The UConn Huskies football team returned to the practice field for the first time since March 14 and as you might expect, there was a little rust to be removed and maybe a post spring break hangover.
Early on during the media portion of practice, the players were going through a conditioning drill and Diaco wasn’t happy. He made sure to let his team know. They did it again. He was still not happy. Finally, after doing it a third time, he was pleased.
Before the team broke off into individual drills, he spoke to the team and told them to “raise the level of your intensity, raise the level of your focus”.
After practice, he seemed pleased that his charges had done just that especially given the situation of practicing the day after spring break ended.
“A Monday after a spring break always could be a hairy situation for teams across the country but I feel like the team went and handled practice four well, ” Diaco said. “It wasn’t anything that was extraordinary but, I know and the coaches know what it feels like as a player to go on spring break and come back and spring break ends Sunday and to come back on Monday and be electric, it’s just not realistic.”
It did help that he and his staff set up practice to scrape that rust off and get back to the focus of UConn football.
We really set up practice today to not ask the players to have to do that, to really acclimatize a bit and they handled that well,” said Diaco. “They [the players] would be the first to tell you that shaking off the spring break rust took a little bit of time but they did. So it fit the model that the coaches were expecting and we were pleased to have a successful practice four.”
Diaco has a plan in place of where he’d like to see the team after Saturday’s practice where high school coaches from around the state and region will be in attendance.
“I’d like to see the team begin to transition from survival to, for lack of a better word, attack,” Diaco said. “A physical assault and a mental attack, where they’re not just surviving. So by design, we’ll have smart installation. Today was virtually no installation, offense, defense and special teams. It was a shining and polishing, a re-engagement of the first three practices.
“We’ll do the same thing at the end of the week. By Saturday there will be more guys that know what to do and can cut it loose and are cutting it loose. Right now we’ve got a lot of guys that are trying, expending a lot of energy, in a haphazard way. We’d like that to begin more directed and more controlled where we can have guys cutting it loose in a play they clearly know. I’d like to think we can accomplish that by the end of the week.”
There’s definitely a different vibe around this team then the one that was felt in the fall. But like Diaco has, we can’t look back to the past.
We can only look forward, forward to a solid UConn football team.
Follow Ian on Twitter @soxanddawgs. And be sure to like us on Facebook as well.
photo credit: ian bethune – sox & dawgs
