mikedog10
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UConn's Randy Edsall Stresses Patience As Well As Urgency
>>Randy Edsall called himself old Wednesday and almost immediately adjusted his stance. "Well, not old," he said. "But I have a lot of experience."
Later during a half-hour press conference at the Burton Family Football Complex, he said, "I used to be a very impatient guy. Age teaches you, and experience teaches you, a lot of things. I think I've become a little more patient, but patience and urgency are two different things. You've still got to have that sense of urgency."
>>"There's been some good things and been some bad things," Edsall said. "But the one thing that I will say is they're starting to get it, and to understand the level in terms of how hard you have to practice and how much has to go into it, in order to win. That probably has been the biggest [challenge] to me with this team, getting them to understand just how hard it is to win at this level and the amount of commitment and work that it takes from Sunday to Friday, and to understand that how you practice is going to end up determining pretty much how you're going to play. That's been a big surprise to me, to get guys to understand that, to know that."
Immediately after a recent practice, Edsall gathered players and asked for feedback, a grade.
"And they didn't give me the right answer," Edsall said. "In their minds, they think it's happening. But it's not, in terms of what we want as coaches. I told them, every day is a process. And that process that we're going through is because of what we want to build here and what we want to establish, the philosophy that we have. … Have we improved since the season started? Yes, but very, very incrementally from that standpoint."
>>"The things that you see in practice are carrying over to the game," Edsall said. "Every game, we're going to have to correct things. There's always going to be mistakes. But the effort and the [physicality] and the running to the ball and finishing plays, that's got to get a lot better. You've got to communicate, you've got to run to the ball, you've got to know what you're doing."
>>The Huskies' "football awareness," as Edsall says, has been poor. So the question becomes, do players need to speed up the learning process or do coaches need to slow down the teaching process?
The goal is to have players performing at maximum speed with a firm understanding for where they're going and what they're doing. If certain pages of the playbook have to temporarily be sacrificed, so be it.
"Obviously that's something you've got to look at as a coach," Edsall said. "Is it too complicated? Or are there guys … who are not able to, physically, execute? I'm still trying to find out about this team. You really find out in the heat of the battle, how guys really react when the heat is on. I wanted it to happen yesterday, but it didn't. Every day we just have to get a little bit better. Every day is a process. I told them this morning, 'Men, we just got to keep sawing wood.'"
>>Randy Edsall called himself old Wednesday and almost immediately adjusted his stance. "Well, not old," he said. "But I have a lot of experience."
Later during a half-hour press conference at the Burton Family Football Complex, he said, "I used to be a very impatient guy. Age teaches you, and experience teaches you, a lot of things. I think I've become a little more patient, but patience and urgency are two different things. You've still got to have that sense of urgency."
>>"There's been some good things and been some bad things," Edsall said. "But the one thing that I will say is they're starting to get it, and to understand the level in terms of how hard you have to practice and how much has to go into it, in order to win. That probably has been the biggest [challenge] to me with this team, getting them to understand just how hard it is to win at this level and the amount of commitment and work that it takes from Sunday to Friday, and to understand that how you practice is going to end up determining pretty much how you're going to play. That's been a big surprise to me, to get guys to understand that, to know that."
Immediately after a recent practice, Edsall gathered players and asked for feedback, a grade.
"And they didn't give me the right answer," Edsall said. "In their minds, they think it's happening. But it's not, in terms of what we want as coaches. I told them, every day is a process. And that process that we're going through is because of what we want to build here and what we want to establish, the philosophy that we have. … Have we improved since the season started? Yes, but very, very incrementally from that standpoint."
>>"The things that you see in practice are carrying over to the game," Edsall said. "Every game, we're going to have to correct things. There's always going to be mistakes. But the effort and the [physicality] and the running to the ball and finishing plays, that's got to get a lot better. You've got to communicate, you've got to run to the ball, you've got to know what you're doing."
>>The Huskies' "football awareness," as Edsall says, has been poor. So the question becomes, do players need to speed up the learning process or do coaches need to slow down the teaching process?
The goal is to have players performing at maximum speed with a firm understanding for where they're going and what they're doing. If certain pages of the playbook have to temporarily be sacrificed, so be it.
"Obviously that's something you've got to look at as a coach," Edsall said. "Is it too complicated? Or are there guys … who are not able to, physically, execute? I'm still trying to find out about this team. You really find out in the heat of the battle, how guys really react when the heat is on. I wanted it to happen yesterday, but it didn't. Every day we just have to get a little bit better. Every day is a process. I told them this morning, 'Men, we just got to keep sawing wood.'"
The OL used to be the most consistent strength on the team, it's been 7 years since GDL screwed that up & we still haven't completely undone the damage. I have faith that Randy, Coach Grimes, and the young men on the team will fix this soon!
