UConn Can't Look Past Ohio

[IE]

UConn junior cornerback Jasper Howard was talking about Ohio opponents the past few years ? teams such as Northwestern, Ohio State and Pittsburgh ? and how the Bobcats fared pretty well.

"You know, I just hope people understand that Ohio is a really good team," Howard said Tuesday at UConn's first weekly press conference of the season. "They have enough athletes to get one-on-one matchups and their coaches get them in position to make plays. I hope people don't think this game will be a pushover game. It won't be, but if we can get this one, it could set the tone for us because they are good."

The Huskies will travel to Athens, Ohio, to face the Bobcats on Saturday night at 24,000-seat Peden Stadium.

The Bobcats were 4-8 last season, 3-5 in the Mid-American Conference. And despite injuries to key players, they have enough depth to be a formidable opponent.

Respect From Solich
The atmosphere should be lively in Athens.

Bobcats coach Frank Solich is expecting as much.

"It should be a good experience in terms of college football," Solich, the former Nebraska coach, said on a conference call. "It is what it is for both teams. I'm sure both teams will be ready to play and I think both teams will give great effort. We have a lot of respect for the Connecticut program and what the coaching staff has done there. Obviously, when you look at what's been accomplished in the last 10 years, it's been kind of an amazing feat ... to build a program like Randy Edsall has built in that time frame.

Freshman Orientation
A lot of eyes will be on two first-time starters on the Huskies' defense: freshmen Jesse Joseph and Jerome Junior.

Edsall said even though Joseph, a 6-foot-3, 228-pound defensive end, is quiet by nature, no one should be fooled by that when it comes to his play.

"He just works," Edsall said. "He's one of those young men, one of those players who has a knack for the game. He's got very good savvy. He's a competitor. He's gotten stronger since January but still has a lot to do. He's just has one of those innate abilities to understand the game and plays with great leverage."

Edsall said his overall play and consistency gave him the edge to start.

Junior replaces hard-hitting Dahna Deleston.

"To this day, I still watch his film so I can get better," Junior said. "There are like teach tapes the coaches have. He had great footwork, great speed, especially for his size, which was about 215. I want to be everything like Dahna. If I can do things like Dahna, I'll have a job here the next four years, but it's got to be one day at a time."

Junior says he has just tried to do what is asked of him.

"The coaches told me I needed to step up and make plays and that I needed to own this position," he said. "I guess I did that."

He said the coaches also told him that he's not to give up big plays, only make them.

Two Scrambling QBs
Ohio will use two senior quarterbacks ? Theo Scott and Boo Jackson. Scott sustained a broken collarbone and dislocated shoulder in the second game of the 2008 season against Ohio State and was replaced by Jackson.

"Both quarterbacks are similar in that they have the ability to scramble," Solich said. "It doesn't seem like there's enough differences in the two in terms of changing any style of offense. Our offense will be the same with both guys."

Sound Familiar?
The keys to this season for the Huskies, no matter how young or inexperienced they are in spots, are the same ones the coaches harp about every year.

Will this be the season in which the Huskies follow orders the best?

"I like the [team's] progress," Edsall said. "I thought we had a good camp. I know we're ready to go play. Now it's just a matter of how we play on Saturday. ... We've got to do the things we expect to do: we can't turn the ball over, we can't give up the long scores on defense. We have to take advantage of the opportunities offensively when we move the ball inside the red zone. ... Not a lot of penalties, and good tackling.

-- The Hartford Courant

 

[IE]

UConn QB Frazer Set To Drive New Offense


Gone was his windy March talk of throwing like Texas Tech and scoring 40 points a game. Gone was the assertion he hadn't worked his tail off just to sit the bench. Four days from turning the ignition on UConn's shiny, new offense, Zach Frazer was reserved in disposition, decidedly circumspect.

Somewhere in the Shenkman Center, Randy Edsall was smiling.

D.J. Hernandez or Tyler Lorenzen clearly had climbed into Frazer's body and commandeered his robotic lips. There was Frazer talking about working hard, being fortunate to get his shot, working hard. It was at the fourth "working hard" that you couldn't help but speculate the junior quarterback was scared witless about the opener.

Just kidding.

Speculation is the stuff of preseason media prattle. That's the beauty of Saturday night in Athens, Ohio. They'll stripe the field. They'll blow the whistle. One of the kickers will stick his toe into it and, finally, we'll have reality. We'll have football. Frazer is neither supremely cocky nor scared witless these days. He's obviously following his coach's marching orders to avoid choking on his words. Let actions speak louder. That's the demand Edsall makes of all his starting quarterbacks, and by those standards, Frazer took another step in maturity Tuesday.

"I think Zach's completely ready to go out and run the show," Edsall said.

UConn fans have waited months for Frazer to pull new Joe Moorhead's multiple no-huddle offense from the driveway. Nobody knows exactly what we're going to get and that's what makes this so exciting. A transfer from Notre Dame, Frazer is UConn's first four-star quarterback. And with a coordinator who built Akron's offense into the most-improved in the nation last year, the 2009 UConn playbook sure figures to be more exciting than Donald Brown running left, right and straight into the first round of the NFL draft.

"If you execute it well, a multiple approach to offensive football is the most difficult to stop," said Ohio coach Frank Solich, who says his staff has been studying a blend of UConn and Akron tapes in preparation. The Zips passed 37 times ran 47 times in a 49-42 loss to Ohio last year. For what it's worth, Solich says he'll concentrate first on the run.

"Most people think it's going to be all throw," Frazer said. "If we need to, we can do that. If we need to run the ball every play, we can do that. It's a lot of variables."

Moorhead's head, of course, will have much to do with the variables. So will Jordan Todman's and Andre Dixon's legs. The real beauty of this offense isn't in pitching the ball all over the lot. It's in the unrelenting pressure.

"The up tempo wears you out," UConn linebacker Scott Lutrus said. "We were tired going against it in a simulated half. Imagine a whole game."

Hey, it can be tough on an offensive lineman, too.

"Mike Hicks (323 pounds), in the first spring practice, I thought he was going to die, I thought he was going to fall on his facemask," Lutrus said.

Compared to UConn running on 61 percent of its plays over the past two years, this offense may seem Texas Tech, but the numbers show Akron ran on 54 percent of its plays in 2007 and 51.8 percent last year. Edsall is looking for a 50-50 balance. And 50-50 keeps adding up to No. 10. Frazer is the QB. He has the keys.

With five touchdown passes, 17 interceptions and 139.7 yards a game (109th of 119 nationally) the UConn passing attack was spectacularly bad last season. When the boffo passing play of the final month was an underthrown flea flicker by Lorenzen at USF, well, let's put it this way: By the International Bowl, the Huskies weren't passing. They were using the 1903 playbook for the game against Pomfret School. Frazer should change this.

"Zach got a lot better as the preseason went on," Edsall said. "I've been very pleased and very impressed, really, since the second scrimmage. The biggest thing Zach has to do is execute the plan we have and not try to do too much."

There's some debate that Cody Endres has been throwing a prettier ball in the preseason, but make no mistake: The boy from the golden dome has more gold in his arm than any UConn quarterback since Dan Orlovsky.

"He's a good passer," Edsall said. "He has a strong arm. He's a competitor. He understands things. He has a presence that the offensive guys like. He doesn't really get rattled. He takes charge. They look in his eyes and they can see he's ready to go. He's confident. He's from Pa. He's tough. Especially Central Pa (Edsall is from Glen Rock). He's not going to back down. He's going to run people over."

'"I guess Mechanicsburg is a tough place," Frazer said of his hometown. "Most of my friends are tough. I don't know exactly what it means." How about that? The quarterback's reining in the coach a bit.

In reality, Edsall wants Frazer to be smart. He sustained two concussions last year. If Frazer can get out of bounds or slide to avoid a hit, do it. Frazer has been equipped with a state of the art, padded helmet. He's confident in his health and his game. And he's dedicated enough to show up early and stay late on own. (Note: In light of the Michigan controversy, Edsall came armed with documentation showing the Huskies officially work out 19 hours, 35 minutes a week). Lutrus, a workout fanatic, raves about Frazer lifting early, working late with receivers and staying into the night studying film. So it must be legit.

"As a quarterback, you need to be ahead of everyone else," said Frazer, who started twice last year after Lorenzen, cut Tuesday by Jacksonville as a tight end, was injured. "I want to put our team in the best position to win."

The opener is on the road. It's at night. The environment will be hostile. There's also a shiny new offense and a kid from Central Pa. via Notre Dame dying to take it out for a spin. Grab the keys, kid, and let your actions scream.