UConn Football At The Half: Coach Paul Pasqualoni Discusses 3-3 Huskies At Midway Point Of The Season

What’s goin on?

Here’s an interview with UConn head football coach Paul Pasqualoni in which he talks about the Huskies at 3-3, 0-1 in the Big East with an eye toward the second half of the season which begins Saturday when the Huskies host the Temple Owls in its 1 p.m. Homecoming game at Rentschler Field.

“We’ve played good teams,” Pasqualoni said. “I’m proud of the way the kids have fought, hung in there. We’re a few plays away from being better than 3-3. I’m hopeful – and always believed – that hot fires make the strongest steel. We’ve been in tough battles. My experience is that pays dividends in the second half of the season. I’m very pleased with the effort of the kids. I thought we practiced extremely well, maybe had our best Sunday practice ever, which is the sign of a good team. You know they say good teams, the day after a game, if you watch a good team practice, you don’t know whether they lost the game the day before or won the game the day before and that’s kind of what I thought of Sunday’s practice. I think we’re very excited to get this thing going and to have a good week of practice and have another Big East conference game this week and play well.”

DEFENSE

Solid Overall

“Coming in our biggest concern was replacing Kendall [Reyes] and Twyon {Martin] and I think that Ryan Wirth and Shamar [Stephen], although he got hurt, is starting to come back and I thought played pretty well against Rutgers, pretty consistent. Julian Campenni has helped us in there. B.J. McBryde has taken some snaps and is getting acclimated to being an inside defensive lineman as opposed to an outside guy. I would say one of our big concerns was those two positions and I think the guys have stepped up there. Angelo Pruitt was part of that. We moved him with the loss of Jesse Joseph and Teddy Jennings, two big, severe blows to us. I think Angelo is working as hard as he can to get up to speed outside and I thought he did some good things in the last two weeks.

So I think from a defensive front standpoint I think we’re making progress and the guys are working hard. I’m pleased there but I think we got to keep getting better. I think the linebackers are playing consistent football. I think they each had good games. We’re looking for tremendous consistency out of the three positions and I think we’re getting better there. The corners have played pretty consistent football and the young safeties are getting better each week at learning about the urgency of the adjustments, the communications, getting lined up, and they’ll continue to get better but I’m pleased with the progress and attention to detail they’re making.”

The Corners Looked a Little Off Saturday

“Yeah, you know the quick throws out there when you’re off and you got to come up and make that tackle, we could have done a better job, no question, you would like to see those receivers making less yards. Those are tough plays to make based on the position they were in, too. We were more defending a deeper pass and part of their strategy – so we couldn’t blitz them as hard – was to get the ball out to them very, very quickly so they didn’t have to deal with the pressure and the blitz. Yeah, we probably could have tackled better. We can always tackle better but at the same time we had those guys off and that had something to do with it as well.

Return Game Struggles

“The punt return and kickoff return thing for me are always a kind of work in progress. Believe it or not I think we’re getting a better and better feel for it. I thought we had an opportunity on Saturday with one punt. It didn’t quite materialize. We need to have just a little bit better understanding of what we want and what we want to get it done. I think as we work our way through the second half of the season I think you’ll see that’s going to be true. I think you’ll see more production there and really, the same thing with the kicks. Now, the kickoffs are tough because, you know with the new rule, they’re going into the end zone. People aren’t really kicking us the ball. Saturday we had a sky kick where we had to go like crazy just to catch the ball. The number of returns on kickoffs just hasn’t been there so far for us but I think if we do get our hands on those, if we do have a chance to return it, I think you’ll see production there.

Offensive Woes To The 10th Power

“Nobody is happy with scoring three points. That’s for sure. At the same time, we did play against a defense that was a pretty good defense and we did have some scoring opportunities to cash in on that we didn’t cash in on. We certainly had the ball in position to score more than three points. We all know that. At the end of the day you have to do it. I like the way we’re working. I like the effort.

Don’t forget we’re still in the process of getting settled in at the center position. We’ve got two first-year players in there with Tyler Bullock and Alex Mateas working hard. I think the more we get settled in there, it’s the old adage of being experienced up the middle. When you’re experienced up the middle, in any sport, you have a chance to do better. I think you’ll see that come around.

Jimmy Bennett now has a good six games under his belt coming back from his knee injury. I think he’ll settle in more and we’ll see more out of Jimmy.  We’re playing with Gus Cruz who is a first year player. He’s getting better and better and more familiar and comfortable. I think we’ll see some good stuff there.

I think Nick Williams is getting comfortable in the slot. He’s played wide receiver but we’ve got him in a little bit different role than he’s been in around here over the years. We’re starting Geremy Davis he’s a first-year starter out there. Shak [Phillips] is really a first-year starter for us so I think all this work, we’re working hard, this effort, the time we’re putting into it will pay off.

Change In Philosophy An Issue With Regards To Offensive Line? 

“I don’t think there’s a whole lot. The run game is the run game. This team had always been an I-formation, tailback team and when you run the power plays and inside isolation plays  and you run the counter plays, regardless, you block those a certain way. I don’t think those plays are any different. Temple is going to run the same play and block it the same way so I think if there’s probably one big difference between me being here now and the previous year, there may be a little bit more from a protection standpoint. We may be in one or two more protections than they were before and that probably would be the biggest difference. I don’t think the run game is a whole lot different other than wildcat and the direct snap stuff. That’s different.”

But there are some differences. More complicated?

“I would say if it is, again, if it’s run game, I don’t think it’s a whole lot different. On third down, with the protections, there are certainly going to be more because we’re going to try to get the protections directed to the guys that are blitzing and rushing and that takes work and recognition so I would say if it’s more complicated that’s the area it’s more complicated in.

Chandler Whitmer  

“I’m pleased with Chandler’s progress. I thought Chandler, on Saturday, was under duress. We didn’t do as well in the area of protections in that game in the second half and we only gave up one sack but I would say Chandler avoided a few other sacks in that game. We’re behind. We get to that point where we’re down 13-3, it’s a two possession game; we really got to get something going. In an effort to make a play the ball gets picked off and returned for a touchdown. Those kinds of things we’ve got to do a better job with regardless of the circumstances. But getting back to the offense with Chandler, being really focused and trying to do what we’re asking him to do, I think Chandler’s done a good job.

First Down Diversity…Where Is it?

“We’ve had some excellent throws on first down. You can’t…I defy anybody to say well we know exactly what you’re going to do on first down. I don’t see that. Are there more runs on first down, yeah, there probably are but we’ve also hit some big plays on first down. I’d like to get ahead of the chains. Usually what happens what with say play-action on a first down deal you may get a chunk and I think we’ve hit some of those and at the same time, as you know, it may be second-and-10. There’s play-action we’ve also gone to some drop-back. We go into every game with first-and-second down drop-back as well as first-and-second down play-action and we’ve mixed those things in there but we work hard on the run game and you want to go into the game trying to establish toughness and a physical presence in the game and sometimes if you want to have that type of philosophy it’s hard to say you’re going to be that way and you’re throwing the ball every first down…I think it’s more of philosophical thing.

Third Down Thoughts (46 percent against Rutgers)

“You’d like to be a little bit more than that. You’d love to be over 50 percent. We’ve got to do a better job there. It comes down to get the quarterback some time, let’s not have him be hurried. He was hurried in that second half quite a bit. One of the things,  I thought we did, I told the kids at halftime, I thought we played well on first down in the first half, really thought we did. Third down, it’s just a product of getting the quarterback a little bit more time, running better routes, and those kinds of things.

At 3-3, on the heels of last season, you understand the natives are restless?

“I think we’ve got a first-year quarterback in here. I think sometimes we forget that. I think the kids are really doing terrific. I think the program is very, very solid. We’re competing our butts off. We’ve played some very, very good teams. I think the fans have been great. Contrary to what you’re saying I’m hearing just the opposite and feel real good about the team and the remainder of the season so…We’re 3-3 and we’ve got half the season to go so we’re excited about the second half of the season. The character of the kids and the work ethic in the program, I think, is very good and as the coach those are big issues for me that I feel really good about.’

DC