Results 1 to 8 of 8
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007

    Can Anyone Please Explain UCONN

    Here is a school that 5 years ago was playing 1-AA football and is now possibly in line for a BCS Bowl Bid ( probably not but who knows).

    The State of Connecticut is not known as a hotbead for high school football, neither are any of the surrounding states like Rhode Island, Mass, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. UCONN does not get top recruits from the like of Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania or Texas, yet there football program is light years ahead of ours.

    Could someone please explain how UCONN can do it but Duke cannot ?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2007

    I would check admissions requirements and standards and

    the ease of course requirements once admitted. Not to mention the outstanding character of a Duke athlete.
    We have played them very tough the last two meetings, instead of a FSU wide left we would have beaten them in one of those encounters.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Boston, MA
    Agree with the wide left game (I was there), but i think it is a stretch to say we "played them tough" this year. I know the score was close at half, but the second half was u g l y.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Chapel Hill

    How do you define success?

    Part of the reason for Duke's failures in football on the field is our culture: we genuinely value the off the field successes of the football program. It is not just a rationalization when Duke fans point to the fact that young men who come to play football at Duke are with few exceptions of high character when they arrive and with almost no exceptions leave with successes in the class room and well prepared to make a difference in the world. I WOULD RATHER SUPPORT A WINLESS FOOTBALL TEAM WITH THE OFF THE FIELD CHARACTERISTICS WE HAVE THAN WIN EIGHT OR NINE GAMES EVERY YEAR AND MAKE THE KIND OF COMPROMSIES THAT ARE THE EASY PATH TO FOOTBALL SUCCESS. But like many fans, I have great passion for winning too. If you are competitive, you will win a few games and year, and this we have not done for some time. I do see a difference this year. We have been in place to win in the second half in several games. We have begun to make our own luck instead of wishing something good would happen. I believe we are making this step forward without compromise. A reasonable person would conclude that things are improving. It would also be reasonable to say they are not improving fast enough. What to do? My vote would be for staying the course. Ted Roof is a good man, a good leader and has a good football mind. I am sure there are better coaches in the world and am confident none of them would relish the challenges that Coach Roof faces everyday.

    By the way, none of these comments are intended to suggest any problems with the ethics or integrity of the UCONN football program. I think most readers of this board know the situation with the UCONN BB program but I don't know anything about UCONN football, except that I basically agree with the premise of the both of the preceding posts on this thread.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by NYC Duke Fan View Post

    Could someone please explain how UCONN can do it but Duke cannot ?
    We need to be more like uconn? Stanford I can take, but whoa, that's too much.

  6. #6
    I'll play devil's advocate for a second here. I suspect that there are MANY schools with admissions/continuance requirements for football players that are as low or lower than UConn, in states that have more football tradition than Connecticut, but they're not winning like UConn. Does not their coach deserve some credit?

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Chapel Hill
    Quote Originally Posted by cspan37421 View Post
    I'll play devil's advocate for a second here. I suspect that there are MANY schools with admissions/continuance requirements for football players that are as low or lower than UConn, in states that have more football tradition than Connecticut, but they're not winning like UConn. Does not their coach deserve some credit?
    I think the question posed was not what factors contributed to UCONN's success but rather why can Duke not accomplish what UCONN has. One reason, maybe the best reason, might be admissions criteria. Connecticut has been particularly quick to build their program to the point it now enjoys, and no doubt their coach deserves much of the credit. As I write they are handing it to Rutgers in the first half. If there is something to learn from UCONN's success it might be that that turning a program around does not have to take a long time where the situation is right. There is more than one kind of "right" situation.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Connedticut

    Its mostly money.

    UConn's success is no mystery. The State commited a ton of money to making the program work. They built a new stadium five or six years ago, then they built a new state of the art indoor practice facility just last year. In fact, rumor has it that Calhoun and Geno are not happy about the hoops programs not having a similar practice facility, and since those two barely talk, this may be the one thing they agree on. With the football program has come a number of arrests, and similar issues but by and large Randy Edsell has done a good job. I don't think they are quite as good as their current record but they have come light years in a very short time. Can Duke do this? Sure. Commit money. Let players in who might not otherwise even get a smell of Duke (lots of them). FInd a coach you believe in, give him the support he needs and then pay him well when he has a little success and the other schools come courting. In other words, treat football like other major div. I schools do. If Wake and BC can do it, Duke can. The problem is, to some degree you are making a deal with the devil because a football program is so big and costly and unwieldy; and so far Duke doesn't seem willing to jump in the deep water.

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