Cracking the CT Recruiting Trail
The Story: Football coach Jim Mora is making appearances all over the state, including at high school playoff games. Can he start to get some of the in-state high school and prep school talent to stay home?
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: We hear all the time how Connecticut isn’t big enough to sustain an FBS program. There is truth to that. UConn has to recruit New Jersey and Pennsylvania as well as other states in New England. But let’s also be honest: UConn has underperformed in Connecticut for two decades and the last 10 years have been awful.
• Mora reached out to state coaches and prep school coaches and is making offers all over the state, even to players from other states who are playing prep school at Choate, Loomis Chaffee, Suffield Academy and Avon Old Farms, among others.
• He also hired John Marinelli, the former Greenwich High football coach, as the tight ends coach to help recruit this area.
YES, THERE IS TALENT HERE: What’s been the bane of UConn’s existence for much of the last five years? In our opinion, it’s the lack of a quarterback. UConn has struggled at that position for the last five years and lo and behold, the answers were likely in the state for previous regimes, including Randy Edsall, who never seemed to hit it off with in-state football coaches. Let’s look at some high-profile FBS rosters:
• Will Levis, a transfer from Penn State, is Kentucky’s starting quarterback and leading the Wildcats to a bowl game. Levis, who went to Xavier in Middletown, has thrown for 2,593 yards and 23 touchdowns this season, his first as a starter.
• Taisun Phommachanh, the older brother of UConn freshman Tyler, is Clemson’s backup quarterback. A Stratford native, he starred at Avon Old Farms and was a top recruit who is behind some stiff competition at Clemson.
• Tyler Van Dyke is a Suffield native who played at Suffield Academy. He’s now starring for Miami (Fla.) and has thrown for 2,931 yards and 29 touchdowns.
• Drew Pyne is from New Canaan and is the backup quarterback at Notre Dame. Pyne played for Lou Marinelli, John’s father, at New Canaan and could be a candidate to find a new home depending on how things end up at Notre Dame.
• Let’s get this straight: Connecticut natives are the starting quarterbacks at Kentucky, Clemson, Notre Dame and Miami and the good ol’ State U wasn’t in the room on any of them? Why are the Huskies going to Canada and the overrecruited Deep South to find quarterbacks?
• UConn isn’t going to win many head-to-head battles against power schools for elite players, but many moons ago, Dan Orlovsky took a shot at UConn instead of Purdue and it worked out. The last time a Connecticut coach worked state coaches — Paul Pasqualoni recruited Tim Boyle and Casey Cochran to Storrs. Boyle, of course, flamed out under Bob Diaco and was relegated to holding for field goals but has only played in the NFL for the last five years after he transferred to Eastern Kentucky. Cochran’s career ended early because of concussions, but he still holds the school record for passing yards in a game.
WHAT GIVES? UConn’s best player is a Connecticut native in Travis Jones, who is a likely mid-round NFL draft pick as a defensive tackle.
• The top five players in Connecticut this year are within a 60-minute drive from Mora’s office and are headed to Michigan, Boston College, West Virginia and Colorado. Ouch.
MARINELLI TO THE RESCUE? This isn’t a new dynamic. To combat things, Mora has reached out to many state coaches and brought inMarinelli in to help. Marinelli has been an analyst at Arizona and Illinois the last three years and, at 35, is stepping into an on-field role as the Huskies’ tight ends coach. He’s only three years removed from coaching here and has plenty of ties in the Northeast.
BOTTOM LINE: We are tired of hearing Connecticut doesn’t have talent. It isn’t true. Connecticut has plenty of talent, especially factoring in prep schools. While it isn’t Florida, where colleges can build a team off in-state players, the Huskies have to be involved, even as longshots, with every FBS recruit in the state. There are two reasons:
• Things happen with coaching changes and sometimes players want to stay home at the last minute.
• The transfer portal. If there is an opportunity to play and impress NFL scouts and do it while playing near home instead of being a backup, having familiarity with the campus, coaches, and program helps.
Women Open Big East Play
The Story: The No. 3-ranked women’s basketball team has had what seems like a month off and will finally return to action tonight when it plays at Seton Hall in the Big East opener at 7 p.m. on SNY.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: UConn has not played in nearly two weeks since it lost to South Carolina in the Battle 4 Atlantis. The Huskies have not lost back-to-back basketball games since 1993 (it’s our favorite stat) and at 3-1 are overwhelming favorites against the Pirates. Geno Auriemma has harped on his team being tougher and not folding when adversity hits, such as the 20-2 fourth-quarter run South Carolina put on the Huskies.
WHAT TO EXPECT: Pain, at least if you are a Seton Hall fan. Geno has an uncanny ability to ground his team and make teachable moments, and failure remains the greatest teacher of them all. The Huskies have had 11 days to stew on the loss and while injuries are mounting, Paige Bueckers, Christyn Williams and Evina Westbrook will all play.
• We have yet to see UConn put it all together in the early going and play with the expected crispness we have come to expect.
• We expect big games inside from Olivia Nelson-Ododa and maybe some unexpected help off a bench that desperately needs to produce. Azzi Fudd will not play as she recovers from a stress fracture and we are expecting to see a lot more of Caroline Ducharme in the backcourt.
GRIFFIN OUT: We did get bad news about Aubrey Griffin, who was supposed to make her debut sometime this weekend. Griffin will not play tonight or Sunday against former rival Notre Dame. Griffin’s father, Adrien, was a Seton Hall standout in the 1990s before he embarked upon a long NBA career.
ABOUT SETON HALL: UConn holds a 53-10 all-time lead over Seton Hall, which is led by former UConn player Andra Espinosa-Hunter. She is averaging 18.7 points and 7.0 rebounds per game as a graduate student who played briefly at UConn before transferring to Mississippi State. After two years at Mississippi State, she transferred to Seton Hall last year and was an All-Big East player.
Grambling On Tap for Grumpy Hurley
The Story: The No. 17 men’s basketball team plays Grambling State tomorrow and we are expecting UConn to be focused and locked in.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Dan Hurley was not happy with anything after a tougher-than-anticipated struggle with Maryland Eastern Shore on Tuesday.
• UConn won 72-63 and is 7-1, but Hurley gave the proverbial spiel about how he did not prepare his team properly. While we doubt that, we do think the Huskies played unprepared and they won’t do it again.
MARITN OUT, NO SANOGO? Tyrese Martin remains out while his left wrist heals, and center Adama Sanogo, who left Tuesday’s game with an abdominal injury, is questionable to play.
ABOUT GRAMBLING: Grambling State is 2-5 and shouldn’t be a challenge. With that said, neither was Maryland Eastern Shore, so we won’t know until the game starts.
• The Huskies need an impressive victory if they want to move up in the polls and/or ratings as the Tigers are another Quad 4 opponent the Huskies are facing.
Men’s Soccer Coach Reid Retires
The Story: Longtime men’s soccer coach Ray Reid announced his retirement yesterday, ending career that included three Division II national titles at Southern Connecticut State and one national title at UConn in 2000.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Reid, 61, cited the need to care for his ailing parents on Long Island as a major contributing factor, and he ends his coaching career with eight Big East regular-season titles and four conference tournament titles.
• His career record as a head coach is 394-197-61, a .769 winning percentage.
• The men’s soccer program fell off when it went to the American Athletic Conference, but is primed to return to national prominence in the Big East. The program led the NCAA in home-game attendance this year, and with a brand new soccer stadium and facilities, it is in good hands.
WHAT DID REID SAY? “We tried to develop good people. We tried to develop good players, we tried to grow the game, and we tried to win a lot, and hopefully over 25 years, we did enough of that.”
BOTTOM LINE: Reid is one of the great college soccer coaches in the sports history and responsible for growing the game in popularity in Connecticut — a soccer hotbed — and the northeast. It’s true soccer has taken a back seat to football over the last 15 years as the major fall sport, UConn still has the potential to challenge for national titles in the sport if it makes the right hire.
Morning Reads
• The men’s hockey team is at Merrimack tonight as it looks to improve beyond sixth place in Hockey East (UConnHuskies.com)
• The volleyball team remains in action this late in the season as it plays in the National Invitational Volleyball Championship in Boston against North Carolina A&T tonight. (UConnHuskies.com)
