HC Jim Mora - July 29

Coach customer, your fourth summer camp. Here thoughts tomorrow, maybe just some quit thoughts and then we'll have some questions.

Sure.

So's we're going into year four and I think we've made a lot of progress, but we believe that there's a lot of progress still to be made and we're looking forward to integrating some of the new additions, both on the coaching staff and on the player side, and trying to reach our potential. And we had a good meeting this morning about you know, what our objectives are, what our goals are, how we're going to attain those.

Was pretty rare.

When I wasn't here, I got reports from our strength and conditioning coordinator, Tyson Brown and he, you know, he sent me a text one day and he said, we just had they called PRP player run practice, and he happened to walk by it and he said it was one of the most intense player run practice I've ever seen in my career coaching, and he's been at some

How much does last year's success drive what happened this offseason to just when you're hungry and he tasted.

You probably want more. I think that it helped us in recruiting. Certainly in the portal.

We were able to get people to pay attention to us and maybe wouldn't have in the past. You know, at least get in a fight with him and win.

Some of those battles.

It gives you a little momentum, but you know, momentums fleeting. So we won't spend any time thinking.

About last year at all.

Eyes are forward all the time, and we'll try to build on what we've you know, accomplished and take steps forward. But it won't be a rallying crying like that. But I will tell you this, it did help us become more attractive to prospective players, and that was, you know, one of for us internally going forward, that was one of the most positive things, you know, externally, Hopefully it builds some excitement and you know, hopefully we can build

Exciting to have so many skilled players coming back.

With some talent.

Yeah, it's a different looking team, I think in the skill positions. If you want to start at quarterback, you know, I think there's four players there that are all really good football players, kind of different points in their career, but all really talented football players. I look at the running back room and it's a good looking room. You look at the receiver room, it's a good looking room. There's some depth, you know, as well as some talents.

So I think there's a couple of things.

Number One, you're able to, you know, when you have some success, like I said, draw more attention, get better players. But it's also a testament to the way they've been coached and the way they've especially taken the coaching, you know, on the field and then in the weight room, the strength and conditioning stuff. So we're a better looking team than we've ever been since I've been in here.

Jimmy, I know that the goalpost is always moving around on these things now, But what was the process? How did to play out for Joe to get a seventh year and come back again?

I don't even have a clue, all right, and I'm not going to question it. Somebody told me it was I think it was right before the Bowl game and somebody said, you know, Joe has another year and I was like, okay, great.

I didn't want to know what it was because I didn't want to jinx it.

So, you know, I think with the COVID situation that happened a few years back, there was just a lot more fluidity and eligibility requirements. And I doubt he'll get an eighth, but we'll take his seventh, that's for sure.

So I mean for somebody like him, you know, it's an opportunity to make some money playing football he's probably not going to have when he's done here, so it's very much worth yeah while to come back and play a seventh year.

You know, it's a chance for him to make some money now and put himself in a position where he can make some.

Money after here.

You know, I would not write Joe off as a guy that will finish his career at Yukon. I think that Joe is pretty special. I think there's some real qualities and certainly, you know, he's going to be a mature player when he gets done playing here, And you know, I think that he has a lot of value not just at this level, but at the next level, whether it's the NFL or the USFL or candidate. I think

When you lose.

So many guys on the front seven defense, is.

It easier Maybe not easier, but to get guys out of the portal saying you know, we have spots opening.

Yeah.

You know, players in the portal a lot of times are looking for opportunity, and whether that's someone coming from a power for a conference team that wants more reps, or it's a guy that's coming from a smaller school that wants more exposure and maybe a higher level of competition. When you have opportunities that are present and they see them, it does make it easier to you know, to convince them.

To come to Yukon. And there's a lot of things that convince them to come here, you.

Know, you know, kind of building up and try to become successful. Obviously, our facilities in the fields they look great that you know, the academics here, and the environment of this campus is this city, it's there's a lot of things that are going for us right now. So, but opportunity is a thing that seems to drive most of the decisions that the players make when they come here.

How would you describe what it's like to recruit in twenty twenty five. Everything you have to consider from nil to portal to rep share.

It's chaos. Yeah, it's chaotic, but it's also fun. It's invigorating, it's challenging. It takes a lot of work, a lot of time. You have to stay on it, you know. I think high school recruiting hasn't changed a lot, although you might recruit fewer players and it's a longer process. You're developing relationships with these young men and their families. I think a portal is more like speed dating, you know, along with you know, how much can we pay you and what.

Are your opportunities?

So, you know, in the portal, you have to learn about someone's character and their motivations very very quickly. And we've been able to do that and I think be pretty successful, because the.

Portal can be dangerous.

You know, you don't necessarily know what you're getting, you know, because you don't have that chance to develop a relationship like you're with a high school player, and when you're trying to develop an environment or a culture, or an attitude or you know, a system, you've got to make sure that you're bringing the right people in and keeping the right people out, and that can be challenging the portal.

I don't know exactly how many new players you have. I don't either. I haven't. I haven't counted. It's in order.

It's so fluid, well, like everything, it's probably it's a lot.

It's a lot. Yeah.

Did you have a general idea for how many players you'd be bringing into the program coming off of last year?

And does that fluctuate as.

You have a moment?

It fluctuates daily because you're not always sure who's going to enter the portal from your team that you're going to need to replace. You know, they don't necessarily tell you. Some guys will tell you early. Some guys wait till the end. Some guys are kind of back and forth.

You've seen that. We've had some guys that have gone in the portal and then come back.

I think I've tried to be really flexible with the players on our team. If they want to, you know, go into the portal for a legitimate reason and maybe extend what their value is or get closer to home or things like that, and they're guys that we value, then we're going to try to We're going to try to recruit them back to our program. But yeah, it's it's very very fluid. I guess you'd probably say it's

Guy like Skyler haven't been back.

I feel a lot of people are fishing and trying to hook him. But what does it say for him to come back about your program? About the loyalty he is way to come back here?

It says I think a lot about our program, and says even more about him and what motivates him. You know, he's he understands that he has a chance to be part of something special, you know, kind of building a program back.

I think that the loyalty he's shown to the.

School and and and to his teammates, is it speaks volumes, you know, because he is a prominent player. He had to remember during the Bowl practices, you know, he missed a couple of practices because he had a chance to go to Michigan and they offered him a lot of money, and he decided to stay here.

You know, I don't know that this number is exactly accurate, but it's pretty close.

Just in the spring portal alone, we had players that were approached legally or illegally and offered three point three million dollars that they left on the table to come back to Connecticut. And I think that says a lot about the program, the school, the community, you know, their team, their teammates, and certainly about their characters.

So that's something we're excited about.

You talk about the port of them, How shady can that place be? You talk about it them like speed Danny when you're trying to get in there. But how there's some dark, weird stuff going on there too.

Yeah, I mean, campering is rampant, and I've made my statements pretty clear about how I feel about tampering. We won't tamper, And if people do want to tamper with our players, and we have a legitimate reason to believe that it's that it's happening, and we're going to call them out, you know, until the NCAA decides if they want to do something about it, and we're going to try to do something about it. It's just I think it's you're teaching bad lessons. You're teaching the wrong lessons

Of market and then to maintain the essence of what you want to teach these guys when you're up against that.

Well, we just worry about what we do when we're in this building.

You know, the things that we say, the way we act, but we're not afraid to defend ourselves. Certainly, you know, but not for us. It's just trying to be true to what we are all about, you know, what we value and and like I said, getting the right types of young men in this program.

And we've been I believe fortunate to do that. But you know the proofs in the putting.

This is all Every coach in America is standing here today full of enthusiasm and optimism.

So we've got to make it happen. Kind But when guys go too, you're always open them up on Twitter and do other coaches you communicated with? I do when I'm recruiting them. Yeah.

Now, I think what's happened now is that coaches are more likely to communicate with each other about what players are actually being offered. You're seeing sometimes, and it's not real prominent, but you'll see people that are acting as agents for players, and they're not always truthful about what other teams are offering. So I simply, you know, pick up the phone and if we're in competition with somebody, call them and say, hey.

This is what we're offering them, what do you offer them? And that comes from my NFL background. You know, there was disclosure of information.

Agents had to be certified so everybody knew what they were competing against. I mean, college. I don't want to compete against ghosts. I want to compete against the truth. So I'm gonna call people and ask them what it is. And then with regards to our players that want to leave, you know, listen, I have to I have to live what I preach to these guys, and so it's not all about ball.

It's about their future.

So if they, you know, are adamant that they want to leave, or maybe we've asked them maybe hey, there's a better place for you, then I think it's my responsible responsibility to help them get somewhere where they can have that success that they're after.

Is there an area that you're really excited about the jump maybe from spring to now that you're getting peked up to see and actually when you're getting ready for the season. I know you don't usually like to mention individuals, but is there is it taking big jumps?

Yeah, there's guys that appear to have taken big jumps, but we'll see when we get out here on the grass. I'm really excited about, you know, the potential of the wide receiver room. You know, I think it's it's it's deep, and it's talented. At least that's my perception at this point in time. You know, we're going to find out and see how they hold up out here. But I think that that's a group that that could excite people.

Can you look at the coaches room and you see at Jackson Mitchell and Johnnie Stafford. Does that give you an extra sense of pride to know that they want to get into coaching after being under you and they want to start here.

Yeah, and I want them here. You know, you look at Deronte's here. You know he's in scouting, but he helps him coaching. And you mentioned Jelani and Jackson Mitchell, who's you know, living at my house with me. And then Caleb Anthony is on our staff, My son's on our staff.

Now Johnny Pagano's son's on our staff.

Now you know, people that have a football background, but primarily Yukon players that want to get started in this business and need a jump start. We're going to do all we can to help them, you know, because in college football that is so important. You know in the recruiting rooms, you know, with the parents being able to sit there as an next player and tell them exactly what it's like here from their mouth is really important.

With so many new new faces.

It excites me.

You know, I'm looking behind me and I see them on there and and uh, you know, I know that Donovan Branch, you know, those guys returners, they know what to expect, they know what expect of them. And then I have great confidence in the defensive coaching staff.

You know, they're tremendous coaches and they have a group of players that just soak up everything that they say and apply it to the best of their ability. So I'm excited about it. Yeah, I'm not nervous about it.

I mean, I got great faith in Coach Brocking those guys and the players.

And do you see any value or anything positive in any of the legislation that's been proposed or the executive order that was issued regarding college sports? College football?

I don't pay a lot of attention to it. I just don't have the bandwidth to do it. And it's it's so fluid, it changes so often. I kind of feel like I don't want to get in that emotional game of going back and forth. I don't think there's much that I can do to control it right now. So I think the best thing for me to do is just concentrate on Connecticut football and these players, and there's much smarter people out there that understand it better than me, and let them do their job, you know.

Okay, Yeah, ask one more.

You had to plug in three new guys up front in the middle on the offensive line. Now this year it's the two guys on the outside. Yeah, it seems like you got a lot of depth able to do that.

Well.

We lost some really good men up front and have gone on and you know, you got Val who's in Phoenix, And you got Chase who's in Buffalo, and you got we got Noel.

Who's who in camp?

Chris Chris Forton was the fifth pick of the Canadian League Draft for fifth or eighth, So those are big shoes to fill. But you know, Ben Morosse, he's coming back healthy and he's a good player. And we brought in some guys that can help. And you know, one of us walking by us right there, Ty Chan on the inside, allows us to move guys outside. I think we've got a lot of flexibility and versatility upfront. It's