On this Thanksgiving, there is so much to be thankful for. Personally, faith, family, future, opportunities, the list just goes on. For UConn head coach Randy Edsall, he was asked this week what he’s thankful for, especially being back at UConn in the first year of his second go-around with the program that he built from the ground up.

“Number one, as you go through a change and a season, the one thing that I do think is the upperclassmen, they are staying together as a team,” Edsall responded. “Sometimes when things don’t go well, it gets divided. Guys are really working, trying to get better. We know there are certain things we can’t do to help them during the season because that’s going to take the weight room. We aren’t a big enough, strong enough or fast enough team yet, those are things that are all ongoing. In terms of the stuff that you can control, how hard you play and the effort that you give, we are getting that. We are doing good things, but we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Those are the things we need to get better at in terms of our football instincts and football knowledge. Just understanding to do your job to the best of your ability each and every play. We’ve gotten better at that, but we aren’t near where I want us to be in that regard yet.”

Record wise, the Huskies are in a similar position to where they were a year ago, 3-8 overall leading into the final game of the regular season, but in conference, there has been more success and if not for a few mistakes, there would be even more wins than the two they already have in AAC play. Edsall has seen improvement throughout the course of the year and the eye test does show that the team has continued to try to fight until the final whistle, particularly the last few weeks.

“Practice wise we have gotten better in terms of knowing how to practice and practicing at the expectations that we have” Edsall said on Tuesday. “It’s still not good enough, but it’s gotten better. We are also just competing. If you put the film on now compared to the beginning of the year, you’ll see just a whole different intensity level and guys going hard. If you don’t have those things, it doesn’t matter. There are guys that got better at fundamentals and techniques, but some of the other things that we need to really get good at we couldn’t address during the season and that’s getting bigger, faster and stronger.”

Edsall was asked by the Hartford Courant’s Jeff Jacobs, which of the three; bigger, faster or stronger is the area that needs to be addressed the most.

“I think the biggest thing is and I addressed this at the end of the spring when we tested our guys, when I went through everything, I sent an email to all the coaches, I sent it to David [Benedict] and Beth [Goetz], our sport administrator and I just told them, we aren’t a strong enough team and we aren’t a fast enough team,” Edsall responded. “Those are the two areas to me that were glaring when I finally had a chance to look at everything, saw guys compete and saw where guys were in the weight room. It was strength and it was lack of speed. We are trying to help with speed as we go forward from a recruiting standpoint and also from a strength standpoint if you recruit guys, what kind of high school programs do they come from, is the weight room important? [Strength and Conditioning] Coach Klein is going to have a huge job on his hands after Saturday.”

On the recruiting front, Edsall dove into the task at hand and how they will go about finding the necessary speed needed to be successful at this level again, specifically in this conference. It’s a similar recipe to his first stint in Storrs and it will take a similar approach geographically, with one addition.

“What we did before, there are kids here in this region that are more than capable to play here and to do the things that we are looking to do,” Edsall said. “That geographic footprint for what we are looking for really isn’t any different than what it was when I was here before. We were down in Texas before, we’re down there now, we were down in Florida, we’re there too and we are playing teams from those areas, so that helps. We might go to California just because there are kids that can run as well and if there are kids that have an interest. For the most part, it is the areas that we were in before, there are plenty of guys there, you just need to work at it.”

California is a new area for the Huskies and you may recall the program was a finalist for highly touted dual-threat QB Re-al Mitchell, who ended up choosing Iowa State over UConn earlier this year. recruiting battle that the Huskies would not have even been involved in until this year and was a huge part of a west coast push shortly after their arrival, that also saw the Huskies visit Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas, one of the top high school programs in the nation. I asked Edsall if anyone on the staff had an existing relationship out there or if they are developing those contacts as they go?

“We have one guy who did some things and had some familiarity there,” Edsall confirmed. “A lot of it is we may not have gotten those guys and the top ones from those programs, but it’s planting a seed and building the relationship for the next group and for the future.”

Edsall’s son Corey, the current tight ends coach for the Huskies, who arrived at UConn after being involved in Colorado’s resurgent year a season ago, is a prime candidate for who he was referencing as having ties in the area.

“I don’t even know if I can say his name, but yes,” Edsall confirmed.

So geography is important, but there are certainly recruiting battles that can help here in the state of Connecticut, especially with how the further development of players and overall interest in the sport rose after Edsall helped develop UConn into a Division I player a decade ago. Recruiting wise, you’re finally starting to see the results and the cycle of youth growing up and arriving at their college years. The state university will only start to take advantage of that, but there is another piece as well that can help on the recruiting front.

“Prep schools have become bigger and you can get guys from their too,” Edsall verified. “It’s just a matter of working at it and making your own evaluations, not worrying what anyone else is going to think or say in terms of who you sign. As long as you believe it and you’ve watched game tape and not watched highlight tapes, you probably are not going to get fooled as much if you go out and see the kid play live and ask the tough questions of the high school coach and those that are there in the school just to make sure. We cannot afford to make a mistake here now.” 

“The other thing that I think is important is the ability to have camps, so kids can come here and you can see them yourself, watch them, time them and see how they interact,” he continued. “That was one of the things that we did before and are doing again. We can see the kids, see they have the ability and work ethic and then bring them here, they want to work and then it’s our job to develop them. Yes, there is enough in the footprint [to build a successful program], but that footprint includes Florida and Texas. We aren’t in a state or a region where you have the number of players in some of these states like Florida, Texas and Georgia where there are four or five guys at one school in those places that are Division I players.”

Academics also play a major role.

“The other situation you have with the cap of twenty-five scholarships is you need to make sure academically that those guys can get in,” he said. “If you sign them and they don’t make it, we lose that scholarship for that year, you can’t go out and find someone else to take their place. We’ve been working diligently since we’ve been here to make sure we are going to find the right type of guys here. There are going to be some guys that we can’t get into school here that others can, but that’s the nature of the business.”

There’s also one thing Edsall is looking for in guys that will signal they aren’t a fit for the program. It’s an area that Edsall has a problem with and it speaks to his perception of today’s society.

“We need to make sure we weed out the guys that aren’t going to work, the prima donnas, the ones who think they are going to be enabled, that’s not going to work here either,” he said sternly. “It didn’t work here before and it’s not going to work now. We have the slogan this year, ‘it’s earned not given.’ I told the guys on the field, one of the issues I have nowadays, the generation I grew up, you had to work for everything you got. Now? Everyone wants a handout, something for nothing and they want to be enabled and entitled. I’ll never embrace it, but it’s hard for me to watch it. It isn’t going to happen as long as I’m the head coach here. Guys are going to work, you’re not going to be enabled, you aren’t going to be entitled. Those are the things you need to break and you have to find guys that don’t have that mentality, haven’t been catered to like that, haven’t been held accountable or haven’t been held to a high standard. Some of those guys are never going to change and that’s the challenge that you have. I know we are on the right track in terms of having those people here and getting our guys to really understand that message.”

The process to finishing up the 2018 recruiting class and building for future ones will continue in earnest immediately after the game on Saturday. It’s a tough task, but if history is any indication and track record means anything, the Huskies program is in good hands.

MATT SCHONVISKY / SITE CREATOR