Transfer portal - outbound

[Northbound]

So you say you need 5 recruiting classes to truly evaluate HCRE2.0. If that is true, what are the 3 year bench marks on the way to the 5 year evaluation and how are well are they being meet?

Don't ask that question because there are no answers. There should be stated way points from where the program started to where the ultimate destination is - there don't seem to be any it's absurd or at least any that the fan base can say "we hit that mark or we missed that mark".

We're getting better and have faith aren't lines that are fed to the fans of serious football programs. This tells you all that you need to know how the University views the program and the program's fans.

 

[BNich]

A year ago everyone blamed Crocker. This year, no one blames Spanos?

 

[bmayuc]

You guys are all lunatics. Benedict is 100% right for three reasons -

1. Football is not a priority. We switched conferences(checks watch) like 2 months ago to save our basketball teams, and the tradeoff was that this action may very well mean foreclosing our football program from success. And we were happy to do it. As far as UConn Football is concerned, the BOT and AD and new Prez were like:

2. Football has no money. This is related to #1 but is really important. Edsall is an actual bargain for a department with no money, and honestly, if they fire a 3rd consecutive coach 3 years into their tenure as they transition into D1A independence, there are literally no coaches that will want that job. None. So your choice to replace Edsall is to overpay some marginal prospect coach to start ALL OVER. Again.

3. He's actually just plain right about college football. This aint college hoops, and our cupboard wasn't just empty, but that thing had like black mold in there too. Particularly because we need to recruit underdeveloped diamonds in the rough types(this was the Edsall 1.0 model as well), it will legit take 4-5 years to cycle out the Diaco roster damage and cycle in and develop RE recruits, until you can even see if its working or not.

So, although we hate the fact that our team has been dumpster-fire bad for a decade, this is definitely the right thing to do for the football team, the athletic department, etc.

Also, a couple notes about the transfers since that is the latest thing to bring the guillotine back into favor this week.

1. Lots of bad NCAA football teams lose really good players that have lots of different aspirations. Some (eddie Hahn, Gilmartin? Carroll? Holmes?) will probably transfer down a level and play at FCS. I'd rather get 55 snaps a game at **fill in random 1AA school here** then 5 snaps for another 2-3 win 1A team.

2. Coyle and Leone will probably be picked up as grad transfers just like we will probably pick up 2-3 grad transfers. It Happens. It sucks to lose them, but they weren't taking us to the promised land next year. Happy for them, and now we need to plug some holes.

3. As far as roster impact, in summary the only concern today that I didn't have last week is figuring out our OL. I don't know about any of the Redshirt kids obviously, but looks like we have 2 or three pieces and need to hit the grad transfer and Juco market. I'm not worried about herring-wilson and carroll. We have lots of young DBs with upside. LBs we lost were marginal, no impact there.

 

[Buffett10]

A year ago everyone blamed Crocker. This year, no one blames Spanos?

Nope cause delusional fans think the defense got marginally better because of Spanos and not because the players were a yr older and stronger/faster.

 

[BlueDogs]

Benedict is a giant DB with no regard for fans who keep shoveling good money season over season. He doesn’t care because the admin doesn’t care, and Edsall doesn’t care because the DB just gave a free pass. Bottom line everybody is going through the motions. There is zero sense of urgency or desire to improve this continuing sheet show. Pathetic.

 

[Pudge]

Benedict is a giant DB with no regard for fans who keep shoveling good money season over season. He doesn’t care because the admin doesn’t care, and Edsall doesn’t care because the DB just gave a free pass. Bottom line everybody is going through the motions. There is zero sense of urgency or desire to improve this continuing sheet show. Pathetic.

Once again. dog. At 2am

 

[BNich]

Benedict is a giant DB with no regard for fans who keep shoveling good money season over season. He doesn’t care because the admin doesn’t care, and Edsall doesn’t care because the DB just gave a free pass. Bottom line everybody is going through the motions. There is zero sense of urgency or desire to improve this continuing sheet show. Pathetic.

So what do you suggest be done? What would show urgency in your eyes? Staff turnover AGAIN?

 

[Brochacho]

Nope cause delusional fans think the defense got marginally better because of Spanos and not because the players were a yr older and stronger/faster.

"Marginal" lol what a clown. UConn allowed 19.6% fewer points this year and 24.4% fewer yards per game this year than last year. The defense got 10 points and 150 yards a game better because freshmen are now sophomores and NOTHING to do with Spanos. Yeah right.

 

[huskymedic]

it’s like someone @ Hearst told Jacobs to write something:

Jacobs: Benedict believes Randy Edsall is “right guy” to lead UConn football:

 

[Palatine]

"Marginal" lol what a clown. UConn allowed 19.6% fewer points this year and 24.4% fewer yards per game this year than last year. The defense got 10 points and 150 yards a game better because freshmen are now sophomores and NOTHING to do with Spanos. Yeah right.

That like the temperature at he South Pole going from minus 40 to minus 30. It makes very little difference.

 

[UConnJim]

It is going to be very hard for kids to find P5 schools or top G5 schools to transfer to. If you have immediate eligibility, that seems to help, but if you don't, you will need top level talent for a school to give you a scholarship and let you sit for a year.

Right now, there are 421 kids in the transfer portal although some have already committed to schools. (Some back to the same school.) Plus, we will see more entries as the bowl season comes to a close. Last year, the P5 took 219 kids with the vast majority being P5 to P5 transfers.

 

[Brochacho]

That like the temperature at he South Pole going from minus 40 to minus 30. It makes very little difference.

So... what did you expect? Spanos to show up at turn the worst defense in the history of college football into a top 25 unit?

 

[HuskyHawk]

Lots of goodies in there:

1) Benedict asking questions about why the kids are transferring (although stating full support for Edsall in the process).

2) UConn anticipating 16 - 17 new recruits will sign by the end of the recruiting period.

3) Linear tv deal still being worked on, and SNY looks to be a possible (if not likely, in my view) partner.

Hopefully the future gets brighter than the present...

The real challenge is that Randy keeps talking about how you can't win with freshmen or sophomores. They we lose a bunch of players to transfers, and the solution is "hey we have a big recruiting class coming in". That's a ticket to relying on players the coach says you can't rely upon.

If Randy doesn't focus most of his energy right now on getting transfers in and JUCOs, he's not competent. It's as simple as that.

Meanwhile Benedict needs to do what he did to Bobby D, tell him he's getting an offensive coordinator and has to listen to him.

 

[RSTuthill]

"Marginal" lol what a clown. UConn allowed 19.6% fewer points this year and 24.4% fewer yards per game this year than last year. The defense got 10 points and 150 yards a game better because freshmen are now sophomores and NOTHING to do with Spanos. Yeah right.

Actually unknowable by the rank and file fan. And an argument can be made that this is a distinction without a difference since they were so gawd awful last year. But we could definitely spend a few months analyzing the hypothesis....

 

[UConnJim]

One thing that hasn't been discussed is how big the recruiting class would have been if there was no roster turnover. It appears UConn lost only 5 players who used up their eligibility this year: Thompkins, Peart, Thomas, Brown, and O'Reilly. I think there may have been 5 empty roster spots (I could be off here by 1 or 2), so you were looking at a recruiting class of 10 without roster turnover. A 10 person recruiting class, which includes grad transfers would not be appropriate as we know that UConn needs to improve the roster talent given the performance over the past few years. I would have expected UConn to target a recruiting class plus grad transfers of close to 25 players.

Six 4th year juniors announced their intention to leave on senior day, which would have brought the class size to 16. Thus, it was clear some attrition would happen. I would think a few of the kids leaving were players that UConn did not want to lose, but most were not projected to be starters.

Most of the players leaving are from the class of 2016, Diaco's last class. They have experienced a difficult 4 years on the field and now they are seeing their friends move on. It must be difficult and some players that would have played a significant role in 2020 have decided to move on as well.

 

[Exit 4]

One thing that hasn't been discussed is how big the recruiting class would have been if there was no roster turnover. It appears UConn lost only 5 players who used up their eligibility this year: Thompkins, Peart, Thomas, Brown, and O'Reilly. I think there may have been 5 empty roster spots (I could be off here by 1 or 2), so you were looking at a recruiting class of 10 without roster turnover. A 10 person recruiting class, which includes grad transfers would not be appropriate as we know that UConn needs to improve the roster talent given the performance over the past few years. I would have expected UConn to target a recruiting class plus grad transfers of close to 25 players.

Six 4th year juniors announced their intention to leave on senior day, which would have brought the class size to 16. Thus, it was clear some attrition would happen. I would think a few of the kids leaving were players that UConn did not want to lose, but most were not projected to be starters.

Most of the players leaving are from the class of 2016, Diaco's last class. They have experienced a difficult 4 years on the field and now they are seeing their friends move on. It must be difficult and some players that would have played a significant role in 2020 have decided to move on as well.

If Coyle stays and perhaps Leone then there is far less hullabaloo to talk about here. It becomes a story about clearing a bunch of deck space.

 

[Njalum1422]

I have seen it mentioned on a couple of threads and was hoping someone could clarify. I know we currently have the 25 cap, but I’ve read that the NCAA might provide some sort of relief for transfers. Is that insinuating that at some point in the spring the NCAA will allow teams to go over the cap due to all of the transferring ?

 

[huskymedic]

I have seen it mentioned on a couple of threads and was hoping someone could clarify. I know we currently have the 25 cap, but I’ve read that the NCAA might provide some sort of relief for transfers. Is that insinuating that at some point in the spring the NCAA will allow teams to go over the cap due to all of the transferring ?

Hmmm... not sure about that. Got a link?

 

[CCSUblue]

That like the temperature at he South Pole going from minus 40 to minus 30. It makes very little difference.

You've got to think before making an analogy like that. Antarctica had an 11° rise in temperatures to end the last ice age...a ten degree change at the South Pole today would be catastrophic.

 

[businesslawyer]

That like the temperature at he South Pole going from minus 40 to minus 30. It makes very little difference.

You are 1000% correct. We still sucked.

But if you were living on the South Pole and having to endure nights of minus 40, do you know of any plan to get the temperature up to 0 without going through minus 30?

 

[Nostical]

I think Benedict's exact quote was "it will be a warm day in Antartica before I replace Edsall".

 

[Pudge]

I think Benedict's exact quote was "it will be a warm day in Antartica before I replace Edsall".

I blame you. Of course

there’s NO T Boone that can come up with the means to fire Randy; hire a good current head coach; and pay both the Exit fee to the AAC & Entrance fee to the Big East. While building the Soccer complex & Elliott Ballpark.

or maybe I blame Ray Dalio. One of youse

 

[ScottVib]

If Coyle stays and perhaps Leone then there is far less hullabaloo to talk about here. It becomes a story about clearing a bunch of deck space.

Leone participated in senior day. His departure was not a surprise and known ahead of time.

 

[weyuo]

It's going to take Edsall longer to build "good" depth up here in CT than it is for say, SMU. UConn's backyard is soccer favored New England. SMU's is Texas. UConn is still a virtual new comer to Div-1 football and getting good, competent talent to buy into coming to Connecticut is going to be a harder sell than almost every other AAC school. How Temple has done it? Who knows. More lenient academic standards maybe. Obviously hiring a better staff. Wonder what the total staff pay was for Matt Rule's crew when he first started there vs the pay for Diaco & staff. And now add the uncertainty of independence which Edsall has no choice and probably no say in and the task gets even harder. So, eight of them left looking for greener pastures? Well so be it. Just makes more room for guys that want to be here. So it just might take 5 years to get to a bowl. I'm hoping that a few Juco's and maybe some luck on incoming transfers will help us get to 6 wins next year. The schedule sure looks like it is ripe for the picking if Edsall can keep improving the product. And hey, maybe Edsall himself is looking for a OC.

I'd like to see a lot of the mean spirited sniping at the staff stop. Edsall is here for 5 years whether you like it or not so lets start looking at the glass half full for a change. I know it's hard but what choice do you have. It's a lot easier to move down the path looking forward than it is looking over your shoulder.

 

[SubbaBub]

That like the temperature at he South Pole going from minus 40 to minus 30. It makes very little difference.

Exactly, which is why anyone getting bent about the record is off their rocker.