A Failure In Every Sense For Football
The Story: UConn finished its worst season in memory on the gridiron with a 57-7 loss to Temple. The Huskies, statistically, were the worst defense in modern major college football history (100 years or so), gave up a staggering 7,000-plus yards on defense and allowed an FBS-record 50.41 points per game.
UNACCEPTABLE PERFORMANCE: We are going to look forward here. There are reasons for the team being this talent poor: recruiting, staff turnover and a stunning lack of development of the players on the roster. That said, the fact the Huskies fielded a defense of that caliber is not acceptable at any level of football. These are big jobs in a revenue-producing sport, and while 1-11 can happen, it can’t happen like this. The Huskies weren’t competitive this year. That is a mind-blowing thing to write about a college football program.
WHY EDSALL IS GOING TO STAY: If this was a normal situation, Randy Edsall would be out of a job. The head coach takes the fall for an embarrassing season. Case closed. That won’t happen here.
A coaching change is a self-destruct button on a program. The firing of Paul Pasqualoni led to a worse product a year later under Bob Diaco. The firing of Diaco has led to a worse product under Edsall. UConn has to get out from under this fire-a-coach cycle and stick with someone. The school paid Diaco $3.5 million to go away, and then Edsall would be paid to go away? No. Enough money has been spent on paying people not to do their job.
The program is in free fall. Edsall’s task is to stabilize the program for the long term and get a competent football program that has a recruiting pipeline and a name on the recruiting trail. This is as unattractive a situation that the program has ever been in. This is more than a football program issue. This is an athletic department issue.
WHAT DID BENEDICT SAY ABOUT EDSALL’S FUTURE? “To even be asked that question is somewhat inappropriate,” said athletic director David Benedict. “Randy isn’t the reason the program is at where it’s at. We’ve had a lot of change and lack of continuity that creates the situation we’re in.”
This quote is stunning. Why shouldn’t the entire staff be fired for the performance it put on the field? Actually, it’s up to the athletic director to justify keeping the staff. We feel Edsall deserves more time for the reasons above. The comment, however, insults the intelligence of the UConn football fan.
WHAT DID EDSALL SAY? “We don’t have the personnel right now to compete in this league. Personnel wins games.”
Ouch. The truth hurts. Edsall has said that junior college players and grad transfers will be targeted. Getting players from anywhere is job No. 1. No one should feel comfortable with their place on the depth chart.
RECRUITING: UConn has only seven recruits committed and needs about a dozen more. The Huskies, who at their best never killed in recruiting rankings, will be at the bottom again this year. That is OK. The team needs bodies and there are more than enough football players out there who can help.
STAFF CHANGES: It’s a performance-based business and no one’s job is safe. Billy Crocker is the defensive coordinator, and one would assume if anyone takes the fall, it would be him. It hasn’t worked in two years and the Huskies are permanently going back to a 4-3 front from Crocker’s 3-3-5. How important is Crocker in recruiting? Edsall didn’t want to throw anyone under the bus postgame on Saturday. He is staking his job on the fact that he can get better players and that coaching is not the issue.
ANY TALENT HERE? There are some players on the roster. Kevin Mensah is a terrific running back and DT Travis Jones and LB Kevin Jones are building blocks. The offensive line has some ability and TE Tyler Davis was very good at the end of the year. It’s not completely devoid of talent. There just isn’t enough. There are holes at wide receiver and quarterback on offense for next year and the team could use an influx of defensive players; linebackers are at the top of the list.
FINAL THOUGHTS: A discouraging season. We saw very little out on the field that gives fans hope. There are some nice players and there is some talent, but the inability to play a normal game of football, because of the defense, made it impossible to enjoy this year. The fans have been abused the last eight years from stubbornness of Pasqualoni followed by Diaco’s off-the-wall behavior; Edsall was supposed to right the ship. What we got was an embarrassing performance this year. The program went 4-20 over the last two seasons. Time, patience and money are things this state is just about done with. Right now, it’s UConn’s turn to re-recruit the fanbase back to Rentschler Field.
Carlton Dominates UNH In Win
The Story: UConn dominated outmatched New Hampshire on Saturday with a 91-66 win at the XL Center. All five starters scored in double figures, led by 17 points from Jalen Adams and Josh Carlton.
WHAT WE LEARNED: The Huskies are going to score and do their thing. This is the third game this year they scored 90 points, and they followed up their only loss, to Iowa, with a pair of 90-point games. UConn won’t get picked off by a lesser team at this pace. That’s a good sign.
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Carlton had 17 points on 7-of-8 shooting and six rebounds. He has good footwork in the post and is getting more physical (Eric Cobb is rubbing off on him). We like Carlton’s game and while he needs to stay aggressive, he has been terrific early in the season.
WHAT WE LIKED: The guard play continues to be outstanding, but Carlton and Tyler Polley are playing much better than anyone could have hoped. Carlton and Cobb take turns having standout games and the Huskies have scoring, rebounding and shot-blocking at center. Polley is that athletic stretch 4 who can shoot the 3-pointer and score inside. Can they continue this when the schedule gets tougher?
Wilson Is Eligible!
The Story: St. John’s transfer Sidney Wilson is now eligible to play for the Huskies and is off his suspension for undisclosed reasons.
WILSON’S STORY: Wilson transferred from St. John’s before ever playing a game but had to sit out last year. He was suspended early in the season for undisclosed reasons.
WHERE DOES HE FIT? Wilson is an athletic, 6-foot-7 forward who is a classic wing player but is more likely to fit in as a stretch 4. That is territory that is almost exclusively Polley’s, and Polley has played really well to begin the year. How Wilson is integrated into the lineup is among the more interesting things that will happen this week.
HURLEY ON WILSON: “We didn’t stop the season waiting for Sid. Sid’s going to have to earn his minutes in practice. He’s got to carve out minutes and opportunities for himself in practice. That’s something he should have been thinking about the last week.” — Dan Hurley, per the Hartford Courant.
Akok Withdraws, Eyes Mid-Year Enrollment
The story: Hurley’s top recruiting target, Akok Akok, has suddenly withdrawn from Putnam Science Academy and is focused on enrolling at a university for the second semester.
BOUND FOR STORRS? This is big news for UConn as Akok, ranked the No. 40 prospect by ESPN and its No. 10 power forward in the Class of 2019, would provide significant help in the Huskies’ frontcourt.
Akok, who was taking a postgraduate year, had suggested earlier in the month he was considering skipping college, but he told 247Sports.com on Saturday that he dropped out to focus on taking the SAT in December — and nobody puts themselves through that ordeal just to leap to the NBA.
WHO IS AKOK? A 6-foot-10, 195-pound prospect, Akok (pronounced uh-COOK) was born in Sudan and moved with his family to New Hampshire when he was just a year old.
Akok didn’t begin taking basketball seriously until a few years ago. He had schools all over the country chasing his commitment before he narrowed his list to UConn, Georgetown, Pittsburgh, Providence and Syracuse.
WHAT’S HIS GAME? A shot-blocker by nature who also can spot up from the perimeter, Akok has NBA scouts salivating because big men with those talents are coveted in the league.
Former coach Kevin Ollie noticed Akok in his backyard (figuratively, not literally) two years ago, and Akok’s interest in playing in Storrs has remained despite the coaching change. He attended “First Night” activities in October and has attended two games already this season. One challenge, though: UConn has a full allotment of scholarships, so how he’d fit in January would need to be craftily maneuvered. It’s a good problem to have.
OUR TAKE: Something is not adding up here. He is visiting UConn weekly and then we hear about the NBA, enrolling early in college, and he doesn’t talk to his coach at Putnam Science? If someone at UConn leaves for the second semester, then a scholarship would open. The Huskies are at the limit of 13, and you don’t revoke scholarships mid-season, so there is no athletic aid available. He could walk on like Andre Drummond did when he came to UConn, but Drummond knew he had a big payday coming in the NBA. Akok, less so. It would be nice to see if Akok has this figured out and it would be nice to know what really happened at Putnam. Just an odd situation.
Women Cruise In Caribbean
The story: The No. 2 UConn women (5-0) picked up three wins in three days at the Paradise Jam, following up their 90-50 victory against Ole Miss on Thursday with a 65-55 win over St. John’s on Friday and an 86-40 thrashing of Purdue on Saturday.
Napheesa Collier was named the round-robin tournament’s most outstanding player after averaging 18 points and 9.7 rebounds per game, including 19 points and 10 rebounds against the Boilermakers.
CLOSER THAN EVER: The narrow victory over St. John’s was the big takeaway from the weekend, with the Huskies trailing until Katie Lou Samuelson, who scored a team-high 19 points, drilled a go-ahead 3-pointer with 7:19 remaining.
Is it a concern? Well, no, because UConn is going to win more games by 20 points than it will by 10, but it shows that the Huskies have enough resilience to survive close games — and that’s something important given they were sunk by a buzzer beater in their last two Final Four defeats.
WHAT DID GENO THINK? “Not every game is going to be we score 100, the other team scores 50 and we all live happily ever after, you know?” Geno Auriemma said after the win over St. John’s. “Some games, it’s going to be a struggle. … To be a championship kind of team, you’ve got to be able to win all kinds of games.”
UP NEXT: UConn hosts No. 16 DePaul (3-2) at the XL Center on Wednesday. The Blue Demons, coached by Auriemma’s old pal Doug Bruno, lost to No. 14 Syracuse on an overtime buzzer beater in the Cancun Challenge on Saturday.
Morning Read
FUN IN THE SUN: The UConn women’s basketball team balanced work and fun during their week-long trip to St. Thomas for the Paradise Jam, which they won for the third time. (Hartford Courant)
BOYLE LEARNS FROM THE BEST: Former UConn quarterback Tim Boyle, who is now the Green Bay Packers’ No. 3 quarterback, said his college experience had plenty of silver linings. (Hartford Courant)
KRAJEWSKI THE NEXT QB? UConn needs a QB for next year, and Steven Krajewski appeared in his first game for the Huskies. He, along with Marvin Washington and Jordan McAfee, will enter the spring battling for the job. (Hartford Courant)
MELIFONWU MAKES PATRIOTS DEBUT: Former UConn saftey Obi Melifonwu made his New England Patriots debuton Sunday against the New York Jets. Also, former UConn defensive lineman Folorunso Fatukasi was active for the Jets for the first time. (Providence Journal)
BELFAST BUMMER: A 3-2 loss to BU on Friday was followed by a 6-3 loss to Yale on Saturday as the UConn men’s hockey team lost both games of the Belpot in Northern Ireland. (UConnHuskies.com)
SALVAGING A SPLIT: The UConn women’s hockey team bounced back from a 3-2 loss to Quinnipiac on Friday to defeat Yale 1-0 in the consolation game of the Nutmeg Classic behind a goal from Viki Harkness and 28 saves by Samantha Carpentier-Yelle. (UConnHuskies.com)
MCMAHON TALKS HUSKIES: Military veteran Kevin McMahon, the soldier embedded with the UConn team during the 2K Classic, speaks on Jared Kotler’s podcast. (Soundcloud)
