Family, friends eager to watch freshman Thomas

STORRS — It would make for great copy if Caleb Thomas could have spun tales of his family’s memories from their time living in Tulsa.

The reality, however, is that the UConn freshman defensive lineman doesn’t recall any stories of those days since his family relocated to Texas before he was born.

That could all change on Saturday night when Thomas will have more than a few friends and family in the stands when UConn plays at Tulsa (7 p.m., CBSSN).

Thomas was part of a host of recruits who were targeted by Randy Edsall not long after he agreed to return for a second stint at the helm of the Huskies. UConn received nine commitments in a 10-day span, but none came further to play at UConn than the 280pound defensive lineman from Mansfield, Texas.

“Your family does want you to be close to them, but my family, especially my parents, they believe in this program,” Thomas said. “They see Coach Edsall’s vision in what they want to do and how he can see us growing, how he can help me grow as a person, how he actually cares about me and not just as a football player. What he was talking about, he really sold it to us and we really believed it. It is hard for me being this far away, but my parents can feel at ease knowing Coach Edsall is looking out for me more than just on the field. He is looking out for me in all aspects of life. He [wants] to see me develop as much as my parents want to see me develop and that is very reassuring.”

While Thomas is still a youngster, he is often surrounded by true freshmen linemen Travis Jones, Jonathan Pace and Lwal Ugauk on the field. With a redshirt year under his belt, he can be the grizzled veteran among his position group depending on who is on the field.

That part of the process

is challenging, but it is something he dealt with before.

When his Mansfield High School team reached the Texas 6A Division 2 semifinals in 2015, he was a junior starter on a senior-laden defense.

Thomas was asked to be a leader of a rebuilt defense and he obliged to help Mansfield allow 14 or fewer points in six of the Tigers’ 10 victories in 2016.

“We had a lot of new guys my senior year,” Thomas said. “They were on the team as well so they saw what success took so it didn’t take as much, they just followed the lead. They saw what we did and followed it through so I wouldn’t really say it is the same but there were a lot of new guys and I did sort of have to be a leader, I did have to be more vocal than I was before and that is kind of what I am doing now.”

A total of 20 true freshmen have played games

for the Huskies this season and among American Athletic Conference teams, only Cincinnati has used more. That number figures to grow.

Edsall announced that backup quarterback Marvin Washington will not travel with the team for the second straight road trip.

“People can speculate, but it has nothing to do with anything other than you can’t be accountable to do the things he is supposed to do,” Edsall said.

That decision resulted in a change in the quarterback pecking order behind senior starter David Pindell. True freshman Steven Krajewski is in position to play for the first time this season. With the new rule on redshirts, he could see action in each of the final four games and still enter the 2019 campaign with four seasons of eligibility remaining. Neither Edsall nor offensive coordinator John Dunn revealed any definitive plans for Krajewski to get some snaps on Saturday, but it is clear that they intend to get him into a game or games before

the end of the season.

“Steven has been in meetings all year, he understands the offense, he understands what to do for a guy that once you get reps, real reps all of sudden things seem to go 1,000 miles an hour,” Dunn said. “When you are in training camp and you are getting a lot of reps, you are used to it and now during the season you don’t get as many when you get them you just [process] things that much faster. I think Steven has a great future ahead of him. I know Coach (Edsall) said this but he is a quarterback in every sense. He is a leader. There is so much that goes into playing quarterback than saying, ‘set, hut.’ He’s got the tangibles and intangibles to where if he keeps developing, I think he has a chance to be a good player.”

Pindell has already set UConn’s single-season record for rushing yards by a quarterback. He is on pace to join Dan Orlovsky as the only UConn players with more than 3,000 yards of total offense in a season so there will be no rush to pull Pindell from the field. However, getting a chance to see how Krajewski reacts to live game situations will be invaluable as the Huskies prepare to life without the talented Pindell at quarterback.

The good news is that Pindell is one of Krajewski’s biggest supporters.

“Steve is the man, Steve is a cool dude, I like him,” Pindell said. “He understands the offense and everything, he has to keep working, learn the offense, keep in mind what the coaches have in mind for him in the future. After a couple of years, his junior year, his senior year he will be the man up here.

“He is little quiet, he is different, I know that. He kind of reminds me of myself. He didn’t really talk too much but when you get to know him, he opens up and he is cool as heck. He is like a laid back dude, he is very sarcastic, he’s a good player, a good person.”

Caleb Thomas