Spring Football Practice Opens on Tuesday

The University of Connecticut football team opens its 2008 spring practices on Tuesday, March 18 at the Mark R. Shenkman Training Center in Storrs. The 15 practices will culminate with the Blue-White Spring Game on April 19 at Rentschler Field. The following is the outlook from the team's 2008 Spring Prospectus...

FULL 2008 PROSPECTUS (.PDF)

The 2007 season saw the Huskies claim their first BIG EAST Championship, tie for the winningest regular season in school history, earn their first Top 25 ranking and advance to their second-ever bowl game. The 2008 University of Connecticut football team returns 19 out of 24 starters from the squad which produced these tremendous accomplishments. The formal on-field quest to continue this roll begins March 18 when the team returns to the field as one for the first time since its appearance in the Meineke Car Care Bowl. UConn is in good shape compared to this point in other years but head coach Randy Edsall knows that the 2008 edition of the Huskies still have a long way to go.

“Through our winter conditioning program you can see our team starting to come together pretty well but, as we get into the spring, we have to decide who our leaders are going to be,” he said. “We have to see who the leadership is going to come from to run this team. We have to have this become a closer team. We have to bond and gel to the point where nobody has to say anything to each other. They will just have to look at each other and know what is going on.”

The offensive side of the ball will need to continue to improve from 2007 to 2008 as it did from 2006 to 2007 for the Huskies to achieve greater glory. A year ago during spring practice, quarterback D.J. Hernandez gave up his role to play wide receiver and clear a path for junior college All-American Tyler Lorenzen to take over the offense. The results for the entire team were instantaneous and spectacularly positive. This year Lorenzen will duel during spring drills with Notre Dame transfer Zach Frazer and strong-armed redshirt freshman Cody Endres.

UConn’s dual-threat tailbacks of a year ago, Donald Brown and Andre Dixon are both back for 2008 and three promising redshirt freshmen will give the Huskies a wealth of talent in this crucial area. Robbie Frey and Kelmetrus “Meme” Wylie, along with walk-on Nate Sherr, showed great promise last fall on the scout team and should be anxious to show what they can do this spring. At fullback, redshirt freshmen Anthony Davis and Anthony Sherman will continue to battle for a starting role, something both enjoyed for points in 2007. Walk-on Joss Tillard is also working at fullback.

Brad Kanuch and Hernandez are clearly the top two returning receivers, combining for 57 catches and 837 yards in 2007. Fifth-year senior Ellis Gaulden is fully-healthy and hopes to show his abilities after an injury-ravaged career. Gaulden played in nine games last fall and got better as the season progressed. Rob Theoudele also saw time at wide receiver in 2007 while Marcus Easley and Kevin Poles played in a majority of the games on special teams. Edsall has made it no secret that he wants to see better production from this unit and redshirt freshmen Isiah Moore and Kashif Moore will fight for time along with a pair of walk-ons.

The tight end role was ably handled in 2007 by Steve Brouse and Martin Bedard. The two seniors will be joined this spring by two relatively new faces in redshirt freshman Yianni Apostalakos and recently-enrolled sophomore John Delahunt along with walk-on Derek Chard.

UConn’s offensive line lost just one face from its 2007 two-deep in right guard Donald Thomas so it is an experienced unit. Left tackle Will Beatty, center Keith Gray, and current right guard Mike Hicks all started each of UConn’s 11 games a year ago. Left guard Alex LaMagdelaine has 18 career starts under his belt while right tackle Dan Ryan has 11. Zach Hurd saw action in all 11 games last year, center Trey Tonsing started nine games in 2005 while guards Mathieu Olivier and Bobby Fry both have game experience. Three very promising redshirt freshmen, Gary Bardzak, Moe Petrus and Mike Ryan, also wait in the wings of a deep and talented group that just needs to “come together”.

“We have to develop more of a physical, aggressive attitude this spring up front in the offensive line and also to continue to develop our depth there,” Edsall said. “The big thing in the passing game is to get precise and settle in on exactly what we can do in the passing game with the personnel that we have. Improving the running game gets back to being more physical up front. I want to get better fundamentally, technique-wise and with all of the little intricacies that it takes to be successful in the running game. In the passing game, I also want to make sure that our offensive line and our running backs are doing a good job with the fundamentals and techniques of pass protection. That’s something where we’ve got to get a lot better. Overall, we’ve got to come together more. We’ve got to be able to create more balance and to throw the ball down the field. We have to be able to throw the ball horizontally as well as vertically and have precision as we do it.”

Like just about almost any coach in football, Edsall knows the single area where he wants his team to improve defensively.

“We have to be able to consistently stop the run,” he says. “We will continue to work on stopping the run. We want to continue to not give up big plays on defense but we also want to be in more of an attack mode defensively than we were in previous years. I want to build on the success that we had last year inside the red zone. We were a pretty good red zone defense. I want to be a little more aggressively defensively than we have been, better against the run and better at not giving up big plays.”

All three defensive units have a wealth of returning experience and just one hole to fill for a graduated senior starter. UConn’s defensive ends all had great years in 2007, a season which saw Cody Brown make 16.5 tackles for loss and Julius Williams sack opposing quarterbacks 8.5 times. Lindsey Witten was a more than capable reserve as was Mike Cox in the lone position group where Edsall will freely substitute on game day to keep players fresh. Redshirt freshman Kendall Reyes is expected to compete for a spot on the two-deep while walk-on Oliver Bernsen rounds out the ends group. Inside, Rob Lunn had a break-through year starting all 13 games in 2007 while Alex Polito had a break-through game (literally) in the Meineke Car Care Bowl as he broke through the Wake Forest line repeatedly on a three TFL fternoon. A quartet of redshirt freshman in Twyon Martin, Jarrell Miller, Danny Russell and Scott Schultz will make for a very interesting race during camp to fill out the tackle posts.

Freshman All-American Scott Lutrus moves from strongside “Husky” linebacker to middle linebacker for the fall where he will lead a group that also includes Aaron Bryant, C.J. Marck and Doc Goudreau. Bryant and Goudreau have both played extensively on special teams for the Huskies while Marck is an eager redshirt freshman all of whom will look to fill the shoes of graduated senior Danny Lansanah, a three-year starter.

Another Freshman All-American also mans the weakside post in Lawrence Wilson. Wilson leads a group that also features redshirt freshman Greg Lloyd, special teams maven Matt Ashmead and walk-on Alex Folson.

At the strongside “Husky” linebacker, Edsall will give Dahna Deleston a good look. Deleston has spent his UConn career at strong safety but, with his strong tackling skills, might be better suited at “Husky”. Sophomore Greg Robinson will push Deleston hard along with redshirt freshman Corey Stringer.

UConn is quite deep in the secondary, something which has been a luxury for the team in each of the past two seasons. Darius Butler is the team’s top corner and is one of four corners who have extensive experience on the field for UConn, joining Jasper Howard, Robert McClain and Terry Baltimore. Redshirt freshmen Harris Agbor and Gary Wilburn will compete with McClain and Baltimore while walk-ons Derek Foster, Khaliyl Lane and Josh Massey are on the Butler-Howard side.

Robert Vaughn was amongst the nation’s leaders with seven interceptions last fall as a free safety and he is slated to play his familiar “center field” role again this spring. Glen Mourning of Danbury is also in this mix along with redshirt freshman Aaron Bagsby and walk-on John Yurek. The strong safety spot is wide open. Kijuan Dabney, Jonathan Jean-Louis, Jameson Davis and Emmanuel Omokaro will vie for first and second-team reps during the spring at this position.

One positive of the team’s glut of talented redshirt freshman is that special teams work will hardly be an after-thought. UConn might return all of its entire “kick squad” from 2007 but it lost two of the nation’s most dangerous returners in Tyvon Branch and Larry Taylor. The quest to replace them and other members of the special teams units will have a high priority this spring.

“We will spend even more time on special teams than we have in previous years,” Edsall said. “We have more athletes available to us now on special teams. We’ve seen the last two years how important special teams can be. We’ve got to find some returners and we are going to spend more time on all of the special teams. There are things we want to do in the punting game to take advantage of Desi Cullen’s abilities. We’re going to have a tremendous competition between Tony Ciaravino and David Teggart in terms of place kicking. I’m anxious to see our younger players perform. I want to get a lot of stuff in because I can see that we’re going to have a lot of young guys playing on special teams. They’re talented, but I want to make sure that they have a good grasp of what we’re doing.”