Huskies Preparing For Saturday Matchup With North Carolina State

What’s goin on?

Let’s get at it but first a reminder about our live chat Wednesday (tomorrow) from 11 a.m. to noon. Join in at www.courant.com/ucfootchat. You can add questions at 10:30 but the chat actually starts at 11..

OK – let’s check in first with UConn Coach Paul Pasqualoni from today’s late-morning press conference previewing Saturday’s matchup between the Huskies and Wolfpack.

News: DE Teddy Jennings (knee) and DT Shamar Stephen (knee) are out for the game this week…

“N.C. State is really a skilled team, good players everywhere so this will be a real challenge for us,” Pasqualoni said. “We have to put together a great work of practice and we’ll have to play smarter than we did last week. Turn the ball over three times against this team you’re going to have a lot of problems so we’re really going to have to play smart and not beat ourselves in this game to give us a chance to be in this thing and play well so we’ve got a big week ahead of us.”

What Pasqualoni learned about his team in the UMass game:

“I think we confirmed some things. On defense we showed signs of being a team that could be athletic and could run. I thought that was evident on the film. I think we learned that Chad Christen is prepared to go out there with confidence and kick. It doesn’t mean he’s going to make every kick he attempts but he had a great bounce in his step and couldn’t wait to get our there to make kicks. I thought we saw effort on special teams all the way around. Coverage units and return units which is something that’s important. I think we learned we have to do a little bit better job of throwing the shorter passes and have to try to not have the underneath receivers in the short game have to make acrobatic catches…and we learned we’ve got to run the ball better. We have to do a better job running the ball. We ran the ball for 140 yards or whatever it was we need to do a better job. Our consistency, yards per attempt just was not what it honestly has to be.

And, in what could very well be the key to this game, Pasqualoni addressed the Wolfpack offensive line and the challenges it will present.

“With the N.C. State offensive line, four seniors out of five, they’ve got about 100 starts between them,this will be by far our biggest challenge up front, no question. This is a very good offensive line, older players, players who have been in big games repeatedly week in, week out. So we’ll find out a little bit about ourselves this week.”

Pasqualoni mentioned junior Tim Willman and freshman E.J. Norris having to going to step up at defensive end.

But what about others up front?

“Andreas [Knappe] is coming. Jon Louis is coming along. Kenton Adeyemi is practicing good. Those guys are working hard and I’m encouraged with their development and we’re going to keep going that’s not to say that if they had a great week if practice they wouldn’t be up. With the injuries we’ve got on the defensive line it’s all hands on deck. We’re working hard. Every one of them is practicing to improve and we can move one of those guys up in a hurry.”

In next entry, offensive line coach and offensive coordinator George DeLeone talks about the play of the unit in the run game against the Minutemen and – dum  dum de dum – his thoughts on the increased chatter surrounding the Huskies use of the Wildcate offense….

DC