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4 - Seg 4 FB Show w Jason Candle 9/9 · Coaches Corner

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the UConn Football Coaches Show. A little
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: bit later on, we talked to Ty Chan, the offensive lineman,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and John Lista, the linebacker for the Huskies. 1-0, they
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: had to take on Maryland at home. The Terps come in,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: they were 1-0 as well. We're back with Coach. Jason,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: early in the scheduling, maybe this doesn't affect UConn quite
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: as much, but big picture nationally, we had some rivalry
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: games in the opening few days of this season. Washington,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Washington state, which is usually late in the year, Colorado state,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Wyoming playing. What do you think of that? Is that,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: is that good? Is that, is that something that kind
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of gets people fired up about college football early? I
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: know it did for me because I was all over
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the place watching everything.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's the landscape of the game
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: right now. These leagues start to change. You start to,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: many of those games are not inter-conference games. They're, you know,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: So you have to play them out of the conference schedule. So, yeah,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that, you know, for us at Toledo,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: the Bowling Green game was always later in the year
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: and it was always at the end. In the last
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: few years, it's been moved up. And then it goes
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: back to later in the year. It's a midweek thing.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just, you know, you develop some of
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: those strong rivalries and you develop some of those, you know,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: really geographically located good, good games that fan bases really
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: crave and they wait for. I think for a casual
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: fan to be able to have them all throughout the
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: course of the calendar year, that's great if you're a
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: football fan.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: UConn's sixth year as an FBS independent. You come from
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the Mid-American, obviously 10 years there, won a couple championships.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Six straight years, they've had a different champion in that league,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: so it's a pretty balanced league. I guess the question is,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: you're now in a different situation. You're playing opponents. You're
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: not playing conference opponents. How do you view that? And
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: can that be a deterrent for you in any way?
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Or is it football, let's go win games, let's prove ourselves?
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I think the key thing is everybody that starts
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: out the season wants to win all their football games
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: and they want to get to the college football playoff.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's the goal of everybody. You know, and
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: as that continues to evolve and what that looks like
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: and that continues to expand, there's going to be more
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: and more opportunities for, you know, everybody to be able to,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: you know, try to get a seat at the table there. So,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: you know, whether it's an independent schedule or whether that's
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: a league schedule, I mean, there's pluses and minuses to everything, right?
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's, you know, I think the Mid-American Conference
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: is a great league. It's a bus league that, you know,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: you're going to have to endure three or four five-hour
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: bus rides every single year. And some of them are
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: going to be on a Tuesday or Wednesday night and
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: you're going to get back at about 7 a.m. the
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: next day and your kids are going to have to
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: go to class. So, you know, there's things that are,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: You know, that are really good about that part of it.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Some of them that are not so good. So, you know,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: and I think there's everybody has their own unique situation
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: as it pertains to us here. Look like, you know,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: we get a chance to have a great home schedule.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: We get a chance to, you know, you got these
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: powerful conference opponents. You got Maryland. You got Syracuse coming
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: in here. You got North Carolina coming here at the
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: end of the year. You're getting to play some top level.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: James Madison was in the college football playoff last year.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: You get to go to Miami, Ohio. You got to
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: go to Air Force. You got to go to Wyoming.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: This is a tough schedule and one that is going
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: to challenge you each and every week. And man, if
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: I'm a young player and I'm going to school and
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to pick a school, I want to be
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: around people that love football as much as I do.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: And I want to be able to put myself in
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: a position where I'm challenged each and every week. And
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: I think we can create those environments here. I don't
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: think you need to rely on a conference to to
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: create those, those opportunities for young people. So, you know,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: what it looks like big picture and what it is
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: moving down the road, obviously we want to, we want
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: to be in a position where we're, you know, someday
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: in one of those, those bigger conference conferences and playing
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: for championships there. But in the meantime, you know, we
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: have a responsibility here to be where our feet are
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  Speaker 2: and to make sure that this, you know, this UConn
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  Speaker 2: team and this UConn program can be the best it
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: possibly can be.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Just about a minute left. Just following up on that,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: so when you talk to players who have come from
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: other places, we had, what, 40 transfers, something like that,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: 20 came from Toledo. Do you talk about that at all?
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: We're not in a conference, but our schedule's really good.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: What do you say to them?
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Well, look, like, I mean, I didn't hear anybody say,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: coming to Toledo, you know, in the recruiting process to
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: tell me that they're coming there because they want to
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: play in the conference championship game. They have bigger dreams.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: They have bigger goals. They have bigger things that they
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: want to get accomplished. And we were able for a
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: lot of guys to be able to help them pave
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: that way and have that opportunity. They want to have
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: a meaningful degree. They want to be able to go
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: play in the National Football League. They want to be
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: able to be the best version of themselves around other
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  Speaker 2: guys that really think that's important. And I think you
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: can recreate that environment here and you can recreate that
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: environment here in a hurry.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: That's great to hear. I appreciate you. Coach, we'll do
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: this every week. How about that? You okay with that?
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Sounds good. All right. Jason Candle with us. And we
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: thank Ty Chan, of course, and John List as well.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I'm Mike Crispino. Get there to the stadium this weekend. 3.30 kick,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: but you can start early. You can party early, get
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the barbecue going, whatever you got to do. But let's
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: get there in mass because UConn's got a tough opponent, Maryland,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and something to prove on Saturday. The UConn Football Coaches
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Show on Learfield.