2014 Practice Opens Without a Hitch

@MattSchonvisky

The 2014 UCONN football team opened practice this morning, indoors due to rain, in an unusual style, to the tune of DMX’s ‘Up In Here.’

There was a noticeable energy among all players and coaches as they took the field for pre-practice stretching and drills inside the Mark R. Shenkman Training Center.

“I really, really, really liked it,” Diaco exclaimed following practice. “It was so fun to be with the guys, to get together, just as we had anticipated. We missed each other, they missed us, so when this is what you do, to be disconnected from it for so long, it’s hard. It was so nice to get out there on the field to run around with the guys; it was a lot of fun.”

The players were given quite the wake up call at 7AM this morning, as members of the staff walked up and down the halls of the dorms blaring an air horn, signaling the beginning of a long four weeks of preparation for the season opener. From all accounts, the players answered the call.

“We want to see winning, we don’t want to see the things that cause losing,” Diaco added. “It’s pretty well documented cause I don’t mind saying it, that the program was a long way away. We are closer now. So, practice one, fall camp, was in far contrast to practice one, spring football. It shows the amount of investment made during the spring and specifically post-spring, to come back to the summer conditioning program and be ready to move forward. I remember saying at that time, hey, the next challenge is going to be, let’s not talk about fall camp, let’s see how they come back after three weeks away. How they lived, have we made a bend culturally to see how they live and they came back and were ready to move forward from a training standpoint.”

“Then they had a couple of moments during the summer conditioning program away, how they lived then. Did they come back ready to go? It happens a lot in a number of ways, you know, somebody goes home and plays basketball or they go to the beach and get a sunburn, all the different things that create problems, but EVERYBODY participated and was ready to go today.”

“We have a lot of little things to learn,” he continued. “We have a lot of small details. Now obviously it’s fun to create as many small details as you can possibly think of during camp, cause that’s just a lesson in itself. A guy doing something without asking why, how come, this doesn’t make any sense; there’s a lesson in just doing and will you just do it? So, everybody was ready to go today, we have work to do in that area, but not unexpected. The practice from a system standpoint, a retention of systems, leadership, communication, the ability to function physically because they had enough gas in the tank and enough strength and enough wind that they could allow themselves to go and allow themselves to communicate. So it was a good first practice, a good start.”

The media did not and most likely will not, see any action in terms of plays being run leading up to the game against BYU. However, during drills and stretching, it was clear, along with the preseason depth chart, who ranked where, especially along the offensive line.

From left to right, the way the line set-up for drills was: LT Richard Levy (6-6, 305), LG Gus Cruz (6-4, 296), C Alex Mateas (6-4, 309), RG Tyler Samra (6-2, 288) and RT Andreas Knappe (6-8, 300).

On Tuesday, Coach Diaco expressed the line was an area where there was an opportunity for improvement, but he noted today they have made strides, while also noting that all areas can always get better. 

“Every position, let’s not pile on the offensive line, every position needs improvement, every coach needs improvement,” he said. “Part of the reason why practice was better today was because the coaches were better. We’ve all had an opportunity to work together to see what the shared vision needs to look like so the communication can happen at a much higher level. So every single part of our team needs to improve. Offensive line is physically more prepared to do their jobs not only from a strength and flexibility standpoint, but from a conditioning standpoint, so they can play harder, longer. The younger guys don’t look out of place, I’m not saying they are going to participate, but they don’t look out of place, specifically [Ryan] Crozier [6-4, 282], [Trey] Rutherford [6-5, 289] and [Daniel] Oak [6-3, 272].”

One of the biggest changes since Coach D has taken over the reigns, has been the emergence of Knappe on the offensive line.

“You look at him and right away you see there’s length, athleticism and flexibility,” Diaco raved. “It’s not like you can pick those types of guys off a tree, they’re rare to begin with anyway. And then you meet him and you watch him work and you see what kind of toughness he has and then you believe, okay, this guy can develop. There’s certain things required intangibly to develop, it’s not like you look at a body and say, oh he’s developmental, we can develop him. If he doesn’t possess the other intangible traits necessary to develop, it’s very hard to develop people like that. He possesses the tangible and intangible traits that we believe will allow him to develop into a good to great offensive tackle and we believe he is right on track for that.”

Overall, Diaco saw a drastic improvement today, compared to what went on in spring ball, just four months ago.

“They came to work excited because they were excited and they also understand that that is absolutely a baseline expectation, that the work’s not going to be able to begin any other way, but it didn’t even have to be talked about, it was present. The practice, they got a better handle on in terms of tempos, when they were going full speed and what that should look like, when they are in a movement, teach phase and what that should like and when they’re in a truly walk and talk, teach period and what that should look like. A lot of times, you will go to a full speed drill and people are flopping around on the ground, flying around all over, they’re banging into each other, knocking each other down, they’re grabbing each other. That’s not how professionals do their work. Then on the other side, you might go to a walk and talk, teach installation part and guys are kicking the ground, not focused and looking off into the distance.”

“That wasn’t present today like it was in day one, spring. There’s a higher understanding about all three phases of the game so things looked crisper, guys were moving faster because they’re faster and because they can do that longer. So the overall twenty-four periods of practice were faster. From a respect and coaching each other and coaching players standpoint, that was completely different. They were respectful to each other, they were leading each other, they were communicating with each other. I can’t count the amount of palms up I saw on day one, spring and there wasn’t even a thought, you know how you can see guys thinking about bringing them up, but that wasn’t even a thought today. I can name another hundred things, but those were some of the main points [of how different practice was today than in the spring].”

Practice resumes tomorrow, however there will be no media coverage, that will come Wednesday, August 6th.

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