Change of heart keeps Olivier a Husky

Storrs — Mathieu Olivier shared a warm embrace with coach Randy Edsall when UConn celebrated Senior Day at Rentschler Field last Dec. 5, but something didn't feel right.

"I just felt a little empty inside," Olivier said. "A lot of stuff was going through my head. It was kind of sad, then after hanging out with the older guys for a few weeks I realized it didn't have to end."

So Olivier, who was on track to graduate in four years with an economics degree — but who still had another year of football eligibility — decided to pull an about-face. He approached Edsall prior to the Huskies' 20-7 victory over South Carolina in the Papajohns.com Bowl and asked if he could remain with the program.

Edsall's response?

"I told him I'd love to have him back," Edsall said. "We didn't want him to leave in the first place."

Olivier, a 6-foot-6, 294-pound guard from Woburn, Mass., now admits he made a hasty decision when he first told Edsall of his plans to move on prior to UConn's final home game against South Florida.

"I didn't feel like I was playing to my full potential," Olivier said Thursday following a morning practice. "Plus there was a lot of stuff going through my mind … stuff at home and other things. It was overwhelming. I talked to coach and decided at the time it was in my best interest to graduate and try to pursue things from an educational standpoint."

Olivier, who had lost his starting job to Erik Kuraczea after five games (he got the job back for the last three games — all wins), even contemplated transferring to a Football Championship Series school (formerly Division I-AA), where a starting job was virtually guaranteed.

Then he had a discussion with Rocky Nelson, his head coach at Woburn High School, and his high school assistant, Steve Martin, who played at Boston College.

"I didn't really have a father figure growing up so I leaned on my high school coaches," Olivier said. "Coach (Nelson) was like, 'I'm behind you 100 percent if you want to go somewhere else, but just make sure you think things through.'"

And those thoughts always came back to UConn.

"I felt like we had such a great potential and there's a lot of things we can do," Olivier said. "And I realized there were different routes I could go into bettering my education, and that staying here with a double major (economics, sociology) and a minor (business) too was a better route to go than grad school, where trying to do that and play football would have been overwhelming."

Today, Olivier has no regrets. He's starting at left guard, part of an experienced offensive line that many consider the Big East's best. He also has one degree (economics) and can't wait to see what the future holds — both athletically and academically.

"Education is definitely big in my family being I'm the first one to really graduate college," he said. "I just want to make my family proud."

But there's also that matter of trying to lead UConn to its best season in program history.

"I can definitely see we're getting a little more love around here," he said. "But I don't like to look into that hype. I just know we have to stay humble and hungry. These coaches put a lot on us to be better people off and on the field, so if we keep working we'll be in the position we need to be come January."

News and notes

• Edsall, when asked to comment on the recent indefinite suspensions of Kuraczea and reserve quarterback Cody Endres, said, "I don't even want to talk about guys that aren't here. The only guys that mean anything to me are the guys who are out here practicing. Anybody wants to talk about those guys, fine, because they're with us, but the guys who aren't here I don't want to even talk about because I'm just wasting my breath because obviously they didn't feel it was in the best interest of our team to do what was right, to be out here ... and that's all I'll say." … Edsall hasn't decided who will move into the No. 2 spot on the depth chart behind Zach Frazer at QB, but redshirt freshman Michael Box took the majority of snaps with the first unit Thursday morning.