University of Connecticut Athletics
Randy Edsall Signing Day Press Conference Transcript
2/7/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
I think the coaching staff, headed by Lyndon Johnson, our recruiting coordinator, did an outstanding job. We had basically seven guys on the road the whole time recruiting and they found the talent and the right combination of athletic ability and academic achievement to come here and be successful in both areas.
It would go without saying that Dan Orlovsky set the tone for the this recruiting class, making a commitment back in June, and helping us recruit other student-athletes to come here with the ability of Dan. It also showed kids here in- state what he thought of University of Connecticut football and where it was going and what it would be doing. He took that challenge upon himself because he could have been going to numerous other big time schools, but chose to come here and accept the challenge and become one of the trailblazers that we really tried to sell. So my hat is off to him as being the instate guy that really set the tempo of what we were looking to do and sell that to the other recruits.
I think the big things we brought are a lot more size to the table, we brought Division I linemen to table on both sides of the ball. We upgraded our team's speed and I think the people we brought in will allow us to do some things scheme wise to be a better team.
Also I like the fact that we signed five young men out of Connecticut, and as we all know, there are going to be nine total players out of Connecticut to go Division I, and we signed five of them. So I feel good about that making the commitment and finding the kids that we feel are the Division I-A prospects in state. I don't know if there will be a day when we get every Division I prospect out of Connecticut, but that is our goal. We try to recruit all the kids and as you know in recruiting there are a lot of factors involved when it comes to academics, character, and all those sort of things but we feel good about the five young men we have coming here. Hopefully it will show the younger kids in the state that it is an honor to come to your state university and to play. I like that aspect of our recruiting class.
We ended up signing 11 on defense, 12 players on offense. What will happen is we have already used 23 scholarships and we can give 25 in any one- year, so we still have two we could pick up somewhere. I think that's my philosophy from a recruiting stand point is to hold one or two because there might be some people that might become eligible or fall back on.
There is probably no doubt that this is the finest recruiting class for a UConn football team. The thing that tells me a lot about these kids is that when they came on their visits, we told them we are going to have a stadium in 2003 and we are hiring architects to build the practice facilities, so it tells me something about these young men that even though we don't have everything yet, they saw something very exciting and special. Be it the people they came in contact with on their recruiting weekends, being the administrators, the professors or the players themselves or because of the coaching staff I think it speaks volumes of what we have going on at the UConn. As we continue to grow as a program and continue to add the stadium and the practice facility I just think the quality of the recruiting class is going to get better each and every year.
At this point, I would be happy to take any questions you might have
Are there any particular players, besides Dan Orlovsky, that stand out in your mind?
I am excited about all of them, I always hate to single anyone out and slight the other people. I just think that there are a couple of interesting stories in this class and the one that is interesting to me is Deon McPhee from The Bolles School. He's from the Bahamas and grew up there and came to the US three, four years ago and enrolled at The Bolles School. He wasn't able to play but two games this year because of transfer rule they have in Florida. I went down to The Bolles School and had a chance to see him in person and watch some tape on him. At that time we had not offered him a scholarship and Todd Orlando went down during the season during the evaluation process and came back and really liked him. And when I went down and watched the tape it only took me about five minutes to see that I liked him, and one thing was he played as a junior with a broken leg. I said you must be one tough cookie, and he said no coach, I'm not tough, I' m just mean. He committed to us in December and had all these people coming after him, Florida came after him, Rutgers came after him, but he held true to his word and I think he is a very special man.
I think Tony Atkinson is an interesting young man, from the standpoint that he is very fast and has very good hands, but played in an offense where they didn't throw the football that much. I think he's a kid that if they had thrown the football on the offense we would not have been so fortunate as we are today to have him come to the University of Connecticut.
I think it is the same kind of thing with Deon McPhee. If Deon McPhee had the opportunity to play in 11 games this year at The Bolles School, I am not so sure we would be in the same type of situation that we are in. I think there is a story to each one of these kids, I think like I said they are all hard workers and good kids. Darius Leak, he was a young man who had verbally committed to Virginia Tech and then at the 22nd hour, they said we can't take you anymore. Because of Lyndon Johnson recruiting at the school and developing a relationship with the high school coach there, the coach called Lyndon up after this happened and asked if we would be interested, and we were. He came up last weekend and committed to us and signed the papers today.
I think recruiting is one of those things that happen 365 days of the year, and it is one of those things where you can never stop recruiting. Keith Harrison is one of those kids that committed to us back in the fall and his coach made sure that nobody else talked to him and that he was done, once he made the commitment it was all over, and he was another young man that was being recruited by some other Big East schools.
Was there a particular area of the roster that you emphasized during recruiting?
We had targeted numbers of positions because of the numbers on your football team, but defense was an area where we knew it needed to bigger and stronger and faster on defense, so yes we put an emphasis on that. I think you can see on our offensive linemen with the kids that are 285 pounds and 300 pounds we put an emphasis on trying to get bigger on the offensive line which might in turn might help to run the ball a little bit better. So I think we are in a position with the 25 scholarships to go even on both sides of the ball just to build our depth. I think the guys we have on defense helped us from a size and speed standpoint, and I would think that all those guys would have the opportunity to show us what they have and play.
Do you have any idea which of these kids you will or will not play as true freshmen?
I told all these kids during recruiting, that my job is very easy from the standpoint that I don't determine who plays, they basically determine who plays. I am going to provide them with the opportunity to get on the field but then once they get the opportunity through practice and everything else they are going to show me whether they are capable of being on the field and playing for us. Alfred Fincher from Norwood, MA, I think people missed the boat on him. I think he is a young man who plays with great intensity, he's a real good athlete, he's president of his senior class at Norwood HS. I think he's a very special kid, probably of all the kids we recruited this year, he was the kid that impressed me most sitting down with him on the Sunday visits before the kids go back and talking with him. He's very mature and very open, very perceptive from the standpoint of being around here on his visit and then sitting down with me and telling me some things that he saw. I think that's the one thing that these kids bring to the table, they are not afraid to stand up and speak their mind.
I think the thing is when you take a look at the offensive linemen, we are probably going to red shirt all of them. Just physically they are not going to be in the situation to be able to compete, they need that extra year of strength. And then everything else is going to be wide open, it depends on what they are going to do from now until August and that's what I challenged them on this morning. I said to them, once you sign the papers on the 7th of February, its what you do in those next six months that is really going to determine if you are going to play early in your career as a freshman. So that was one of the things we've to talked to them about. The closer they are to the ball the more likely there is a chance to be red shirted. We already told Dan Orlovsky he's going to be red shirted, let him learn the system. A lot depends on what they can do from now until August, on what kind of shape they are in, how much strength they can add and weight they can put on.
What do you think were some of the reasons kids chose Connecticut?
A couple of reasons, first and foremost as much as we go and sell this place, once they get here they have to have a feel for this place and the commitment being made to the football program. Number one they saw they could get an outstanding education and second they saw the opportunity to come in and play early in their career as opposed to going somewhere else and playing behind someone for a couple of years and then playing. The other thing is the commitment to the upgrade to what we are doing. We took them by the stadium and showed them the site being cleared up and cleaned out and also in terms of the new practice facilities. I also think one big thing was, these kids want to come to a place they can be the guy that everybody compares them to and come in and set a standard. And the standpoint of taking something and wanting to develop it, its not everyday you get the chance to do that. Its easy to go into a place and already maintain what they have but the people we need are the ones that are special who want to take form something that is nothing and turn it into something special.
The coaching staff had something to do with it and the people here at the university had something to do with it. I feel it is a combination of the program that we have in place that sold them all, but for each kid for all the reasons I mentioned one might have weighed heavier than another.
Is there a running back hidden somewhere among these 23 players?
There is no running back per say, but that doesn't mean we are done looking. That mean's we still have two left, there might be something that might come out later. As of right now there is no running back, but there are some athletes out there that played running back in high school, but we have not spoken to any of them in that regard. What needs to happen is that we have some running backs here on campus already and they need to step it up. We have five running backs on scholarship right now and I am not going to go out and take someone that I don't think can upgrade us in those positions.
Can you compare the two quarterbacks that you signed?
Dan had already committed to us and Jermell, that didn't phase him because he is a competitor. I think that is showing you that we are getting to the place where need to get to from a recruiting standpoint and from a program standpoint, where we can bring in enough talented people and create competition, which in turn is going to make everybody work harder and elevate everybody's game. I think they are very similar types of quarterbacks. Jermell is a little bit faster, I think Dan has a little bit of a stronger arm, he's a little bit bigger. But they both ran wide- open offenses, both are very knowledgeable and are both students of the game. So I see them very similar in some regards but also very different. If Jermell had said, well there is already a quarterback there and I don't want to face the music and stand up to the challenge, that also would have told us something and he probably wouldn't be here. The attitude he took tells me something about him, and that's the other thing with all of these kids, they are all competitors.
