Rocky: 0:08

Thank you.

Coach Faggiano: 0:36

Good evening everybody. Welcome to the Rock Pile tonight. The Rock Pile tonight brings you Inside Utica University Football Podcast with head coach Blaze Faziano, who's set to join me in just a little bit. I want to make sure that I thank all the subscribers here tonight. If you're watching on YouTube, hit subscribe. If you're watching on any of the social media channels, I appreciate you following us here tonight.

Coach Faggiano: 0:57

Coach and I are going to try to air every Thursday night at 8 o'clock throughout the season. So if you have any questions for Coach, I'll try to pull as many over as I can. We'll have some fun with Coach tonight. At the end We'll get Coach's blazing picks here in college football. I told him I'm going to keep track throughout the season of his record, so we'll see how Coach does. And then, if you follow on any of the other platforms, a lot of it will be on iHeartRadio, apple Podcast and more so. A lot of it will be on iHeartRadio, apple Podcast and more so. I appreciate everybody following us here tonight. So, without further ado, let's bring Coach on. Let me just get him on. Let me fix us Coach. We got to get all fancy here tonight. How are you?

Rocky: 1:37

Excellent, I'm getting ready for week one here, getting ready to get on a bus and drive six hours to Pittsburgh tomorrow. So we're locked and loaded.

Coach Faggiano: 1:45

You got a nice little bus ride down, but I'm sure the guys are ready. So I know I was joking with you before we came on a little bit ago, but I said I didn't know. You were the longest tenured coach in New York State. You've been around a long time, coach.

Rocky: 1:59

I'll tell you what you coach, you love, what you do, you know love education. And then when there was I forget I think it was the College Football Network put that out there and a couple people saw it and it definitely looked cool when the whole state of New York had the giant Moose logo. But then when I kind of read it and looked at it, I'm like what you know, how did that happen? How did all of a sudden, I guess you know to be the longest tenured football coach in New York but I blame Coach Vosberg for retiring because he was prior and so we had a great relationship with him the previous head coach at Fisher. He was 27 years there, so that was a bit of a shocker Rock, I got to tell you.

Coach Faggiano: 2:38

Well, Coach, I remember when you got the job and you brought so much enthusiasm and life to the Mohawk Valley and, you know, started recruiting a lot of the local kids. What are your thoughts would be like from where the program is now to when you first took it over? Oh wow, how much different is it.

Rocky: 2:55

You know there's so many things different at the university. You know what I mean From the buildings. Oh my gosh. You know the Laura Cosimento track and field complex, the dome right, the largest. I think it still might be the largest bubble in America, as we call the hut after Dr Todd Hutton. You know the Pioneer Village apartments, which are better than any apartment I ever rented in my life. You know the science building science building it was funny. Right as I got hired they had just completed the new, the criminal justice building, which they just put in their second crime lab. It's pretty wild crime scene lab so it is.

Rocky: 3:36

You know, being a part of the university is how it's evolved and changed. Is has been a lot of fun. You know the majors. Just alone I used to joke around and say if you ever had an indoor facility in phys ed, that would really help us. You know, because we had a lot of other. You know criminal justice and construction management and some other. You know great majors that. You know football guys want to study and you know we're way into the phys ed program now. I've got guys teaching phys ed all over the Northeast and even in the really I. I got guys in Florida teaching, because that is pretty wild, but uh, so I think being a part of that's been been a lot of fun.

Coach Faggiano: 4:09

So the universities went through a lot of changes, but personally coach for you. How have you changed over the years?

Rocky: 4:15

Are you?

Coach Faggiano: 4:15

tougher or are you more mellower now?

Rocky: 4:17

You know I think I am a little, a little mellower, a little more patient at times, you know. You know it's funny the first Tuesday practice. You know, getting ready this week maybe the scout team saw a little different side of me, a little louder, a little more sense of urgency, but they always bring it right back down and have fun with them and bust their chops and, you know, dance to some of the music we got going on in practice. But you know, you know how am I different? You know, just more experienced. You know what I mean in the details of little things.

Rocky: 4:46

I think one of the things that I've really enjoyed is developing, obviously developing our players, but developing our young coaches. And I can remember, you know, doc Spartano and Jim Spartano, the athletic director that hired me. You know, talk about the one great thing he had, that high-pitched voice. You know that high-pitched Italian voice. You know that high-pitched Italian voice. The one great thing about coaching is they keep you young. You're around kids. It keeps you young. And he talked about. You know he's miserable in the village, he's retired because he goes. I'm not used to being around all these old people. He talked and I'll tell you what being at the university and the college and around not just the student athletes but our young coaches. That's something that has been a lot of fun. We have a really young coaching staff right now, outside of my full-time staff, and Coach Oliver we're kind of the veterans out there the former head coach of BVS. We have a lot of young guys but they have a lot of energy, passion.

Coach Faggiano: 5:42

They're going to be great coaches and it makes it fun, for sure. And, coach, before we jump into it, it's funny. You bring that up because I know when I've interviewed you over in the past I've always talked to you about, you know, bill Belichick has his coaching tree. All these coaches have the coaching tree, especially in college, and I look around the area and I'm friends with a lot of the guys that you know that you've had under you. What's it, what's it mean to you to see a lot of these guys around the area having success?

Rocky: 6:05

I can remember getting hired and think, oh, wow, okay, we're going to have four grad assistants. Now, when I was at UAlbany back in 93, 94, with the current head coach at UB, pete Lembo, and I GA'd together we had eight GAs and I can remember vividly thinking, wow, four GAs, maybe someday we could have a little coaching tree. And we would even joke years ago we'd say, ah, we've got like a little bush, you know, and guys are out there James Linehan at Fordham, who you know, yes, and guys are out there. And then you know, it's like anything that you wake up and it's like I think it's over 70 now. You know, and Coach Fitzpatrick, you know, very proud of the things that he's done at Morrisville, Cortland and El Colgate. I was so excited he brought Joe Gerbino back to the Mohawk Valley.

Rocky: 6:57

You know, laz Morgan, I mean you talk about. I was actually talking about this with the players the other day. There's Sherwood-Volart Conference Room, it's right in the residence hall and we had our leadership council meeting in there and we also had our Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting in there and I was talking to the guys how that space is special to me and they're like you know, what do you mean I said, well, when I interviewed this room was full of the entire team and when the guys all left, laz Morgan was still there, tracy Branch was still there, tracy Branch was still there, Marcus Gerdnir was still there and I stayed with those guys for another hour. Shamel Turnbull you know Terrell Cunningham and you know to see Laz head coach at Buff State. And you know, most recently, matt Rogers, right the section Central New York guy, you know, being the head coach of Hartwick. That's crazy to me but that's something that I really don't mind talking about and certainly very proud of that.

Rocky: 7:47

And it wasn't just me. The coaches, the coordinators, the Jim Cramers, all those guys coached for Coach Cramer that are coaching right now. And Will Ploff and some of my former coordinators all kind of took pride as we watched the GAs go on. And Ben McCaig, now that's the offensive coordinator at Bryant. You know things like that. You know Ryan Wilson now is full-time in New Hampshire Just watching these guys go A local guy. You can't forget Jared Kite. You know Holland Patton, defensive coordinator at UMass, and he hired another Utica guy, joe Castellito. So that's something that's really one of my favorite things is going to the coaches convention and then having the utica night. No doubt that's awesome, having all those guys back. So that's something that, um, you kind of wake up one day and go how did that?

Rocky: 8:33

happen, but uh, yeah, it's pretty wild so, coach, let's talk.

Coach Faggiano: 8:37

You got a game coming up this week and, uh, I want to get your thoughts on how you know, how was camp, how was the off season for you guys and the team? Uh, what's your thoughts?

Rocky: 8:46

you know we always say like every team has a one-year life expectancy and they kind of have their own character and their own and I can tell you all I can say this group is. It's like energy and enthusiasm, you know, like just some of the stuff. I don't you know what I could tell you or not tell you how these guys are, just why, like their right, you know, they decide to all lift weights with their shirts off and run on the track like a bunch of wild men and like just the energy of this group is really unmatched. They're a pretty special group. They know about, you know, welcoming in the young guys and again you talk about you kind of wake up and look like this group, you know experienced.

Rocky: 9:25

You know three. You know a couple of great, great seasons. You know so Eli Douglas and Mason Payton. They played in the Susquehanna game. You know I was a freshman and you know so they experienced 10 and 2 and 9 and 2. And then they experienced last year, which was tough, you know, 5 and 5. And losing those three like like really close games that we found a way to win and so um, they're, the guys are really going back to how the, the players that brought them in talked about how we responded after the grove city loss. Right, so we six and four, we get the bowl game against grove city. We know it's very good team, right, they think we're make a field goal of beating Cortland New York. Cortland won the national championship, right, and we go down there and get smacked. And so we're six and five, and the way that team responded to that, right, that adversity and how that was, and then we flip around and go 10 and two. There's some similarities to the vibe that I'm getting you know, going into this season.

Rocky: 10:22

Where guys are, you know and we have a lot of first-time starters that are excited to have that opportunity, for sure.

Coach Faggiano: 10:29

And Coach, you talk about that 5-5 season last year, but you guys, I think, lost two or three games by like one score. So I mean that season could have went a different way. But what I was going to say is sometimes the years where a team goes 10-2, you go 9-3, I feel like some years where maybe you go like five and five, seven and five, some coaches will say you know what that was? The that was one of the better years because of how the team developed throughout the season. And I feel like you guys, last year those games could have went either way.

Rocky: 10:55

But talk to us about that one score games yeah, even in the two previous years we're down three scores at Union. The year we're 10 and 2 to come back to beat them. You know what I mean. So we just found a way to win those close games and this past year we found some ways to lose them and you know, you see, you learn from it. One thing I can say is we're pretty consistent. Like we're hard on each other, we're hard on the film, whether it's eight, nine wins or five. So it wasn't like we attacked it differently, you know. But there's certainly a little more sense of urgency when the guys see how.

Rocky: 11:29

You know, I use the Alfred story all the time because I have a lot of respect for that program. They've been around for over 100 years and you know, two years ago we go down there and beat them 28, nothing. Well, they had that on their. You know I say bulletin board, right, but I know not too many bulletin boards now. But you know, then they, they knock us off at home.

Rocky: 11:46

This past year they came to play and we made some mistakes and they made a couple more plays and I think the younger guys, all the sophomores, truly understood that. Hey, guys, don't get caught up in the film right. You know you may think you're better than the team, but they're going to give us their best game when they play us right. When you're, you're that new guy still like. We're kind of that new kid in town and no one wants to see us do that, no one wants to see us take that next step. So it gets us a little chip on our shoulder and working hard at it.

Rocky: 12:16

But we certainly learned a lot from that, no doubt about it. But we attacked the offseason really no different than any other. We're pretty hard on ourselves and I want to stay consistent with that. I think the messaging, too, is that the players always know like we're in this together. There's things that we would do different as coaches, there's things they would do different as players, and whether it's a win or a loss, we're in it together and the guys are really, you know, bought into that.

Coach Faggiano: 12:42

And, coach, talk about your captains. You guys named your captains this week and I think you guys have and I was going through some of the umpire eight comments and notes and all that I think you guys are going to return one of the best skilled groups, I think, in the league, from top to bottom with starting with your quarterback. But talk to us a little bit about the four captains that you guys named this week.

Rocky: 13:00

Well, you know. First, you know Eli Douglas. You know got some nice accolades last year. You know was like all ECAC, I believe was the highest one that he received. You know, outstanding football player he's been playing since he was a freshman. Like everyone knows that Eli's freshman year blocked a punt against Susquehanna that led to a score in that big game and you know so. You know his leadership and watching him grow as a leader is tremendous. So you know, glad to have his leadership.

Rocky: 13:28

Antonio John Ferrani you know Antonio is a fifth year and you know he's had a ton of adversity. You know he caught a high school. In high school in spring football he breaks his foot. He's a filmer. His whole freshman year Doesn't even play. Finally plays as a sophomore having a great junior campaign. Tears his ACL right, battles back, right Battles back and had a great spring strong leader. And someone like Antonio was a great leader for like a Tony Durazinski right Local guy out of Whitesboro because Tony got hurt playing basketball, couldn't play his freshman year and Antonio was a great big brother. We call him TD. I don't know if they called him that back in the borough, but we call Tony Dorzinski TD and just watching those relationships the guys have with the younger players, something that's been a tradition for quite some time.

Rocky: 14:22

Jordan Davis he's a special player, great young man, great student, a big person, great personality. Really really is one of the most coachable guys that I've had. You know, and really looking forward to watching him. You know, really, really flourish this year at the D-line. And then you know Tyler Zolkowski. You know Tyler flourish this year at the D-line. And then Tyler Zolkowski Tyler, it was a tough spring man because Tyler and Brett battled and I think I give Jordan Ladbert some credit.

Rocky: 14:52

He said it best in our preseason we have two outstanding quarterbacks and the way that Brett battled and kind of handled that tough news, if you will like. He's just a class act and he's a phys ed major. He's going to be a great coach. You know Tyler's history education, so he's going to go on and teach and coach when he's done. And it was interesting. It's all about relationships in this game. You know Tyler played with Braden at Albany, right All, but he didn't work out for Tyler. Tyler transferred to Robert Morris, gets injured, never gets a chance to play and there's there's a good portal story. There's a lot of bad portal stories.

Coach Faggiano: 15:28

Yeah, that's a good one.

Rocky: 15:29

Kids transferring four or five times. But you know Tyler, being from Rochester, being from Aquinas, being a tough Polish kid, I tease him all the time Like he, he's a good guy, he really fit in with our players. He had a great spring and then, you know, as he just had a great camp, you know his elite over time he didn't rush it Over time, his leadership just kept shining through, you know, and so you know he and Brett have a great relationship. Our quarterback room, you know, matt Polaris is going to have a piece, nas Smith's going to have a piece. I think that guess a really strong room. And I credit, you know, brayden, uh, zanelovic, because brayden, you know kind of timing, like coach tribino gets coach of the year, assistant coach of the year goes to bethune cookman and then brayden slid in as a ga, coached our quarterbacks and then after one year got promoted to full time and uh, you know, he's just outstanding uh, you know for us and and has a ton of roles in our program.

Rocky: 16:23

So we're definitely excited about those captains and they're not going to do it alone. We have a strong leadership council that we meet every week, and Isaiah Thomas spoke this week and had a great video and a quote that we shared with the team, and we're in a good place leadership-wise.

Coach Faggiano: 16:39

So, coach, let's talk about the Empire 8, the conference in general, because one of the toughest conferences, I think in Division III and top to bottom you know you've got Cortland obviously is looking, I think, this year to win their fifth conference title. Alfred State's going to join the conference this year but really, coach, top to bottom I mean it's a tough out every week for you guys.

Rocky: 16:57

You can't sleep in the end player eight. It's just great, great football. You just look at the postseason. You know performance of our conference is there. You know, I had to tell you, alfred State in their playoff game gave Endicott man. They got after him for a half. You know they really you know kind of matched punches with them. You know Coach Lynn's done a really nice job there, so that's a good addition. You know, I think you know one. I think that's a great little rival there down the street, alfred U Alfred State. You know good for football. But yeah, it's one of the unique conferences that has both state schools and private schools. You know, and that's what you know kind of really makes it unique. But it's going to be interesting. You know a lot of new. What? Four new head coaches, I believe it is.

Coach Faggiano: 17:38

Yeah, I was going to say some new faces.

Rocky: 17:40

So four new head coaches. We've already started the program, as I am now the old guy in the E8. But you know four new coaches working at it. There's definitely some games, like I think Cortland's playing Grove City this weekend. People will be looking at that, I'm not sure whoever else. Oh, I think Buff State, brockport they battle for the 90 bowl. They call it for their. They battle for the 90 bowl, they call it. But this week is interesting because you got the President's Conference versus the Empire. 8 doesn't happen often. Last time it happened for us is when we went to Grove City and what's really interesting is Coach Sirianni has done a great job there and is the brother of Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni. And they're Mount Union guys and I had my plenty of battles of Mount Union at Utica a few times or, excuse me, at St John Fisher I had to deal with Pierre Garçon, okay, which was yeah, I gave him hits.

Rocky: 18:36

Well, first, as a freshman, he scored four touchdowns on me when he was at Norwich. I'm like who's this kid from Florida and why is he in norwich, and you know. And then he goes and transfers the mountain I had. So I had to play against him three times as a dc and uh, and I'll tell you what. It was very special for utica to get in a bus and go to alliance ohio after it beat susquehanna. You know, because no one gave us a chance, right, and that was that was back when there was, you know, there wasn't 40 teams going and we were like the fourth or fifth to get in.

Rocky: 19:09

But at the end of the day, I always am a big Empire 8 guy and I'm here to tell you, I don't care who it is. If you're 9-1 from this conference, you're good, right. If you're 8-2 in our conference, you're good, you're good, you're 8-2 in our conference, you're good and you're going to go beat a lot of teams across the country. So we weren't surprised, but everyone was surprised. We went out to Susquehanna and got that huge playoff win and first time we were nationally ranked and all that good stuff. So, yeah, it's going to be a TV game so you can log in or watch it. It's a TV game for them and I think it's now it's a 12.05 kickoff, so that'll be unique for our guys with the extra timeouts and things. But yeah, we have engineers back-to-back weeks from W&J to RPI. A lot of engineers the first two weeks.

Coach Faggiano: 19:54

Yeah, and that President's Conference is tough too, top to bottom. I was looking through them, through over the years they have three teams, though, go with the new NPI.

Rocky: 20:02

The NPI favored them, and they had three teams go to the tournament last year. So Carnegie Mellon, oh geez. Now Grove City. Was it Grove City? The third one Right, and then WJ.

Coach Faggiano: 20:14

So, coach, you mentioned Sirianni and I forgot he was there. And then I bopped on him. I'm like geez, you can definitely tell he's related they. And then I bopped on him. I'm like geez, you can definitely tell he's related. They look exactly alike, right, they look like brothers, they are brothers. But he's been there a long time too, and they got a ton of talent on the outside, a lot of weapons. I think last year they had what a couple thousand-yard receivers.

Rocky: 20:34

The two receivers are legit. Very good, very good players. They're running back. Very, very good football player, um I don't want to pronounce his last number two very good player, um. He'll be back. So, yeah, they're, they're, they're solid. Their defense is tough. You know they're gonna pressure you and and give you some problems. So they're well coached football team yeah, and I was.

Coach Faggiano: 20:53

I was looking, I think last year. I think they were averaging about over 300 yards a game through the air. Well balanced though. Well well balanced on. And I think the one kid back is McCaskill, the receiver, who's back from a year ago, and then I think DeRosa, the running back, is back last year. Yeah, derosa.

Rocky: 21:10

Yep, very good, very good. So it'll be interesting to see like they think. I forget how many seniors they graduated, but they graduated a lot kind of similar to us, and I think for them they have a lot of first-time starters. But again they have such a strong program they play six or seven JV games as well, kind of that Mount Union philosophy, which was an old Ithaca philosophy back in the day, about having a bigger roster and playing JV games, giving those young guys an opportunity to play. So they're a big hate develop. Some of his guys may play JV for two years and all of a sudden they're all conference performers, and that happens to us as well.

Rocky: 21:47

So I think the biggest thing is just keeping them calm. They're all going to be excited that first game jitters and just have fun playing football. I know that. I think we play better when we just play loose. We play loose and have fun and not build games up. It's easy to do. My college coach always talked about the bulletin board and now it's like the bulletin board's in their hand. The bulletin board is really easy for them to get to. Don't read all that stuff. All that matters is blow the whistle, put the football down and let's go play for four quarters. I tell all the guys they the football down and let's go play for four quarters. I tell all the guys they know I bust chops about the three or four hours of pregame. I said, guys, we're not going to take videos of you, what you're wearing, walking to the locker room. I had them all laughing the other day, all the pregame stuff. What matters is how you execute and your discipline and just play for a passion and love for each other.

Coach Faggiano: 22:45

Coach. We've got a few comments on here. I know you know Mr Brian McQueen oh the man, he's the best as coach. Teaches family first on football. You see it being around those players Best thing that's happened to the program in our community. He's great Love following him.

Rocky: 22:59

He's great. The job came open and some of the first people I talked to were brian mcqueen, tony leone, dave lupia you know all guys from the area that I had connections with. A couple of them, dave, I coached at ithaca um and brian and tony's sons played for me rock or curry, oh yeah okay, played for, played for me recruited him to fisher.

Rocky: 23:20

Um, oh yeah, a son played for me, recruited him to Fisher John Wade, mike Donnarumma, like all these guys. And my phone was ringing off the hook and I remember my wife was like, oh, I mean, I haven't even interviewed yet. She's like, oh, we're going to Utica, like what? She's like, no, I just have a feeling we're going to go to Utica, so gonna go, you guys? So, um, we had, you know, brian, just uh, class act and what he's done with that belief. 271 foundation is just truly an amazing thing, truly uncommon, and love, love having guys like that around our players well, coach, while we're on that, you mentioned that the september 13th it'll be the believe bowl.

Coach Faggiano: 23:56

I think you guys are playing rencelier that that weekend.

Rocky: 23:59

Talk to us how special that day is for you guys well, the Blue Bowl is, you know, people ask, hey, who's your rival? And we joke around saying, well, we don't really like anybody, you know, because we're so young. There was a little talk at one point that maybe the Hartwick game, because when I got hired they had that 72-70 crazy game, you know, and we thought about it and just couldn't figure it out with the presidents and ADs at the time. And so it's just funny when you know when things just come together, you know and and um and when good things could come from from some adversity. And if you don't, I love telling the story, if you don't mind me telling it, so no, go right ahead.

Rocky: 24:37

So Brian, through his fire service, uh, had come down with cancer and it was in his thyroid and it's amazing the chemicals that are in fires today and what I've learned from Brian in studying this stuff. And so you know he's going to Sloan Kettering and he's getting his treatments and while he's doing this he's a volunteer like coach on our staff helping promote our games and we're having like youth day and high school day and we're trying to we had a veterans day game and help me get that going and just promote. You know what we do at Utica in the area. And so now his friends got great friends in the fire department and the Whitesboro school district and people start raising money for him and he sells them. Nah, I don't want the money, let's put it in the fund to help other people. And just that's what sparked and started that amazing foundation. And even more for me, like my first name is Blaze. St Blaze is the patron saint of the throat. I know Brian has a St Blaze medal that he wears and a St Blaze mask card that I got him and just a great relationship.

Rocky: 25:40

And then so one of his players, cause Brian, coached high school football at a risk and he you know Matt, matt Wilsey, who was the former owner of New York state tool. They had lunch and they're like let's call it the believable. And that happened, you know, and for I think it was at least five years or more that we had the New York state tool believable. And then Matt and Lisa sold the company and they're doing great things and their kids are doing great things. And then so we went to Frank Mastrovito and he jumped right on board and what a giving guy in the community. You know Frank and his wife Colleen, they're just awesome. And so you know having our honorary captains that are battling cancer and have them come to practice and talk to the team and you know, get, you know. Then all the fun stuff comes with it, the helmet stickers and all that good stuff.

Rocky: 26:27

But, like so, the blue bowl is our game and it's our game to get back to the community, so it's not always it's a different team every year. We've liked it being the home opener and doing the orange out, so that's kind of what we've done pretty consistently. So so last year was Union, which is a great atmosphere. This year will be, you know, rpi, a very good program just down the three-way. So we'll have that game at seven, but it's going to be at six and we'll get at least that second half will be under the lights. But that's a really special game for us and our guys really look forward to it.

Coach Faggiano: 27:00

I know another friend of mine that does the radio with me is Pete Pagliaro.

Rocky: 27:06

Trying to watch the game too, huh.

Coach Faggiano: 27:08

He's trying to watch the game too Cowboys in Philly tonight. But he mentions the Believe Bowl, how amazing it is, and you had him speak to the team in the past, and his brother, of course, who passed away of cancer. You guys had honored him too for one of these games.

Rocky: 27:25

Yeah, it was. He brought his whole family to practice and talk to the guys. And you know, with passion, you know for his brother and the brotherhood of the firefighters, you know like there's so many parallels to that. And you know, just have you know when I can have some of the community members come out and talk to the guys, and you know, uh, that was a real special moment. So you know, once, once, a once a pioneer, always a pioneer. So so pags, his family and his brother are, you know, pioneers forever for sure so, coach, couple keys to the game offensively and defense.

Coach Faggiano: 27:56

Let's start with offense for you guys first. What are a couple keys to the game for you guys on the road? First game against, against a really talented team, what's the offense got to do to put you in a position to win?

Rocky: 28:07

this week. I'm pretty consistent with this. It's about protecting the football, not turning the ball over. That's a big thing. Not giving another team more opportunities. Being balanced I think we're always at our best when we're balanced run pass. We've done it all. If we have to throw it 50 times to win a game, we will. If we run it 50 times to win a game, we will. But I think we're best when we're balanced in the run in the pass game.

Rocky: 28:32

One of the things I think I take pride in in our pass game and Coach Klaus is a second year offensive coordinator along with Coach Zinolovic. You know those guys. You know you look at our stats the last couple years and there's like eight, ten guys in double-digit catches right, and that just speaks to the efficiency of the offense, you know. And Brett's first year starting and Braden coaching him, you know like he broke a record for like completion percentage, just his efficiency. So you know, know, I think that's what's tough is you can't you just kind of hone in on one guy within the pass offense?

Rocky: 29:07

That's something that's certainly a strength and you know they guys all know I'm a big special teams guy. Uh, you know I love coaching the d-line but I love coaching special teams. It allows me to coach receivers and dbs and all the different positions and you, so it's a huge part of the game and field position, you know, and field position, so I think I always think it comes down to turnovers, special teams, the hidden yards and penalties, being a more disciplined team, you know, particularly on the road and coach defensively.

Coach Faggiano: 29:37

Obviously they present their offense for your defense a lot of skilled guys on the outside. They bring some experience back defensively.

Rocky: 29:44

What's going to be some of the keys defensively for you guys just, you know, the receivers are going to make some plays now that's just going to happen, right, and having our guys just kind of, you know, uh, you know, play, play great defense on third down, play great red zone defense. Um, you know, try to create some turnovers if we can really really kind of hawk the football. You know, try to create some turnovers if you can Really kind of hawk the football down. You know, getting two, three guys to the ball, you know. But again, they're a well-coached team and I think you've got to make teams earn it. You've got to make them go the length of the field. But yeah, you know, I think when I get that question, I think I always answer it the same way. Same way I do. I go back to creating about explosives, it's about turnovers and it's about special teams in the field position for sure.

Coach Faggiano: 30:29

Coach, I told you before coming on. I said we were going to have some fun at the end here and do the blazing picks, and you said you don't really watch a lot of football. Obviously you watch your guys' stuff, you watch some of your favorite teams or whatnot, but I'm going to keep track of your wins and loss record here throughout the season.

Rocky: 30:47

We'll see how you end up. We'll have to do a little more research then.

Coach Faggiano: 30:50

I'm going to try to pick like a handful of games and there's not really a lot of big games this week, okay, but we'll pick some. I'm going to keep week, okay, um, but we'll pick some. I'm gonna. I'm gonna keep track of our record and see, maybe at the end of the year, who's got a little bragging rights here, all right.

Coach Faggiano: 31:06

So I'm gonna start with the first one here, okay, and the first one we got is iowa, at iowa state, and iowa state's already played two games. Uh, they've already played a couple. They played I think was it down in ireland they opened up and I love and I love matt campbell I I think he should get another job, but he's happy where he's at.

Rocky: 31:21

But I'm a big Matt Campbell guy.

Coach Faggiano: 31:24

Yes, he is, he is.

Rocky: 31:26

He was actually coaching at Mount Union when I was coaching at Fisher.

Coach Faggiano: 31:31

Oh, okay.

Rocky: 31:32

I'm going with all the tight ends, Iowa state. We're going to go with Campbell.

Coach Faggiano: 31:35

All right, you're going to go with Iowa state. Okay, I'm going to make it easy. We're going to go with Campbell. All right, you're going to go with Iowa State. Okay, I'm going to make it easy. I think I'm going to make it easy on this, though I think what we'll do is we won't even take the spreads, because if we go with spreads, that's really gambling. I don't want to do that. We'll just go with picks here.

Rocky: 31:47

No, we're going to take that.

Coach Faggiano: 31:48

So I do like the rivalry games early. I like it early in the season. Home field advantage man it is. I'm a Michigan guy, my wife's an Ohio State person. Her and I battle it out during the season. She's got bragging rights from last year. We beat them four years in a row. Now we're going on five.

Rocky: 32:25

Michigan, a big one at Oklahoma. Let's see here Michigan, oklahoma.

Coach Faggiano: 32:27

I'm going to go with Michigan. Ooh, okay, I like it. I like it. I'm going to have to go with them just because I'm a homer. I love Brent Venable, so I think he's a great defensive coordinator. We'll see what he can do, but I think that Bryce Underwood, kid the quarterback's a special talent for Michigan. Another one of my favorite coaches Lane Kiffin, old Miss at Kentucky.

Rocky: 32:54

Oh man.

Coach Faggiano: 32:54

This is a big line.

Rocky: 32:57

I'll tell you what it's funny. Watching those basketball schools get better has been good for football Kentucky, kansas, Coach Light pulled a Kansas. I got that right, right, yep, yeah. Kentucky is Stoops, right, yep, okay. All right, I'm hanging in there. Stay in there. You're doing good, you're holding your own. This will be my upset one. I'm going to go with Stoops and Kentucky.

Coach Faggiano: 33:19

Are you Okay?

Rocky: 33:20

That's my upset pick.

Coach Faggiano: 33:22

I got to imagine.

Rocky: 33:23

I don't know the point spread ever I got to imagine Ole Miss is the favorite.

Coach Faggiano: 33:28

Ole Miss is giving Kentucky nine and a half.

Rocky: 33:35

Okay, I don't even know, what that means.

Coach Faggiano: 33:42

I kind of do, but not really so. Ole Miss is favored by 9.5 in this one. I think Stoops is a little bit on the hot seat. They had a little bit of a down year the last couple years. But I'm going to go with Ole Miss. I do like Lane.

Rocky: 33:53

You've got to go with one of these ones.

Coach Faggiano: 33:54

Come on All right, this is another iffy one here. Baylor didn't look too good last week. Smu and the ACC last year. They made the playoff and I think they're well coached. I like SMU, but you're going with uh, you're going to try to go. This is a close one.

Rocky: 34:10

This one's only two and a half on my heart because I actually spent some time with coach Aranda and, um, you know he's a he's a great coach. He was at geez. Now was he at. He was at was he at nebraska for a while before that and yes and uh, you know he's a really sharp guy.

Rocky: 34:25

You know I spent some time with him on the rules committee at the afca convention and we're gonna go with baylor all right, we we disagree on the last two because I I do like I had baylor last week.

Coach Faggiano: 34:35

I thought they would have put up a little bit about a better fight last week in their first game. So I'm going to stick with SMU. And then everybody's on me, coach, because I'm not a diehard Syracuse fan. I root for them. But a lot of my buddies will say, ah, you just don't like Syracuse. Because in my preseason I picked Syracuse to go 4-8. Okay, because I don't know some of those middle-of-the-pack teams. I don't know what you're going to get out of. Nc State, pittsburgh, georgia Tech. Those are probably 50-50 games. Syracuse can win those easily. I just don't know enough about them. So I went four and eight. But UConn last year had a great year under Coach Moore. They did. They're doing some really good things there. This one's six and a half.

Rocky: 35:17

This is at Syracuse, if I recall was it a Tennessee game, a one-score game in the third quarter, was it? Did I just hear someone say that it was like 37-28? They did. Syracuse scored.

Coach Faggiano: 35:28

They had a tough time stopping them, but they scored.

Rocky: 35:31

You know, and I think it very well may be one of those years for Syracuse where those one score games right or it's like you're 500, you're going bowling Right. And I'll tell you, I am a huge Fran Brown fan. I love listening to him talk. I listened to all his interviews when all the portal stuff was going down and I'm trying to figure it out myself with a couple of my guys on how it works. You know, hey guys, not everyone, everyone's going to go with these three and get a scholarship Right. I scholarship right. I just love his style. You know, I went out and watched him and just how he talks to everybody. So I'm going to definitely go with Syracuse on that one.

Coach Faggiano: 36:07

Yeah, I actually am too. I think people are going to say, oh okay, you're going with Syracuse, but I am going to go with Syracuse, but I think he's great. I think their schedule is a lot tougher this year than what it was last year. I think it's a lot more challenging this year for Fran, but you know him and some of those coaches that he brought in with him from Georgia. They're some of the best recruiters in the country Great recruiters.

Rocky: 36:27

He has a great staff. New Zealand's great. They have a great staff there, you know, and good to see Ambrose get back on the staff there. The Syracuse guy, you know, he was out at UConn or he was out at Central Connecticut last time and came back to coach as like the assistant on-line coach. So I know a couple of their coaches pretty well. I think he's doing a great job. I thought they hung pretty tough with a top-tier team last week.

Coach Faggiano: 36:51

So, coach, last thing I wanted to ask you are there some guys that you know from camp, or maybe not some of the main name guys that stood out during camp, and maybe we'll hear their names throughout the season?

Rocky: 37:04

You know, like special teams-wise, you know a young man that hasn't had an opportunity to return yet. Nick Emeritato, who's a junior in our program, will be our punt returner and one of our kick returners Just had a great, great camp. Really proud of him and what he's done. Mikey Mecca is a dual sport football lacrosse guy, tough as nails, strong leader, brings a ton of energy to practice. You know he'll be playing corner as well as special teams.

Rocky: 37:33

So those are some names there that you'll hear and you know really looking forward to. You know our kicker and our punter those guys. Devin Taylor out of Tampa hear and you know, really looking forward to. You know, our kicker and our punter, those guys. Devin Taylor out of Tampa, florida, and Nico Duarte. Nico was a transfer out of Sacred Heart from New Jersey. You know, give a little shout-out to our special teams guys. You know they had a really strong camp and have been working hard at it. I'm looking forward to getting those guys out there and showing us what they can do so they could be the difference in the in the field position of the of the game.

Coach Faggiano: 38:00

So let me, I'll pull over a few. We got some, some comments here. So Pete says good call, coach, go blue, we must have a. A must have a Michigan fan. Pegs, everybody's going to. They always break my chops because nobody used to follow Fordham football. Now everybody always breaks my chops when they see Fordham.

Rocky: 38:20

So peg says he wants to hear Coach Fahs break down Fordham football have you ever been out to the Bronx Coach? I have. I went out and I need to do it more often. I went out and talked football with Coach Lenahan and we went out to Arthur. Avenue. Everyone that knows me knows my number one movie hands down is the Bronx Tale I even saw it on.

Rocky: 38:39

Broadway with my dad, which was amazing, and the guys will watch it on the bus at some point. They've seen videos in meetings about there's nothing worse in life than wasting time Right and how you can do it. It's just a great, great quote. But this summer I just had a great moment with my son. Jamesames was a sophomore at utica. My dad and we went down and had lunch on arthur avenue uh, may have had a couple cigars and hung out in the open market, yeah, and then went watch the yankees get a great win and this is when they first played soto. So this was back. It was.

Rocky: 39:16

It was in june, I think oh yeah, it was early my son's apple watch, which I don't have one of those yet. Right, he's like his watch is going crazy because of the decibels in the stadium. How loud they were booing soto it was. It was incredible so, and there was a game that they won. Um that that. Those are like. Those are some of my moments, if I can go catch a yankee game with my dad and uh you know where my judge? Yes, I have a 99 with Judge's name on it yeah.

Rocky: 39:41

Huge fan. What a classy guy. Hopefully we can pull it together here. I don't know what's going on right now, but you know. But yeah, arthur Avenue is the best. Can't go there enough.

Coach Faggiano: 39:56

Well, coach, listen, I told you I I was probably gonna keep you about a half hour. This is awesome. I I first I want to thank you for for reaching out. I know we've been talking about doing something like this for a little while and I'm happy to be able to do this throughout the season with you and give me the opportunity to learn more about, obviously, uh, the program and follow you guys throughout the season and, uh, it'll be fun, I'll look forward to it and, uh, the next week I should have the UC shirt on. I should have the UC shirt on next week and but I really do appreciate you taking the time with me and throughout the fall.

Rocky: 40:26

I appreciate the opportunity. This will be a lot of fun.

Coach Faggiano: 40:29

And I'm keeping track of those, those picks, coach, we'll see how you do. You might have to turn on ESPN Sunday morning and see how you did.

Rocky: 40:35

Yes, sir.

Coach Faggiano: 40:35

As always, fear the moose. All right coach. Thank you. Good luck this season. Good luck this week. Thank you, all right coach.

Coach Faggiano: 40:46

So that was Utica University head coach Blaise Faziano, and I'm excited to talk to coach throughout the season. He's always been so kind to me and even my dad when we were both coaching together at Waterville when my dad was the head coach coach and he's done so much for the area, so much for the Mohawk Valley, not just, not just coaching, but just with the community and recruiting local kids, and just he brings a lot of excitement. It's hard to believe he's been there so long but I'm really excited to talk Utica university football with him throughout the season. We'll preview the upcoming games, we'll talk about their current game. I'll have him do his picks at the end of the show, probably try to keep it to about a half-hour show with him because I don't want to take too much of his time. I know he's got a lot of things to worry about other than jumping on here with me, but I do appreciate Coach coming on tonight.

Coach Faggiano: 41:36

Make sure to tune in next Thursday night at 8 o'clock To another episode of Inside Utica University Football Podcast With Head Coach Blaze Faziano and myself. So, as I say All the time, on the Rockpile. The Rockpile Is where dreams become Reality. Have a good evening, everybody, thank you.