UCONN’s Jim Mora talks about UAB ahead of this week’s game
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - November 9, 2024
UConn head coach Jim Mora met with the media earlier this week to talk about his team’s game on Saturday against UAB at Protective Stadium. It will be the Huskies first road game since losing at Duke on Sept. 14. UConn was 5-1 during the extended homestand with the lone loss being a 23-20 setback to Wake Forest. Following is what Mora had to say about UAB during his press conference.
On UAB: Tremendous respect for Trent Dilfer, we’ve known each other for a long time. He's a winner, he's a Super Bowl champion. He's a renowned quarterback coach, I think he's a tremendous offensive mind. You got a son of an NFL quarterback playing quarterback. (Jalen Kitna) has great command (and) sense of what it takes to play that position. They're really big up front, they got tremendous skill position players. They're really big on (the defensive line), athletic as can be at linebacker (and) the secondary runs very, very well. I think they've got the most dynamic punt returner in the game. So, going on the road and playing a team of this caliber, this type of athleticism that's coming off of a really dominant win where they put up 59 points, it’s just a heck of a challenge for this team.
On Kam Shanks: Well, I would say number one, he's fearless and he has great confidence in himself. He has amazing short-area quickness. He is elusive in the open field. I think he's got great vision and great instincts. They block very, very well for him because they know that he can take it the distance anytime he touches it. And then he's got long speed. So combine all those things, (and) I think he's got what I like called athletic arrogance, has tremendous confidence in his athleticism. He's got a swagger to him and he's scary. He had one that was called back last week, where they say he stepped out of bounds, but it didn't diminish what he looked like running with the football. Guys like that, they can change the game. They can change the game in a heartbeat. I mean, (UConn punt returner) T.J. (Sheffield) is a hell of a punt returner. This guy's averaging 25.6 (yards per return), I think, I think that's the number. I know it's something like that. So as great as I think T.J. is, this guy's stats are better. So he's dynamic as they come. He's as dynamic as we've seen. He reminds me as a returner of like Zay Flowers, who's doing pretty well in the NFL as a receiver. We're talking about the returner now (Shanks) as a receiver, he's just the same. I mean, you give him a ball in space and there's no difference between being a punt returner and being a receiver with a ball in his hands in space. So we have to know where he is all the time. We have to do a great job in our punt coverage. We have to make sure that we have great leverage. We can't try to cheat on a block, we just gotta be very disciplined and tackle.
On what makes Jalen Kitna successful: I think a couple things. I think number one, he's very intelligent and he has great football awareness. He's spent his whole life around this game. He has the ability to extend plays with his feet and he does a really good job, when he extends plays, of keeping his eyes down the field. Sometimes quarterbacks at this level will take their eyes off downfield when they start to scramble and look for maybe escape lanes. He does a really good job of keeping his eyes up the field and making throws late in the down that are effective. There was a play, I'm gonna say it was against (USF), where he was falling out of bounds and it looked like he was just gonna kind of concede the play and go on to the next one. And he darts it in there up the field, so he's got tremendous vision. And he also has that athletic arrogance, that swag to him. That really stands out about these guys. They're a confident bunch and they should be because they're very athletic.