University of Connecticut Athletics
Football: Bye Week Served as Time to Prepare and Improve
9/17/2019 3:52:00 PM | Football
By Danny Barletta
UConn Athletic Communications
STORRS – Faced with back-to-back games against Big Ten opponents, the UConn football team couldn't have picked a better time for a bye week. The Huskies (1-1) welcomed an extra week to prepare for Saturday's game at Indiana (noon) after their Sept. 7 game against Illinois.
Head coach Randy Edsall said the bye week came at a good time, especially with the change to true freshman Jack Zergiotis at quarterback.
"In our situation, I think the bye was good for us," Edsall said Tuesday. "With the change we had at quarterback, it gave us another week to help Jack get better. Plus, it gave us a chance to continue to work on the fundamentals and technique, but also to get better at the things we know that we can do well on offense, defense and special teams."
Zergiotis showed promise in his debut against Illinois, completing 21 passes for 275 yards, but he also made some mistakes by throwing two interceptions and losing a fumble. He said the bye week really helped him improve his game by learning from those mistakes.
"He loves everything about being a quarterback and what it takes to be a quarterback."
— UConn Football (@UConnFootball) September 17, 2019
Earlier today, @RandyEdsall was asked about @JackZergiotis1 #RaiseTheBar | #BleedBlue pic.twitter.com/Ar6c1WSkCk
"I think it definitely helped just making corrections and everything," Zergiotis said. "It gave us ample time to review the film and move forward onto Indiana."
Zergiotis said he wants to improve his reading of coverages and get through his progressions faster this week. Overall, he said he believes the offense is ready to play well on Saturday.
"I think we're looking pretty good," Zergiotis said. "We're just touching up a few things, and I think we're ready to go."
The bye week didn't just help the offense. It also gave the defense extra time to fix its mistakes and prepare for Indiana's well-balanced offensive attack.
"[The bye week] helped us a lot in just the little small things," linebacker D.J. Morgan said. "In the two games that we've had, we've played both lights out and gave up some explosive plays. So just those little details that we were able to tune in on and focus in on. The bye week definitely helped."
Morgan said that the entire defense has to step up its game this week.
"I think all of us are going to have to take the next step to elevate our game to a higher level than we did against Illinois," Morgan said. "We definitely elevated our game, but I think that everyone needs to elevate it just one more step to get that win because winning is hard."
Indiana is a solid opponent. The Hoosiers won their first two games by healthy margins before getting blown out by Ohio State last week, 59-10.
Edsall said that Indiana is a tough team to game plan for because they show a lot of different looks on offense and defense and are also very sound on special teams. But thanks to the bye week, the Huskies will go into Bloomington this week with an extra week of rest and preparation under their belts.
