Storrs - Bob Diaco looked into his Crystal Football on Tuesday.

UConn's optimistic first year coach saw a blindingly bright future for his program.

"I'm looking forward to being three years into this program," Diaco said. "I have a great picture of exactly what that's going to look like knowing what I know what it looks like right now. ... It's going to be pretty exceptional."

The Huskies are anything but exceptional right now.

They've stumbled and bumbled their way to a 1-4 start. They head into Saturday's American Athletic Conference game against Tulane (1-4) in New Orleans (8 p.m., ESPNews) still searching for their first conference victory.

During a productive bye week, UConn improved in several areas, according to Diaco, who's accentuated the positives.

He gave his team a pep talk coming off a crushing 36-10 loss to Temple on Sept. 27 that dropped UConn to 0-2 in conference play.

"Everybody was upset," Diaco said. "And you need to address it and you need to address why. You can do it through care, video evidence and communication and just raw statistics.

"You can fixate on the negative and you can create and persist this negative cycle of negativity. ... Or we can address the reasons why at the end of the game the opponent had more points than we had. That's what happened.

"There's no one in our program that is a loser. No one. Not one person. Every person in our program and on our team is getting better every day. So we need to reinforce that message and show them examples of what we mean."

Diaco pointed to the team's time of possession, ranking third in the AAC, and an improving defense as pluses.

He's excited about his promising young players - nine true freshmen have seen action - like former Ansonia star running back Arkeel Newsome, whose workload will increase on Saturday. He called sophomore reserve Tim Boyle the quarterback of the future.

"This program is moving in the right direction," Diaco said. "We get better and better every single day. A lot of it is youth. And the fact there is a maturing proces that just needs to happen."

There still is a mountain of work to do in the present.

The Huskies are working on cutting down on their mistakes. Turnovers and shaky offensive execution highlight the dirty laundry list. Diaco is scaling back the offense to try to become more productive (UConn is averaging just 14.8 points per game).

"I just think it's a matter of finding things that we do well and building on those and going from good to great to excellent on those plays," quarterback Chandler Whitmer said.

UConn's attitude remains upbeat despite its struggles.

"They're not discouraged," Diaco said. "Everybody wishes our circumstances were different from a win-loss standpoint. But we're hanging our hat on the fact that we're improving as a team."

News and notes

In a scheduling quirk, UConn will have another bye week after Saturday's road game. The next game is Oct. 23 at East Carolina. ... UConn's depth chart lists four tailbacks - Max DeLorenzo, Josh Marriner, Newsome and Ron Johnson. "They're all trying hard and all four have great attitudes," Diaco said. "You're going to see Arkeel and Ron Johnson a lot more." ... Diaco said using senior wide receiver Deshon Foxx at quarterback will continue to be an option. Foxx played the final series against Temple. "I like playing quarterback," Foxx said. "It's cool."

g.keefe@theday.com

Twitter: @GavinKeefe