The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Plenty of work to do, but Edsall encouraged by progress
Time will tell if year No. 2 in Randy Edsall’s second stint at the helm of the UConn football program will produce more than the three victories the Huskies had last season, but there were some encouraging signals emerging from the recently completed spring practice.
“I think the biggest thing is just the attitude of the players. That has changed 180 degrees,” Edsall said on Wednesday’s American Athletic Conference spring football teleconference. “The guys have bought into what we’re trying to do, they understand the culture that we’re creating here and I couldn’t be more proud of what they put into doing the things we need to do to give ourselves a chance to win.
“We’re better than we were a year ago. How many wins that translates into this year, we’ll find out.”
Edsall said he hasn’t ruled out adding players to the roster, with defensive end a position that could be addressed.
“We’ve got some work to do there,” Edsall said. “We lost a lot of guys on defense, not just on the defensive line. James Atkins, we’ll have to see if he can step up. Kevin Murphy, Caleb Thomas had a good spring at nose guard, but at the end position, Phil Okounam and James Atkins, they have to step up. We have to see if we can get some other guys in here right now, but those guys are going to have to step up.”
UConn loses 11 of its top 14 tacklers, with more of the returnees being defensive backs. Santana Sterling, who was working with the second team for much of spring camp, and Darrian Beavers are the top returning tacklers among the linebackers with 15 stops each, while Eddie Hahn made 10 tackles. Murphy’s 13 tackles are the most of any returning defensive lineman, while Connor Freeborn, Okounam and Atkins combined for 11 tackles last season.
“We’re going to be a young team,” Edsall said. “We only have eight scholarship seniors and 14 scholarship juniors, 18 sophomores, 14 redshirt freshmen and 24 true freshmen coming in. Our guys know that the best guys are going to play . ... We have to develop some starters so even some of the guys who are walkons, they’re going to have opportunities to be able to contribute. It’s wide open, guys who work and do the things that we need to get done will be out there playing. Hopefully, we get a lot of guys playing. That means we developed the kind of depth that we’re going to need to move forward, get better and win as many games as we can.”