Jonathan Pace, Connecticut Football News: Draft Scout Player News

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05/12/20 - OT Jonathan Pace, rSr/2023, Connecticut

UConn's new TV deal for football, combined with the robust schedules assembled for the next five years, will provide the selling points coach Randy Edsall needs to kick-start recruiting. "This is a really good day for us," Edsall said in a conference call with reporters Monday, as the four-year agreement with CBS Sports was announced, "and it came at the right time because we're right in the middle of recruiting kids from the 2021 cycle." The deal assures the Huskies, who have left the American Athletic Conference and will play as an independent in football, will have exposure, with most of the games to be played between 12:30 and 3 p.m. on Saturdays, something Edsall wanted. As he makes the recruiting rounds, albeit virtually during the coronavirus shutdowns, Edsall said he has been feeling the positive vibes in recent weeks.

"There's no question," he said. "Myself and our coaching staff, we really sat down and talked a lot about what is going to be our message and how are we going to market what we're doing. By telling them, 'Hey, we felt good about the television package' and by telling them about the schedule we were playing, and how we're going to play more Power Five [conference] teams now than what we would have staying where we were previously, that made a big impact with the kids we were talking to. So that helped us tremendously, and we've seen tremendous interest...Do we have a challenge ahead of us? Yes, we do. But we have an ability to go out and sell things to get the kind of kids we need to win." - Hartford Courant

rSr/2023