A Few Ticks With UConn Head Coach Paul Pasqualoni

What’s goin on?

In the midst of burning up special section stories here the next few days but here’s news for now on the football team.

I had a chance to talk with head coach Paul Pasqualoni a short time ago. I’ll also see him at the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce Breakfast in the morning but it didn’t sound like he was going to have to time to or hang out and talk afterward and he didn’t have much today, either, (the season getting is getting close), thus the few ticks…

Anyway, here we go with news first: Junior guard/center Tyler Bullock (left leg or foot, something) will be ready to go 100 percent for UMass.

Dane Andreas Knappe sustained an undisclosed injury that kept him limited in the scrimmage at the Rent this week but is expected to go full tilt at practice today…

On all other injuries, DT Shamar Stephen (knee), QB Casey Cochran (hand) etc., the coach said everyone is making progress.

This one opened and closed quickly but here’s Pasqualoni on his decision to allow safety Gilbert St.louis to return to the team after announcing he was going to transfer on Saturday..

“He didn’t really want to leave. I told him I wanted him to be happy. I think he thought about it for a day and just didn’t feel like he was really ready to leave so I think on occasion those things come up and I understand and appreciate that he wants to be a starter,” Pasqualoni said. “I don’t hold that against anybody. That should not be a reason that I would not allow him to rejoin the team.”

Coach, can you talk about your handling of these situations (guys have transferred out but a couple have had a foot out the door)?

“Yeah, I think this is different, obviously, than pro football. This is supposed to be a big part of the educational process. As a coach, you hope the experience they have in athletics and in this case, football, is as meaningful as anything they do here. So I think you try to take into consideration you’re dealing with young people, sometimes they don’t think the whole thing through and they act compulsive, try to make a decision without really thinking about the total big picture so, I think, when you can – it’s not going to be in all cases – when you can, you want to be fair and you want guys who buy into the team concept, understand what their role is on the team.

“In the case of the guys who were undecided on whether they should stay or not I think in the end they believed in what their role with the team is going to be and they’re not necessarily delusional about it and I think in the final analysis, can accept with the right attitude, what their role on the team is. I’m happy to have them help and try and contribute to the team.”

How about the Best Vs. The Rest Scrimmage at the Rent this week? How’d that go?

“It went good, the best news is nobody got hurt so we come out of there as healthy as we went into it. That’s an important thing. Now we have a chance to get our legs back, get the bounce back in our legs. You know, at this point in the preseason you’re practicing just once a day so it’s a chance for the kids to start to recover and start to look forward to formal preparation for UMass, which would start Saturday.”

What were you looking to get accomplished in the scrimmage and did you?

‘What we wanted to do was, we wanted to look at our core offense and our core defense, those concepts and evaluate fundamentals and techniques, No.1 and then of course, players executing the correct assignments. So it wasn’t a scrimmage where we went in trying to confuse each other. It was more of an opportunity for players to show the coaches exactly how far they’ve come so far in preseason and could they scrimmage with the coaches of the field, perform through the course of the afternoon, at a dependable level without a life guard on duty (coaches on the field) helping you through it” Pasqualoni said. “The coaches were totally off the field and the kids had to function. We wanted to see fundamentals, technique and dependability.”

Happy with what you saw?

“Yeah, happy. Obviously there are some areas we have to continue, everybody’s gotta continue to improve but I thought in many areas we showed improvement. A couple of things came up that I won’t discuss, technical little things you hope you get straightened out in this kind of scrimmage before you play your first game.”

Are they tiny things, big things or…

“All just little things that are very much correctable which will help us.”

Any competition battles won/lost?

“No it was more …we scrimmaged special teams. We scrimmaged offense, defense,” Pasqualoni said. “It was more to put them right into a little bit more of a competitive environment just to see how they would do. Now there are certainly guys that improved their stock so to speak and showed that they have made some progress and maybe through the course of the year they could contribute and we’re always looking for those special teams guys as well so that was a big part of the day, too.”

How is Andreas Knappe coming along?

“He’s full go. He’ll practice full go. He’s back into practice…He got a bump and didn’t go full speed in the scrimmage but he’s back and ready to go full speed today.”

Is the jury still out on whether he’ll be a contributor right away?

“Yeah we’ve got to keep going and see how quickly he can come along.”

Your thoughts on quarterback Chandler Whitmer maybe settling in now as the No.1 QB.

“I don’t know a quarterback in America that’s really settled in. I think that whole unit, not just Chandler…Chandler,  Johnny [McEntee], Scotty [McCummings] and Casey’s [Cochran] doing well with a broken hand. He’s in there doing as much as he can. I’ll put it in this category: I’m pleased with the combined effort. attitude and approach of that unit.”

DC