UNI Football coach Todd Stepsis addressed the media Wednesday at the team’s annual preseason media day.
Entering his first season in the program, Stepsis is hoping to embrace the history and tradition of UNI Football, which has made 22 FCS Playoff appearances.
“A lot of people when they talk about what’s Panther football, a lot of people think about the history of it,” Stepsis says. “And that’s something I hear, ‘new era of Panther football’ and new dome and new this and new that. We still want to pay homage to our history. I mean, we’ve had some tremendous success, some tremendous teams, tremendous coaches. Coach Farley, with his run that he had, just incredible. So we want to stay true to who we are. We want to be a team that has great toughness. We want to be a blue collar kind of team that goes to work. But we talk a lot about pillars of our program. Our three core values are passion, fight, and love.”
Aiden Dunne, Matthew Schecklman and Jaxon Dailey are battling for the starting quarterback position. Stepsis on some intangibles he’d like to see when determining a starting lineup.
“There’s all these critical factors for each position group that you love to see. Like defensive backs, you want to see a guy that can tackle, you want to see a guy who can play man coverage, each position has those factors. I’m more interested in response, so when things don’t go well, what’s the body language, what’s the next play look like? Is it a guy that after that play slouches his head or his arms go up looking for a coach to blow the whistle and say ‘hey that was a hold’ or is it a guy that taps his head, walks up to a teammate, gets him fired up and refocused to play the next play? The starters are the ones that can do that consistently over time.”
UNI was picked to finish eighth in the 10-team Missouri Valley Football Conference. Five of the league’s teams are ranked in the preseason FCS Top 25.
“I don’t like focusing on what others think and what others perceive who we are. So if the players want to use that as fuel, awesome. If they want to use that as motivation, that’s great. Teams don’t respect us. Coaches don’t respect us. When I start hearing negative talk, I kind of look at, well, what have you done to prove that you deserve something better? Nothing. We haven’t earned anything yet. So instead of focusing on what others think, let’s focus on what we think of each other.”
The Panthers will begin the season by hosting Butler on Saturday, August 30 on 99 The Wave.
