Year to Year Improvement -- Some Numbers

[businesslawyer]

I don't think the Sagarins are the best computer ratings, but let's use them because they are readily available and they rank all of Division I together. The year to year comparison is stark. In 2014, we finished 184. An impossible to believe 184. This year, we moved up to 91. Now, 91 isn't good enough (and I think is too low for us this year), but look at the difference in what we did.

In 2014, we were an utterly unbelievable 1-4 versus sub 125 teams. Four losses to sub 125 teams. Just horrific. This year, we went 4-0 in games against sub 125 teams. A quick and complete turnaround.

Let's then look at the grouping of 125 to 75. Teams that are really bad to bad but on the verge of being competitive. In 2014, we went 0-1 against this group. (As an aside, all it would have taken in '14 to get to a bowl was beating teams ranked 87 and worse. And yet we didn't come close). This year, that turned into 1-0.

Teams 75 to 40 -- competitive teams but not quite nationally relevant? In 2014 1-3 with the win against UCF (somehow). In 2015, 0-4. Finally, top 40 teams went from 0-2 in '14 to 1-2 this year. Looked at another way, this year the worst team we lost to was at #64, and we went 1-6 against teams from 64 down, but went 5-0 against teams 64 up (and of those 5 only ECU was decent -- the others were all not good).

What does all his mean for the 2015 season -- that we are now back to beating horrific teams consistently, but we have a ways to go before we get back even to top 60 or so by way of beating top 60 teams a good chunk of the time. What does this mean for 2016? It is likely that more of our schedule will be in the 125 to 75 range than have been in the past few years. If we can beat the Syracuses and BCs and UVAs consistently, we can take another strong leap forward. On the other hand, we are unlikely to be able to get to 6-6 again by only needing 1 win against a top 75 team. Meaning if we are only a little better than this year, 6-6 will be difficult to repeat. But if we are substantially better, as we will be if the OL makes a big step forward, ....

 

[uconndogs]

We played competitive football this year. We played some very good teams in Mizzou, BYU, Navy, Houston, etc. and we stuck around. We were not physically over matched.

The offense still needs a lot of work and especially the OL. But, the progress over 2014 is more than significant. We need to continue that trend. I'm probably in the minority on this, but I would love to see a talented bigger RB to compliment Arkeel. In spite of pass happy college football, there is still room for teams that can run the football and keep defenses off balance with play action. When you play up north, that's not a bad type of offense.

I also think that next season will hinge on young guys stepping up at LB and DE. Would love to see one or two turn out to be playmakers.

Finally, I will say the Diaco got kids to believe this season. That was huge for a program that was pretty beaten down. The stage may be getting set for a hell of a run in 2017. We'll see.

 

[junglehusky]

So the 40-75 range teams we lost to this year were Cincy, Mizzou, USF, Temple. Temple feels like they should be higher to me (probably because their defense just dominated UConn). ECU is #79 and one could make an argument either way about including them in the grouping. I do agree UConn can be expected to perform better against that range next year, maybe adding 1-2 wins in the process. But as we saw this year its hard to predict with confidence which teams on nex year's schedule fall into the competitive-but-not-quite-nationally-relevant group, which will fall out. A lot depends on whether coaches like Rhule stay put, which teams run into off-the-field issues.

 

[SubbaBub]

I don't think the Sagarins are the best computer ratings, but let's use them because they are readily available and they rank all of Division I together. The year to year comparison is stark. In 2014, we finished 184. An impossible to believe 184. This year, we moved up to 91. Now, 91 isn't good enough (and I think is too low for us this year), but look at the difference in what we did.

In 2014, we were an utterly unbelievable 1-4 versus sub 125 teams. Four losses to sub 125 teams. Just horrific. This year, we went 4-0 in games against sub 125 teams. A quick and complete turnaround.

Let's then look at the grouping of 125 to 75. Teams that are really bad to bad but on the verge of being competitive. In 2014, we went 0-1 against this group. (As an aside, all it would have taken in '14 to get to a bowl was beating teams ranked 87 and worse. And yet we didn't come close). This year, that turned into 1-0.

Teams 75 to 40 -- competitive teams but not quite nationally relevant? In 2014 1-3 with the win against UCF (somehow). In 2015, 0-4. Finally, top 40 teams went from 0-2 in '14 to 1-2 this year. Looked at another way, this year the worst team we lost to was at #64, and we went 1-6 against teams from 64 down, but went 5-0 against teams 64 up (and of those 5 only ECU was decent -- the others were all not good).

What does all his mean for the 2015 season -- that we are now back to beating horrific teams consistently, but we have a ways to go before we get back even to top 60 or so by way of beating top 60 teams a good chunk of the time. What does this mean for 2016? It is likely that more of our schedule will be in the 125 to 75 range than have been in the past few years. If we can beat the Syracuses and BCs and UVAs consistently, we can take another strong leap forward. On the other hand, we are unlikely to be able to get to 6-6 again by only needing 1 win against a top 75 team. Meaning if we are only a little better than this year, 6-6 will be difficult to repeat. But if we are substantially better, as we will be if the OL makes a big step forward, ....

Nice find. It encapsulates what I've been saying all season that 6-6, while an important step for the program, isn't some great accomplishment. We went from completely inept to a non-embarrassment. Like punching oneself in the face. Not difficult to do but a huge improvement from the perspective of one's face if you stop doing it.

 

[Huskybass]

I was dead wrong about UConn's future with Diacco as head coach. The improvement in one year is really significant. The players and coaches should be very proud of the 2015 season.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

I was dead wrong about UConn's future with Diacco as head coach. The improvement in one year is really significant. The players and coaches should be very proud of the 2015 season.

That is exactly how I feel on all fronts.

I gave Diaco a 1 year pass on win-loss record and to some extent other things. He baffled me all season culminating in the embarrassing loss to SMU at home. I thought we were screwed.

This season? 6-6 and a bowl? Nobody could have predicted that. While 6-6 isn't an amazing overall accomplishment,in the context of UConn football coming off 3 and 2 win seasons.

We've made great strides and are poised to break out next season.

 

[gioff23]

One statistic that can't be measured is health and continuity. We were very fortunate on the injury front. We lost a few, namely Ormsby. We lost 2 in the last 2 weeks, but a significant contributor to success is sending the same guys out every week, and 15 was remarkably healthier than 14 (the year we had more mysterious lower body extremity issues than were seen in the history of House, M.D.).

 

[Carl Spackler]

I don't know about the math and stuff, but I look at rankings and I'm pretty sure that we played against 5 teams this season that were ranked in the top 25 season this season, at some point, and we went 4-4 in a conference that had at one point I think at least 3 teams ranked in the top 25.

We went 6-6 over the season.

I mean really, is there anything to even consider regarding improvement from last season?

YOu look at our schedules coming up in the future and our current conference, and we better be recruiting well, because if we're going to be better than 6-6, we're going to be knocking on that top 25 door again, and that's where we were before the fall, and that's a door I want to go through.

Here's how I look at last year compared to this year.

We're 6-6. Boston Chicken Hawks are 3-9, and the Orange juice was 4-8. BOOM!!!

 

[UConn66]

I don't think the Sagarins are the best computer ratings, but let's use them because they are readily available and they rank all of Division I together. The year to year comparison is stark. In 2014, we finished 184. An impossible to believe 184. This year, we moved up to 91. Now, 91 isn't good enough (and I think is too low for us this year), but look at the difference in what we did.

In 2014, we were an utterly unbelievable 1-4 versus sub 125 teams. Four losses to sub 125 teams. Just horrific. This year, we went 4-0 in games against sub 125 teams. A quick and complete turnaround.

Let's then look at the grouping of 125 to 75. Teams that are really bad to bad but on the verge of being competitive. In 2014, we went 0-1 against this group. (As an aside, all it would have taken in '14 to get to a bowl was beating teams ranked 87 and worse. And yet we didn't come close). This year, that turned into 1-0.

Teams 75 to 40 -- competitive teams but not quite nationally relevant? In 2014 1-3 with the win against UCF (somehow). In 2015, 0-4. Finally, top 40 teams went from 0-2 in '14 to 1-2 this year. Looked at another way, this year the worst team we lost to was at #64, and we went 1-6 against teams from 64 down, but went 5-0 against teams 64 up (and of those 5 only ECU was decent -- the others were all not good).

What does all his mean for the 2015 season -- that we are now back to beating horrific teams consistently, but we have a ways to go before we get back even to top 60 or so by way of beating top 60 teams a good chunk of the time. What does this mean for 2016? It is likely that more of our schedule will be in the 125 to 75 range than have been in the past few years. If we can beat the Syracuses and BCs and UVAs consistently, we can take another strong leap forward. On the other hand, we are unlikely to be able to get to 6-6 again by only needing 1 win against a top 75 team. Meaning if we are only a little better than this year, 6-6 will be difficult to repeat. But if we are substantially better, as we will be if the OL makes a big step forward, ....

Excellent post!

 

[mikedog10]

I was dead wrong...

Said someone on the internet FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. Has this phrase ever been used in the history of the Boneyard?

 

[Tdaley]

We played competitive football this year. We played some very good teams in Mizzou, BYU, Navy, Houston, etc. and we stuck around. We were not physically over matched.

The offense still needs a lot of work and especially the OL. But, the progress over 2014 is more than significant. We need to continue that trend. I'm probably in the minority on this, but I would love to see a talented bigger RB to compliment Arkeel. In spite of pass happy college football, there is still room for teams that can run the football and keep defenses off balance with play action. When you play up north, that's not a bad type of offense.

I also think that next season will hinge on young guys stepping up at LB and DE. Would love to see one or two turn out to be playmakers.

Finally, I will say the Diaco got kids to believe this season. That was huge for a program that was pretty beaten down. The stage may be getting set for a hell of a run in 2017. We'll see.

We definitely need a power back to go along with Newsome. I'm not sure R. Johnson is the guy.