The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Peart, Huskies set to get started
Freshman tackle receives high praise from coaches
STORRS >> The calendar may show that the not even 21 months passed since the last football game that Matthew Peart played in. However, to the highly-touted starting left offensive tackle for the UConn football team, it seems like a lifetime ago since he kept pass rushers away from his quarterback or opened holes for running backs.
The wait will end on Thursday night when the Huskies kick off the 2016 season by hosting Maine. Peart is expected to be the only starter for the Huskies on either offense or defense yet to play a snap in a collegiate game.
“I am excited,” Peart said. “Last year was a learning curve for me knowing that I wasn’t going to play, I took pride in helping (starting left tackle) Richard Levy out, seeing things he couldn’t see because obviously he was playing. I just want to get out and I can’t wait to play, it has always been a big dream to play D-I sports so it becoming a fast reality for me.”
It might not be a stretch to say that Peart’s debut could be the most anticipated for an offensive lineman for the Huskies in recent memory. Even as he was redshirted as a true freshman, the former standout at Governor’s Academy was being talked up by coaches and teammates alike.
When spring practice kicked off, the 6-foot-7, 304-pound Bronx native was already the starting left tackle ahead of Levy, a two-year starter.
The UConn coaching staff since Bob Diaco’s arrival have not been quick to heap praise on untested players, but that has never been the case with Peart.
”He is going to be a very special player, right now he just possesses special traits,” Diaco said. “It will be a little trial by fire for him this year which will be great for him, great
for our team.”
UConn’s offensive line coach Mike Cummings came to the Huskies from Central Michigan where one of his most impressive accomplishments was turning Eric Fisher from an under the radar prospect into a left tackle who was taken with the first overall pick in the 2013 NFL draft.
While Cummings isn’t about to predict that Peart will eventually join Fisher in the NFL, he loves what he has seen from his latest prodigy.
“He is a fun guy to coach,” Cummings said. “Physically, he does look like a left tackle. If you look up and want to know exactly the specifications, it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-7/6-8, around 300 pounds that is what you want him to look like. He does look like a left tackle and that is how we want them all to look.
“I’ve been through it before with a first-round pick but at the same time in his career, Eric Fisher at that time you didn’t look out there and say he was an NFL player but the thing that you do notice is (Peart’s) athleticism, drive and work habits. He is not just an athlete out there, he is a big athlete and he is very smart and he really does love football.”
Andreas Knappe, preparing for his third season at UConn’s starting right tackle, chuckled when asked for his thoughts on the bookend tackle.
“I love having him (Peart) here, I love having him on the line,” Knappe said. “He is a great guy and a great teammate. He’s always smiling, always happy.”
Knappe is not the first one to mention Peart’s sunny disposition.
“I get that a lot,” Peart said. “I am always the guy known to smile a lot, I am just a happy guy. I guess I got the reputation.”
Peart believes working with a veteran offensive line coach like Cummings gives him plenty of reasons to smile.
“I love and respect him,” Peart said. “He knows everything there is to know about playing the offensive line. Every single day I try to take every little detail even when he could be yelling at me and I just know if he wasn’t talking to me, that would be a problem.”
UConn appears to be in good shape physically for the season opener. Senior linebacker Jon Hicks returned to practice on Sunday and Diaco said that other than linebacker Connor Freeborn, who Diaco confirmed last week would miss the season with a lower-leg injury, he expects everybody else to be good to go.