The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Yale ready to finally take the field
There was a lot of watching film, a lot of watching his kids play games, a whole lot of yard work. Watching a college football game, though, was kind of difficult for Yale coach Tony Reno the past 18 months, with his own team on a long hold.
“I think everybody in the house is excited that we’re back to normal,” Reno said during the team’s weekly media availability, “and we’re back to playing football, and the stars are much, much more aligned the way they should be right now.”
The Bulldogs return to Yale Bowl on Saturday at noon against Holy Cross. They were chosen second to Princeton in the league’s preseason poll.
Except for one player who got a too-good-to-passup banking job, Reno said, those who would’ve been seniors last fall have returned this season.
“During the quarantine to the really disappointing news that we weren’t gonna play last fall, how our players handled it was just inspiring for me,” Reno said.
“As a father of three children, to watch these young men really stare in the face of adversity and just find a way to come together and make it a positive was just amazing. So we took all of that energy and all that time to get better . ... And now we’re just excited that we have a chance to put it all together.”
The pandemic’s impact on the roster is also in a much bigger freshman class than usual, but the coach said he has been impressed with the upperclassmen’s communication with the youngsters.
“We were a senior-led
Saturday, noon (stream: ESPN+)
team my sophomore year, so we have a lot of new guys who are eager and ready to play,” said junior quarterback Griffin O’Connor, 2018 Ivy League rookie of the year. “I think we’ve done a really good job jelling over the spring and fall.”
Holy Cross defeated UConn 38-28 at Rentschler Field in its opener, its first win over an FBS team in 19 years. That earned the Crusaders a short-lived No. 24 ranking: They lost to Merrimack 35-21 on Saturday in the Warriors’ first win ever against a ranked FCS team.
The Crusaders won the Patriot League in a threegame spring regular season and played an FCS playoff game.
“This is the toughest opener we’ve ever had since I’ve been here. They have an FBS win. They’ve played six games in the last six months,” Reno said.
“They’re big, strong, athletic. They’re very good up front on both sides of the ball. I think they’ve got a playmaker at quarterback (sophomore Matthew Sluka, a nominee for last year’s FCS freshman of the year) who really hurts you with his arm and his legs.”
There’s a lot more that impresses him about the Crusaders, but he said the
Bulldogs will try to focus on “being the best version of ourselves on Saturday.”
Yale’s two-deep lists junior Dathan Hickey, a Bristol Central product, as one
starter at cornerback. Montville’s Nick Tibbetts, a senior, is the long snapper.