STORRS – Whether it be a compliment or an insult, or anything in between, the UConn football program wants to hear none of it.
After back-to-back wins and three dominant performances at home, a wave of positive energy has surrounded the team. But internally, the Huskies feel they have a ways to go before reaching their potential and don’t want to get caught up in a losing mindset.
“We’ve won three games. Big deal,” head coach Jim Mora said during his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “If we start thinking that’s something special, then failure will follow. We’ve just got to have the mindset that every game is its own entity.”
UConn has outscored opponents 158-34 at home this season and hosts Temple for the third game of six in its uniquely-long homestand on Saturday. The Huskies’ offense, which averaged only 19.1 points per game last season, has nearly doubled its output for 37.2 points per game thus far.
“I think we haven’t even gotten to the point where we can be happy about our performance,” said tight end Alex Honig, who has two touchdown receptions on the year and has been a major blocking asset in the run game.
“It’s always a weird situation when you look at the scoreboard and you have so many points. It’s obviously easy to say you had a good game, but there’s so many little things that we still miss on, a couple throws that we missed on, a couple run fits we didn’t do as well as we want to and we know we can do. So at the end of the day, it’s always good to dominate a defense, but you have to play to your standard and you have to compare yourself to what you’re able to do.”
Honig pointed out different receivers who can still get involved at a higher volume, and noted that watching film from Saturday’s 47-3 win over Buffalo exposed some errors made on “easy stuff” in the run game.
“We have to start with a little bit more intensity, not have lulls in intensity during the game and finish stronger,” Mora said. “I think it means cutting out some of the second half penalties that I’ve talked about that hurt us. We certainly know that we have to be better in the red zone on offense… I don’t think we’ve come close to our potential yet, I just don’t. And the only way we’re gonna reach our potential is to keep the pedal down and keep the pressure on, and keep being demanding and keep holding each other accountable – that’s the only way it works.”
UConn has a friendly schedule moving forward with seven regular season games left, four at home and three on the road. The Huskies have two Power Five games remaining, at home vs. Wake Forest and on the road at Syracuse, where they will be looking for the program’s first road win over a power conference team since 2012.
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ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) metric ranks the Huskies 67th in the nation, about middle of the pack, with an 18.2% chance to win out and a 99.2% chance to win at least six games and be eligible for a second bowl appearance in three years under Mora.
The theme this week: Don’t listen to the noise.
Players like Durante Jones and Jelani Stafford, leaders on defense who’ve seen the way seasons can go tumbling down quickly, know what that is all about and feel a responsibility to keep the locker room focused.
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“The day that you sit there and you think you’re comfortable, that’s when someone comes and steals off your plate,” Stafford said. “We’ve been on the other side of the fence before, we know what that feels like, and we’re not gonna let that happen again. Now that we’ve got this momentum rolling, we just plan to keep showing up every day, putting in the work to make sure we don’t end up like the teams we just played against on the other side of the ball.”
“We were the ones who were part of those downfalls,” Jones added. “Guys that have been here, we know not to listen to the noise because the noise was like trash talk before. Now it’s a pat on the butt. Nah, we can’t fall into that noise… It might seem positive, but those are the same people who were just talking bad on us.”
QB Nick Evers returns to practice as Yates, Rosa near return
Quarterback Nick Evers, who exited Saturday’s game with an apparent head injury for the second time in five weeks, returned to the practice field on Tuesday and “looked great,” according to Mora.
“He’s in great spirits, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, so he looks good,” Mora said. “He had a great demeanor to him… He’s excited to keep improving and that’s fun to be around. You just felt an energy coming off him like, ‘Hey man, I’m getting better. Every rep I take I’m gonna get better.”
Mora said he doesn’t know if Evers will be ready to play on Saturday.
Pryce Yates, a redshirt junior defensive lineman who was expected to start before suffering a concussion in preseason camp and having a setback, could make his season debut on Saturday.
“He was working his tail off, so we’ll see where he is on Saturday. If he’s not there this week, I’ll be surprised and he’ll be ready after the bye, but he was really looking good. He’s really coming along,” Mora said.
Bristol native Victor Rosa, a running back who had surgery on a broken finger before the Duke game, was with the team during team periods in practice on Tuesday. Mora said he has a meeting with doctors Wednesday and should be cleared and ready to go for Saturday.