Seg 1 - FB Show Sept 17 Jim Mora

Coach Jim Mora & Mike Crispino talk UConn Huskies football after the loss at Duke

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Tuesday and time for the Yukon Football Coaches Show.
We get together with Jim Moore each and every week
following Husky football on the weekends. And coach Yukon had
a chance, I mean a real chance against Duke after
that tremendous comeback from seventeen down. Not many teams can
do that. LSU, I think pulled it off at South

(00:22):
Carolina over the weekend. But that's a big hill to climb.
You guys were in a deep hole there in the
first half. First of all, the sentiment on the sideline.
It can be tough when the other team's got three
scores on you and you haven't got anything on the
board yet. What were you sensing on your sideline there
when things didn't look great in the second quarter.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Well, resolve a lot of resolve energy and we don't
look at the scoreboard, or at least we try not to.
You just got to play the play in front of
you and try to you know, stat good plays on
top of each other. If you're going to be influenced
by external factors and you're going to be very inconsistent,
and that's something that we're trying to avoid.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, that Duke team came in unbeaten, really good defense.
We talked about it last week on the show. You
were able to do some good things on offense. I thought,
moved the ball, scored, got the lead. Let's go back
to that defensive play that kind of turned the game
around for you. Two. For me, a Brown gets up
and I love when linebackers and d lineman get their

(01:24):
hands up in the quarterbacks passing lanes and create distractions.
And that one he not only created a distraction, he
created a turnover and he and Langston Hardy had a
nice run down the field from sixty four yards out.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Well, it was something we'd worked on all week, that
particular formation. How too, he was going to enter, you know,
how he's going to react to the quarterback if he
was unblocked, and he just executed it like you're supposed
to execute it. He didn't leave his feet and jump
and give the quarterback a chance to scramble. He just
ran right through it, got his hands up and then Langston,

(02:00):
you know, because he was giving good effort on the
other side, was there to scoop it up and look
pretty good running into the end zone. You know, he
looked like a like a track athlete. So uh, you know,
you got to you gotta make plays like that. That
was our first takeaway of the year. And you know,
we we've got to take the football away. You know,
that's part of being a good defense. And I've been emphasizing,
you know, the doing your job and the play entry

(02:21):
and the leverage and the tackling, but it's also about
taking the football away. So it was good to finally
get one. And then you know, hopefully they come in bunches.
You know, oftentimes they do. You know, the gate kind
of opens and and here we go, So hopefully that's
the case.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, you almost had another one too, an interception. I
think camp Chadwick had a real chance to pick one
off later in the game. Uh So, obviously we talk
about turnovers every week. That was a big one and
that really catapulted the team. And at halftime, you know,
there's always something to be worked on and strategy wise, well,
what what did you say to the team when you

(02:59):
got in there. I mean, you got back into game,
but you're still down ten points.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, I mean our messaging doesn't change a lot. It's
about you know, executing your assignment, doing your job, putting
pressure on your opponent, living in the moment, you know, fighting,
being physical, being violent. You know, it's a lot of
times it's just it's minor adjustments that you need to
make schematically, but your mindset should always be the same.

(03:25):
So it's just kind of reinforcing the things that you
know that you believe are important as a program. And
you know, if you were in there with us, week
in and week out with me for most of my career,
the messaging doesn't change a lot. You know, you want
to be consistent. The things that are important remain important,
whether you're ahead, behind in a tie. You know, whether

(03:47):
you're fighting your way back or trying to hold someone off.
The mindset has to remain the same. And so consistent messaging,
I believe is really important. And so we just continue
to stress the things that we believe are going to
help us have a chance to well.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
You know, I'm talking to a lot of Yukon fans
over the weekend after the game. They really like what
they're seeing. This team looks like it's improving. I think
you said in your press conference this morning, we're making progress,
but you fail to win. So how do you take that?
Where you are week three now into week four and

(04:22):
take another step forward.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Every week has to be independent of the week that
you just had, whether you win a big game, where
you lose a tough game. You have to compete with
yourself and your potential every single week, and you have
to take the lessons learned from the game that you
just played and applying going forward, whether they were things

(04:44):
you did well or things you need to do better.
But you have to have the same approach each week,
and that's to maximize every opportunity to get better. That's
every play of every practice. That's to have the right mindset.
That's to make sure that you're taking care of the details,
doing the work. I believe that that's the way that
you can avoid you know, inconsistency and up and down performances.
I believe that's the way that you can continually get better.

(05:07):
And our guys believe that as well. And we really
don't have bad practices. That doesn't mean there aren't part
of practices that are not you know, perfect and we
but that's also part of practice learning how to overcome,
you know, things that aren't going well for you and
get back on track. So once again, it's just kind
of a consistency of approach. I think that that helped you.

(05:29):
It's you know a lot of people call it the
you know what your process is? You know, to me,
it's who we are, it's how we do things, is
what we believe in.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
I remember well when Dick Vermeil was going went to
the Eagles and he was talking about that. I don't
know if he used that word, but anyway, he got
it going in the right direction. Philly went crazy. He
was using things words like that process. We got to
work on what we're doing. We got to get a process,
we got to get better. I mean that stuff has
been going on since the beginning of time. As in

(05:59):
it with coaches.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, I mean we all want the same result, which
is to win. But you know what is going to
create the best opportunity for you to win, Well, that's
doing the work. That's making sure that you are taking
care of them minute details, and that's creating the right mindset.
And that's the same every week. And you just got

(06:21):
to continue to drill that into your players and into
your program. And if you do that, then I think
you always have a chance to get better. And you know,
I was lucky enough as a little little boy to
be around coach for Meal, and he's always been a
mentor to me. My dad worked for him at UCLA
when I was I don't know, twelve years old, so

(06:42):
I've known him forever. And you know, he's always had
some pretty darn good words of wisdom if you listen
closely to the man, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, he's a great coach. Loved him. Yeah, all right,
we'll be back with Jim Moore. We've got a lot
of a lot to talk about. Run game was good,
a lot of things happened on the plus side for
the Huskies at Duke and they hope to carry it
over against Florida Atlantic and a night game on Saturday
Night at the Rent. This is the Yukon Football Coaching
Show on Learfield.