UConn's Bob Diaco Hopes To Expand Role Of Preferred Walk-Ons (Des) | Page 3 | The Boneyard

UConn's Bob Diaco Hopes To Expand Role Of Preferred Walk-Ons (Des)

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You aren't an afterthough - but come serve this state institution. Sure you have to pay your way to do it. But you aren't an afterthought.

The point is you can't build a competitive program unless you are winning recruiting battles against peer and competitive programs. It's day 1 stuff.

I give whaler credit for pointing out the perceived hypocrisy of HCBD imploring CT players to forego offers elsewhere, while giving offers to marginal prospects outside of CT. Sometimes HCBD needs to go about his business without trying to explain it to others ... it can be easily interpreted as BS.

However ... I strongly disagree that you can't build a competitive program without winning recruiting battles. UCONN has major disadvantages in the recruitment of football talent, and I want a coach that recognizes those disadvantages and recruits accordingly.

Anyone on the 'yard would love to have he success of Boise State. Just look at the 2015 projected starters at Offensive Tackle and their offers ....

LT #67, Rees Odhiambo, RS Freshman - No other D-1 offers.
RT #70, Steven Baggett, RS Freshman - Air Force, New Mexico State, Western Kentucky
 
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I ignored it because it's harmless.

The circle jerk reference was towards some guys on twitter not about anything on this board.


Yeah, OK, Thanks for clearing that up then because it sure seemed like you were referring to the board celebrating a new recruit.
 

whaler11

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I give whaler credit for pointing out the perceived hypocrisy of HCBD imploring CT players to forego offers elsewhere, while giving offers to marginal prospects outside of CT. Sometimes HCBD needs to go about his business without trying to explain it to others ... it can be easily interpreted as BS.

However ... I strongly disagree that you can't build a competitive program without winning recruiting battles. UCONN has major disadvantages in the recruitment of football talent, and I want a coach that recognizes those disadvantages and recruits accordingly.

Anyone on the 'yard would love to have he success of Boise State. Just look at the 2015 projected starters at Offensive Tackle and their offers ....

LT #67, Rees Odhiambo, RS Freshman - No other D-1 offers.
RT #70, Steven Baggett, RS Freshman - Air Force, New Mexico State, Western Kentucky

There are always going to be players who fall the through the cracks. That is a given.

Boise barely pretends to be more than a Community College so it's hard to draw a lot of parallels to UConn.

Thank you for coming up with the right word on the PWO comments.
 
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There are always going to be players who fall the through the cracks. That is a given.

Boise barely pretends to be more than a Community College so it's hard to draw a lot of parallels to UConn.

Thank you for coming up with the right word on the PWO comments.
Boise, Louisville and Kansas State may all be community college models, but they have won at levels we could only imagine. Maybe its one we should emulate rather than pretending to be Michigan or Stanford.
 

whaler11

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Boise, Louisville and Kansas State may all be community college models, but they have won at levels we could only imagine. Maybe its one we should emulate rather than pretending to be Michigan or Stanford.

Amen.
 
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Boise, Louisville and Kansas State may all be community college models, but they have won at levels we could only imagine. Maybe its one we should emulate rather than pretending to be Michigan or Stanford.

Disagree. I hope UConn never decides that athletic success trumps academics. UConn is an academic institution first and foremost, one that has aspirations to become one of the elite land-grant universities, a la Michigan, Virginia, UNC (before the recent scandals), etc. I am all-in on this goal. Our athletics helps us move toward this goal. That is why I am hyper-interested maximizing our position in the new college athletic paradigm because the $$ we have been able to invest in the facilities and academics since our basketball programs have become nationally relevant will dry up if we aren't involved. But let's not let athletic success become more important than academics.
 
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There are a "couple" of positives and a "couple" of concerns

Some positives I see and give credit to BD for recognizing and trying to mitigate:

It has always been difficult to recruit a roster of athletes recognized by more prominent programs to UConn

Trying to get recognized athletes recruit to UConn is more difficult now than every for obvious reasons......on field performance the last 5 years.......a non P5 league......level of OOC opponents (for most part, with a few exceptions, very weak).

If you look at where most of the football players from Ct are going, if they are not purely academic choices by the athletes, most are FCS or lower At least it gives an home grown athlete "a chance" at a scholarship at an institution with a good educational values, and a playing opportunity at a higher skill level......even as BD suggests, most may not make the team and/or receive a scholarship.....at least education wise, they are at a good institution.


My concerns:

Trying to fill a roster with preferred walk ons from CT........is that because recruiting is so difficult he can't fill the available openings with scholarship offers to more skilled athletes that have at least an interest from other programs?

What is the difference in skill between an athlete that is preferred walk on from CT with no other offers, and the athletes that have no other offers but received an offer of a scholarship from UConn?

My ultimate concern, and this is not BD's fault, is the future of the program. UConn has never been a power house, and getting to that level appears to becoming increasingly harder if your roster is going to primarily consist of "under the radar athletes".
 

junglehusky

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In the other thread we signed a kid with Cincy, Duke, Temple offers - don't think I'm going out on a limb to say those are "peer" type programs. Does that balance the scale just a little bit, or do we have to have multiple kids with multiple P5 offers from UL, KSU and whoever to satisfy the requirements?
 
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...My ultimate concern, and this is not BD's fault, is the future of the program. UConn has never been a power house, and getting to that level appears to becoming increasingly harder if your roster is going to primarily consist of "under the radar athletes".

I am also concerned for the future of the program. However, I remain hopeful when I remember the trajectory of both our basketball programs. Coaches Auriemma and Calhoun showed up on campus in the mid-80s (Auriemma a well-respected assistant from the then-elite program at UVA, Calhoun a successful head coach at the mid-major Northeastern.) Neither had success right out of the gate. However, Husky nation could sense that both of these guys were different, maybe even special. Both started having some success in the late 80s. Then the Dream Season year of 89-90 the women won the Big East while the guys almost made it to the Final Four. Note this was done with mostly "under the radar" recruits. The success expanded our recruiting footprint and we became nationally prominent (and in the case of the women, nationally dominant) programs. It all has to start somewhere. Coaching up under the radar athletes is our institution's forte. When Warde hired Diaco I thought he had found the next Gino/Jim. Admittedly my faith took a hit after this past season. However, I remain hopeful and my gut still tells me that Diaco and staff can do it. I hope.
 

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In the other thread we signed a kid with Cincy, Duke, Temple offers - don't think I'm going out on a limb to say those are "peer" type programs. Does that balance the scale just a little bit, or do we have to have multiple kids with multiple P5 offers from UL, KSU and whoever to satisfy the requirements?

It would be nice if the majority of kids had at least AAC offers. Noting that the data isn't something you can assume is 100% correct.... it's ugly on paper.
 

Dooley

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We just won 2 games last season after winning 3 games the season before. We haven't played in a bowl game in 4 straight seasons after getting to the Fiesta Bowl that most of the country doesn't think we deserved to be in in the first place. We play football in the American against programs that almost nobody cares about. Our offense has been one of the worst performing offenses (in addition to being a conservative/boring style) in the entire country for years. Our stadium attendance in our smaller off-campus stadium has been in a free fall decline since the day Paul Pasqualoni was hired. We have absolutely no chance of playing in a 4-team football playoff even if we run the table and win all of our games by an average of 50 points. The best case scenario for a "high profile" bowl game is, realistically speaking, playing a game against another G5 school that most people do not care about in a baseball stadium in Miami that is 3/4 empty on a weekday afternoon about 1 week before the games that everyone actually care about begin. We do not have the resources that our P5 geographic r1vals have nor can we offer prospects anything anywhere close to what they can in terms of exposure, competitive scheduling against nationally recognized programs, game-day atmosphere (until we start winning, that is), or point to a trophy case stacked with Heisman winners, national championships, iconic plays and players, and All-Americans.

The thought of engaging in a recruiting battle with Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, or even Rutgers seems like a waste of time to me. Most of the prospects that the Yard wants us to recruit aren't coming here. Not now. And not in this stage of the 2015 Class recruiting. It took Jim Harbaugh less than 24 hours to flip Ulizio. He was a late add to the verbal commit list, exactly the part of the recruiting process that we are in right now. We're into 9th inning recruiting. We aren't flipping anyone with a list of "good" offers a few days before Signing Day. So why try?

The CT PWOs thought process is simple:
1. our roster is in desperate need of quality depth.
2. CT kids get charged in-state tuition. It's still expensive but not as expensive as out-of-state tuition. Hopefully, they will only have to pay for 1 or 2 semesters out of their own pocket before #3 kicks in.
3. these kids have no other offers but are now given an opportunity to earn a full ride at a very good school.

Like or not, we are starting over again. Like we all knew at the time, the Pasqualoni hire did not advance the program from where Coach Edsall left it. We went backwards, back to the years of "trailer park football" when Edsall was building off of what Coach Holtz began. Get those hard hats gentlemen, we are back to mining for prospects. Prospects that are under-recruited or not recruited at all. A free ride at the University of Maine versus paying out of state tuition at UCONN is not much of a choice, hence the scholarship offer.

The mission of the 2015 recruiting class is to help fill the many holes in our depth chart. The hope is that all of these big frames will fill out thanks to a proper S&C program under Coach Balis. Hopefully a few of them will turn into productive D-1 caliber players so we can get back to winning. But that is going to take time. It will take years for this year's FR to fill out and develop their man strength. By the time that happens, they'll have a few years of being coached up.

Turning the program around is going to take years. The best case scenario for next season is an improvement to 5 wins. IF we can win more, then maybe we can enter a few more recruiting battles agains the likes of BC, Cuse or Rutgers again with the promise of more playing time. Until then, we need to strap on our hard hats, flashlights and pick axes and prepare to dive deep into the mines of the northeastern high school circuits to look for big frames, "coachable" kids who aren't afraid of hard work, and athleticism. The good news? This formula has worked at UCONN before against MUCH better competition as a member of a BCS conference. We all just need to be patient again (as best we can).
 
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Offer list? For space purposes - I deleted the obvious Boston College offer. Bit "prettier" on paper for peer offers than UConn but based on conference affiliation I was tad bit surprised to see who they are competing with (I do consider UConn a peer in all but conference affiliation).

Boston College Football Recruiting Class of 2015


1. OT Anthony Palazzolo (Fairfield, Conn.) - 6-6, 302 lbs ~ Offers: Connecticut, Pittsburgh
2. OG Chris Lindstrom (Dudley, Mass.) - 6-5, 240 lbs ~ Offers: Old Dominion
3. DB Lukas Denis (Everett, Mass.) - 5-11, 170 lbs. ~ Offers: Holy Cross, Massachusetts
4. OT John Phillips (Syracuse, N.Y.) - 6-6, 245 lbs ~ Offers:
5. OT Aaron Monteiro (Brockton, Mass.) - 6-6, 308 lbs ~ Offers: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts
6. RB Jordan Gowins (Melville, N.Y.) - 6-0, 200 lbs. ~ Offers: Stony Brook, Toledo
7. TE Jake Burt (Lynnfield, Mass.) - 6-5, 230 lbs ~ Offers: Virginia
8. ATH Ben Glines (Cincinnati, Ohio) - 6-1, 190 lbs ~ Offers: Akron, Toledo, Western Michigan
9. OG Wyatt Knopfke (Sarasota, Fla.) - 6-2, 288 lbs ~ Offers: Kentucky, Miami Hurricanes
10. RB Sharrieff Grice (West Hartford, Conn.) - 6-1, 200 lbs ~ Offers: Albany, Fordham, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rutgers
11. DUAL Elijah Robinson (Montclair, N.J.) - 6-2, 185 lbs ~ Offers: Air Force, Army, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan State, Navy, Nebraska, Rutgers, Temple, Virginia
12. ATH William Harris (Wallingford, Conn.) - 6-2, 205 lbs ~ Offers: Connecticut, Old Dominion, Syracuse
13. ATH Michael Walker (Naples, Fla.) - 5-11, 179 lbs ~ Offers: Arkansas State, Arizona, Florida International, Georgia Southern, Holy Cross
14. WR Chase Pankey (Cincinnati, Ohio) - 6-1, 191 lbs ~ Offers: Ball State, Marshall
15. TE Chris Garrison (Groton, Mass.) - 6-4, 215 lbs ~ Offers: Connecticut, Duke, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Syracuse
16. WR Mehdi El Attrach (Lake Nona, Fla.) - 6-1, 185 lbs ~ Offers: Syracuse, Duke, Wake Forest, Louisville, Rutgers, Northwestern, Southern Mississippi, Massachusetts, East Carolina, Florida International, Bowling Green, Western Kentucky, Western Michigan, Memphis, South Alabama, Vanderbilt
17. S Davon Jones (Shrewsbury, Mass.) - 6-1, 180 lbs ~ Offers: Coastal Carolina
18. FB Jimmy Martin (Maitland, Fla.) - 5-11, 204 lbs ~ Offers: Cincinnati, Duke, Florida International, Eastern Illinois, South Alabama, South Florida, Western Michigan
19. LB Tanner Karafa (Ashburn, Va.) - 6-2, 220 lbs ~ Offers: Charlotte, Harvard, James Madison, Kentucky, Virginia, Virginia Tech
20. DT Ray Smith (San Diego, Ca.) - 6-2, 270 lbs ~ Offers: Air Force, Navy, San Diego State
21. CB Taj-Amir Torres (Amherst, Mass.) - 5-10, 175 lbs ~ Offers: Connecticut, Massachusetts
22. WR Nolan Borgersen (Washington, N.J.) - 6-1, 185 lbs ~ Offers: Buffalo, Central Florida, Harvard, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, Temple, Western Michigan, Yale
23. ATH/QB Jeff Smith (Clearwater, Fla.) - 6-1, 170 lbs ~ Offers: Akron, Army, Holy Cross, Iowa State Cyclones, Louisville, Wisconsin
24. DE Wyatt Ray (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) - 6-3, 230 lbs ~ Offers: Cincinnati, Florida International, Northern Illinois, Minnesota, Syracuse, Wake Forest
25. DE Zach Allen (New Canaan, CT) 6-4, 255 lbs ~ Offers: Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Rutgers, Connecticut, UCLA, Northwestern, UVA
 

ConnHuskBask

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Couple things:

1) Who is saying that stars are the end all be all? Stars mater. Offers really matter.

2) Who is saying we should be competing with Alabama or Ohio State? Those examples are only brought up to highlight the stance that stars don't matter.

3) Yes, we've had two CT walk ons make the NFL. Thanks for pointing that out. I wasn't aware.

4) Dwayne Difton had 4 stars and was bad. Well we should never go that route again.

5) UConn almost always finished in the bottom of the BE and now it seems AAC rankings. Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't we had exactly 2 winning conference records in the past decade?

6) At this point I don't think its reasonable to expect us to even recruit with our local neighbors like BC, Rutgers, Cuse, etc.

7) There's a huge drop off going from BC, Ruther, Cuse to grabbing kids with FCS offers from their home state. There is no reason at all we can't get kids with AAC and MAC offers.

8) I despise that people get excited over two sport athletes. I'd wager 90% of FBS players played multiple sports in HS because, guess what, FBS players are probably the best athletes in their high school.

9) After the P debacle, everyone please just shut up about measureables.

10) In closing, you win with players. Good football players. Not good baseball players. Not good chess players. Not guys that were in habitat for humanity.

Football players. Ones that are desired by programs that are on a level we want to compete on.

I feel bad that I had to take shots at some recruits but it had to be done to illustrate a point.
 
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Couple things: 8) I despise that people get excited over two sport athletes. I'd wager 90% of FBS players played multiple sports in HS because, guess what, FBS players are probably the best athletes in their high school.

ohiovarsityJan 18, 6:14pm via TweetDeck
Sharing this for all you football players who take off the winter/spring to "work out."

urban.png
 

ConnHuskBask

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ohiovarsityJan 18, 6:14pm via TweetDeck
Sharing this for all you football players who take off the winter/spring to "work out."

View attachment 8348

That's my point medic. People are going crazy over two sport athletes and acting like we're exploiting some inequality in the market so to speak.

Most everyone plays multiple sports Because they are elite athletes.

Just seems to me this board doesn't realize that fact.
 
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A couple of points.

PP's recruiting on paper looked good, but the retention rate for recruits wasn't good. In fact, we were losing kids before they ever stepped on campus. The key to UConn's success on the field will be determined by player development, which means the players have to stay at UConn. I think Diaco recognizes this and is doing team building with the recruits even before they get to campus. In addition, I would think Diaco won't lose many if any signed recruits before the Fall semester begins. This will be very positive.

As for PWOs, UConn wasn't taking full advantage of the possibilities. Yes, we found a few diamonds in the rough, but the focus wasn't on developing players and making them part of the team and contributing. Remember, you can have 20 walk-ons which means you have the ability to develop more depth. Having a defined and managed PWO program will be very positive for UConn.

Should UConn recruit better? I think so, but given how well the program has performed the past few years and being in the AAC makes it difficult. That said, when UConn gets back on track, recruiting will improve.
 

SubbaBub

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A couple of points.

PP's recruiting on paper looked good, but the retention rate for recruits wasn't good. In fact, we were losing kids before they ever stepped on campus. The key to UConn's success on the field will be determined by player development, which means the players have to stay at UConn. I think Diaco recognizes this and is doing team building with the recruits even before they get to campus. In addition, I would think Diaco won't lose many if any signed recruits before the Fall semester begins. This will be very positive.

As for PWOs, UConn wasn't taking full advantage of the possibilities. Yes, we found a few diamonds in the rough, but the focus wasn't on developing players and making them part of the team and contributing. Remember, you can have 20 walk-ons which means you have the ability to develop more depth. Having a defined and managed PWO program will be very positive for UConn.

Should UConn recruit better? I think so, but given how well the program has performed the past few years and being in the AAC makes it difficult. That said, when UConn gets back on track, recruiting will improve.

If it hasn't been made clear by now, RE had the right formula. Without an extended run of top 15 finishes combined with a continuity at the HC/Recruiting Stud positions. No northeast school, let alone UConn is going to attract more that the occasional blue unicorn in the world of touted recruits. DB will need to identify kids that P5 programs don't notice, with the right attitude, potential, and work ethic, then develop them at a more advanced rate than is typical. While RE could sell the BE and the prospect of an autobid to the BCS against the bottom half of the P5 programs, BD doesn't have that luxury. While it used to be reasonable for a recruit to choose UConn over a Wake Forest or an Indiana, that is much bigger reach these days.

The wildcard is BD and the staffs' personality mixed with some affinity for UConn as a school in getting guys to sign. Close to home or playing away games close to home, putting guys in the NFL (which BD has yet to do here, obviously) and being a respectable FB option are what needs to be the focus until the winning starts. But it all comes down to BD scouting those fabled diamonds in the rough. PP couldn't do it, scout or develop, and my gut tells me he was all to willing to accept whatever the recruiting industry left for a program of his station. Usually guys that were known but not wanted elsewhere. RE was able to find guys who were not wanted elsewhere because they weren't well known.

This is a good program, it has shown an ability to surprise a lot of people. We are just surprising in the wrong direction right now, but it is not a job for a guy who doesn't care or isn't prepared. BD cares, we'll see if he's prepared.
 

Stainmaster

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So Holman sucks because he had no other FBS offers?

None of our recruits know how to play football because they don't have FBS offers?

Even according to BY standards, that's a bunch of crock.
 

SubbaBub

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We just won 2 games last season after winning 3 games the season before. We haven't played in a bowl game in 4 straight seasons after getting to the Fiesta Bowl that most of the country doesn't think we deserved to be in in the first place. We play football in the American against programs that almost nobody cares about. Our offense has been one of the worst performing offenses (in addition to being a conservative/boring style) in the entire country for years. Our stadium attendance in our smaller off-campus stadium has been in a free fall decline since the day Paul Pasqualoni was hired. We have absolutely no chance of playing in a 4-team football playoff even if we run the table and win all of our games by an average of 50 points. The best case scenario for a "high profile" bowl game is, realistically speaking, playing a game against another G5 school that most people do not care about in a baseball stadium in Miami that is 3/4 empty on a weekday afternoon about 1 week before the games that everyone actually care about begin. We do not have the resources that our P5 geographic r1vals have nor can we offer prospects anything anywhere close to what they can in terms of exposure, competitive scheduling against nationally recognized programs, game-day atmosphere (until we start winning, that is), or point to a trophy case stacked with Heisman winners, national championships, iconic plays and players, and All-Americans.

The thought of engaging in a recruiting battle with Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, or even Rutgers seems like a waste of time to me. Most of the prospects that the Yard wants us to recruit aren't coming here. Not now. And not in this stage of the 2015 Class recruiting. It took Jim Harbaugh less than 24 hours to flip Ulizio. He was a late add to the verbal commit list, exactly the part of the recruiting process that we are in right now. We're into 9th inning recruiting. We aren't flipping anyone with a list of "good" offers a few days before Signing Day. So why try?

The CT PWOs thought process is simple:
1. our roster is in desperate need of quality depth.
2. CT kids get charged in-state tuition. It's still expensive but not as expensive as out-of-state tuition. Hopefully, they will only have to pay for 1 or 2 semesters out of their own pocket before #3 kicks in.
3. these kids have no other offers but are now given an opportunity to earn a full ride at a very good school.

Like or not, we are starting over again. Like we all knew at the time, the Pasqualoni hire did not advance the program from where Coach Edsall left it. We went backwards, back to the years of "trailer park football" when Edsall was building off of what Coach Holtz began. Get those hard hats gentlemen, we are back to mining for prospects. Prospects that are under-recruited or not recruited at all. A free ride at the University of Maine versus paying out of state tuition at UCONN is not much of a choice, hence the scholarship offer.

The mission of the 2015 recruiting class is to help fill the many holes in our depth chart. The hope is that all of these big frames will fill out thanks to a proper S&C program under Coach Balis. Hopefully a few of them will turn into productive D-1 caliber players so we can get back to winning. But that is going to take time. It will take years for this year's FR to fill out and develop their man strength. By the time that happens, they'll have a few years of being coached up.

Turning the program around is going to take years. The best case scenario for next season is an improvement to 5 wins. IF we can win more, then maybe we can enter a few more recruiting battles agains the likes of BC, Cuse or Rutgers again with the promise of more playing time. Until then, we need to strap on our hard hats, flashlights and pick axes and prepare to dive deep into the mines of the northeastern high school circuits to look for big frames, "coachable" kids who aren't afraid of hard work, and athleticism. The good news? This formula has worked at UCONN before against MUCH better competition as a member of a BCS conference. We all just need to be patient again (as best we can).


Preach on brother. Preach on. And OL is the best position to succeed in this strategy, because outside the 5 star guys its the biggest crap shoot guess how big and strong a HS kid is going to get in 18-24 months.
 
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I think Diaco has done a great job recruiting & he will get increasingly better if he's here for a half decade.

Stars? Offers? You have no clue. This rating agency crap is meaningless. Answer A. Answer B is the player after player UConn has produced that went NFL or had superlative college years that you'd be bitching about. That's because ... Nah I just know you're wrong.

You have 4 years to overcome. You have new territory to transverse. Diaco has to jump to Edsall mindset far faster than Edsall got in his first 5 years. There's never going to be easy gets - WE ARE a Development program.

Preferred Walk-on - you're a Jerk to knock this path. There's nothing but upside for a State U in Football flat HS Connecticut.
 

whaler11

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I think Diaco has done a great job recruiting & he will get increasingly better if he's here for a half decade.

Stars? Offers? You have no clue. This rating agency crap is meaningless. Answer A. Answer B is the player after player UConn has produced that went NFL or had superlative college years that you'd be bitching about. That's because ... Nah I just know you're wrong.

Preferred Walk-on - you're a Jerk to knock this path. There's nothing but upside for a State U in Football flat HS Connecticut.

And with the late entry with namecalling that totally misrepresents posts and is comically inacurrate.... PUDGE.
 
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This board is getting really tough to read. If you point out the obvious and don't post waving your pom poms you're attacked and called names.

I think this program is in some serious trouble. The offer lists the majority of these kids have is a huge red flag. Spare me the couple of outliers. With schools like Ville bringing in the Michael Dyers and Devonte Fields of the world I fear that we simply don't have the stomach to compete at this level.
 
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I don't have an issue with what Diaco is doing, Pasqualoni started doing this a bit while he was here.
Since this thread has ventured to the recruit/star ratings issue...let me just throw this perfect example out there of a walk-on getting a chance and making it happen over a all world star rated player from our friends in Piscataway directly to our south.

Savon Huggins: Who is looking to transfer with 1 yr of eligibility left to see if he can catch lightening in a bottle. Many on here thought UCONN had a shot to get Huggins, and thought we were watching the next Ray Rice heading to Rutgers.
His Rutgers Bio:
Prior to Rutgers: Four-year starter at running back for head coach Rich Hansen at St. Peter's Prep ... consensus No. 1 recruit in New Jersey ... five-star recruit ... rated the No. 5 player in the nation according to CBS Sports Network recruiting analyst Tom Lemming ... USA Today First Team All-America ... Under Armour All-American ... Gatorade New Jersey Player of the Year ... second top-ranked recruit in New Jersey to sign with Rutgers (Anthony Davis) ... SuperPrep Magazine All-American ... rushed for 1,891 yards on just 173 carries and 35 touchdowns as a senior for St. Peter's Prep ... Star-Ledger First Team All-State in 2010 ... averaged an amazing 10.9 yards per carry ... totaled nearly 2,000 yards rushing despite playing in only the first offensive series in six games ... second in the state with 35 touchdowns as a senior ... SuperPrep Magazine All-America ... rated as the No. 7 running back and the 58th best overall prospect nationally by Rivals.com ... Rivals 250 member ... rated the No. 4 running back nationally by Scout.com and ESPN.com ... ESPNU 150 member ... Star-Ledger Second Team All-State as a junior ... rushed for 1,544 yards and 22 touchdowns as a junior ... also caught 14 passes for 79 yards and another touchdown out of the back field ... one of two St. Peter's Prep standouts in the 2011 signing class along with offensive tackle Keith Lumpkin ... named to Team USA for the USA vs. World All-Star game in Austin, Texas ... born 6/21/93 ... an economics major.

Paul James: Walk-on, was tearing it up last season before tearing his cal against Navy after taking the starting job in 2013

Prior to Rutgers: Four-year varsity starter at Glassboro High School for head coach Herb Neilio ... competed as a running back and linebacker ... Glassboro was an outstanding 44-4 and won three state championships in James' four years ... selected to play in the Adam Taliaferro Foundation All-Star game ... Second Team All-South Jersey selection by the Philadelphia Inquirer and a Second Team All-Courier-Post pick ... earned First Team All-Group I and all-league honors as well ... finished as the second-leading rusher in school history with nearly 3,300 yards ... rushed for 1,182 yards with 12 rushing touchdowns and averaged nearly 10 yards per carry in an injury-plagued senior season ... tallied 1,730 yards his junior campaign ... guided Glassboro to a 10-2 record and a state championship his senior season ... Bulldogs finished 10-2 and reached the state semifinals his junior season ... four-year standout in track in the 100, 200, 4x100 relay team, triple jump and long jump ... earned all-county honors in the triple jump ... 4x100 team earned all-state honors his sophomore season ... brother, Christian, is attending Wesley College for football ... born 6/27/93 ... an information technology & informatics major.

Comparable Stats:
Paul James:
2013 9 156 881 5.6 65 9 97.9 (8 Starts)
2014 4 63 363 5.8 56 5 90.8 (4 Starts)

Savon Huggins:
2013 13 86 286 3.3 20 2 22.0 (3 Starts)
2014 0 0 0 -- 0 0 --

Coming out of high school Huggins was All-World star rated...Paul James was a walk-on from NJ who was given a shot to play at Rutgers and made the most of his opportunity and then some.
 
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