Why UConn’s Jim Mora is focusing on state prospects
Augustine Tieri was out with family Saturday morning when his phone rang. When he saw the call was coming from a Washington number, he decided to let it go to voicemail.
On the other line? Jim Mora, UConn’s next football coach.
Realizing this, Tieri, the football coach at Danbury High School, was quick to respond. He called Mora back around noon — just as UConn’s game against Clemson was about to start.
“I wouldn’t expect him to pick up in that situation,” Tieri said.
Except he did. And the timing, ironically, couldn’t have been better. Brian Brewton proceeded to return the opening kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown, providing the Huskies with a rare feel-good moment during a very unenjoyable season.
“He literally gave me a play-by-play,” Tieri said. “We were laughing. It’s just cool, man. It’s not typical. It’s not typical that we speak.”
Tieri was one of more than two dozen state high school coaches to hear from Mora that morning. Their conversation was brief because, well, Mora was kind of busy. Anyhow, it made an impression on Tieri.
“He sent me a follow-up text explaining the situation,” Tieri said. “‘Sorry about that, ran the opening kickoff for a touchdown. I was jacked up!!’ ”
Tieri feels it’s a good indication of how Mora plans to strengthen local ties and revitalize UConn’s most important recruiting base.
“A guy with his résumé, you don’t expect him to be so down to earth,” Tieri said. “You can tell that a wave of change is coming. You can just tell.”
‘ROLLING THE DICE’
On Oct. 9, Nico Ragaini, a Notre Dame-West Haven alum, hauled in the goahead touchdown in Iowa’s victory over Penn State. That same day, another Connecticut product, former Xavier quarterback Will Levis, engineered Kentucky to a win over LSU.
John Acquavita happened to catch highlights of both. You can guess his reaction.
“It wouldn’t have hurt to have them (at UConn),” he thought to himself.
Now, these are just two examples of a larger sentiment among Connecticut high school coaches: a growing sense of frustration about UConn’s reluctance to recruit locally.
“I know first-hand that they didn’t think Ragaini was a Division I player,” said Acquavita, the coach at rival Wilbur Cross. “You hear that kind of stuff and it does make you wonder, were they doing their homework or were they rolling the dice on borderline talent hoping they find the diamond in the rough? Were they doing that kind of recruiting? … Sometimes, I just wonder, what is happening up there?”
There are currently 19 Connecticut natives on the Huskies’ roster, the most prominent being junior defensive tackle Travis Jones, a projected NFL draft pick who played for Acquavita in New Haven. There’s also sophomore linebacker and Ridgefield native Jackson Mitchell, the nation’s fifth-leading tackler. Two more — Bristol Central dual-threat quarterback Victor Rosa and Loomis Chaffee offensive lineman Brady Wayburn — are expected to arrive as part of the 2022 recruiting class.
Heavyweight programs like Michigan, Clemson and Notre Dame have successfully poached some of the state’s top players and will likely continue to do so. But coaches feel there’s no reason UConn shouldn’t be in the mix, too.
“I think if you’re going to be the University of Connecticut,” New Canaan’s Lou Marinelli said, “you’ve got to make those kids feel like, ‘Wow, I’d hate to turn them down. They’ve been so good to me.’ But it’s never really been like that.”
Marinelli feels it’s been even less of a priority since Paul Pasqualoni was fired.
“When Paul (Pasqualoni) was there, you had a clinic for the high school coaches. There was a 7-on-7 tournament,” Marinelli said. “When George DeLeone was there (on Pasqualoni’s staff), it was an open house if you had questions. Certainly, by doing that, the coaches wanted to send their players to the University of Connecticut because we felt like we had a relationship with the coaches, and we felt like they’re our guys.
“But when you don’t have a relationship with the high school coaches and you don’t really reach out, you’re just up there in Storrs.”
Despite his deep ties to the state, Pasqualoni, a Cheshire native, went just 10-18 and was let go four games into the 2013 season.
“He knew most of us, and we knew him,” former Daniel Hand coach Steve Filippone said. “I think he took some kids who might not have been taken by others. After that, coach (Bob) Diaco was more about data — how fast they can run, how high they can jump, how long are their arms. Most of that recruiting wasn’t character-driven. … You need a balance between those things.”
UConn didn’t fare much better under Diaco, save for an appearance in the St. Petersburg Bowl in 2015. And Edsall 2.0? Forget it. The Huskies went just 6-32 since 2017 before he resigned on Labor Day.
“Randy, when he first came back, was visible to an extent,” Marinelli said. “Then we never saw him again.”
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
Recruiting in the Northeast is tricky. Like its neighboring states, Connecticut isn’t seen as a hotbed of talent.
Still, some feel like the previous staffs didn’t make much of an effort.
“If you just look at the numbers the past few years, it seems like Florida and Texas were a big importance to them,” Loomis Chaffee coach Jeff Moore said. “They were taking zero to two kids from this region, basically. There’s a lot of really good kids leaving the region. Some of it is because they’re going to play Power Five football somewhere else. Maybe that’s more attractive than UConn or UMass.
“I think for all these schools, three to seven from (New England) in a class is realistic. It doesn’t have to just be from Connecticut.”
How much better off would the Huskies be if, say, they were able to convince former Suffield Academy product Tyler Van Dyke to stay home? Van Dyke said he might’ve considered it if they had offered him sooner. Instead, he chose Miami and has emerged as one of the nation’s top quarterbacks.
“I found a bigger place that I could go to,” he said. “But I think if UConn offered me earlier and recruited me like they wanted me to go there, I think I would’ve looked at it as being at home and staying a state kid.”
UConn took a similar approach with Levis, who spent two seasons at Penn State before transferring to Kentucky.
“They come in late and then they want to know about him and then they want to offer him,” said Travis Meyer, who was the personal quarterback coach for both Levis and Van Dyke. “Really, I think they only offered him to save face. You can’t not offer that kid.”
Meyer continued: “It’s kid after kid, the same thing. For whatever reason, they have the excuse that they couldn’t land the kid anyway, so why bother going after them? ‘He’s going to Florida; we can’t compete with them.’ Well, you’re not having the conversations I’m having with them. They’d love to stay home and play for their home state, but you’ve got to show them love.
“The other thing I’ve heard from them is that all these other schools, they cast a wide net. ‘They offer every kid, but they’re not serious. We only offer kids if we’re really serious.’ … I never understood it. It’s not the way I would do it, but maybe I don’t know something that they do. Either way, it’s kind of ridiculous. You never know if you don’t try.”
STARTING ANEW
Mora laid out part of his recruiting plan during his introductory news conference with UConn.
“If there’s a really good football player in Connecticut, then he needs to become a Husky,” Mora said. “I think the most important thing we can do initially is make our presence felt in a very, very profound way in the state of Connecticut. That means getting out and developing relationships with the high school coaches, with people in the communities that support the high schools so that we’re always first in on the good players.
“We need to build a program that’s attractive to the good players in the state, then we need to put a fence around that state and make sure that every single good football player in the state of Connecticut has a burning desire to be a Husky.”
Mora was an adept recruiter at UCLA. He produced 30 NFL draft picks during his six-year stint, more than any other Pac-12 school. UConn, of course, will be an entirely different dynamic.
He’s made a positive first impression. But what happens from here will matter more.
“That’s been the jig for every coach that has come through the door,” Filippone said of prioritizing in-state recruiting. “How many have followed through on that? Not many.”