Hearst Media CT: Hugh Bailey (opinion): UConn's biggest opponent is geography

[ZooCougar]

And yet you still feel the necessity to call people and posts names. How many sports have you played personally?

Probably more than you did Uncle Rico.

 

[ZooCougar]

dude, the shools you mentioned straight molly wopped us all over the field yet they're joker schools???? Don't confuse the financial parts with the actual products on the field... sounds like you're doing that... and when you discount these other schools that may not provide that immediate financial gratification.. they are a means to an end... careful putting down folks... (that "me glass house? You glass house!" thing kicks in... and we've been feeling it for a decade behind woof tickets like this).... just sayin... ( we're on the same team, we want to see UConn Football succeed, but, Geesh, if you don't think thoughts/comments like these don't rile up what you consider lessor opponents, your kidding yourself... we have yet to put ourselves in a position to even downplay any opponent.. not one... if anything we're getting embarrassed... unforunately, brother, we just gotta be patient.. the wins - consistent ones - will eventually come )... we're on to something... gotta stay the course a little longer... as bad as it feels right now...

We can’t recruit well enough to beat these teams. People will just keep clamoring to play these teams. We’ll keep getting talent that can’t keep up.

And yet people will expect the results to change.

In football these major P4 schools are not our peers. We are very much beneath them.

 

[RSTuthill]

Probably more than you did Uncle Rico.

Riiiiiight .... Guessing keyboard jockey is the only one.

 

[RSTuthill]

Personally, I would be a lot more interested in watching UConn play northeastern FCS teams (ex-Yankee, Ivies, Patriot League) than fellow G5 conference members.

 

[MustangMan]

Absolutely not. The only two leagues that we could potentially get a football-only invite to are the MAC and CUSA, and both would likely negotiate a 2 or 4 game basketball package every year. Also, while both are technically eligible for the CFP, we both know the 5th spot will go to a MW/AAC/Sun Belt champ 95% of the time. You think things are bad now; wait until we go 13-0 in the MAC and don't make the playoff (behind a two loss MW or AAC champ).

What we are doing (scheduling 4-5 P4 H/H series a year + regional G5s) is the way to go. Our SOS is similar to an average MW or AAC team. If we miraculously go 12-0 as an independent (especially in a year playing 5 P4 opponents), we would have a legitimate case as an at-large vs. a 3-loss SEC or B1G team.

Your SOS is harder than the schedule average AAC team.

My SMU Mustangs obviously scheduled when they decided to go to OU with the TCU game as well.

If you throw out those 2 voluntary games, the only "hard" game on the schedule are Memphis and possibly Navy. (Rice is surprisingly good this year so fingers crossed we don't blow it this weekend).

IMHO - UConn needs to do anything in its power to get into any FBS conference that will take them as a FB only member. The good bowls are tied to conferences and Notre Dame.

 

[billybud]

Sagarin has SMU's schedule strength ar #129....Houston #15....Cincy #37

UConn at #87...But after the Tennesse game, it will clock upward.

 

[CTBasketball]

Our biggest opponent is our own athletic department.

I also think cancelling the 2020 season set us back further than the awful hiring of coaches the last 8-12 years. We’re still trying to get back to competitiveness from that.

 

[cohenzone]

"UConn ice hockey is in the Hockey East Conference, alongside Boston University and Holy Cross."

Happy now?

Snarky now?

 

[uconnfan68]

Probably one of the ones we don’t like because that’s the only option.

There really is no good feasible option. Independence is bad. Being in CUSA or the MAC is bad.

Both have more Cons than Pros. But we made this bed.

We made part of it, but much of it was out of our hands. Who predicted the Pac12 crash?

 

[ZooCougar]

We made part of it, but much of it was out of our hands. Who predicted the Pac12 crash?

We made the fact that our football stinks.

 

[cullaville]

We made the fact that our football stinks.

A string of bad coaching hires has brought UCONN football to this point. I realize it may be difficult to lure top tier coaches to UCONN football but bringing back Edsell was the proverbial nail in the coffin.

 

[ZooCougar]

We made part of it, but much of it was out of our hands. Who predicted the Pac12 crash?

Also. Everyone predicted the PAC 12 crash after UCLA and USC left.

 

[uconnfan68]

We made the fact that our football stinks.

Agree, but at least we’re not Clemson. They’re losing their minds down there.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

He's right on 99% of his arguments. The one he's wrong on is Holy Cross is not in Hockey East. He's gotta do his homework.

Forget hockey. He can’t see the 17 National Championship banners hanging from the rafters? Two coaches already in the Hall of Fame?

He's right on 99% of his arguments. The one he's wrong on is Holy Cross is not in Hockey East. He's gotta do his homework.

He’s an idiot and so are you for listening to him

 

[RSTuthill]

Our biggest opponent is our own athletic department.

I also think cancelling the 2020 season set us back further than the awful hiring of coaches the last 8-12 years. We’re still trying to get back to competitiveness from that.

Are you forgetting "Bigger Faster Stronger"?

 

[RSTuthill]

He's right on 99% of his arguments. The one he's wrong on is Holy Cross is not in Hockey East. He's gotta do his homework.

One more time. Where did he say that about HC? Did you read a different version of that story than I did?

 

[gars44]

He's a goof with a bad take. This is the situation:

We are perceived as institutionally inept losers in football. Countless decisions since our former coach dreamed-jobbed us have been tragic - PP, GDL, Bobby Fishcake, ConFLiCT, Dream-Job 2.0, national champs of the COVID skip season, worst defense in FBS history, leaving a conference at the expense of football to save hoops, not hiring a DC, etc. etc. etc. Plus, we have been left at the P5/P4 alter very publicly way too many times because we are so terrible at football. It's a catch-22. If we win in football, we will get into a real conference. However, we can't win in football because we are not in a real conference.

The solution is to INVEST in football. We must allocate more money to coaching so we can get a DC and a new OC. We have to develop a cutting edge NIL program so that kids will WANT to play here. If we do that, we will start winning. Winning solves a LOT of problems.

You don’t appear to have a good understanding of traditional Yankee values. This is the Land of Steady Habits. But I do admire and envy your youthful optimism.

 

[BlueandOG]

You don’t appear to have a good understanding of traditional Yankee values. This is the Land of Steady Habits. But I do admire and envy your youthful optimism.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

Moorhead wasn’t interested. Neither was Al Golden.

We were lucky to get who we did.

Can't speak on Golden. Mora was hired by us well before Moorhead was hired by Akron.

Do you really believe Moorhead would have turned us down for Akron if given the choice?

 

[freescooter]

We are a state flagship, not a state directional. They are not our peers. Our peers are other state flagships and major private schools. FIU and Georgia State (whether they beat us or not) are not our peers.

We made a choice to join a league with schools that are NOT our peers because of basketball. Providence and DePaul as our peers, LOL. We need to do the same for football. I’d prefer the AAC. I don’t say it is possible but then the idea that the PAC will be defunct in a year shows anything is possible.

 

[Hoophound]

Moorhead wasn’t interested. Neither was Al Golden.

We were lucky to get who we did.

Um, that’s complete bs. Al Golden was very interested. He thought he had the job but AD Dave flew out west to see what Mora had to say and that was that.

I’m not sure what happened with Moorhead, but he went to Akron, so it’s fair to say he wasn’t offered the UConn job.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

The article is a bit depressing and (in my humble opinion) a bit misinformed and some of the takes by the boneyard are out there.


I’ll begin with things that we (the school, the school’s leadership, coaches at different times (basically UConn, it’s employees, students and fans as a whole) did wrong from the announcement that RE was leaving:

• Hiring a has been who had most recently failed at his last collegiate head coaching position who was hired entirely for the wrong reasons (to provide job security to the then AD). O will add more to how this hurt us in terms of missed opportunities later.
• Replacing the has been (at a point where he drove the program downward to where our offensive line was a mess and we were losing to the type of program, FCS Towson in this case, that we would normally blow out prior to his hiring) with someone who somehow was undeniably worse, had lost touch with reality and refused assistance when it was offered.
• Replacing the head coach who was out of touch with reality with an attempted rerun of the coach who had built an actual program but unfortunately knew only one way (stripping it down to the bones and starting over) of building, something we did not have the time to afford. These shortcomings were exacerbated by the (second term) head coach not being able to conceptualize our leaving the AAC as anything other than abandoning football. Icing on the cake was the couple of years where the board willfully punished the athletic department out of anger towards the AD firing the basketball coach when he did.

Things that many of us need to realize; to be competitive at the level we want it to be in football, we need to actually build a program (think back to the mid 1990’s during the feud Calipari was running through the media with UConn/Jim Calhoun. Calhoun stated clearly that he was building a program, something that would be sustainable. It works the same way in all sports and even if someone can quickly build a competitive team, until the foundation is there as a program, having good teams will at best always be hit or miss.

To build a football program that will be what we want it to be we will need to reach the point where the entirety of the two deep is capable of stepping in and playing a full game as a starter. We need the third string to be capable of being a backup at every position and we need fourth string to be very early in their collegiate careers, capable of growing into players who belong on the two deep. We need a lot more players and more importantly, we need a lot more players with the potential to play at a P-whatever level if we want to perform at the level many of us claim they want us to perform at.



To get these players, it will take a lot more than merely NIL. If we’re looking at NIL to stock our roster, for example at an average of $200k per player, per year, it would take $17mm for the scholarship players. I really don’t believe this (an entire roster getting paid) is happening anywhere and in all candor, the schools that may be shelling out eight figures in NIL money are doing so for ten to twelve players. Maybe another dozen or so are getting a little something beyond that.

The first thing the football program needs to do is ease up on its fixation with in state players. Yes, it’s a feel good story when we land someone and he performs and yes, it’s better to not have an adversarial relationship with in state coaches, but the reality is, there is not enough talent generated in state, hell, in all of New England, to build a football program.

Our foundation needs to come from kids from the following states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Ohio. That five state region needs to fill half of our roster. Remove Ohio (and Virginia until a few years in) and that was where RE landed the bulk of the kids that he built the program the first time around with. Ten scholarship kids a year from those states should be the goal.

We need to view New York state and the entirety of New England as a recruiting region, attempt to land as many kids who belong at this level as possible but accept that some years there may be eight to ten that warrant scholarships while other years maybe three or four.

The Carolinas and Georgia (along with other SEC states outside of Florida & Texas) can be viewed as a region as can other B1G (Midwest) states, but combined, we most likely would be better served searching for diamonds in the rough in those areas.

Florida was a staple (Richardson recruited it well) at one time and we need to get there again. We also need to build a little on Texas (we have had some recent success) as those two states (to steal an old Sam Adams line) spill more HS football talent than we make.



When the Fiesta Bowl ended, we had a program (sadly, we haven’t been able to really say this for about a decade). One reality (at least in my opinion) was that RE’s lack of imagination had taken the program about as far as he could, and while the accomplishments warranted praise, believing we had reached the end goal (which some within the school, the athletic department and the state had claimed) was very small minded. I posted a thread on this board’s predecessor shortly before the Fiesta Bowl stating that we had reach base camp, that the mountain was ahead of us but we were in a position where we could climb that mountain. The biggest opportunity loss with the P hire was that a better hire could have taken us to another level and that wouldn’t have taken a lot. We were bringing back a defense that as it was could have competed with any in college football and, with some very minor fine tuning in scheme and approach, could have been much better. We were bringing back a lot of our offense and a creative mind who could also inspire recruits to want to play for him could have brought us to a serious level. What we’ve needed to do for about ten years now is start from square one.


I understand what Mora is saying about things being easier for recruiting if we were in a conference, I just don’t agree with him. Programs recruit to their identity and the conference a school is a member of is part of their identity (in some cases, it’s the bulk of their identity). Mora needs to sell an identity that doesn’t include conference membership (personally, I believe the superior level of opponent should work, but I’m not on the recruiting trail) and he’ll need a few years of recruiting classes under his belt to have the foundation needed to build a program. I get that at the moment all he can sell is faith and what has been visible isn’t something that will inspire a lot of faith. He needs to both believe it himself and project that belief to kids he’s trying to land.

Adding some complimentary pieces through the transfer portal and a stray high end NIL addition can make the team better, if the foundation is in place, but a team can’t be built this way. Too many players are involved (and they can’t be turned over constantly) and the bulk of them have to come from recruiting and have a few years in the system. As a basketball example, picture a team that historically is in the bottom third of a good conference. If through the transfer portal they end up with a nine man rotation (all good players) with three being on the team for a couple seasons while the other six are new, how well do you believe they’ll be able to play together? It will take them a while and it is possible that for an entire season they’ll never reach full cohesion and get knocked off by a lesser team. With a football team, something could look very similar if it is only 40% players new to the system. Having a solid, established team (say for example the 2010 UConn Huskies) and adding a couple stars at a couple key positions could well be enough to make the difference between a barely top 25 squad to a solid top five squad. Bringing in basically a new team would most often at best lead to results like what we’ve seen from Colorado, likely with less early season success and far less attention (as that is entirely due to the head coach).

As far as gaining membership in a conference we would want to join, there is one path. Beginning next season, the top ranked non-P(whatever) school gets a bid in the college football playoff. We need to build to the point where once the regular season ends, we’ll be ranked ahead of the best MWC, MAC, AAC, Sun Belt, whatever school (look where Coastal Carolina ended up a few years back). The minute we threaten to be able to walk away with a full (not split among conference members) share of CFP money, the big boys will take notice. Yes, it’s a tall order. Everything worth achieving is.

 

[billybud]

Yep..the CFP may be a tall order. Requiring a good ranking.

Sankey is now (after Pac 12 dissolution) talking of a future of auto invites for the P4 champions plus the highest ranked G5 conference champion...

That would leave seven slots open...the competition for the open slots will be Notre Dame and the highly ranked CCG losers in the P4...teams like Michigan, Ohio State, Alabama, LSU, etc...along with other teams ranked fairly high.

And the sentiment seems to be skewing from having a great record in Ws vs Ls to more recognition of strength of schedule.

 

[KryHavok]

I think Mora was the best option and seemed like he wanted to be here. Were others better? Moorhead? Brown? Purely hypothetical.

When Mora was hired, I thought we had really lucked out. Last season's record made me believe we were on the verge of turning the proverbial corner. The players rallied around him. Beating a ranked team and becoming bowl eligible were huge compared to the previous years. This year though, despite the close games, the team is floundering and all momentum from last year is gone. The position that it's only the second year is weak and a pitiful excuse for the onfield product (they knew how to tackle last year and forgot how to this year?) I don't feel Mora is the answer, but I cannot think of anyone else who is better suited to completely rebuild the team and wants to come here. Other teams without our facilities are winning, yet UConn can barely manage to score against teams that our apparent peers (i.e., non P4/5) were able to. I fear for the next transfer cycle.