and he only played 3rd and long situations and was clearly not o.k. and couldn't do anything when he was in. (The best I could tell, he played at all only because they kept doubleteaming him, and as long as he was drawing double coverage he was doing more for our pass rush than anyone else). Without T Will, no pass rush and without any semblance of a pass rush, an opposing QB who got way too comfortable in the pocket and had no trouble picking us apart even as their offense became one dimensional. That became the single key to the game.
Why was this a typical game? We lost the turnover battle, we lost the red zone battle (at least on D), we burned times out because our coaches have no clue what they're doing, and we couldn't run the ball a lick. And, we give up a huge amount of points compared to total yardage allowed (I'll do a statistical analysis of the season in a week or two but this was a beyond obvious factor this year). But in many ways, we played a game that was very atypical of UConn football. We ran far more plays and had more time of possession, despite our inability to run the ball. We had more yards, although not be a huge amount. And we had not one but two huge YAC plays, which for us seem like they come about once a season. And yet, for all the statistical good and big plays, we weren't even close at games end. To some degree it is hard to explain. Statistically, I think a review will blame it on turnovers and poor red zone D. But it's more than that. And I'll give you an example. The 50 yard or so pass and run to Michael Smith ended with us, down 14-settling for 3. But why didn't Smith score? When he beat his man on the left sideline, the two defenders who were covering Shaq Phillips in the middle of the field turned, ran 40 yards and cut him off. With Phillips standing there. Go back to Marcus Easley's 83 yard catch and run in Morgantown that put us up with 4 minutes left in '09. He scored because when he started running free Brad Kanuch and Kash Moore ran 35 yards from another part of the field to get where the deep DB help was coming from and throw blocks. Terrence Jeffers wouldn't have stood there in years past. But this year, no one was making those kinds of unnoticed, out of the boxscore hustle plays.
And individual players not making plays will be part of the story of this season. Do I think that we put our players at a schematic disadvantage each and every game that they had to climb out of? Yes. Look at how Cincy had precise passing routes where receivers ran at full speed to certain spots, and the ball was thrown to the spots, and they knew where the hole in the zone would be. Compare that to JM's huge third down conversion to Nick Williams, where Williams found the hole in the zone, stopped, and waited forever for the ball to get there. But that schematic disadvantage does not excuse players from not making plays when they are available. It does not excuse Nick Williams from dropping a wide open third down conversion. Or Martin Hyppolite from taking 7 points off the board on a Nick Williams return by blocking in the back. Or Sio Moore dropping his umpteenth potential interception of the year. Or Michael Smith catching a square in, needing only to turn and lunge forward to get a big 1st down and instead running laterally (a favorable spot bailed him out on that). Or four defenders stopping play on Cincy's second TD on the intial lateral, when they easily could have interfered with the throw, because they saw him trap the ball and no one continued to play to the whistle. Or Bobby Puyol kicking a kickoff out of bounds at a moment we had cut the lead to 4 and had momentum. I could go on but I won't. I thank the senior class for their contribution to this football program. Many of the seniors played a huge roll in taking us to the Fiesta Bowl as youngsters in 2010. And as the Louisville game showed, in terms of effort these guys played their hearts out most of the time. But we didn't go 5-7 just because our coaches weren't good enough. We also went 5-7 because players did not make enough plays that were within their power to make.
O.K., let me do offense, defense and specials. Let's start with offense and start with personnel. Gus Cruz did not play. Tyler Bullock shifted from C to RG and Mateas went back in at C. Don't know if it was injury or a change (although if we changed the OL coming off a 2 game winning streak where we ran it better -- well, I have trouble believing even George is that dumb but who knows). Was that part of the running game not working yesterday? I don't know. I thought I saw Mateas make a play or two, but without seeing a replay (and I'm not about to) who knows. When Griffin went out banged up twice, in each case we saw McQuillan come in and get on the field. As to personnel, no Tebucky Jones that I saw, no Delorenzo, and Hyppolite for one or two plays. Sigh. Congratulations to Ryan Griffin for showing an unbelievable desire to score on his TD. Can't remember a TE at any level running 70 yards with a short seam pass and not being caught from behind. I thought Whitmer was o.k. -- not as good as earlier in the year, and I think the cold has affected him -- and JM, for the second straight game, took us into the end zone as QB (and completed 3 passes to finish that drive). But the JM pick, when we were still only down 7, was a blown read by him and cost us a chance to win. McCombs -- not enough blocking for him to read anything into his performance. I don't think he got worse from last week -- I just think he never had a chance this year.
Defense, as I said, just couldn't overcome a one legged Trevardo. Willman and Pruitt just couldn't generate a pass rush, and we couldn't overcome that. At some point in the 3rd Tymeer Brown must have gotten hurt, because Adams was on the rest of the way. A great effort against the run, but not against the pass. And, the total confusion on their trick play was, frankly, disheartening. There was a huge amount of talent on this side of the ball this year, and their performance based on total yardage was very, very good. But it didn't translate into either takeaways or red zone stops like it needed to. And, thus wasn't enough to overcome our offense. The bad news is we have more talent to replace On D than we can, and the D won't be as good in preventing yardage next year. But, ironically, we could give up a lot more yards and still produce more for the team if we can figure out where the takeaways went and make some red zone stops.
Special teams, nothing to talk about covering or returning kicks except the Hyppolite penalty. I congratulate Bobby Puyol for playing in his first game in a year where he clearly was planning to redshirt, in frigid weather that he had never played in, and making that FG (and his EPs). But he showed zero leg strength. Hopefully, that was a combination of nerves and weather, but he'll have to demonstrate in two years when he plays again that he has the leg strength to get this done.
O.K., so what about the staff. This paragraph will state what I would do, and then I'll go on to what I anticipate will happen. First, in the interests of fairness and in case someone doesn't know, I was very pleased at the job our prior coach did and was not in favor of this hiring. I didn't say it was a stupid hire -- P's record, to me, made that too harsh a statement -- but I didn't expect it to work either. Last year, I thought the staff's start was disastorous, but I gave them a little credit for "dialing back" the changes in the second half of the season and coming out of the Big East at 3-4 with limited talent at the offensive skill positions. It gave me some hope. This year, I became convinced that the hope was false. We didn't improve at obvious and easy things to fix like clock management and getting the right personnel on and off the field in a timely manner and, far more importantly, and as evidenced by the change in the OL scheme and coaching, we continued to force what we thought should work theoretically on our players instead of figuring out what would work for them and doing it that way. When we had our last off week following the Pitt game, I came to the conclusion that I would not fire P after this year because it just wasn't right to fire a coach who took a team averaging 8 wins a year and fireing them after back to back 5-7 years, not when they are good men doing a fine job other than not winning enough, and because making a move that quickly says bad things about the program that will make it harder for the next guy to be hired and to succeed. But, events of the last 20 days have convinced me that I was dead wrong and, if I were AD, I would hand him his papers. Why the change? Well, the reasons are both internal and external. Externally, we have to get out of this conference nightmare and I think changing coaching, and having a more energetic salesman as the face of the program, may be necessary both to change perception out of state and to keep selling tickets in state. Now, I hate the though of terminating a good man and a loyal employee for these reasons, and don't know that I would have been able to write this before yesterday. But yesterday gave me enough to conclude that regardless of external circumstances P is not the right guy and our problems can't be solved just with a new OC. The difference in the way the players interacted with their coaches on the two sidelines. The blown timeouts, repeatedly, in the 12th game of the season show systemic problems that aren't going to get better. And, most importantly, having your concussed QB run the two QB, double reverse throw across the field to your backup QB play -- well, let me say this. If it were my son who had been knocked out on that play, I would have emailed personal injury lawyers this morning asking if we can talk on Monday. I don't think that what they did to Whitmer is a tort, but you know what -- it should be. Because it showed a level of irresponsibility that it's hard for me to understand how a good man with a long and distinguished career could have possiblly had. But he did, whether it was his idea or he just allowed it. And as far as I'm concerned, if the University decides it is not in the University's interest to keep him, well, I think he has blown any right to have anyone feel sorry for him or talk about how it was unfair to him. Because it will be a lot more fairness than he showed his starting QB.
Having said that, do I think there is any chance that the University of Connecticut fires P this week? Unfortunately, no. You don't fire coaches after two years, he hasn't gone 2-10, 1-11 (said another way, he is not Greg Robinson) and I don't think that this school wants to be the kind that fires coaches this soon. And, as a general matter, I'm fine with that. Further, I think a good case can be made that no one should have thought that P would succeed with Edsall's players (I certainly didn't), and that hiring him meant giving him 4 years to see if he could take this program to a different level with kids he recruited. And, from all indications, I don't think he is failing (and while the jury is out he may be to some extent succeeding) on the recruiting trail. I expect Manuel (and Herbst if she is involved) to come down in this camp. I do, however, expect Manual as a football guy to talk to P and tell him that changes need to be made. If P doesn't get GDL out, P must know he will be gone in a year anyway. So I expect GDL to get a non-coaching position, a new OC to be brought in from the outside and Foley to be told that the school and P apologize for humiliating him the way they did, are giving him a raise and hope it's enough to keep him around. I do expect something like that to happen. I don't think Warde is ready, on the heels of the realignment fiasco, to take the hits he will take on this if he does nothing.
For those who read this, thank you for letting me get it out. I will try to come back and do a statistical analysis on the season, and how it compares to prior seasons, and then start talking about our roster in the next few weeks.
