Image courtesy of Tyler Russell/Connecticut Public 

NEWPORT, RI – New UConn head coach Jason Candle was one of the keynote speakers during day one of the long-running Big New England Football Clinic on Friday.

Candle spoke and showed clips for over an hour during a presentation titled ‘How The Huskies Create Explosive Passing Plays.’

Once he wrapped up and chatted with a few local coaches, around 5:15, I spoke with the new leader of the program for about 10 minutes. Candle provided some strong insight into how he approaches recruiting, the upcoming season and the success of the other athletic programs in Storrs in relation to the football team.

One thing was evident throughout the entire conversation: Candle has a clear and concise vision for the future and seems more than ready for this next challenge in his career.

Here’s our full sit-down conversation:

Easy one to start: what have you learned about the area and enjoyed so far?

“Well, I think the first thing would be, I’ve met a lot of highly-educated people that are very passionate about – not only the University of Connecticut – but their place. Passionate about football, passionate about success. That’s inspiring. I think when you look at our whole campus, we have so many other sports that are very successful and held to a very high standard. It’s humbling and inspiring to be around those people each and every day. I think we have such a great fan base and alumni base here at UConn that it’s an enormous responsibility to continue the success that Coach Mora and his staff were able to establish. We’re going to do our part to try and make it better.”

You always hear people talk about the conference thing and you just left the MAC. What appealed to you about coming to UConn despite that lack of conference? 

“Well, I think some things that I just mentioned. Ultimately, at the end of the day too, where do you want to be? You can’t constantly sit and worry where you’re at. You want to aspire to try and go different places and do different things and try to make it better. I think this is a program that’s on an upward trajectory and I think we’ve got a great administration, a rock star athletic director and tremendous support on campus within our community. We’ve got a fan base that’s ready to continue to wrap its arms around football. If we continue to do the things we think we can do, Who knows where this ends up at?”

You came here with a very good reputation as a recruiter…what can you bring here recruiting wise that worked at Toledo, that you think can work here?

“Obviously, I think it’s different, but you have to find the positives. The positives and the things to highlight about Toledo, they’re obviously different than what they are with where we’re at now. But, there are positives and we’ve got to do a great job of highlighting those. We’ve got to do a great job eliminating doubt and questions in young people’s minds about what their future may look like at your particular place. But, at the end of the day, as crazy as college football is right now, kids still want structure. They still want a belief system and guidelines around. They want a picture painted of their career that gets them to where they think they can go.

“From our standpoint, with the staff that’s ready to coach these young men, we can speak its testimony. We had 11 draft picks out of Toledo the last nine years. we’ll have couple more this year. We’ve had a tremendous run, but we’ve done it with guys that were maybe under recruited. They were five-star people, maybe not five-star recruits that we got them with other five-star people in our building. You put a high emphasis on development. We got everything out of those guys that we could. At the end of the day, that’s all you can really ask for. Most of the guys are in a place where they’re chasing their dream playing college football hoping to play at the next level.”

You obviously know that UMass just returned to the MAC and I believe they’re back on the schedule this year. What do you know about the rivalry and how excited are you for it?

“I think every school has its own geographical rivalry. It’s got its own history with particular schools and any good one, there’s a little different particular edge to it. There’s a little bit of a different feel. But, you want to make sure you don’t put all of your emphasis on just one game. You want to make sure you keep it consistent with what the messaging is and this is a very process-driven thing. All wins count as one, Its been that way forever and will forever be that way. But, I know it probably means a little more to everybody in our school because of the proximity. When that time comes we’ll make sure we’re ready to continue to emphasize that, highlight that and celebrate all that’s good about the rivalry.”

Can you look at those games, BC, Syracuse, UMass and say ‘this is a recruiting statement game’ as well?

“You want to create and provide an audience, a fan base, a recruiting base, a product that’s attractive. Well, what does that look like? It looks like guys that are doing things the right way for the right reasons and playing at a really high level. They’re playing with extreme effort and really applying pressure to the opponent in all three phases of the game. So, I’m a big believer in the 353 days of the year there’s not a football game, we have to continuously coach and teach fundamentals. We have to teach the little things that allow teams to become great. We’re going to put a lot of emphasis on those days and those moments. So, those 12 opportunities that we do get to be seen in front of our fan base our potential recruits that we do a good job and put a great product out there.”

You have a brand new roster with a ton of turnover, how do you get the team to gel this time of year in spring ball?

“Well, it’s a very difficult task. It’s probably more of an art than a science. I think Coach Mora and his staff did such a good job the last two years and the roster last year was senior-heavy. Whether it was Jim Mora, Jason Candle or Vince Lombardi, whoever was going to be the coach this year, there was going to be some turnover. There was going to be…you have to go out and acquire talent. You have to build this year’s team. Every team is different whether you won 12 games last year or you were 0-12. This is a new year, you have to turn the page and you have to put a really good plan together. You’ve got to see what January and February looks like and then the offseason, you have to really hammer March and April and have a really good spring practice session. You have to let the kids catch their breath and then get them back with the strength staff in the summer and really hammer that phase in.

“Then. you’ve got to have a great preseason practice schedule and what does preseason camp look like? You’ve got to do that at a really high level. If you can really handle those four phases then you should be really confident in your ability to put a good product on the field once the season starts. So, for me it’s just continuing to pour into the process of what it is. We’ve acquired a bunch of new talent, a bunch of good players, a bunch of guys who maybe aren’t quite ready right now, but will be totally different players in a year or two years from now. Don’t get too far ahead of ourselves. Let’s learn from the past. Let’s worry about what the future looks like when we get to that. Ultimately, we’re going to be defined by how we produce in the present.”

You mentioned the basketball teams earlier…doing what they do seemingly year in and year out, how much can that just sort of help the fandom for football as well?

“Well, you see what it can be, right? You see the pageantry. You see the passion those fan bases have. There’s four, five, six sports on our campus that think they should win the national championship every year when preseason practice starts. So, you don’t want to be the weak link. You want to plant your flag as well. We want to support those programs and help them on their journey, whatever I can do to help them be the best team they can possibly be. Then, when fall comes around and we’re at Rentschler Field and we’re out there playing we want their support as well. We want our fanbase to give us as much energy as they give those programs.”