Storrs – The day after a second straight humbling loss against a vastly superior opponent, coach Jim Mora challenged his UConn football team on Sunday.

Mora’s message: Maximize out every single day in every single thing that they do, from lifting weights, paying attention in meetings, taking great notes and asking questions, watching film, getting to bed on time, eating the right things, hydrating, etc.

“We’re going to prepare for our opponent…,” Mora said during his weekly media session Tuesday. “But, we have to start with taking care of ourselves. That’s the challenge. Everyone talks about the process, that’s the process. In a situation that we’re in right now, the most important thing we can do is focus on ourselves. Be the best that we can be every single day and then we will see improvement.”

The Huskies (1-3) responded with a spirited practice on Tuesday.

Count that as an encouraging sign for a struggling program that’s suffered through 10 straight losing seasons.

“I felt a different energy at practice today,” Mora said. “I’ve been around a lot of good football teams that have gone through some tough stretches in my career and teams usually go one way or the other. They usually start to descend or they accept the challenge and they start to ascend.

“I think that you’re going to see a football team here that continues to fight to get better, continues to fight to compete for better results on the field. I made a challenge to them on Sunday night and what I saw today is they accepted that challenge.

“What we’re talking about right now in this building is measuring ourselves against ourselves, and measuring ourselves against our potential and measuring ourselves against our standard, our work ethic and our commitment.”

That’s just where UConn is at right now four games into Mora’s first season in charge.

The Huskies are swimming upstream in a raging river and they’re trying to keep their head above water.

Injuries, especially on offense, have been an issue. And they’re dealing with a brutal stretch of their schedule.

They’ll be without their best offensive weapon in running back Nate Carter, who has a two-plus grade shoulder separation, when they play a second straight road game against a ranked opponent this weekend, visiting No. 12 North Carolina State (3-0) in Raleigh, N.C.

They’re still stinging from a 59-0 loss at No. 4 Michigan on Saturday.

Mora went deep into his bench last week and plans to continue to do so.

“This is challenging,” Mora said of the situation. “But it’s also an opportunity to grow. We have to develop depth here. So it gives young guys a chance to play and be thrown into the fire sometimes before they’re either physically or emotionally ready and it helps you grow up. It can be really ugly.

“When you look down the road, you say, okay, this is going to help us. That’s the attitude that I’m trying to take and I think our team is taking.”

As far as the schedule goes, Mora would prefer to ramp up the competition as the season progresses.

So far, their losses have come at defending Mountain West champion Utah State on the road, at home against Syracuse, which improved to 3-0 last week, and national championship contender Michigan.

“It is what it is,” Mora said of the schedule. “Man, let’s just go attack. I think that’s why it’s so important that the message comes back of being the best we can be, rather than message ourselves against the scoreboard.”

Overall, Mora says he’s disappointed about the results but not discouraged.

The Huskies are keeping the right attitude while weathering the storm.

“Everybody just keeps buying in,” sophomore Durante Jones said. “The loss we took last weekend, we really had to jump back from that. So we really attacked (Tuesday) differently than we usually do. That’s something we have to keep building on and keep being consistent with everything we do.”

“... We hold ourselves to a higher standard. We’ve got to be better than we were the day before, the game before, the night before, or even the meeting before. Whatever we’re doing, we just work on being the best at whatever we’ve got to do.”

News and notes

Mora on Carter, who ranks second in the nation in rushing yards at 419, missing Saturday’s game: “I know Nate will work as hard as he can to get back as quickly as he can.” Running back Devontae Houston will be healthy enough to play after being sidelined for the Michigan game. … UConn added quarterback Brayden Zermeno, a redshirt freshman from Los Angeles, to the roster. Zermeno spent a season at Arizona but didn’t play. He’ll provide depth at that position. “He went to the same high school as my kids,” Mora said. “But I didn’t know him and they didn’t either. He’s been able to come over and work the scout team stuff and do a really good job. That enables Cale (Millen) and Tyler (Phommachanh) to spend time with offense and get the reps that they need.”

g.keefe@theday.com