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Transcript

AD David Benedict - Presser Dec 8 · Coaches Corner

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Look, I think it's a I think it's a great question.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And obviously I'm not sure what college athletics athletics looks like,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: you know, a week from now, let alone five years
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: from now. But you know, I'm sure not Unlike when
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: you know coach or Emma or or coach Calvioun showed up.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: You know, they had a drision, a vision, and a
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  Speaker 1: dream of what could be. And I still believe that
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: we can accomplish anything we want to, and that means
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: ultimately containing at the highest level whatever that winds up
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: being at whatever time that is. I couldn't tell you
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  Speaker 1: what that's going to look like. Obviously there's a lot
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: going on in college athletics these days in Portruary football,
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  Speaker 1: but we want to we want to continue to put
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  Speaker 1: ourselves in a position each year so that people appreciate
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  Speaker 1: our abuild and compete with whoever we're going to be with.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: And certainly, you know coach Mora and the staff and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the student athletes, they've done that for the last two years.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: What led you to coach Candle initially, I mean, there's
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  Speaker 2: so many coaches out there. What made you zoom in
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  Speaker 2: on him?
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  Speaker 1: Well, I place a really high value on head coaching experience.
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  Speaker 1: I think, you know, to have a demonstrated track record
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  Speaker 1: of success as a head coach over a decade is
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: something that separated him as we looked at all the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: different types of candidates, and you know, I think when
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  Speaker 1: you have the opportunity to do a search like this,
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  Speaker 1: especially at a place like Yukon, and as coach mentioned,
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  Speaker 1: coming off of the success that we've had the last
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  Speaker 1: two years, you have a lot of people that are interested.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: But ultimately, you know, one of one of the main
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  Speaker 1: criteria would be if you can find someone that has
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  Speaker 1: a demonstrated track record of success as a head coach
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  Speaker 1: and managing the perplexities that comes with you know, a
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: very large organization. That that's something that obviously was you know,
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  Speaker 1: a huge check mark for him. You know, lots of
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  Speaker 1: other things. I mean, the facts that he's never had
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a losing season as a head coach. I love the
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  Speaker 1: fact that he has an offensive mind. His offenses are
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: typically rated very high, but he had one of the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: best defenses in the country this year. And so if
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  Speaker 1: you really get into the analytics, if you get into
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  Speaker 1: the personal relationships that he has around the country, the network,
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  Speaker 1: the people that you talk to about Coach Candle, you know,
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  Speaker 1: all of it comes back aces. So we're just very
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  Speaker 1: fortunate that we could attract someone like that to you.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Come and talking with coach Candle, you know, what was
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  Speaker 3: your sense of what he was valuing, what he was
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: looking for, you know, from a school from an attention
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  Speaker 3: of job. Obviously, coach cares about stuff like what's the
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: nil support, what's the conference you know, situation what you know,
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: what kind of what did those conversations go like and
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  Speaker 3: how they improved our les school years?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think it's it's all the obvious
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  Speaker 1: stuff that that you you noted, but you know, he
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  Speaker 1: he he places, as do we a high premium on people,
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  Speaker 1: you know, And I was very happy that we were
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  Speaker 1: able to get both he and Nicole to Connecticut so
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  Speaker 1: that they could visit and interact with some of our people,
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  Speaker 1: because I believe we have as good as people that
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  Speaker 1: that that surround this university and all different types of
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: capacities and that want this university, this athletics program, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: in particular our football program to thrive. And so I
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  Speaker 1: think that had a major impact on him when he visited.
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  Speaker 1: This could be asked of just about any athletic director
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: in the country right now.
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  Speaker 3: But what does it take to make Yukon some more
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  Speaker 3: people stay? Not as topics don't make it a destination.
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  Speaker 2: What are you finding right now?
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you know, if you look at our
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: head coaches, there's a lot of people that have stayed.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: And so I don't necessarily agree with the notion that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Yukon is a stepping stone. You know, there's
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: been transitions, they'll continue to be transitions. But we've had
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  Speaker 1: some of our most successful coaches over the course of
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  Speaker 1: you know, forty one years now that have never left.
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  Speaker 1: We've got you know, you look across the board. We
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  Speaker 1: had soccer coaches and Ray Reid, you know, we had
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  Speaker 1: coach Calhoun, we have Jim Penders, you have Mike Cavanaugh.
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  Speaker 1: All of these people have had opportunities to leave, but
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: they chose to stay. And so there is something about
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  Speaker 1: Yukon that people choose to stay.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: That play into you wanted to be a guy that
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  Speaker 2: had been at one place for for ten plus years.
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  Speaker 1: No, I don't think you'd go into that's certainly not
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  Speaker 1: a criteria, but I think it speaks to loyalty. I
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: think it speaks to commitment, and so that was just
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  Speaker 1: another you know, when you when you start looking at
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  Speaker 1: all these different qualities and data points, you you begin
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to build a picture of somebody. And certainly that's something
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  Speaker 1: that you know you have to have an appreciation for
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  Speaker 1: because that's not necessarily typical anymore. And so when someone
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  Speaker 1: who I'm sure Jason has had other opportunities i know
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  Speaker 1: he has over the course of you know, the last
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: you know, several years, you you value that divin.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Jim obviously brought a lot of NFL experience to the
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  Speaker 2: job when you hired him. Did you start out with
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  Speaker 2: any notion of trying to find someone else with that
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  Speaker 2: kind of pedigree or did you feel like that, you know,
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  Speaker 2: we're not going to find someone like that again, so
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  Speaker 2: let's go this.
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  Speaker 1: Rom No, I didn't. I didn't start out the search
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  Speaker 1: thinking that, hey, we are we aren't going to to
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: find anybody. You just don't know. You certainly should have
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: an idea of maybe some people that you want to
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  Speaker 1: begin to visit with, but you just don't know who's
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: gonna come and bubble up to the surface. And I
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  Speaker 1: think the value of the NFL piece was very important,
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  Speaker 1: and I think it really assisted our program, and coach
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Moore did a great job of leveraging you know, his network,
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  Speaker 1: his relationships, and his understanding of the NFL, both in
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: developing players and being able to communicate and recruit players,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: but also with the change in transfer portal slash raids.
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  Speaker 1: So you know, that was something that was on the list,
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  Speaker 1: but it wasn't the top thing on the list. I
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  Speaker 1: think the one thing that coach Candell mentioned. I mean
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  Speaker 1: he's been developing pros. He's been identifying individuals, developing pros
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  Speaker 1: and consistently having kids drafted, and those kids are staying
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: at his program, so that that certainly is something that's
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  Speaker 1: going to be important to our current team as well
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: as future prospects.
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  Speaker 3: How much of the state did you cover when you
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: took him around?
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  Speaker 1: Where did you take him? Oh? Well, I mean it
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: was it was primarily from West Hartford, you know, to
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  Speaker 1: campus and all around. So you know, we did as
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: much as we could in a in a relatively short
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: condensed period of time. But I thought it was important
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: to to try to get them to see as much
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: as they possibly could.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Did he meet with Dan face to face or was
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: it a fun conversation?
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  Speaker 1: I know, they communicated, but you know, coach was getting
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: ready for a game the next day, so we weren't
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: able to make that happen. Yeah, yeah, they they've communicated.
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  Speaker 3: What was it about candlel You mentioned the offensive background,
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  Speaker 3: his style when you're when you're looking into that, what
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: did you like about what you saw from his offense?
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it's not so much, you know, looking
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: at his offenses, it's looking at the data analytics and
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: what the analytics say. And the analytics say that they
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: are producing a lot of yards offensively. I don't remember
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: saying if it's four hundred and forty yards of offense
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  Speaker 1: on average over the course of his ten years, you know,
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  Speaker 1: he's producing points higher than the national average on a
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  Speaker 1: consistent basis. And so when you begin he looks you know,
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  Speaker 1: he talks about being balanced, you know, run and throw.
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  Speaker 1: So I think when you put all of those things
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  Speaker 1: together over not just a short period of time, but
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  Speaker 1: over ten years and then even prior to that, as
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: an offensive coordinator, you have a long, you know, demonstrated
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: track record that you can count on the fact that
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  Speaker 1: you know this is going to replicate itself.