Turn out the lights | Page 4 | The Boneyard

Turn out the lights

Irish Loop said:
As I was driving 50 minutes from New Haven to East Hartford, all I could think of what a waste of time and money this would be on a beautiful Saturday. Sure, the tailgate is nice, but once again, a horrific game of football losing to a terrible team. No hope of ever really getting better. It feels like I'm just watching the slow, agonizing death of the football program.

I could do literally anything else with my Saturday. Lawn work. At least then it would be productive.

I just don't know if I have it in me to keep going.
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I couldn’t even do my yard work without this team ruining it, as our radio affiliate didn’t broadcast the game. (WICC)
 
Block C said:
So a lot of these recruits we got had fcs or low tier football teams going after them what do you expect. We need to start recruiting with all the rest but unfortunately we can’t because no top recruit wants to come to this mess. It’s a mess right now but I believe we come out on top. It’s going to take longer than expected
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Really?
What 4 or 5 star recruit would ever.....EVER consider this TRAIN WRECK?
This is the best you're ever going to get.
It's plainly evident that UC football was, is, and always will be second class. It's also evident that posters, even some of the most optimistic ones have finally come to the realization that the program, on life support for so long, is finally FLAT LINED. How much more time, effort, and MONEY, is going to be poured down a black hole. What recruit from a top high school program, is going to consider spending 4 years at a moribund program, when your only victories are against the likes of the Wagner's of college football? If UC is going to consider to play football, acknowledge the fact that it's Not going to be the best of the country. Return to the days of the Yankee conference, and opponents that you have the chance of beating. Face it UC started late in top college football game, and have never caught up.
The experiment is OVER!
Accept it, and move on.
Visions and dreams of a Big Time Bowl game, and an appearance at the national championship games are just that
DREAMS.
Dreams, that in UCONNS case will never.....repeat NEVER come true.
 
The AAC didn’t work out for UConn. Change is good when you are at the bottom, and independence is a chance for a new start and a new direction.

There is nothing to lose at this point and nothing to hang onto of the AAC.

I look forward to UConn making the most of this new start and rebuilding a competitive program.
 
wheelerdog said:
You're embarrassed to be a dual degree alumni because of the football team?

Not me. Not in a million years.
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Yeah, I didn’t express what I was feeling correctly. Of course, I am very proud to have earned an undergrad and masters from a great school like UConn. I guess I wanted students to also be proud to have a great athletic department too. I have a daughter the same age who just graduated from Notre Dame. She has already been back to South Bend for a game and is going next week (she lives in Chicago now). I know we will never be in the same class as Notre Dame’s AD. But I was hoping we could have a football program that is at least not an embarrassment.

Anyway, I agree with others on this thread. Just better things to do on the weekend than supporting a program that just keeps going backwards.
 
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tiger8mush said:
On the surface that sounds good, but good luck trying to get grad transfers if they know they'll be sitting the rest of the season after a bad start. And juniors heading into their senior season might be more apt to hit the portal too ...
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Other than maybe kickers/punters, I'm not sold on the idea of actually needing grad xfers with the state of this program. Mostly because it doesn't seem we're getting grad xfers with any value other than depth. I'll buy your point on juniors, but that's taking my point to an extreme. The current seniors are Diaco products. I may be perfectly OK with RE playing his own guys once they're seniors. If they can actually play.

RE can still get some guys (e.g. SK, Ross) who can play at this level. Lines and LBs will probably continue to be undersized and/or slow given the pickings left to sign here. So schemes matter. Which means coaching. College coaching in particular. Lashlee figured that out by going up tempo. Stop being predictable. Throw away any pretense of trying to run a "pro style" offense because you don't (and won't) get the personnel to do that.

Let's try to have fun instead. If we're gonna lose, at least make it exciting. Take risks. Let the handful of playmakers you do have actually make more plays.
 
Yesterday in a nut shell:
-got to the Mobil station at 8:30 to group with the tailgating crew. We all got sworn at for clogging the lanes by a "fan" driving a pickup with N.Y. plates. (portent of things to come?)-figured he'd been on the road too long & was blowing off steam.
-High point of the day: tailgating & toasting the memory of Waquoit's Mom
-When it was clear (mid 2nd quarter) that UConn had no business on the playing field, the guys in our crew went "exploring" the various kiosks. Taste tested various brews not available near section 103. As the hockey schedule revealed that UConn is at home to UMass on Feb. 28th, AND, that that is family birthday week for ME, son-in-law, daughter, brother, & nephew, the subject on buying tix to THAT game & season tickets next season came up. Then the inevitable: We went to Husky Mania & bought out the white Hockey shirts using the 25% off game day coupon from the season ticket booklet.
-Post game tailgate: bitched & moaned over libations about the product on the field
-"the Yankees win, the YANKEES WIIIIINNN!"
-got invited to & ALMOST fell asleep at friend's campfire down the street
-fell asleep at 10:30 in my easy chair watching DVRed "The Black List" (Will rewatch this evening)
All in all, a great day marred bya UConn football noncontest.

R.I.P. Ginger Baker!
 
pepband99 said:
I couldn’t even do my yard work without this team ruining it, as our radio affiliate didn’t broadcast the game. (WICC)
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Not to worry, I got some yard work done, did manage to pull in the Willimantic radio station, and still had the day turned to crap. Kinda hard to do on a spectacular day like yesterday, but instead of finishing the yard work I cracked a beer and watched Florida-Auburn as I fumed. The only saving grace? That I had not bought a ticket and driven over to the Rent to see the unfolding disaster in person. I was feeling very guilty for awhile ... but then, not so much. :(
 
Doesn't matter at this point. Benedict & the UConn brass are letting the program die a gradual, painful death. That was clearly apparent when they returned basketball & the other olympic sports to the NBE. Wasn't necessarily the wrong move, but it was definitely the final fatal blow for football. Save the brand, and the brand is basketball. Think they'd even listen to the fans' frustrations about football anyway and take it seriously? Forget it. Games like yesterday are what we'll get until December. After that . . . the program will be put on a small raft and sent floating without oars into the South Pacific.
 
Butch said:
If SMU can come back from the death penalty and win their first game being ranked being down 30-9 at the beginning of the third quarter, there's hope. Might not be in some of our lifetimes.

Still can't believe UConn never beat SMU in football.
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Texas school. Apples and oranges.
 
funny how the usual arrogant blowhards get quiet on sundays after yet another embarrassing loss.

First week of october - the season is essentially over - five of the last 7 games are walkovers. only the having the worst team in the country on the schedule gives any reason to think they won’t be on a 2.5 season FBS losing streak.
 
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storrsroars said:
There's a reason the AAC didn't keep the auto-bid. If it's not P5, it's a mid-major. Where did everyone but us come from? Argue all you want about how the AAC compares to the OBE. Doesn't change our mid-major status.
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That's an entirely different issue between the money conferences wanting more spots and picking the lowest hanging fruit in terms of being able to pry it away. The amount of p5 wins the AAC gets in the out of conference clearly supports it's not different football than the p5. Where the difference is in the top 5 or 6 teams who clearly are pulling the top, top talent each year in the new era. The top tier of the SEC, Osu and the Oklahoma's and Texas of the world are the Duke's and Kentuckys(bball analogy) of the football world. The rest of the p5 are not much different than the AAC. However, i'm not real sure that the current configuration with the last auto bid is really any harder than getting there before, as the guaranteed bid for the BEast was likely going away whatever happened with the league. The bigger issue is it will be very hard to play in that Nati game, but it was an awful steep climb even with the old configuration as well. It's not a fluke that the Smu's, Cincys and Ucf's of the world climb back into very good fball teams fairly quickly given they are getting really good players out of fertile recruiting regions even with repeated coaching changes and some down years. I've said it for many years because it's a fact, football rankings at the high school level are highly regionalized. I don't believe a west coast 4 is better than a midwest or texas 3, etc. etc. There's a lot of underrated talent in these big high school football regions and these schools are getting in on it. If you're going to compete, whether you're Uconn, Rutgers or Bc, you have to find a way to bring more really good players to your program from out of state. That Cincy/Ucf game Friday night was a perfect example. I was blown away Cincy played 23 kids in their defensive rotation, and someone said 28 overall throughout the night. That's crazy depth. You many not have the 5 stars, but when you've got fresh legs and minds out there, you'll win most of your games. Ucf has P5 talent, they've gone from 0 and 12 3 years ago to what they've done the past several years which has included a host of "p5" wins.

The bottom line is if you are really going to try and compete as a D1 program(even independent), you have have to get a coaching(staff) who can bring kids to Ct. Otherwise just go to a lower division as it's a waste of time and money. The road is not any easier as an independent.
 
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Interesting thoughts. I think that Randy's tapping into Canada is a natural outgrowth of what you just said, don356. The problem is quality and supply. Geographically UConn has an advantage in Canada.

I have two questions: is UConn a dominant recruiter in Canada, and if not should it be?

Recruiting FB players from Canada is very analogous to Cav recruiting eastern europeans in hockey. Of course, Cav has a much bigger supply available to him at much higher quality.
 
HuskyDogArt said:
If they move down, lets drop it. After Michigan and big name schools at the Rent, do we really want to see Maine or Villanova? We can take the $$ and upgrade lacrosse and hire Duke's assistant coach (rumored that USF wants him to start Lacrosse). I don't want Nova as a regular season game in ANYTHING!

Connecticut citizens are bandwagon people, we support winners not losers...look at the Whalers for instance...
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Oh, so now it's Duke's assistant coach? What happened to that Johns Hopkins guy you were touting?
 
RSTuthill said:
I have two questions: is UConn a dominant recruiter in Canada, and if not should it be?
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No and no. I will never understand the obsession with recruiting a dead area of the sport. Go make half an effort in NJ/FL like literally every other program does.

Stop trying to make Canada happen.
 
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zls44 said:
No and no. I will never understand the obsession with recruiting a dead area of the sport. Go make half an effort in NJ/FL like literally every other program does.

Stop trying to make Canada happen.
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There is nothing wrong recruiting Eastern Canada or Europe - it just cant be a primary focus.
 
huskymedic said:
There is nothing wrong recruiting Eastern Canada - it just cant be a primary focus.
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Opportunity cost.

Every day spent recruiting Halifax is a day not spent recruiting Bergen County. Send 2 people to NJ rather than 1 to Nova Scotia.
 
zls44 said:
Opportunity cost.

Every day spent recruiting Halifax is a day not spent recruiting Bergen County. Send 2 people to NJ rather than 1 to Nova Scotia.
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Well, that is the conventional wisdom. But if that is not what they are doing, I won't criticize for trying to think outside the box.
 
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whaler11 said:
funny how the usual arrogant blowhards get quiet on sundays after yet another embarrassing loss.

First week of october - the season is essentially over - five of the last 7 games are walkovers. only the having the worst team in the country on the schedule gives any reason to think they won’t be on a 2.5 season FBS losing streak.
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*TF? Do you have a problem?
 
Wow! Not one positive, hey we can get there, blah blah blah comment and we're 5 pages in. That is the biggest sign that we are a dead program walking.....

So if we drop to FCS sooner rather than later or, do something I don't really think will happen in killing off the program, how much will the University still have to pay for the Rent? There's no way the state let's the school go scott free and leave that whale of a stadium empty. I believe this to be the biggest reason why football will continue on.

As for a new coach. Go to an Air Raid system. Turn this into a Big 12 type offense. Give zero care about defense (which is basically like our current D) and go all in on scoring and making it exciting. Hold a Madden tournament and the winner gets first shot at coaching the team. Spend the big bucks on recruiters and have the Madden winner the OC. Can't be any worse than what we got!
 
UCFBfan said:
Wow! Not one positive, hey we can get there, blah blah blah comment and we're 5 pages in. That is the biggest sign that we are a dead program walking.....
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No, the problem isn’t the commentary or the negativity - those things are all very rational reactions to what a disaster we are. The problem is that we’ve stunk for a decade with absolutely no indication that the people in charge are capable of making things better.

Even if we had the money to hire properly (we don’t) why on earth would anyone let the people currently in charge make any of the decisions?
 
Calhoun's Court said:
One guy told one of our group he can't give his extra ticket away for games.
People rather rake leaves , clean their garages or pretty much anything rather than go watch Uconn Football.
This is where we are at I'm afraid
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I had 6 free tickets for the Illinois game. Couldn’t find 6 people who would go. Very sad.
 
CTMike said:
No, the problem isn’t the commentary or the negativity - those things are all very rational reactions to what a disaster we are. The problem is that we’ve stunk for a decade with absolutely no indication that the people in charge are capable of making things better.

Even if we had the money to hire properly (we don’t) why on earth would anyone let the people currently in charge make any of the decisions?
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Oh I am totally on the negative side! Didn't want to make my post sound the opposite. I was just surprised there was no poster trying to put lipstick on a pig within the first 5 pages.
 
UCFBfan said:
Oh I am totally on the negative side! Didn't want to make my post sound the opposite. I was just surprised there was no poster trying to put lipstick on a pig within the first 5 pages.
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Oh, there is no way on the green earth to spin yesterday away. I do think that it makes sense to keep HCRE in place with perhaps a change in OC, but I really do not think that will happen. Not how it works in football.
 
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