Defense Wins Championships

@MattSchonvisky

UCONN head coach Bob Diaco comes from a unique and very successful coaching tree, one that includes the likes of Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells, Romeo Crennel, Al Groh and of course, his coach, Hayden Fry, who has quite the tree of his own. All of them have in common one thing, superb defenses that work to limit points as their number one priority. UCONN fans should expect to see this same philosophy run in just over three weeks at Rentschler Field.

So, what exactly, is that philosophy?

The four main focuses of the defense you will see UCONN run are prioritized in the following order; limit points, eliminate big plays, eliminate what the opponent does to produce points and finally attacking the ball, ball disruptions and turnovers. You can run whatever schematically, it really doesn’t matter, those will be the goals defensively.

“We are going to keep the points down,” Diaco said following practice today. “We are going to do the things that keep the points down. So what keeps the points down and what produces points? Deep passes and bad tackling. What produces deep passes? Missed assignments and missed alignments.”

Hence, the recruiting philosophy that BD has brought with him to Connecticut. Smart, intelligent, dedicated and hard-working individuals, who will be successful in this type of system.

Coach Diaco has gotten a lot of training from a number of very good football minds over the years. During last offseason, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was a guest at Notre Dame’s coaching clinic and gave Diaco a rave review.

“I think they’ve done a real good job defensively,” Belichick told Frank Vitovich of uhnd.com following that clinic. “Bob (Diaco), Coach Kelly and his staff. I think these players are really well schooled. They’re disciplined. They play real good defense in every area. They’re good fundamentally. They have good schemes. They play good early downs, run downs, rush the passer, good situational football. They don’t give up a lot of points. They play really sound and consistent. Of course they have a lot of good players, but they’re well coached.”

Not bad for someone who just may be the greatest defensive mind in the history of football.

Expect the same to be true here at UCONN, where guys like DT Angelo Pruitt (6-2, 287), DT Julian Campenni (6-0, 299) and LB Graham Stewart (6-1, 227), will all play a large role and should excel.

“As a veteran,” Pruitt said after practice today, “younger guys naturally look up to the older guys on the team for leadership. I’ve taken it upon myself this season to really improve in that capacity.”

Campenni echoed those same sentiments.

“I really want to focus on being a leader towards the young guys by showing and giving them an example of how to be, on and off the field. We want to go out and perform this year, so we have a bunch of internal motivation.”

It is clear that whether or not the staff is drilling this home, leadership is running rampant around the elder statesmen of the program.

For Stewart, a Connecticut native, he has been wowed by what Diaco and his staff have brought together.

“The history that these guys have, it would take you years and years to gather the high quality information they have, they are just football geniuses. The one thing that I will say and emphasize, every single guy on the team, especially myself, is just excited, wakes up in the morning and is excited to grab their lunch pail, hard hat and go to work.”

That statement shows the type of staff BD has put in place, one where all involved are sharing the same vision, even after just five practices under their belts as a complete unit.

“We’re on the same page, ad nauseam maybe, almost too much,” Diaco laughed. “I have to guard against my own psychosis there. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be possible to have success.”

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