University of Connecticut Athletics
UConn Football Hosts Media Luncheon
10/1/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
October 1, 2002
STORRS, CONN. - The University of Connecticut football team held its weekly media luncheon on Tuesday at the Putnam Dining Hall on the Storrs campus as the Huskies prepare to head to Miami to face the No. 1 Hurricanes on Saturday night at the Orange Bowl. The following are some excerpts from the event.
Head Coach Randy Edsall:
Opening Statement:
This is an interesting week for our program to have the opportunity to go down and play the No. 1 team in the country in our first real season as a full Division I-A school and especially to play the caliber of team that Miami is. When you take a look at Miami and you see that they’ve won five national championships since 1983. They have an outstanding head coach that has done an excellent job and a group of assistants that have done a great job. It’s probably the premier program in the United States of America in terms of college football in the last 17 or 18 years. For us to go down and have this opportunity is great for our program. It’s great for our kids.
I think Miami’s playing on the wrong days. Instead of playing on Thursdays and Saturdays they should be playing on Sundays and Mondays, when you watch them on film and you see all the talent they have. It’s a great credit to Larry and his staff and their players for what they’ve accomplished in the last 17-18 years and even what they accomplished last year. It’s going to be a difficult challenge.
Coker said QB Dan Orlovsky could play anywhere. Have you seen that so far?
I think Dan is playing very, very well. I think he’s doing a lot of nice things as a leader of this offensive football team. He’s progressing each and every week and he’s getting better. I think that’s going to continue. Our whole team will be tested tremendously this Saturday but I think Dan is getting a lot better and he’s playing well. You can see that his confidence is even stronger now and growing even more with each game that he plays. Yes, I’m very pleased and people that we play against are starting to see that he is doing some very good things and we know that he is doing some very good things.
What is it about Miami that makes them so good?
They’re big. They’re fast. They play great as a team. They’re very aggressive, very talented and their kids love to play the game. They have a lot of fun out there playing the game. The other thing is that they have depth. They’ll roll eight to 10 defensive linemen in there. Willis McGahee is a guy that they weren’t even counting on as a tailback and he comes in does the things that he does. Their receivers are talented. They’ve got big receivers. They’ve got receivers who are very fast. And defensively they’re very fast.
Is this game a case where the experience matters a lot more than the score?
Our kids have played Virginia Tech last year and they were ninth in the country when we played them. Our kids are going to go down and compete this week just as hard as they did in any other week. That’s the only thing that we can control. We’re going to go down there and look to get better. We’re going to go down there and play to the best of our abilities and at the end of the day we hope we have more points than they do. That’s what we’re going down there for. That’s the mindset that we have to have as we go down there because that’s the only thing that we can control. We can’t control their speed. We can’t control their depth. We can’t control the crowd. We can’t control the weather. The only thing that we can control is us going out and executing to the best of our abilities and doing everything as hard as we can.
Sophomore LB Maurice Lloyd (Daytona Beach, Fla. / Mainland HS)
Are you doing anything differently this week?
It’s the same things. We watch film and learn our assignments. When you try to do too much you’ll only make more mistakes. When you go out there and play into the system things fall into place. That’s how we prepared for Boston College, Georgia Tech, Ohio, Buffalo and Ball State. We’ve got to play fundamentals. We’ve got to play physical. We’ve got to play quick. We’ve just go to treat them like we treat everybody else and try to stay focused.
Senior TE Tommy Collins (Jacksonville, Fla. / Bishop Kenny HS)
About Miami:
They make minimal mistakes and the mistakes that they do make they make up for them with athletic ability and speed. That’s obvious just from when you put the TV on on Saturdays.
On having this opportunity:
Only 12 teams a year will get the chance to play the No. 1 team in the country and we’re getting that opportunity this year. Being who we are, a team that’s up and coming where people are just now realizing who we are, this is a good opportunity. We’ve got to go down there with the attitude of having everything to gain and nothing to lose. That’s what the attitude has to be. The reality is that no one expects much out of us. Miami’s the best team around. They play top 20 teams and everyone thinks that top 20 teams are going to get smoked that day and sometimes they do. So, we’ve got to do down there with nothing to lose and play as hard as we can.
