Connecticut's Inside Slant
Perhaps Randy Edsall was just trying to distract everyone from his team's loss to Michigan in its season opener, but he's taken some of the attention away from his players by bringing up a couple of controversial topics during his media sessions this week.
One is no surprise -- Edsall won't discuss injuries. That has never been something he has been comfortable discussing, and it's been an issue between him and the local press. He's adhering to a new Big East policy that mandates disclosure of players who are out for the season or undergoing surgery on the Monday of each week, and giving status reports on injured players by Thursday.
His approach has been to give as little detail as possible thus far, and that is the likely scenario going forward as well. That means that for most injuries, you'll know player status only when you walk into the stadium and see if they are dressed for action or not.
And speaking of walking into the stadium ... Edsall would like fans to do that sooner, and stay longer. He noted that one thing about the Michigan crowd was that it offered a tremendous advantage to the home team by showing up early and staying loud throughout.
With this weekend being UConn's home opener, Edsall urged the Huskies faithful to make sure to get into Rentschler Field on time, commenting that perhaps what was needed was a Last Call in the tailgating areas before kickoff. This prompted the usual debate about what "Real Fans" do, or whether maybe Edsall should concentrate on getting his team better prepared this week than it looked on Saturday instead of worrying about the fans, depending on which side of the issue a particular caller or Internet poster stood.
Texas Southern, the Huskies' opponent in their home opener, isn't exactly a foe that inspires people to get to their seats early. But after seeing a taste of big-time football atmosphere in Ann Arbor, it's understandable that the team is hoping that some of that transfers back to the East Coast when the team takes the field Saturday.
