March madness is nearly upon us but it’s also nearly time for spring football.
Neither season ever ends, does it?
Anyway, a Wednesday meeting with UConn’s coordinators (offense, defense, special teams) gives us a chance to blog a little ’bout the gridiron Huskies:
– New offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead has, along with the rest of the offensive staff, nearly finished the team’s new playbook.
As for quarterback Zach Frazer’s prediction last week that the Huskies will score 40 points a game?
“I appreciate Zach’s exuberance but we have to crawl before we can walk,” said Moorhead, who spent the last five seasons as an assistant at Akron. “There’s a lot of things we have to get done, laying the foundation of this offense, finding out who we’re going to be and what we do well before we talk about scoring any number of points.”
It’s no-huddle all the time, as you know.
The first step in getting that down is doing it every day in practice. Spring ball begins March 17.
Moorhead says 46 percent of the plays he called at Akron last year were four-WR sets. The Huskies aren’t going to stick to such a plan, though.
“If spread means four-wide, no tight ends or no fullbacks on the field, that’s not what we’re going to be,” Moorhead said. “We can line up anywhere from four wide receivers to five wide receivers to two tight ends, two wide receivers and a back. We’re going to look to be multiple.
“You can’t have the personnel fit the scheme. You have to have the scheme fit the personnel.”
No big changes to the run game.
“You’re not going to see many major changes in the run game,” Moorhead said. “The run game was tremendously productive. There wasn’t much of a reason to change.”
– Moorhead was asked, as an outsider, what was wrong with UConn’s passing game last season.
“It’s tough. I don’t think it’s fair of me to judge that because I wasn’t sitting in on the game week preparations. I don’t know what the kids were being taught in the meeting rooms,” Moorhead said.
Tough (read: good) question. Good (read: diplomatic, kind of honest) answer.
– Lyndon Johnson says UConn’s punt gaffes in 2008 had him doing some soul searching.
“As the coordinator, you sit down and the first person I pointed the finger at was myself,” Johnson said. “I evaluated the things I put together scheme-wise and what I was asking him to do.”
He came to the conclusion that the schemes were sound.
“We had some mental breakdowns,” Johnson said. “I felt the scheme was solid. It’s a scheme we’ve run for a long time here. We just had a couple mental breakdowns in critical situations.”
It will be fixed, Johnson says.
“That’s my job as the coordinator: find out what the issue was and get it corrected,” Johnson said. “Whether it’s a personnel move, moving some guys around, or making an adjustment to the scheme. Whatever it is, I’ll get it done.”
– With the loss of Martin Bedard and Rob Lunn to graduation, the Huskies are short on long-snappers.
Derek Chard and Nathan Sherr have been working on it. And some of the other Huskies will join them in the spring.
“I might have a couple snappers walking around who don’t know they’re snappers,” Johnson said.
– Johnson recently had a cornea transplant in his left eye and is wearing sunglasses as he recovers.
“So far, so good,” Johnson said. “It’s only been a week.”
Before the surgery, which was made possible through a donor in Dayton, Ohio, Johnson said the vision in his left eye was only 3 percent.
– The line of the day goes to defensive coordinator (they call him the assistant head coach for defense) Hank Hughes.
He was explaining that LB Greg Lloyd didn’t do a lot of pass coverage in high school. So what did Lloyd do?
“He ransacked,” Hughes said. “He pillaged.”
– Who can up most for the loss of Cody Brown, Darius Butler and company?
DE Lindsey Witten.
“That’s the No. 1 guy that has to step up,” Hughes said.
– Hughes said redshirt freshman LB Sio Moore might make an impact soon.
“He’s a guy that could come on,” Hughes said.
- Neill
