A full year has come and gone since Randy Edsall returned to Storrs as the leader of UConn football. While there was no improvement record wise from a season that ended in disaster in 2016, the 3-9 of 2017 brings hope for the future, despite a year that closed with five consecutive losses. Let’s put that future on hold for a minute, as it’s best to understand the past and present, in order to set expectations for where the program is headed.

“As we got here in the spring and took over, I knew it was going to be a teardown and rebuild to get everybody on the same page of doing things the way we need in order to be successful,” Edsall said last Thursday inside the coaches conference room of the Burton Family Football Complex, during a two-hour sit-down with a few members of the media. “I knew that we may not get the number of wins we’d like to get to in that first year because we didn’t get things established in terms of what we believe in. That’s not just on the football field, but academically, how we conduct ourselves off the field and how hard we have to work in order to achieve success.”

Edsall used a ten step process to highlight his point, noting you can’t jump ahead just to progress faster than you’d like.

“You can’t skip steps 1-through-5 and go to ten because you never get one-through-five back,” he said. “We had to take time to go through those early steps to lay that groundwork and lay that foundation, so now as we move forward, we can actually progress because everyone understands how hard we have to work and what we all have to do to achieve success.”

Despite just those three wins, it was apparent that improvements were made throughout the season, particularly offensively from a program that finished dead-last in almost all offensive categories a year prior.  There wasn’t another 70-point performance allowed by the UConn defense following an October 6th Friday night that turned into an absolute nightmare for defensive coordinator Billy Crocker and the newly implemented 3-3-5 scheme. In fact, a week later, the defense carried the Huskies to a 28-24 victory at Temple, matching the total number of conference road wins from the previous three seasons [7-3 over Tulane in 2015]. The win saw an emotional Edsall at the postgame press conference where he realized his message was finally getting through. 

The defense, however, wasn’t dealing with just a young secondary, particularly at the two safety spots and one Husky position all year, but they dealt with injuries that resulted in plug-and-play and a mix-and-match of players from week-to-week. It began all the way back in the spring when they lost one of the leaders of the defense, linebacker E.J. Levenberry and it really didn’t stop from there. There was a stretch where the unit didn’t start the same personnel in the secondary for six consecutive weeks. Combine that with youth, inexperience, ever-changing circumstances and a matchup against 5-of-the-top-12 offenses in all of college football in a 7-week span [Memphis, SMU, Mizzou, USF & UCF] and you’ll get results like you saw defensively.

“I thought as you watched the film throughout the season, we made improvements,” Edsall verified. “[We] didn’t make as many improvements or cover as much ground as I would have liked some guys to in certain areas, but we did get better. Now what we have to do is just build on it. In all three phases there is plenty of work that we are going to have to do to get better. We’ll start on that as soon as the guys get back in here on January 16th.”

That work will begin with strength and conditioning coach Eric Klein and the Huskies mentality attacking the grind between the winter and the start of spring will go a long way in the development for the future. Edsall was alarmed to see a comparison of key metrics between his 2010 Fiesta Bowl team and what he saw from the current roster at the end of the spring from a speed and strength standpoint.

“I mean, we are way off,” Edsall said. “I shared this with our team when we had our awards dinner here and after the seniors left. I showed a graphic to them on the screen of 2010 when I was here before in terms of the bench, squat, power clean, vertical jump and 40-time and I showed them the numbers we had from 2017 when we tested them. It was very alarming how much at the top end, how much weaker of a football team we were when I was last here in the spring of 2010. It was alarming. I knew it coming out of spring last year when we tested, but then when we did this comparison, it’s very glaring.”

“So I told the guys if you want to get to where this team was, won the conference, played in the Fiesta Bowl and they probably could have been better in their numbers too, but this is how far off you are and what you are going to have to do, there are a lot of things that still have to be done,” he continued. “A lot of it is hard work, it’s pushing yourself, being accountable and holding each other accountable. When you look at it, we tested the guys here at the end of the season to get a benchmark because I want to see how much they improved to when we get to the end of April when we test them again.”

“A lot of our freshmen are the stronger guys,” he said. “You have guys that have been here who haven’t worked the way they should have worked to produce the results that we are seeing. I had that information, Jon Wholley had it. It’s the difference of where the program was when I left and here’s where it was when I came back.”

In the offseason, it’s no secret Edsall believes Klein will determine where the program goes from here.

“He’s the most important guy right now,” Edsall said adamantly. “He’s under the gun. These guys need to be challenged to be bigger and faster and to get stronger. I remember Jerry Martin used to tell me, God rest his soul, ‘just give me something to work with. I can get them a little bit faster, but if they aren’t fast coming in, there’s only so much I can do.'”

“We need to get that mentality back that we used to have, competing in the weight room and getting after it,” he continued. “That’s why this winter is going to be important. They better come back here ready to go because that’s the only way it happens, through hard work. You need to be willing to work harder than the guy you are going against and the guy that is the back-up at your position.”

QUARTERBACK IS UP FOR GRABS

As the conversation shifted to the roster, Edsall slid a white board aside and revealed what looked to be a depth chart for each position, including each of the early signees in the 2018 recruiting class. Immediately scanning, eyes quickly shifted to the all-important quarterback position. The four in no particular order by class are of course David Pindell, Marvin Washington, Jordan McAfee and new signee Steven Krajewski.

“Three of them you really haven’t seen do anything in live situations,” Edsall said referring to the underclassmen. “I know what I saw from Steven in high school, but now you go to college and it’s a different deal. Dan [Orlovsky] won’t like this, but I thought he’s a better prospect than Dan was coming out of high school, but now, does he have that same work ethic. We were only going to take one quarterback, he’s the guy we wanted and we got. I know the abilities that Jordan McAfee and Marvin Washington have, but how’s it going to be when they get out there under center when it’s not scout team? And this guy [Pindell], he’s a competitor.”

Edsall talked in detail about the position last week and what he likes from each, with a heavy focus on the two redshirts. What can be shared?

“In terms of just talent, Marvin might stand out there, but can he put everything together?” Edsall asked. “Everybody wants to write off [Jordan], I wouldn’t write him off. You don’t have to worry about him. He’s going to do everything the right way. He has ability, is a leader and is a guy that doesn’t get rattled.”

When it comes to Pindell, who showed versatility, running for 289-yards and 3-touchdowns and finishing with a 52.8-completion percentage, 937-yards through the air with 4-touchdowns and 6-interceptions, Edsall was pleased with the progress he saw.

“David did get better,” he said. “He’s becoming more vocal too. At the end there in Cincinnati, he took the team right down the field, that was impressive. I think he’s getting more comfortable with everything and given that, he has more confidence now. He has ability, but now he needs to step into throws and do all those things to get better. He can really run the ball, but a lot of it is confidence. [Entering the season], I saw a guy that could get rid of the ball, but until you get guys here, you don’t really know. If we would have had him in the spring, we would have had higher expectations, but he still won the job in camp.”

Edsall finished the quarterback analysis with this nugget that is sure to make UConn Nation smile.

“When you look at our board, since I’ve been here, we haven’t had that kind of ability at quarterback from top to bottom,” Edsall said. “Yes, we had Dan [Orlovsky], but four scholarship guys, they all have abilities that could allow them to play.”

IDEAL DEPTH CHART

Any time a new staff comes on board, there is usually a roster shake-up and a turnover that allows more of the new staff’s guys to come on board. A year-in, Edsall talked in depth, position-by-position, about what his ideal roster will be comprised of.

“I want to have four quarterbacks, which we do,” Edsall said. “I want to have five running backs, which we’ll probably only have four this year, so we’ll be down one there. Receivers, we want eleven on scholarship and we are going to have eleven. The tight ends/H-backs, I’d like to have five, but we are only going to have four because I can’t get the extra number. Offensive line, we will have sixteen, including signing two more freshmen.”

What about defensively?

“We want three noses and nine defensive ends,” he said. “We’ll be down one on the defensive ends just because of the numbers. At Mike, we want three on scholarship and we’ll have three. The Will, we want four, but will end up having three, so we’ll be down one there. Sam, we want three and we’ll have three. Husky, we want four, but we’ll only have three there. Corners, right now we have eight, which is what we want. As of today, we have four safeties. If we take two more, we’ll get to six, so we’ll be down one because we want seven total. Ideally, I want fifteen total corners and safeties.”

As you look at the numbers, one note in that count is despite playing a 3-3-5, one of those 5 on the back-end, the Husky position, the staff does not count as a corner or safety. As they begin to move forward and assess what recruiting will look like for the class of 2019, there is already a projection in mind.

“We will probably be able to bring in 18-20 guys, as an early projection,” Edsall said. “As I sit here today and looking forward we will be in that range. I think at the least, we will be able to get where we want to from a numbers standpoint [at this time next year].”

MATT SCHONVISKY / SITE CREATOR