Last time I checked, UConn wasn't Yale

It’s easy to make excuses about why UConn doesn’t succeed at football.

It’s a basketball school, there’s a distinct lack of tradition and autumn in the northeast is spent cheering for and then bitching about the Sox and Yankees – there’s just no time for this college football nonsense. All fair points.

But how about the school’s admissions policy?

Last week, head coach Randy Edsall said that he cannot recruit the same way he did when he first came to Connecticut eight years ago because the classes have become that much more difficult.

"It's much tougher in the classroom than when I first got here. There are more demands. The competition in the classroom is a lot higher. We've had to change our focus because the university has changed."

To be fair, he’s not lying. UConn has gone from a safety school to a dream school for many in the last decade. But we aren’t talking about Duke or Notre Dame here. Or Penn State. Hell, it’s not even Rutgers.

Edsall didn’t come right out and say that any of this effects recruiting -merely that it changes his style- but it seems like that’s what he was getting at.

I just find this all hard to believe. Jim Calhoun can bring in a 7’3 center that may or may not have ever gone to high school but Edsall can’t even land a bottom tier Division I quarterback? The school has put all this money into building one of the top football complexes in the nation, but it won’t admit half the players it’s trying to attract?

There’s no question about it. UConn football is a hard sell.

But it's not because of rising academic standards. Now that’s just hard to buy.

UConn Needs To Help Edsall Help His Football Team (The Day - New London)
UConn coach says academic standards changes how he recruits – (Boston Globe)