Frank Verducci Part II: UConn OC Likes the RB’s & Has One Goal for the Spring

@MattSchonvisky

UConn running backs Arkeel Newsome and Ron Johnson will only be entering their sophomore year’s in 2015, but for Husky fans, they are already entrenched in their minds as the present and future of the program. Both showed promise last season, one with explosiveness and the other, with power. Despite that, let’s not discount the work that Josh Marriner and Max DeLorenzo have each put in during the offseason, to challenge for time. 

“Well it’s a talented group,” Verducci said inside the Burton Family Football Complex on Saturday. “You look at us right now at the running back position, we have a lot of options. What we do with Arkeel, might be a little bit different than what we do with Ron.”

Newsome, who set all sorts of high school rushing records here in Connecticut, had an up-and-down freshman year in Storrs. Head coach Bob Diaco talked a lot last year about his adjustment to college and getting familiar with the game at this level.

The Ansonia native only ran for 188 yards on 47 carries (4.0 yards per carry), but it was clear he has the ability to take it to the house every time he gets his hands on the ball. Newsome reached pay dirt twice through the air, first showcasing his speed on a screen pass that went 74 yards for his first career touchdown against Temple at The Rent. He also took one 39 yards for a score at Memphis, as the season was winding down.

Johnson, on the other hand, is a guy that wants to run opponents over. By the end of 2014, he saw the majority of the carries and for great reason, getting his first career 100-yard game to close the season against SMU. He only had three touchdowns on the year, including two in the Huskies upset of UCF in November, but he figures to be a staple in the Huskies rushing attack in 2015.

Because each brings something so different to games, Verducci already knows he has to be careful how he utilizes each once the season gets under way.

“You have to blur the lines enough that you’re not telecasting what you’re doing by having a certain back in the game,” he said. “We’re certainly going to accentuate their individual talents at certain points in the game, but it’s all about having them improve as they go along as well.”

While Verducci knows the styles of each back, he has yet to look at not just the backs, but every offensive player on tape since his arrival.

“I haven’t looked at one snap,” he said. “I just want to have clean eyes when I look at them. I told all the players that. I will look at tape when spring is over, when I need to start looking at the opponents, but we’re strictly focused on evaluation [this spring]. If it was me and I was a young player and maybe I hadn’t played as well as I wanted to, I think if you ask them, they’d appreciate it.”

Verducci doesn’t want to cloud his judgement in that regard and for a very good reason.

“If I look at a tape and I don’t know what they were told to do and I don’t know how they were taught, I’d rather just see how they respond to my interaction with them and go from there,” Verducci continued. “How many chances in life do you get to start with a clean slate?”

With that chance for a brand new evaluation, the approach enables players to not get discouraged by potentially where they rank on the current ‘depth chart,’ if you can actually have a depth chart in early March.

“I explained that to the players today, we have a depth chart, but a priority above that is to evaluate certain people,” Verducci said. “If we’ve had a guy change positions, we have to get him a volume of snaps so we can evaluate him. So the guy behind him, don’t worry about it, that’s not the lineup for Villanova necessarily. But we have to come out of this with a great idea of where our talents are and how to accentuate that talent.”

One final area that caught his eye on day one, was the offensive line.

“I thought coach Cummings did a great job with them, they were prepared,” he said. “He’s got a fabulous rapport with them, where they’re up in his office talking about football, school, life, whatever. There’s great communication going on there and it showed in how they tempo’d through practice.”

A lot has changed with the offensive staff this offseason, but after just one practice in the spring, it seems to be going just the way Diaco had planned.

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