Storrs — Bryan Cespedes is in a good place.

He's happy, motivated, focused and determined to work hard and do anything that he can to help the UConn football team.

That wasn't the case the last few years.

"My mind wasn't where it needed to be," said Cespedes, a New London High School graduate, after spring practice on Tuesday.

Cespedes, a red-shirt junior, admits that he's made some poor choices in the past. His priorities were mixed up. He got into trouble.

It took some heart-to-heart talks with his mother, grandfather and veteran UConn teammates to turn his life around.

"I was very immature," Cespedes said. "I was focused on things that I shouldn't have been focused on. I was trying to balance my social, football and academic life. I was letting my social life get a higher priority than it should have had. But I put my priorities on buckling down on football and academics and putting them at the top of my list.

"Everything is going good, thank God. You've got to go through hard times to learn from your mistakes. I sure did make a couple of mistakes and I'm glad I learned from them."

So good that Cespedes, a 6-foot-7, 299-pound offensive guard, is seeing some action with the first team.

It's been a long, hard climb.

At the end of last season, Cespedes was buried on the depth chart. He's appeared in only one game in his career after sitting out as a red-shirt in 2015. He didn't start playing football until transferring to New London from Grasso Tech as a high school junior.

"It feels like all the work that I put in in the off-season and the first two weeks of spring ball, the coaches have noticed that," Cespedes said. "It feels like I'm taking steps forward in the right direction. It's a great feeling."

Coach Randy Edsall has noticed a whole different mindset and attitude from Cespedes since the end of last season.

Edsall once questioned how important football was to Cespedes.

"You give credit where credit is due," Edsall said. "I wasn't sure just how committed Bryan was when I first got here and what I saw. I've seen a different guy here since January. I see a guy that's working to get better, working to do the things that (offensive line) coach (Frank) Giufre is asking him to do as an offensive lineman, and see a guy that's playing with enthusiasm and playing with some physicality.

"He still has a lot of work to do. He's one of the guys that I've been a little bit pleasantly surprised about this spring. ... He's making improvement. If he can continue to do that, that will be a bonus for him and it will help us."

Cespedes credits teammates, friends and family for helping him fight through some adversity and self-doubt. He's enjoying working with and learning from Giufre.

Former teammates Tre Bell and Foley Fatukasi advised him to focus and work hard, and results would follow.

During tough times, Cespedes had some long heart-to-heart chats with his mother, Graciela, who lives in New London.

"You always get those thoughts that maybe I'm not good enough," Cespedes said. "You always have to have a driver that says you are good enough, just keep working hard. That driver for me is my mother. She always told me to just keep working hard, you're going to get your shot.

"So better late than never. My shot came and I'm now making the best of it."

There's another major source of inspiration in his life.

Every time Cespedes steps on the field, he thinks about his grandfather, Coanabo Miguel Cespedes, who passed away about two weeks ago in the Dominican Republic.

Cespedes lived in the Dominican Republic until he was six years old. He remained really close to his grandfather. They regularly spoke on the phone.

"He raised me," Cespedes said. "He was my first father figure growing up. ... I called him almost every night and spoke to him. He always gave me words of wisdom when I was down and he helped me get back up.

"... Everything I do out here now is with a chip on my shoulder because I've got to make him proud. He's watching from above. ... It was definitely a tough time. But I came back out here like I had to work hard and not let anything distract me from what I'm doing.

"I'm just striving to win games. I want to help out the team anyway I can."