University of Connecticut Athletics
Meet The Press: UConn Vs. Temple Press Conference Quotes
9/2/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
STORRS, Conn. (Sept. 2, 2008) – The University of Connecticut held its weekly football media luncheon on Tuesday for Saturday's game against Temple. Here are selected quotes from the event.
UConn Head Coach Randy Edsall
Were there certain aspects of Temple that impressed you during their Friday night game?
“I thought they did a good job in terms of the return game for both punt returns and kickoff returns. I thought the quarterback coming back off of his injury looked to be very solid and very confident in what he was doing on the field. When you look at their offense they do have seven senior starters on their offensive unit, so they do have some experience there. Defensively you can see what they’ve done statistically last year and they had another good game statistically against Army on Friday night.”
Are you concerned with Tyler Lorenzen’s spotty performance in the Hofstra game?
“That wasn’t the real Tyler Lorenzen that we know. You don’t go through a whole year and throw five or six interceptions and then have this many. I think the big thing with Tyler is he was trying to do too much. He’ll be fine this game and I expect him to be a whole lot better.”
On winning vs. Hofstra despite errors.
“We won the game, but I think the kids understand that we didn’t play as well as we wanted to. As a team, as units, maybe even as individuals we know we can play better. When you have a long season you don’t want to be too high or too low for the first game. We got the win, but there’s not a lot of time to celebrate, and they came back out on Saturday and practiced well. Every game is a learning experience, and even if you never play the perfect game you hope you make enough plays to get the win. You’re happy that you do win but the perfectionist in us knows that there are things we can do better and we can learn from it for the next time we go out.”
Are there any plays from last week that you will use as a learning experience for this week’s game?
“When any play happens in a game you forget about it when that plays over and you move on. Our motto here is to play one play at a time as hard as you can. It’s like what it says on our board: ‘Last week doesn’t matter this week.’ When the plays over, we move forward and move on.”
On the abundance of turnovers.
“We’ve stressed from day one that we can’t turn the ball over. We talked about it after the game that we can’t give the field position or give points away to anybody. You see that they caused three turnovers against Army and we caused three turnovers against Hofstra. But they only had two turnovers and we had five so we need to be conscious of ball security.
How do you plan on loosening up Temple’s defense?
“There are certain things you can do to loosen up a defense based on formations and how you spread them out. There comes a time when we will take some shots down the field, and to me that depends on how well you can run the football. The better you can run the football, the more guys you get them to bring up based on the run fake which might give someone a chance to get in behind them.”
Junior Tailback Donald Brown
On the Offensive Line’s blocking in Thursday’s game.
“They did a great job, especially Moe (Petrus) and Zach Hurd for it being their first start. The veterans that were out there helped them out a lot, and they didn’t miss a beat, so they did a great job.”
After last year’s controversial victory over Temple for you guys, how is your incoming outlook on the game affected?
“That game’s over with, last year’s over with, so we can’t worry about that. Temple’s going to be all jacked up about it but we can only worry about the upcoming game.”
On the ability of continuing his strong start.
“I feel like I get stronger as the game goes on, as I get into a rhythm, and that always helps. I just have to be ready for any opportunity that I get.”
How did Tyler (Lorenzen) handle the interceptions and do you think he’ll be able to put it behind him by Saturday?
“You could tell right after the game that he brushed it off, and rightfully so. That’s what you need to do, you can’t ponder about the last game, just move on. He’s going to have a great game this weekend and we’ll be behind him 100%.”
