Latest / Coaches Corner / UConn FB Coach's Show Seg 2 - Aug 21
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Man. We're here live man iHeart Headquarters in Hartford, live
- 0:04Speaker 1: audience with US enthusiastic. Ben Darnell is jacking them up
- 0:09Speaker 1: during the commercials and we're getting after it. We coach Jimoa.
- 0:13Speaker 1: A week from Saturday, Yukon kicks it off at Maryland
- 0:16Speaker 1: against the Cherripins. Radio coverage ten thirty, Bob Joyce, a
- 0:19Speaker 1: hard auto group count down to kickoff. Then Wayne Adam
- 0:22Speaker 1: and myself will have the game broadcast at twelve New
- 0:24Speaker 1: and here along the Yukon Sports Network, Avarcity Network at
- 0:27Speaker 1: varsitynetwork dot com. So Jimora with us. One thing I
- 0:31Speaker 1: was thinking about on the way over here, and that
- 0:33Speaker 1: is it's different for you now as a coach or
- 0:35Speaker 1: any head coach in college because of all the transfers
- 0:39Speaker 1: we're seeing. You're coaching players who were coached by other
- 0:42Speaker 1: college coaches. You're not getting the high school guy who
- 0:46Speaker 1: had his high school coach teaching him football. How different
- 0:50Speaker 1: is that and what kind of problems, if any, does
- 0:52Speaker 1: that really present?
- 0:54Speaker 2: Well, there's potential problems if you select the wrong transfer
- 0:57Speaker 2: to bring into your program that maybe is a mercenary,
- 1:00Speaker 2: doesn't have a team. First attitude is thinking, you know, Hey,
- 1:03Speaker 2: I'll be here for a few months and I'll go
- 1:05Speaker 2: to the league and it's all about me. We've been
- 1:07Speaker 2: very fortunate, especially this year, and that the twenty seven
- 1:09Speaker 2: guys we brought in have kind of surrendered themselves to
- 1:13Speaker 2: you know, the Yukon football culture, which I think is
- 1:16Speaker 2: so important for us to have success. And they're good
- 1:20Speaker 2: people and they listen. So it's still just coaching. But
- 1:23Speaker 2: it's a really it's a good question. That's when I
- 1:25Speaker 2: think about a lot, is you know, what's this going
- 1:27Speaker 2: to do to the dynamics that we have here and
- 1:29Speaker 2: what we're trying to build by bringing in someone that has,
- 1:32Speaker 2: you know, maybe a different a different background, They've been
- 1:34Speaker 2: coached a different way, they've been held to different standards.
- 1:38Speaker 2: But we've been very lucky. You know, our guys, the
- 1:40Speaker 2: guys we brought in really good people, really good football players.
- 1:45Speaker 2: You know, this is just a new world in college
- 1:47Speaker 2: sports and it's going to change even more here soon.
- 1:50Speaker 2: So you just have to keep adapting and hope you
- 1:52Speaker 2: make the right decisions on the guys that you bring
- 1:54Speaker 2: in and that they're you know, they're here for the
- 1:56Speaker 2: right reasons, and you know, sometimes you know, I think
- 2:01Speaker 2: we worry the right reason is or the reason they're
- 2:03Speaker 2: here is money. But I think at the end of
- 2:05Speaker 2: the day, they are all competitors and if you show
- 2:08Speaker 2: them as a coach that you can help them prolong
- 2:11Speaker 2: their career, giving them an opportunity to know potentially go
- 2:14Speaker 2: to the next level, and then they're always going to
- 2:16Speaker 2: buy in that.
- 2:17Speaker 1: We are hearing from the players that during camp this
- 2:21Speaker 1: quite often. Well, I came here to play for Jim
- 2:23Speaker 1: Moore because he's a player's coach. And I've heard that
- 2:26Speaker 1: in my whole career covering football in any sport, and
- 2:29Speaker 1: I still don't get it. So tell me what that means.
- 2:32Speaker 1: You're a player's coach. Well, of course you're a player's coach.
- 2:36Speaker 2: Well, it's about investing in your players and building trust.
- 2:39Speaker 2: You know, you can only coach them as hard as
- 2:43Speaker 2: to the level even investing in them. You know, otherwise
- 2:47Speaker 2: they don't trust you, they don't think you care about them.
- 2:50Speaker 2: So I think being a player's coach means showing that
- 2:53Speaker 2: you know, I'm here. My job is to serve you,
- 2:56Speaker 2: to help you get better. You know, I want you
- 2:59Speaker 2: to stand on my should to achieve what you want.
- 3:01Speaker 2: I don't want you. I don't want to stand on
- 3:03Speaker 2: your shoulders to try to get what I want. I
- 3:06Speaker 2: think it's just, you know, the way you talk to them,
- 3:08Speaker 2: the way you treat them, it doesn't mean that you're soft.
- 3:10Speaker 2: I mean I'm not. I'm not easy on them. I'm
- 3:12Speaker 2: hard on them, you know. But I think every day
- 3:16Speaker 2: about just you know, if I'm going to coach them hard,
- 3:19Speaker 2: I got to love them harder, you know. And that's
- 3:21Speaker 2: kind of a philosophy. I always had them because I'm
- 3:22Speaker 2: going to coach them hard and I'm going to get
- 3:24Speaker 2: after him and I'm be demanding. But they need to
- 3:26Speaker 2: know that it's it's coming from a really good spot
- 3:30Speaker 2: and they can never doubt that. And once they doubt it,
- 3:33Speaker 2: it's it's you know, it's it's tough to get them back.
- 3:36Speaker 1: You know, football players are competitors more than maybe any
- 3:39Speaker 1: other athlete in my mind, because it takes so much
- 3:43Speaker 1: to be a football player and it's all that commitment
- 3:46Speaker 1: you talked about. So when you get guys through the
- 3:49Speaker 1: transfer portal, just tell me about that process, because you're
- 3:53Speaker 1: on a phone with them, a zoom call. Did they
- 3:55Speaker 1: come to see you? What's it like and how do
- 3:57Speaker 1: you make a decision, well I like this guy. I
- 3:59Speaker 1: want this guy to play ukon football.
- 4:01Speaker 2: Well I never speed dated, but I would assume it's
- 4:05Speaker 2: something like speed dating. You know, you in high school recruiting,
- 4:09Speaker 2: you're building a relationship with these guys, sometimes starting when
- 4:12Speaker 2: they're sophomore is even younger. You know, you get to
- 4:15Speaker 2: know their families, and you get to know their college coaches,
- 4:17Speaker 2: and you get to know them pretty intimately as people,
- 4:20Speaker 2: and you know what their background is, and you know
- 4:22Speaker 2: how they grew up. In the transfer portal, you know,
- 4:26Speaker 2: decisions are being made within hours days. You know, rarely
- 4:30Speaker 2: is it a week or more than a week that
- 4:32Speaker 2: a guy goes in and isn't jumping somewhere else. So
- 4:36Speaker 2: the most important thing you can do is get them
- 4:39Speaker 2: on campus, get to know them, get them around your players.
- 4:42Speaker 2: Sometimes guys have a tendency to let their hair down
- 4:44Speaker 2: when they're not around a coach, but they're around a
- 4:46Speaker 2: player and then and then you know, trust your player's judgment.
- 4:50Speaker 2: If they say, hey, this guy's not want one of us,
- 4:53Speaker 2: or if they say, hey, this is the kind of
- 4:54Speaker 2: guy we want our team, trust them. You do background
- 4:57Speaker 2: and work on them. You know, you talk to high
- 4:59Speaker 2: school coaches, you talk to their college coaches from the
- 5:01Speaker 2: places they're coming from. That typically someone on our staff
- 5:04Speaker 2: has a relationship, and then you trust your gut and
- 5:07Speaker 2: you cross your fingers and you hope they're the right
- 5:10Speaker 2: right types of people. I think last year we made
- 5:12Speaker 2: several mistakes that hurt us. This year at this point,
- 5:17Speaker 2: you know, we're ten days out from the first game,
- 5:19Speaker 2: but I haven't felt like there's many mistakes in terms
- 5:23Speaker 2: of the type of person or the type of player
- 5:25Speaker 2: we're bringing in.
- 5:26Speaker 1: And they come from all over the place, Perdue, I'm
- 5:29Speaker 1: looking at some of the school's Michigan, Colorado, TCU, Kansas State, Syracuse,
- 5:35Speaker 1: but then smaller schools Central Michigan, Troy, Furman, Tulsa, Eastern Michigan,
- 5:41Speaker 1: Western Kentucky, Akron. What is the difference for a football
- 5:47Speaker 1: player who comes from Big ten school versus a guy
- 5:49Speaker 1: that comes from Akron. You've got a pretty good receiver.
- 5:52Speaker 1: I believe our running back from Akron.
- 5:54Speaker 2: Receiver or he can play. Yeah, he can play. You know,
- 5:58Speaker 2: I think where we sit right now at at University Connecticut,
- 6:02Speaker 2: our football program not being in a conference, not being
- 6:04Speaker 2: in a power, not being in a conference not a
- 6:07Speaker 2: power team. Is there's a little there's there's there's an
- 6:11Speaker 2: opportunity to get some guys that maybe aren't playing enough
- 6:15Speaker 2: at the five p four level, that have the ability
- 6:19Speaker 2: to play, but maybe there's someone in front of them
- 6:20Speaker 2: that's blocking their way, somebody better, maybe the opportunity hasn't
- 6:24Speaker 2: presented itself for him. And then there's these guys that
- 6:26Speaker 2: are at smaller schools that want to want to level up.
- 6:30Speaker 2: And so we kind of hit that that group right there,
- 6:34Speaker 2: and we've been able to find some good players.
- 6:36Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to meet some of them. We're going
- 6:37Speaker 1: to talk about some of these guys too. Like just
- 6:40Speaker 1: for instance, Skyler Belt, one of the wide receivers, came
- 6:42Speaker 1: from the Bronx. So this listened to him the other
- 6:44Speaker 1: day and he went to taft Uh school here in
- 6:47Speaker 1: Connecticut and ended up at Wisconsin. Now is it Connecticut?
- 6:51Speaker 1: So that's that's quite a geographic move if you think
- 6:55Speaker 1: about his career. A city kid goes to a private
- 6:58Speaker 1: school in Connecticut, then to a big ten school, now
- 7:00Speaker 1: he's here at Yukon.
- 7:01Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of great stories on our team.
- 7:03Speaker 2: I mean, you can't imagine when you have one hundred
- 7:05Speaker 2: and fifteen players on your team, and they come from
- 7:07Speaker 2: all over the country, different backgrounds and races and religions,
- 7:12Speaker 2: religions and socioeconomic backgrounds. There's some amazing stories. And he's
- 7:18Speaker 2: a great kid. I mean, he's a good player too.
- 7:21Speaker 2: You know, you starter at Wisconsin. TJ. Sheffield is a
- 7:23Speaker 2: starter at Produce. So you know, I make that comment that,
- 7:26Speaker 2: you know, some of those guys that weren't getting the opportunities,
- 7:28Speaker 2: some of them maybe they just want the ball more,
- 7:30Speaker 2: you know, maybe they didn't like the environment there in
- 7:33Speaker 2: maybe they wanted to, you know, come here and get
- 7:35Speaker 2: coached by this staff. But there's a lot of great stories,
- 7:40Speaker 2: a lot of really really interesting I mean, if you've
- 7:43Speaker 2: heard some of the stories about some of the things
- 7:45Speaker 2: that our kids have gone through in their lives, it
- 7:48Speaker 2: would absolutely blow you away. I mean it's mind boggling,
- 7:53Speaker 2: mind boggling.
- 7:53Speaker 1: We're going to hear some more those stories, I hope,
- 7:55Speaker 1: right all right, Coach Jim moora with us the Yukon
- 7:58Speaker 1: Football Coaches Show here in Hard for at iHeartMedia, Stay
- 8:02Speaker 1: with us or on the Yukon Sports Network