The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
UConn coaches wrap up road show in Connecticut
Edsall, Benedict eager reinvigorate the Rent
STAMFORD — Dave Benedict didn’t sugarcoat it. Neither did the brains behind UConn’s football program.
Attendance at Rentschler Stadium last season was not close to good enough.
“He wants to be more competitive,” Benedict, the school’s athletic director, said of head football coach Randy Edsall. “There’s a process to that. I would say the same thing about where we’re at relative to our program having support. Listen, I’m not going to be happy until Rentschler Field is sold out again.”
The Huskies averaged just 20,334 fans across six home games last season, the lowest total in the program’s 15 seasons at their home in East Hartford. It’s a fact that has UConn brass searching for ways to recapture the buzz they generated during Edsall’s first stint in town.
“The one that’s changed is we’re in a different conference than we were before,” Edsall said Thursday from UConn-Stamford, the last of four stops along the inaugural UConn Coaches Road Show. “But we can still do all the same things that we did before. We can win a conference championship, we can get ourselves into the mix for the playoff if do well enough. I
think the biggest thing that we’ve just got to continue to do, the biggest challenge is, we’ve just got to continue to build our depth.”
Therein lies the road ahead for Edsall. Coming off last year’s 3-9 finish, which left UConn near the bottom of the American Athletic Conference, Edsall finds himself needing to re-engage fans — those who are willing to show up, of course — with the product on the field.
One way Edsall believes he can do that is by convincing some of Connecticut’s best high school players to stay at home. It’s a job that Edsall says has only gotten harder this time around because of the increased use of social media.
“When I left here in 2010, it was text messaging and things like that,” Edsall said, “You didn’t have the Twitter and you didn’t have as much Facebook. That’s kind of changed the environment a little bit. The other thing is, because of social media it’s very difficult to keep a kid’s name under the radar.”
With that said, Edsall’s watched many of the most sought-after prospects in the Class of 2018 commit elsewhere. Xavier quarterback Will Levis, the state’s No. 2-ranked recruit by 247 Sports, is headed to Penn State. E.O. Smith defensive end Rondell Bothroyd is going to Wake Forest. Hamden Hall tight end Luke Schoomaker will call Michigan home. Edsall, to his credit, did convince Capital Prep wide receiver Oneil Robinson and Wilbur Cross offensive lineman Travis Jones — the ninthand 10th-ranked Connecticut products, respectively — to stay home.
“You’re never going to get every kid that you want or you’d like to get in-state,” Edsall said. “The ones that we want, we’d love to have them stay here. But we understand that there’s other people out there.”
As Edsall took the stage alongside UConn baseball coach Jim Penders, women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma and men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley Thursday for a roundtable discussion before UConn fans, donors and alumni, the school’s relationship with lower Fairfield County was an obvious starting point. Benedict got things started by telling the audience, “It’s important that we come to you. We know you can’t always come to us.”
About UConn’s reach in Fairfield County, Benedict told Hearst Connecticut Media, “I’m not sure there’s much in the program that I would say we’re meeting our expectation.” It’s why Benedict said he’s discussed UConn playing Fairfield University in men’s basketball at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport in future seasons.
But, first things first, how can Edsall bring people to Rentschler Field?
“We’ve got to get the people out now,” he said. “When I was here before, Rentschler Field was filled from the beginning. We’re going to win. Get out there and support the kids.”