The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Freshmen will be key for UConn in opener
STORRS — When Randy Edsall stood in front of the local media at the start of his second stint at the helm of the UConn football team, the program’s all-time winningest coach made it clear that there was going to be no quick fix to get the Huskies back to competing for winning seasons.
It’s unlikely that even as Edsall uttered those words he thought his second season in his return to the UConn sidelines would begin with 17 true or redshirt freshmen on the offensive and defensive twodeep chart heading into the season opener against No. 21 Central Florida on Thursday (7 p.m., ESPNU).
In the previous 10 seasons, a total of 14 freshmen started in UConn’s season openers with Matt Walsh, a fullback from Madison, and defensive end Jesse Joseph the only true freshmen to start the opening game.
There are 17 freshmen, including 11 on defense, on the depth chart that was released on Sunday. As many as eight freshmen could start on either offense or defense.
“You hope in your program that doesn’t happen where they have to play
because of necessity because of where you are with your depth and everything else,” Edsall said. “They should have to play because they are ready to play.”
Some of the issues can be traced to recruiting missteps with the previous coaching staff. The high school Class of 2015 is the group that should be laying the foundation for the upcoming season as either true seniors or redshirt juniors. However, nine of the 22 high school seniors signed by the Huskies are no longer with the program and four others failed to crack the season-opening depth chart. Taking it one step further, from 2014 to 2016 UCF signed 15 players slated to start on either offense or defense, compared
to only nine by UConn during that time.
Four true freshmen have started in the season opener since 2002, UConn’s first season playing as a fullfledged Football Bowl Subdivision member. Joseph and Walsh were joined by running backs Terry Caulley and Deon Anderson, who got the call in the 2002 opener. There could be as many as six ture freshmen lining up as starters on Thursday night.
Christian Haynes won the offensive left guard spot, New Haven’s Travis Jones is the starting nose tackle, East Hartford’s Kevon Jones the No. 1 middle linebacker and Keyshawn Paul will man one of the starting cornerback slots. Defensive linemen Lwal Uguak and Jonathan Pace are still in contention to earn opening night starting nods as well. It should make for an interesting
debut, especially with defending American Athletic Conference champion UCF coming to town a little miffed at not being ranked higher than No. 21 in the Associated Press preseason poll.
“Everybody has his own barometer of where they are going to be,” Edsall said. “There are certain things that you see. Now one of the things that we have to do is we as coaches are going to have to make sure that we try to massage some of these freshmen the best we can up until Thursday.”
It’s not just the true freshman that the coaches need to keep tabs on. Redshirt freshmen are also in key roles with Zavier Scott expected to start at tailback, Ian Swenson at the safety/linebacker hybrid Husky position and Caleb Thomas the most likely option at one of the defensive
end spots.
“I expected a lot of the freshmen to come in and compete, especially with a good class of guys,” Swenson said. “You need somebody to look up to and a mentor to help get it through your head and stay in the playbook, obviously. Once you get in that playbook, it becomes automatic and you start playing.”
The good news is that UConn doesn’t lack for players who saw early playing time. Starting offensive linemen Matt Peart and Cam DeGeorge started every game when they were redshirt freshmen while left tackle Ryan Van Demark started in the final nine games as a true freshman in 2017. Swenson and Omar Fortt are among four true freshmen who started in the secondary for the Huskies last season.
“It all has to do with mindset because if you
think like a freshman, you are going to have a freshman (mentality),” Fortt said. “You can’t be staying up late at night; football has to be your main priority.
“A lot of people want to play. They are amped up and challenging even the veterans, and that is what we need. For our team to get better we need people to go hard in practice and just challenge each other. Maturity wise, I think they still need some growing up, but that is what we are trying to teach them.”
With 13 of the 24 players on the defensive two-deep chart having never played a snap at UConn, the coaching staff has a delicate balance of how to game plan for an offense led by quarterback McKenzie Milton, the first top 10 finisher in the Heisman balloting set to play at Rentschler Field the following season since West Virginia’s Pat White
in 2008. All-conference linemen Jordan Johnson and Wyatt Miller and dynamic skill position players like Adrian Killins, Otis Anderson, Dredrick Snelson and Gabriel Davis return to lead a high-powered offense that figures to test the young UConn defense early and often.
“We have to be sophisticated enough yet simple enough so we can defend what we are going to go against,” Edsall said. “We have to make sure we don’t make it too difficult. The one thing we have to be able to do is have them playing fast, and if you are a young kid and you don’t understand what is going on then you are not going to play fast. If they are not playing fast, we are at a disadvantage.”