University of Connecticut Athletics
UConn Hosts Weekly Media Luncheon
10/28/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
October 28, 2003
STORRS, CT - The University of Connecticut football team held the latest installment of its weekly media luncheons on Tuesday at the Hale Hall Lounge as the Huskies gear up to face Western Michigan on Saturday. Here is a sampling of what was said.
Head Coach Randy Edsall
On Western Michigan:
We're going to be playing the best of the three teams that we're playing consecutively from the Mid-American Conference (Kent State, Akron, Western Michigan) this weekend. They are a senior dominated team on offense with excellent wide receivers. Collectively, this may be the best group of receivers that we'll face all year. Defensively, they're led by Jason Babin, a 6-4 276 pound defensive end who was the MAC Defensive Player of the Year two years ago. He's got nine sacks and 21 tackles for loss this year. They have 27 sacks this year which is first in the MAC. They get tremendous pressure.
Does their tough schedule make their 3-5 record deceiving?:
I think they're a good football team. They've played a tough schedule. Two of their non-conference games were against Michigan State and Virginia and they've just come off of a three-game stretch of Northern Illinois, Bowling Green and Marshall. They're a good football team. They've just played a tough schedule.
On the team getting off to slow starts and how to fix it:
I don't know what we can do to make that happen. It's a matter of guys executing and doing what you need to do. I don't know how you work on it. Sometimes you go into a game with a game plan and you've prepared for what a team has shown on tape and they do things differently early on and you have to make adjustments.
On keeping the team focused on this game and not the big picture of bowl eligibility:
They know better than to look at the big picture. They know to concentrate on one game and one game only. That's been addressed already. We talked at the beginning of the season about playing 12 one-game seasons. This is just the 10th game - the 10th season basically - and that's all that is important to us. You go out and play and if you win you take what you earned and put it in the bank. We've got six in the bank. We've got number 10 coming up and that's all that we're focused on - Western Michigan. We're not a good enough football team to be thinking about anything else. We've got enough problems of our own that we have to straighten out.
On what has allowed Tyler King to play so well the past few games:
I think it's confidence. I think it's him becoming more sure of himself in terms of what he's doing out there. This is where he should be in his junior year - coming into his own. He's figured it out in terms of how good he can be. Also, he's been able to stay healthy. Plus, there's a guy on the other side of him (Uyi Osunde) that teams have to worry about and there's a couple of people in the middle too. But, mostly, it's just experience, confidence and maturity.
Sophomore Tight End Tim Lassen
On the sadness of his preseason injury:
I didn't know I was going to be the actual number one guy but with Tommy (Collins) gone (to graduation) there was obviously going to be a better chance of me playing more. When I got hurt (separated shoulder in fall camp) it was devastating. I asked Bob Howard (team trainer) how long and he said "four." I at first thought four days, perfect. But he meant four weeks and I was devastated. I was pretty upset. You look forward to playing in that new stadium for long long, ever since you were recruited and then you have it taken away because of an injury.
On how the hard labor growing up on a farm compares to two-a-days:
Two-a-days are a lot harder. The hay barn was hot but after a while you go down to get a drink of water and relax. During two-a-days you've got that helmet on and shoulder pads hitting people and running around all the time. I think working on the farm and all the hard work you had to put in helped me a lot.
