Randy, that was the best you could do?

It was a banner day for UConn players at this year's NFL Draft. Donald Brown, this past season's NCAA rushing champ, got the ball rolling when the Colts grabbed him with the 27th pick in the first round. Before the day was done, UConn would produce four of the Draft's first 63 picks. Only USC and Ohio State had more players drafted in the first two rounds. Pretty impressive for a school where the women's basketball coach is actually a big celebrity.

Keeping all that in mind, why didn't UConn head coach Randy Edsall produce better than an 8-5 record this past season? To make matters worse, it's not like UConn was 8-5 with a bullet, the Huskies had to go to overtime to outlast Temple (12-9 final score) and were nearly victimized by Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin's last minute heroics (31-28 final score). If he wants to build UConn into a true Eastern powerhouse or jump to a higher profile school, he'd better stop squandering this kind of talent or else people will start calling him Ron Zook.

Oh how the mighty have fallen

Remember when you could mistake the first round of the NFL Draft for the Miami Hurricanes' pregame introductions? Man, how times have changed. Miami didn't just miss out on having a player drafted in the first round (that hadn't happened since 1994) this year, the school didn't have anyone drafted until the SIXTH round when the Falcons gave in and picked Spencer Adkins. That's as many players as Miami of Ohio had drafted.

Miami's lack of NFL ready talent is obviously a testament to Larry Coker's horrible recruiting efforts toward the end of his tenure as Canes head coach. To his credit, Randy Shannon has done all he can to reclaim Sunshine State talent and replenish Miami's roster, but to be brutally honest, the jury's still out on whether or not Shannon is the kind of coach who can lead this program back to the promised land.

For every good thing Shannon seems to do (leading Miami to a five-game winning streak last season), he seems to do something equally as bad (three straight losses to end the season). And things might not get any better this coming season, take a look at Miami's first four games: at Florida State, Georgia Tech, at Virginia Tech, Oklahoma. An October road trip to UCF looms as a potential upset opportunity when you consider the fact that Miami got all they could handle from the Knights a season ago (20-14 win for the Canes).

The Chosen One is still waiting to be chosen

Quarterback Willy Korn was arguably the most celebrated recruit that Clemson signed during the Tommy Bowden regime. A lot of starry eyed Tiger fans thought Korn was the type of recruit who would step on campus and make the depth chart irrelevant, because he was just that damn good. And while Korn is indeed a great athlete, there's been one catch en route to his coronation as the Chosen One...he can't quite win the starting quarterback job.

If you cobble together his numbers from Clemson's two spring scrimmages and the spring game, Korn was a very unremarkable 24 of 50 for 282 yards with four touchdowns and four picks. On the other hand, Kyle Parker's numbers during those outings were 25 of 47 for 345 yards with five touchdowns and, most importantly, no interceptions. For whatever reason, Clemson coach Dabo Sweeney is reluctant to name Parker the start going into the fall. Hey, I guess numbers alone aren't enough to unseat the Chosen One.

Wow, that really was ugly

There are some cases where you see a score and say to yourself, "That's an ugly loss for so-and-so," but then some time goes by and you see that score again and you say, "Damn, that was an EXTREMELY ugly loss for so-and-so." That's what I said when I scanned over Notre Dame's results from this past season and caught their 24-23 loss to Syracuse.

It's hard to relate just how bad a football team Syracuse was last season. The Orangemen couldn't move the ball (114th nationally in total offense), they couldn't stop other people from moving the ball (101st in total defense), they couldn't block anyone (29 sacks allowed) and yet they went into South Bend and beat Notre Dame. Wow, just wow. Speaking of the Irish...

Four coaches who need to get their acts together in a hurry

Charlie Weis, Notre Dame - The situation at Notre Dame is eerily similar to what they went through with Gerry Faust in the 80's. Now in Weis's defense, Faust never had a 10-win season in South Bend, which Weis achieved back in 2006. But it was obvious after Faust's fourth season that he wasn't a championship coach, yet he still managed to last through a fifth season. Weis just completed his fourth season at Notre Dame, and I don't see any indication that he's a championship caliber coach who can elevate the program into the sport's top tier.

The biggest problem that Weis faces is a fan base that's (a) impatient and (b) not realistic about the program's current standing. If Weis had put up the same 29-21 record at Missouri, California or Maryland that he's put up at Notre Dame, he'd be considered a successful coach. But Notre Dame presents itself as being as relevant in 2009 as the program was back in the 60's and 70's, even though that's clearly not the case. There's no time for a slow build in South Bend.

The college football landscape has changed dramatically over the past quarter century, with the power base of the sport now being in the Southeast. Notre Dame needs a coach who can recognize that and refashion the program into one that recruits the kind of players who can compete with the LSUs and Floridas of the world sooner rather than later. I just don't think Weis is that guy, despite the fact that Notre Dame should approach the 9-win mark this coming season.

Mike Stoops, Arizona - I don't think Stoops is out of the woods quite yet. The powers that be at Arizona gave him a vote of confidence in the offseason, but I think the 8-5 record he put up is only going to serve to whet the appetite of Wildcat fans. Those expectations are also raised by the fact that this is a veteran team returning 14 starters, so on paper, you're expecting Arizona to exceed that eight win total. They have a veteran offensive line, a solid running back to rely on in Nic Grigsby and a linebacker corp that's arguably the best returning group in the Pac-10.

But while there's a lot to like about this team, there is also one huge hole to fill in the person of Willie Tuitama. He had 23 touchdown passes against eight picks, he ranked second in the Pac-10 in passing efficiency and with him at the helm, Arizona had the best third down conversion rate in the league. But it's not just numbers that Stoops has to replace, he lost the undisputed team leader.

This past season, teams like LSU, Auburn and Tennessee showed us what can happen when you're unsettled at quarterback. So if Stoops wants to extend his stay in Tucson, he's going to need Matt Scott or Nick Foles to step up and at least approach the numbers Tuitama put up.

Mike Sherman, Texas A&M - If ever there was a bad time to take the Texas A&M job, it was 2008. You had three other teams in your same division spend a good chunk of the season in the top ten, with Oklahoma ending up playing in the national title game. The Aggies lost to Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech by a combined score of 158-62. To add to that misery, Sherman found a way to lose his coaching debut to Arkansas State, which is an embarrassment that the Aggie faithful won't soon forget.

Sherman had the exact same 4-8 record in his debut season as Dennis Franchione had in his debut season in College Station. Franchione improved by three games in year two of his regime, so if Sherman can't do something very similar, I think it's very plausible that he won't see a third season as A&M's coach. The gap between A&M and the Big 12 South's best teams appears to be pretty big, so Sherman really has his work cut out for him.

Dan Hawkins, Colorado - I really thought Colorado had the potential to be a sleeper team in 2008, but Dan Hawkins and Company took a step back. The Buffs started 3-0 but only won two more games the rest of the way, even finding a way to lose to A&M. Coming into this season, this Buffalo team has a few glaring weaknesses, especially along the defensive line, which is going to have to be totally rebuilt.

The clock is really ticking on Hawkins, because while the Big 12 North has spent much of the last ten years being extremely mediocre, the division as a whole looks to be on an upswing. Missouri is playing its best football in decades, Bo Pelini is getting it turned around at Nebraska, Oklahoma State looks ready to turn the corner and Kansas is actually a pretty decent program right now. Therefore, things won't be getting any easier on Hawkins this season.