UConn Head Coach Paul Pasqualoni Talks Post Pittsburgh

UConn head coach Paul Pasqualoni just finished up his post-game teleconference.

Some of his thoughts following the 24-17 win at Rentschler Field Friday night snapping a four-game losing streak.

On waking up today with a much-needed win posted: ”Obviously it’s a good feeling. You come in and grade the film and you see some improvement. You see a little bit more balance in the attack. You see pretty good run defense, so, I think there’s some positive things there to see and to build on.”

On 24 points in the first half, none in the second.

“I think that we got a chance to go up on them 31-10 with Ryan [Griffin] wide open in the end zone and we overthrow the ball. I thought that drive in the fourth quarter was pretty impressive. I thought we blocked pretty well on that drive. I thought Lyle [McCombs] had a great run. I thought we did some things pretty good. Unfortunately, Chandler [Whitmer] just hurried the throw and it got away from him. What I’m saying is, I don’t know if you’re going to score every possession but if you have a chance to put, on a team like that, if you have a chance to put 31 points up I would say that’s probably a pretty good offensive day.”

Offensive line played well. Was Pitt pressuring you as much as other teams…

“They started off the game that way. I would say that as the game went on they probably pressured less. I would say early on in the first half of that game there was pressure as usual. Some of those pressures resulted against the run, not necessarily all against the pass. We did miss one. We did get sacked on one that we missed but I thought that the guys executed in the run game a couple of times and we hurt them with the run. I thought did a good job with that.

What was happening with the run game in that first half, where it was most successful?

“I just thought we executed the blocking scheme  better. I thought the guys were able to finish some blocks and stay on the defender longer which gave Lyle a little more time, a little bit better chance to make some yards but we didn’t change anything or put in any new plays. We didn’t do any of that. I just think it was just a little bit better execution.”

What’s preparation going to be like the next few days with the bye week and Louisville, upcoming?

‘We played two very tough games in six days and so I think the first thing is, we’re going to give the kids a chance, a couple of days to get over the bumps and bruises. We’ll meet and go over things [Sunday] and we’ll practice on Monday and we’ll go back and work on fundamentals and techniques, things as a coaching staff we feel, as a coaching staff that we really need to hone in on. We’ll try to make some corrections of things that happened in the game on Friday night so we’ll spend a little on that as well and hopefully as we get into the week have a good week of practice.  The kids are off today. [Sunday] is just tying up the film and the mistakes and doing the corrections on the Pitt game. Monday we’ll actually start practicing and the first thing we’ll do, as we usually do, we’ll go and correct, have some time in practice where we can address errors we made and things we want to get better at – continue to work on the run game and the execution in the run game, finishing blocks and making sure everybody is on the same page, tight ends, wide receivers, everybody…keep working on the run game.

“We’ve been in one game this year where we didn’t do a good job of controlling the run and that’s not a very good feeling because you don’t feel like you’re controlling anything. We’re going to keep addressing that and we’ll start to go to work on the pass game a little bit, try to review protections and go back through the protections and the adjustments and work on pass coverage. This week is a good chance to get a look at the younger guys in practice and give the older guys a chance to rest up a little bit and at the same time address some issues we need to address.”

DC