Here’s the gist of UConn head football coach Randy Edsall’s Tuesday press conference in advance of Saturday’s game against Vanderbilt at Rentschler Field.
(depth chart moves)
“Offensively, Eric Kuraczea goes in at the left guard and then at quarterback, it’ll be Cody Endres, backed up by Mike Box. And the changes we added the other day are what we’re going with now on the depth chart. That’s how we’re going to go.”
(Why Box as backup?)
“I just like the things that I’ve seen out of him and he’s continuing to progress and he throws the ball with accuracy and I felt that he was the number two guy.”
(Tough to demote Frazer, who’s a senior?)
“You don’t look at who’s a senior or who’s a junior. It gets down to who are the best guys, who we feel are the best guys. Our guys know that. They know that the best guy is going to play and that’s how we look at it. If you look at it any other way, you’re not being fair to your football team. Again, those are the decisions that we make. They (the players) might not agree with them but there the decisions that we have to make.”
(Did you talk to the quarterbacks?)
“I had a conversation with the guys, all three of them, on Sunday, and I told them all exactly where we were and where they stand. He (Zach) didn’t exactly agree with it, as you would understand, but he understands that this is the decision that we made and we all have to move on. I told him he had to be ready to go. He’s got to out and continue to work and perform because you never know when you’re number can get called and of his does, he’s got to be ready to go.”
(Are you comfortable with Box as No. 2?)
“Yes. Mike Box is number two. If something happens to Cody, Mike Box is going in the game.”
(How was Endres able to stay so sharp?)
“It wasn’t like he was coming back off an injury. He was able to throw and do things he needed to do.”
(How was Endres when you told him about starting?)
“I just know that when I talked to him and told him where he was to start the week I know he was fired up, I could tell he was fired up from the standpoint of where he stood and what could happen and Cody’s a competitor who wants to play and do the best he can.
I didn’t know this but I heard that as soon as he went in he went right to the receivers and the offensive line and said a few things to get them fired up and I didn’t know that until the next day.”
(On rumors that offense wasn’t that electric with Frazer)
“I’m not in the huddle so I don’t know that. All I can do is look at things as see how things go and I saw how things went with him (Frazer) in there. We weren’t as productive before that, so that’s the only thing that I can go by. I like the way he (Endres) handles himself, the way he doesn’t things and I think he’s got a little bit of fire to him.”
(On the linebacker changes)
“You try and get your best guys on the field. When we first started in preseason and we saw what was going on, it was determined that Greg (Lloyd) and Lawrence (Wilson) were our two best guys inside and Scott (Lutrus) was our best guy outside. Then Scott went down and you have Jory (Johnson) who played there. You see things and Sio (Moore) got a chance to get out there and play a little bit and you see things that maybe aren’t what you thought they were going to be and you’re not getting the productivity at that position that you thought you were going to get. You say to yourself, ‘Can we get better?’ and we felt that we could be better by moving Lawrence to the Mike (middle) and moving Sio in there. That’s what we did. When you look at it, it doesn’t look like Greg is moving real well and not making some of the plays that we’ve seen him make. You see things in practice but it’s a whole different dynamic when you get on Broadway, when the lights go on and it’s Showtime. That’s why you’re always evaluating. If I feel I have guys that are better than the guys I have out there, I’m making that move.”
(On the Big East’s early non-conference struggles)
“If you look at the schedule you’ll see that the guys have played some pretty good teams when you take a look at it. All this preseason hype and hoopla and all the expectations that people place on your program, I don’t like it because they don’t know how the team is going to be and how it’s going to react. You lose guys, you bring in a new quarterback, you have a tougher schedule, you don’t know how it’s going to play out. The bottom line the proof is in the pudding and we haven’t performed well outside the conference this year, other years we have, this year we haven’t.”
(You made some running back moves?)
“We ended up switching Martin Hyppolite back from Husky (linebacker) and put him back at running back. He’s played there before and we’ve got (Anthony) Sherman, so those are guys that we’ll use. I hope I don’t have to use Lyle McCombs, I’d like to redshirt him even though I think he’s talented and got some quickness.”
(Will Lutrus play this season?)
“Yes. I have a feeling (that Lutrus will play). I think that I can say pretty confidently he’ll be out there. (This week?) That will be determined on Thursday.”
(On getting his players to relax and forget all the preseason hype)
“I want the guys to go out and have fun and just play the game. Don’t worry about anything else, go play and enjoy the game. Do the things that you’re supposed to do. We had a guy last week, and you tell me how this happens, we had a guy that changed the coverage that we sent in from the sidelines. He did that on his own. We never told him to do that, he’s never done it before. It just blew my mind. He thought because this one guy looked like he was going to run this route that he would change the coverage because he thought it would be better. (Did it work?) No. If he would have done what we told him to do they wouldn’t have scored a touchdown. (Is he starting this week?) Yes, he still is. (Did you encourage him not to do that again?) If you saw me on the sidelines, yes. That’s the stuff that’s crazy. (I think the work was idiot) there were probably seven letters in front of that idiot, to tell you the truth. He’ll tell you what those two words were, he’s heard them before. Most of the kids have too.”
