Years ago when I first started doing grades I went to people with far more football knowledge than I possessed and asked “How do you grade?” This included current and former coaches, current and former players, and just smart football people. One of the smart football people I approached is TheSabre.com’s own VBHoo. He shared with me his approach of “championship level” play. This phrase has become the standard that I try to apply whenever giving out an “A” mark.

I define championship level play, not surprisingly, as play that rises to the level of a team capable of winning a championship. Unfortunately, we did not see that from the Cavaliers on Saturday in their 32-25 loss to Louisville. But we did see progress.

In my UConn Grades and Trends report, I said “I think we will see growth in the team and then new opponents will expose new vulnerabilities.” Pittsburgh exposed some vulnerabilities offensively and defensively North Carolina pounced on those. So games against two quality opponents in the ACC Coastal had very different outcomes.

What is essential to the program moving forward when these “pounces” happen is to identify the problems, implement and coach corrections in practice, and translate the changes to game day. These episodes have occurred several times over the course of the season and we witnessed it again against Cardinals where corrections were executed and new vulnerabilities were realized.

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