Vote: Which recent season has been the toughest?

[noeynox]

This year was pretty much expected by most to be bad... 2016 sucked.

I expected it to be bad. I did not expect it to be all time worst defense bad.

One time in our future I hope we hire an offensive minded head coach. When you have a defensive minded coach and feature an all time worse defense, it's hard to see an offensive coach doing worse with the D.

 

[tiger8mush]

2013 vs Towson was the worst single-game loss cuz I 100% expected to put a butt wooping on them. Instead ...

2016 season was the most insufferable cuz the 2015 #uptick gave me false hope. Talk about a kick to the junk.

2018 team is the worst team, but its half-expected so less of a surprise. Am hoping to win 1 or 2 more though when the schedule lightens up at the end of the season. Could create for a great story if in 3 years these freshmen turn into seniors playing in the AAC Championship game

 

[Chief00]

Randy’s done a great job lowering expectations. In contrast, Danny Hurley wants to have the unrealistically high expectations of the casual fans. I like Danny’s approach better.

 

[UconnMICK]

2018 has been horrible so far, but at least there is a responsible adult leading the team. My vote goes to 2016. The results on the field were bad, but the accompanying Diaco gibberish made it exponentially worse!

 

[ZOOCONN]

I can't answer. This is like asking which hurts more: sticking a needle in your eye or pulling out a toenail. They all sucked bad. This season is painful because I really expected us to compete with Cincy and Memphis. If we don't compete down the stretch, this will be soul stomping.

I agree but I think both Memphis and cincy turned out to be much better than expected. Cincy was atrocious last season and they are currently ranked. Perspective friends

 

[businesslawyer]

I disagree. Football with no defense sucks in my opinion. College football is one of my favorite sports, but it’s way too easy to score and making it too arena-like.

This. When just our offense sucked, you could play a mediocre team and hope to eke out a 10-7 win or something. See, e.g., Tulane in 2015 or USF to qualify for the Fiesta Bowl. When you literally can't stop anyone ever, there is no point in watching the game.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Diaco lost games all by himself with on field incompetence and behind the scenes insanity.

2018 is the most frustrating for me because I believe that any average FCS team would play better defense than we have. It is virtually impossible to be as ineffective as we have been. The inability to tackle is simply mind boggling. We look like a team that has played Euopean Football all our lives and are playing our first American football game. Can we steal some guys from the rugby team or something?

In short, with Diaco, you knew it wasn't just the talent. I'm saying again, it is not just the talent. Something is seriously broken on that defense and now the offense is looking pathetic as well. If Pindell is hurt, get him out of there.

 

[Dooley]

Randy’s done a great job lowering expectations. In contrast, Danny Hurley wants to have the unrealistically high expectations of the casual fans. I like Danny’s approach better.

Building a football program is a night and day difference from building a hoops program though. In football, you need several recruiting classes to come in and turn things around. In hoops, you can win with 1 or 2 good players almost right away.

I do get your point: casual fans want to hear/read about the program improving and how many games we can win. They don't want to hear (or don't understand) that building a football programs takes YEARS. Lots and lots and lots of years. It stinks - we've been seemingly rebuilding forever and we will need to be patient during yet another rebuild.

 

[ktuck911]

2016 BY FAR... Nothing closer on that list...

 

[HuskyHawk]

Building a football program is a night and day difference from building a hoops program though. In football, you need several recruiting classes to come in and turn things around. In hoops, you can win with 1 or 2 good players almost right away.

I do get your point: casual fans want to hear/read about the program improving and how many games we can win. They don't want to hear (or don't understand) that building a football programs takes YEARS. Lots and lots and lots of years. It stinks - we've been seemingly rebuilding forever and we will need to be patient during yet another rebuild.

This is such a tired cliche. Yes, building a "Program", meaning a sustainable group of guys with enough experienced depth to replace losses and still win 7-8 games a year, every year, takes a few years. No question.

But there is no excuse for year two of your rebuild being dramatically worse than year 1. There is no excuse for the kind of regression we've seen from this team. There are absolutely things you can do to win right now. K-State was once where we are, and they turned it around quickly by embracing JUCOs among other things. Randy made a mistake in my opinion, in deciding to play "his" freshmen. Anybody on the roster is his guy now and deserves to be treated as such. I think he even partially acknowledged it after the last game, saying he'd give more time to more experienced guys.

I'll put it more simply, Diaco, ever incompetent, used to win 2-3 games with his players. Certainly Randy could have and should have tried to merely bring competence to that situation, win 4-5 games, and work in his new recruits over time. He didn't need to set the place on fire.

 

[Dooley]

This is such a tired cliche. Yes, building a "Program", meaning a sustainable group of guys with enough experienced depth to replace losses and still win 7-8 games a year, every year, takes a few years. No question.

But there is no excuse for year two of your rebuild being dramatically worse than year 1. There is no excuse for the kind of regression we've seen from this team. There are absolutely things you can do to win right now. K-State was once where we are, and they turned it around quickly by embracing JUCOs among other things. Randy made a mistake in my opinion, in deciding to play "his" freshmen. Anybody on the roster is his guy now and deserves to be treated as such. I think he even partially acknowledged it after the last game, saying he'd give more time to more experienced guys.

I'll put it more simply, Diaco, ever incompetent, used to win 2-3 games with his players. Certainly Randy could have and should have tried to merely bring competence to that situation, win 4-5 games, and work in his new recruits over time. He didn't need to set the place on fire.

It's tired yes but that doesn't make it any less true. We don't have experienced depth. I guess the only knock on Edsall is that he should have taken the FR approach last year so we'd be in Year 2 with those guys who got significant time last year. People forget that Diaco didn't get fired until after Christmas so there just wasn't ample time to build a bigger class with his guys. Our inability to can coaches at the right time has cost us dearly. Not trying to make excuses for the guy. Reality is what it is. Diaco under-recruited during his time here and didn't coach/develop his guys to anywhere near FBS level. Not sure how Edsall can be blamed for that.

It will take years to build the type of experienced depth to rattle off wins like Edsall originally left the program.

The JUCO route works for some schools and programs, sure. But that's more of an Admissions discussion than an Edsall discussion. There are pros and cons. UConn has never been and probably never will be a laxed school that allows multiple JUCOs in a year. It just isn't. A couple here and there but that's about it. I'm sure Edsall would love to bring in more JUCOs that aren't exactly UConn material but he can't and won't always win that battle. Maybe that will ease with the new incoming President, maybe it won't. We'll see I suppose.

 

[Redding Husky]

I went to the Navy game...I am still speechless.

I can only type.

I was catatonic for weeks after "the Navy game".

The worst fiascos of my lifetime:

1) the Navy game
2) the Bay of Pigs
3) Chernobyl

 

[Palatine]

Diaco lost winnable game after winnable game.

Edsall has not been able to make any game close enough to be winnable.

 

[zls44]

It's tired yes but that doesn't make it any less true. We don't have experienced depth. I guess the only knock on Edsall is that he should have taken the FR approach last year so we'd be in Year 2 with those guys who got significant time last year. People forget that Diaco didn't get fired until after Christmas so there just wasn't ample time to build a bigger class with his guys. Our inability to can coaches at the right time has cost us dearly. Not trying to make excuses for the guy. Reality is what it is. Diaco under-recruited during his time here and didn't coach/develop his guys to anywhere near FBS level. Not sure how Edsall can be blamed for that.

Oddly, you basically just made a case for keeping Diaco another year. They were paying him anyway and its not like Randy wasn't gonna be available.

 

[Stainmaster]

Oddly, you basically just made a case for keeping Diaco another year. They were paying him anyway and its not like Randy wasn't gonna be available.

What about the extra year of Diaco's recruiting?

 

[nelsonmuntz]

2009 was the toughest year in UConn history. Losing Jazz was obviously a different level of tragedy off the field.

I believe that 2009 team was the most talented team in UConn history. We were snakebit by one crazy loss after another. Wins over Notre Dame and South Carolina softened the season a little, but that team was 15 points from an undefeated season.

I have never walked out of the Rent angrier than I was after that horsescalito holding call in the end zone in the UNC game.