UConn Huskies head football coach Bob Diaco held his final weekly pregame press conference on Tuesday afternoon in anticipation of Saturday’s season finale against the SMU Mustangs and talked about a myriad of things.
Diaco kicked things off by congratulating Memphis on their conference title. He also said they are a great template to follow as they are in year three of their plan. He said the Memphis players believed in the plan and followed it.
As I wrote about last night, Diaco said the main story line was the penalties.
He said Memphis started with the ball on six plus field drives but only scored on two. He talked about the fumble by Tim Boyle when it was 13-3 that gave Memphis the short field.
He said the defense had defended 50 plays by halftime. Most teams run about 60-70 in a game. He said they need to do a better job on third down.
Diaco stated he was pleased with the play of LT Andreas Knappe who for the second straight week looks like an offensive lineman. He also singled out the efforts of RB Ron Johnson, WR Geremy Davis, who is back to 100% health, Brice McAllister, Julian Campenni, Graham Stewart and Jamar Summers.
He said McAllister won both of their special teams awards for the week.
He stated it’s been a long but appropriate season. He said the bad thing is they didn’t get to go to a bowl which would have given them 15 more practices and one game which they could really use.
He said there is a little extra heart beat this week for the seniors. He’d love to send them out with a win, basically end their careers with a celebration.
He then talked about SMU. He said they have a great punter as well as a good returner in Deion Sanders Jr. He said that their QBs especially Matt Davis pose a problem. Davis can run like a running back.
He said they have a talented WR corp led by Der’rikk Thompson who according to Diaco is very talented and hard to cover.
He said they have a strong front led by Jonathan Yenga and Stephon Sanders as well as Zach Wood and Mason Gentry.
He said with the season ending, he wasn’t concerned about losing the momentum of the growth. He said they’ve seen growth in all areas and everyone is upset with the record. He said they are physically and mentally better. They interact as a team much better than before. He said their skill developments are much better from when they started.
He said they need to work on the same developmental things. They are close to reaching their competitive goals and they will reach their ultimate program goals.
He stated the leadership is getting better. The sights and sounds are what you would hear from a championship program.
Next week is finals week and he’ll make sure that the players will be accommodated with what whatever they need to finish up.
He went over the offseason plan which is they’ll be on their own for six weeks, then when they get back it’ll be winter conditioning. Once signing day is over, they’ll go back to working on skill development in anticipation of spring practice which begins he thinks on March 7, 2015.
He said the recruits they are looking all fit the model of their program. It’s an excellent collection of talented, achievement oriented young men.
He stated that Obi Melifonwu is out for the final game and will undergo surgery on Friday. He’s been playing hurt and the injury against Memphis was the final straw. He expects to him to be ready for spring practice but expects Obi to be limited in contact drills.
He said that Ellis Marder has returned from his injury. He’s just needs to get back in the mindset of cutting it loose which isn’t easy after an injury.
He said he was “crushed” by the comments from Jefferson Ashiru‘s father that were posted in the CT Post last week (We’ll have more on this very shortly after this post).
Diaco said he’s gotten better with time management, prioritization of things.
He said the record is frustrating they’ve improved so much they can see the bucket of success in front of them.
He said that Chandler Whitmer has done a great job being a mentor, coach and a friend to Tim Boyle. Whitmer had said he wanted to go out the right way and he’s done that according to Diaco.
He said he likes to think of himself as a problem solver not a problem identifier and said that the problems they are having/have had will be solved.
He said of the 65 guys on the roster, five will be redshirting this year.
He gave some advice to the new SMU coach who takes over at the end of the season as well as talked about Byron Jones a bit. Basically, Jones is around when he can be.
He finished up by talking about Casey Cochran and how he’ll be honored before the game. Cochran will be done with the program but will always be family like any other player who finishes their career at UConn.
We’ll have more this week. There won’t be as much player stuff as only three players came to the media availability.
