Randy Edsall: Rebuilding UConn football harder because players ‘aren’t as mentally tough’ as before
Building UConn’s football program has been more difficult than it was in the early 2000s, coach Randy Edsall said Tuesday, in part because of the mentality of current players.
“We did it before, and we’re working to do it again," Edsall said. "And it’s hard. And it’s harder now than what it was then because our generation has changed, society has changed.”
Edsall spent much of his weekly press conference Tuesday explaining what he sees as challenges of coaching today’s college students, who he said “aren’t as mentally tough and as mentally strong because they’ve never been put in [tough] situations."
“Stop being on your phone all the time, stop playing Fortnite, go to bed early at night” Edsall said. “Because guess what, when you leave here, you go in the real world you better do that because otherwise you won’t be successful."
At one point Tuesday, the coach was asked whether he had to “baby-sit” players.
“I wouldn’t call it baby-sitting, I would call it teaching life lessons," Edsall said. "Because a lot of these kids have no idea about life’s lessons.”
In Edsall’s view, some players today are too interested in being "liked,” as opposed to being respected.
“I don’t have the [Alfred] Finchers, the [Dan] Orlovskys, the [Ryan] Krugs, the [Tyler] Lorenzens, the Donald Browns," Edsall said, naming former players. "They didn’t care what their teammates thought of them. Too many kids now-a-days wanted to be liked. They don’t understand it’s about respect.”
Edsall said 21 players were required to participate in rigorous “opportunity workouts” Tuesday morning as a result of missing class.
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