UConn football’s instant turnaround under Jim Mora: How did Huskies get to bowl (Chris Vannini@The Athletic)

[jostar1]

 

[History Geek]

This might get interesting.

 

[Alum1620]

This might get interesting.

The question is why would Mora lie about what he heard from players in an interview that comes out right before a bowl game? If he is lying he stand to possibly lose the players as he would have been putting words in their mouths and it would not be a good look to the athletic department either.

 

[History Geek]

The question is why would Mora lie about what he heard from players in an interview that comes out right before a bowl game? If he is lying he stand to possibly lose the players as he would have been putting words in their mouths and it would not be a good look to the athletic department either.

Agreed, it doesn't make sense. DiMauro is publicly doubling down though. I'm not liking this vibe.

 

[ShakyTheMohel]

As in most things.....the truth is somewhere is in the middle. I am sure some players felt RE abandoned them for 8 months. In truth...he was probably back and forth to Connecticut during that period...but he may not have seen the players.

The sentiment is accurate....and Dimauro playing semantics is a reflection on his insecurities...and his dislike of UConn by looking for "gotchas" that are insignificant.

I am just glad we have a coach that is aligned with the AD and cares about the bigger picture rather than his own ego.

 

[TMB4405]

This is so true. Regardless of where he was physically located the players felt abandoned. No doubt they have performed better under better leadership. So who cares if an idiot writer wants to make a stupid point.

 

[Jetskies]

Coach Mora has heard a lot of stuff, surely. much more than this. And I have been very impressed by his ability to not talk about headline-making gossip, especially things that entail the reputation of another person who is not given a microphone to fairly respond (regardless of what we feel about them, which is 100000000% irrelevant). You were not there, I was not there, and neither was the reporter looking to sensationalize an ill-rationalized moment by JM at the microphone (IMO JM messed up a little bit by opening up the opportunity to start gossip). He (JM) is not perfect though, and I trust enough to believe that his intent has never been to further trash the name of his predecessor. Even if these things are true, they. don't. matter. moving. forward. Like not even a little bit. We are where we are, and it is what it is. onward.

 

[Incursio007]

Who cares? Seriously - this is like getting engaged to a 10 & then constantly bringing up why your last relationship with a 3 didn’t work out. Moving on…

 

[storrsroars]

After reading this stuff about Edsall, it makes it incredibly hard to even appreciate what he did his first tenure here. This is pathetic.

We are so lucky to have Mora now.

Not for me. The way he left after Fiesta Bowl was chickenpoop, and RE2.0 was straight garbage. But I'll always appreciate what RE1.0 did for UConn's football program.

And yes, extremely grateful Mora took on this challenge.

 

[Bongo Fury]

I do think some or all of that is accurate. The campus was effectively shut down for some of that time.

On canceling the 2020 season, that is a decision that is worse in hindsight than it was at the time. Remember, we were not in a conference. At the time the decision was made, several conferences had already cancelled their seasons, causing us to lose games, and several others had cancelled all non-conference games. Most FCS leagues had shut down too. The end result was we lost almost all of our schedule with very little hope of putting something together and we’re following the lead of the Big 10 and Pac12 and a couple of others. Plus it was our first Independent season, so putting together other Indy games was likely tougher. Now, what happened late in the season was leagues that had shut down decided the could safely play. But still limited games to intra-league. So everyone had a readymade schedule. We did not. And I think it is still a questionable call to have done what UMass did and play 3 games all on the road and for all intents and purposes made up on the fly. I suppose they did beat us the next year, but we were without some key players and our head coach due to Covid. Not sure it proves anything. Finally, although Edsall was the face of the decision, I don’t for a minute think it was made by Edsall. That was likely made at the University administration level as it was at the Big and PAC.

I respect RE for developing UConn into a FBS football team. Another coach would have played some games. UMass did with far greater restrictions. I agree it wouldn’t mean much but the players would have gained experience. I believe he knew the team wasn’t good and he wasn’t willing to fight for them.

 

[noeynox]

Coach Mora has heard a lot of stuff, surely. much more than this. And I have been very impressed by his ability to not talk about headline-making gossip, especially things that entail the reputation of another person who is not given a microphone to fairly respond (regardless of what we feel about them, which is 100000000% irrelevant). You were not there, I was not there, and neither was the reporter looking to sensationalize an ill-rationalized moment by JM at the microphone (IMO JM messed up a little bit by opening up the opportunity to start gossip). He (JM) is not perfect though, and I trust enough to believe that his intent has never been to further trash the name of his predecessor. Even if these things are true, they. don't. matter. moving. forward. Like not even a little bit. We are where we are, and it is what it is. onward.

How would you been impressed if you never heard it? Wouldn't that be one of those if a tree falls in the Forrest does it make noise type things?

At the end of the day we've seen credible posters say they have inside knowledge of said predecessor feeling the school quit on him by going independent, so he quit on them. Only problem, was he quit on his players, who as we have seen this year had better talent than was ever apparent under the prior regime and had no intention of quitting themselves. Many cite the independent schedule and exciting opponents as reasons to come here.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

I've seen quite a few posts stating that it was RE's decision to cancel the 2020 season. Was this documented anywhere? Can anyone provide any evidence of this? Asking as I heard an entirely different story (from a reasonably well placed source) and would like to go back and call him out if he lied.

 

[pepband99]

I've seen quite a few posts stating that it was RE's decision to cancel the 2020 season. Was this documented anywhere? Can anyone provide any evidence of this? Asking as I heard an entirely different story (from a reasonably well placed source) and would like to go back and call him out if he lied.

Agreed. The practical logistics of when we cancelled seem to dictate this was an AD/practical decision. Mind you that more than a few of our opponents also canceled seasons (and then reneged later on), we didn't really have the ability to construct a schedule.

 

[BRS24]

Speaking of The Athletic, I have a few 30 day passes to gift to folks that are interested. And yes, I know that NYT subscribers can read it, and yes, you can find articles on wayback or archive machine, however DM if you want.

 

[Bongo Fury]

The governor said they could play. It was up to UConn.

 

[pepband99]

The governor said they could play. It was up to UConn.

Yes, but who could they play?

If I had to guess fully, both sides are probably correct, somewhat. The decision to cancel, initially, was probably the ADs/etc. The decision not to play ad-hoc, the way UMass did, was probably HCRE's.

 

[Bongo Fury]

It was a choice. Decision of convenience

 

[freescooter]

The governor said they could play. It was up to UConn.

Yeah, but he also said the opponents for home games would have to quarantine for 2 weeks before the game and UConn would have to quarantine for 2 weeks after road games. The AD even explored being a fill in for other teams that had games cancelled. Then there was the problem of more than half the schedule being cancelled by the other teams either because they shut down ( at least 2 Big 10 teams) or went to a conference only schedule (ACC). I don’t remember who exactly was on the schedule but playing wasn’t really practical at least early in the season. At best it was a judgement call later. It certainly clear cut. If we had still been in the AAC, we could and likely would have played. As an Independent it was problematic at best. UMass played I think 3 games. One was made on like a Tuesday. And 1 other was cancelled at the last minute. It wasn’t that valuable for them and likely wouldn’t be for us.

 

[Scoe]

I understand the circumstances with scheduling in 2020 but gone from your team for 8 months, come on. If Mora ever does leave this program to either go else or retire (praying he’s here for good). I am 1,000 percent certain Mora would tell his team in person, and put the program in position for the next HC.

What’s done is done. We have moved onto bigger and better things this is already behind us, let’s move on.

 

[freescooter]

Honestly at the time I thought that doing what UMass did was pretty demeaning to the team. Dragged the team around to places without proper preparation to get pounded. I still feel that way. For what? To say you played a “season?”

 

[CTMike]

This might get interesting.

Only as interesting as a small angry man writing his 800th hit piece against UConn can be

 

[CTMike]

Agreed, it doesn't make sense. DiMauro is publicly doubling down though. I'm not liking this vibe.

Evergreen

 

[LBird33]

When has this guy Dimoron said anything positive about UConn ? Never

 

[FfldCntyFan]

Connecticut's travel restrictions at that time were the strictest in the country. If we travelled for an away game, we would then have needed to quarantine upon return.

As an independent, all games were under contract and we could have been liable for costs of any individual game that was canceled because of our being unable (due to state restrictions) to play that game.

It wasn't coincidental that Notre Dame played a conference schedule that year.

I'm very confident that the story I was told, that cancelling the entire season was the only feasible answer financially, was correct.

 

[UConnJim]

I understand that the season had to be cancelled because of COVID rules and the difficulty in scheduling games. What I don't understand is why a head coach would not be 100% on campus to help his team during the disruptive season even if they are just working out in pods.