UConn Football HC Jim Mora talks Delaware game week
UConn Football head coach Jim Mora met with the media today, as he offered his final thoughts on the overtime loss versus Syracuse and previewed this weekend’s matchup against Delaware.
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Full Press Conference Transcript
Well, we’ve had about 64 hours. We’ve had four meetings to walk through in a practice to learn the lessons in a really tough loss Saturday, and now we’re in the process of applying those lessons and moving forward. We’re playing a good Delaware team.
I mean, they are tough, they are physical, they are disciplined, they play with great effort, they’re stout, they’ve had a lot of success, they know how to win. They’re at home coming off of a difficult loss on the road at Colorado, which when you watch the film, the score is not
indicative of the way they played the game. They play an unorthodox type of defense.They understand it, they play it well. I think that their offense runs, operates well with either quarterback, but they do a nice job with misdirection stuff. They do a nice job of involving the quarterback in the run game and the pass game.
I think that their left tackle is an outstanding player. They’ve got a really good running back, and so going on the road imposes on us a pretty significant challenge, but our guys have responded well, and like I said, it’s been two and a half days. We’ve had four meetings to walk through in a practice, and I think that they’re focused on how we get better and improve as a football team every day.
Malachi is doing well. Tyrese played well. He’s like everyone. We all have to focus on getting better every single day, improving on the little things that hurt us in the game, but he brings a level of physicality to our defense in the secondary that I think is really important. I mean, there’s no fear in him. He flies in there. He sacrifices his body. He plays the game the way you’re supposed to play it on defense. It’s impressive to watch.
Yeah, but you have to be in the right place all the time if you want to have success against good football teams. I think you have to look at it. He’s got a winner’s mentality, and he is a… I’m gonna tell you something that’s one of the most impressive things that none of us ever noticed because he’s a wide receiver, is Skyler Bell’s willingness to block.
He’s a very good and willing blocker, and if you go back to the first play of our season, he went and put his body on somebody hard, you know, and so that along with his ability to make the clutch catches in the key moments, I mean, that was a one-headed catch on fourth and ten, you know. That says a lot just about his competitive makeup, about who he is, how important it is for him to be an all-around good player, you know, the blocking and the clutch plays, so, and he doesn’t have bad measurables. I mean, he’s 198 pounds, I believe, right now.
He’s done a really good job of, you know, increasing his body mass, and he hasn’t lost speed as we saw, you know, when he broke it down the sideline against CCSU, but, I mean, you want your team to be filled with guys that are like Skyler Bell, you know, that have that makeup, that mental makeup, and that competitive makeup. Yeah, there’s a confidence, you know, and we’ve
got good players, and they take it very seriously, and I thought, you know, from what I’ve seen, that it was a very difficult loss, and it lingered, and then they flushed it. They didn’t flush it without, you know, like I said, learning the lessons and then working to apply them, because that’s the only way that you get better, and you’ve got to spend all week.You can’t just say, I got it, good enough. I mean, you’ve got to just really dive into the details every single day, and that’s the message that you have to give your football team, is, you know, you got to keep applying those lessons, and we got to build consistency. We’ve got to make sure that in pressure moments that we are consistent in doing our job, all of us, you know.
I’m not just talking about the players, all of us, and that’s how you become a good football team, consistency. You stack routine plays on top of each other. Well, you learn a lot of things. I’ll tell you what I’m impressed by is the fact that in two games now, in situations where we had to kind of respond to a negative situation, you know, early versus CCU and late versus Syracuse this last week, is that we were able to hold our composure offensively and move the ball and
score points and respond, and you know, that to me is a sign of maturity and confidence, and guys believing in each other and trusting what we’re doing, you know. The atmosphere on a sideline is so different than it is even in row one, you know, or up in the stands or up in the press box or on TV. The intensity of those moments is incredible, and it’s easy for immature or
younger players that haven’t been in those environments to kind of implode, and you know, there was some implosion by certain members of our program last week, but I’m proud of the way our players have been able to maintain their composure and focus and go out and make plays.Well, I personally and I think our team, we have a ton of confidence in Zach. I think he’s a very, very good snapper, and he understands how serious those mistakes have been and what they’ve cost us, and he takes it very seriously and he works very hard at it. You know, it’s just being consistent in his approach every day and the routine going out on the field every day.
You know, I think it’s kickers and snappers and punters, I’ve said this before, they’re much like golfers, you know. You only get so many swings in a tournament or it’s snaps in a game, and every single one is so important. It’s different than playing other positions where you might get 60 snaps, and if you have a couple bad snaps, you know, you can make up for it.
So, it takes a really mentally strong, mentally tough person to do those things, and I believe that Zach is very mentally strong and he’s a mentally tough kid, and I think that he will be really good going forward because he owns it, you know. He doesn’t rationalize it, he owns it, and that’s how you get better. I thought we were much more physical and aggressive, and we flew
to the football the way that I think people that watched us last year were used to seeing.Now, that has to be a 60-minute thing, you know. It can’t be hit and miss, it can’t be here and there, and so it was much, much better, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. Well, they’ve always been an outstanding FCS school, and they’ve always had, you know, success. They’ve got continuity amongst their staff. They’ve always had tough, physically, tough, physical, tough-minded players, you know, that play with effort and discipline, and when you have that, you have a chance to compete against people, you know, and to beat people. So, I think that it’s, I don’t know what their commitment is financially, or I don’t know anything about them.
All I know is when I watch them on film, you know, there’s no way I know those things. I’m just not saying I don’t know anything about them. I know a lot about them as a football team, but you just are impressed.
You’re just like, okay, that’s a damn good football team. I don’t care that they just came up from FCS level. It doesn’t matter. They’re a really good football team, and that’s what you would expect out of them, you know,
just tough, hard-nosed, gritty, freaking work-hard kids, and I respect the hell out of that. Yeah, the down-to-down consistency, the ability in a really high-pressure environment, in a critical moment, to perform the way you’ve played up to that, perform the way you’ve performed up to that moment, and not let the moment get too big for you, you know, and you know, there’s a lot of guys on that defense that came here to be the guy, you know, that maybe weren’t the guy at the last place that they were, or they’ve leveled up from a lower level, and you’d like to think just because they’ve been in college football that they’ve been in those moments, but they haven’t necessarily. Now, we can’t allow them to have excuses.We can’t make excuses for ourselves at any point, and we just have to get better at that, you know. We talked about that. We talk about it constantly, actually, and that’s one of the reasons we practice the way we practice, to try to create the maximum amount of pressure we can in
practice so that at least it’s close to what it’s going to be like in a game, and they react properly.Is it a matter of consistency? Like, they haven’t played with the guy next to them, so maybe they don’t quite know how to react, and it’s kind of an individual’s late-in-game trying to make plays? Maybe, sometimes. You can’t really, like, put it on one thing. You can use the word consistency
and be absolutely accurate, absolutely accurate, but it’s like, what is the inconsistent moment?Like, it’s hard for me to put my finger on one thing, you know. It’s multiple things, but yes, it is a lack of consistency. I wouldn’t say that it has anything to do with not playing with the man next to them at this point, okay. So, it’s just a focus.
It really, and I said it after the game, and I’d say it after any game, is it’s being able to line up play, after play, after play, after play, after play, after play, and have the discipline mentally to do your job, no matter what the situation is, you know. You’re one of 11, just do your job, and Matt talks about it all the time, is, you know, being a good defense is stacking the routine plays
over and over and over again, just stacking up the routine plays, and then when the time comes to make an extraordinary play, being in position to make it because you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, and listen, that is every team, every player, every coach, every sport, you know.Every coach would tell you that, and so I don’t know what the magic formula is other than to emphasize it and work at it, and our guys do that, and they don’t resist when you tell them that. They know, they know, you know. They’re trying, they’re trying, they’re trying. So, I mean, you guys, if you’ve had kids, you know, it’s just, you know, the mind goes, you know, you pull them
back in, so.It can be a confusing defense to prepare for, you know, when you only have three or four days to prepare for it, and you haven’t seen things like this, and the movement, and the disruption we try to cause up front, and it’s not, it’s not a thing that we’ve played in, you know. So, there’s some different things that they’re doing that they maybe haven’t done in the past, and the
more that they do them, then the more consistent they can become doing them, the more violently they can do them, and you know, when I, defense is a game of aggression, right, and physicality, and in a violent effort, and when you’re more confident because you’ve done it more, then you’re gonna be able to act more efficiently. So, yeah, I mean, we’re gonna grow together, you know, and I saw a big step on Saturday.Now, you got to back it up by taking another step up this week. Joe, you know, I think he kind of goes to the, really back to the start of the CCSU game, and then this week, and then you see it every day in practice, you know, he’s did a two-minute drill, and he’s just poised, he has composure, he has confidence, he understands situations, he’s unflappable, and that is experience, and maturity, you know, and intelligence, and it’s really nice to have that, really, really nice to have that, you know, to feel like you got a guy back there that’s going to understand the situation, and he’s not going to panic, and he’s going to make the right decision.
We’re talking about Mel Brown today. How well does he suit your offense, both with the outside zone scheme, and as a complement to him?
I think he’s just a great fit. I think, like you said, the outside zone stuff, the jet sweep stuff, the catch in the ball, and the open field things that he can do, you know, when you get Mel in space, he’s tough to deal with defensively. He’s a great complement to Cam.
You know, they have really different running styles, and yet they both fit the scheme that we run offensively. You know, you got Cam, who’s, he’s a bully, but he can break it, and you’ve got Mel, who’s not as much of a bully, he’s more shifty in the hole, but he can break it as well, you know, and then you’re throwing Victor, who’s a combination of both of those guys, and an outstanding receiver out of the backfield, it’s a good, you know, threesome right there. You know, you’re always looking for ways to creatively put points on the board, force your opponent to prepare for things that they see on film, involve players, you know, you see us using.
Terrence a lot, you know, using John a lot, rotating our receivers and our backs through and our tight ends, you know, figuring out what guys do well and putting them in a position to do what they do well, and John, you know, it was good to get him in there and get him that shot, and you know, I went up and I went and looked at his high school stats, they were pretty darn impressive.
I think his senior year, didn’t he throw like 30-something touchdowns and run for a lot of yards as a quarterback? So, you know, he’s, you talk about a success story, I mean, still developing success story, but John Nider walked on here, I think was in the Connecticut State Player of the Year, walks on here as a quarterback, we move him to receiver, nobody can cover him on the scout team, and now he’s a scholarship athlete, you know, helping us win games. So, you know, guys like that, they make it fun to coach.
Yeah, he’s still got so much potential to get better, that’s what’s exciting, is to see the progress that he’s made, and I can’t even overstate this, and I’ve told you guys this before, when we looked at the film of him playing football in the Bronx, all right, you couldn’t even hardly find him on the film because that it was like somebody, you know, taking their phone out and videotaped it, you know, but Siriki went and saw him, and spent time with him, and learned about him and his background, and how he grew up, and you know, what his goals were, and there was just something in there that kind of spoke to Siriki.
They had, you know, a little bit of a similar background, and Siriki was right, and this kid’s got a chance as he develops to be a really, really special player here. You know, Jackson Mitchell, I only got to coach Jackson for one year, I think, was it one year, the first year, you know, and I’m getting to spend a lot of time with Jackson now because he’s my, living at my house as one of my sons, but you know, Jackson, I think, is a really good judge of talent, and Jackson’s, you know, spent some time in the NFL, and he agrees, and he sees special things in Oumar, you know, so yeah, we’re excited about the direction he’s going. Jackson’s doing a fantastic job, by the way.
He’s built for this. He told me the other day, he said, this is what I want to do. He goes, I love coaching, so it’s really fun to have him, and Durante, and Caleb, and all those guys around.
Like, they give you juice, you know, and when you bring in a lot of transfers, they can kind of confirm for the new guys, like, this is what it’s about, and this is where we were, and this is where we’re headed, so it’s nice to have those guys around. Why? Well, he’s hard-working. He’s smart. He understands the game. He really works at it, you know. I mean, listen, he’s out the door at 5:20 a.m. every morning, you know.
I mean, I hear the ringer go off. He’s very disciplined. When he comes home, he gets a bottle of water, and he goes and puts his head down, you know.
When he’s here, he’s always working, you know, whether it’s looking at high school players or, you know, he takes the scout team out at 730 in the morning and gets them prepared. He takes the backup linebackers out in the afternoon and just walks through some things with them, so there’s just a complete dedication, and he wants to be a good football. He wants to be a football coach, but he wants to be a really good football coach, and when you look at him, you know, you see traits in him that say, not only will he be a really good football coach, but at some point in his life, he will be a really good head football coach, hopefully here at the University of Connecticut, you know.
Mr. Connecticut, great player here, becoming the head coach here, and he has all those qualities that he’d make this state really proud. Now, not too soon, okay? Not too soon, all right, but I think that highly of him. Why? Oh, it’s a fraternity over there. It’s a fraternity. I got, right now, there’s four. Four, I got four of the staff staying there, and it fluctuates
It might end up being five some days and six, and, you know, it was really cool when Chase and Val were going through the pre-draft process to have those two big guys living with us, and I don’t know if I’ve told you the stories about, like, Val cooking for us, and, you know, his grandma’s favorite recipe he made for Kathy and I on Super Bowl Sunday. You know, we come in, and he’s got Austrian music playing, and he’s got the food out, and, you know, of course, she loved it because she loves to cook, and she’s got two 6’7″, 310-pound guys that will eat anything, so it’s been pretty cool. It’s pretty cool, so.
All right, you guys have a great day.
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