The Pop Warner Bowl XIV
Storrs Agricultural College football is at it’s worst 9 game record ever in it’s 118th season. We experienced plenty of success under Edsall since joining the FBS level, only to have Pasqualoni and DeLeone demoralize the players and get them to play lacking heart since the start of this season. Maybe Warde Manuel should not have admonished the players in the offseason, saying the previous season won’t happen again. Because it did and has become MUCH worse. The previous two seasons obviously are no comparison to to the present season.
Props to the Connecticut High School Coaches Association. Thank you for helping UConn football. Really. DeLeone was a proven failure at the college level but the high school coaches are “shocked” that Pasqualoni was fired for hiring him. The high school coaches responsible embarrassed the whole state, the University of Connecticut, the whole UConn fanbase and UConn alumni. You HS coaches want to have more power than alumni and boosters over the football program? Look what happened. We’ll never be able to thank you enough for this colossal failure of a season and tenure. Stick with your HS programs. You’re not big-time and come to terms with it. If you want to help the state and UConn, send the state’s best recruits to UConn, regardless of the head coach. It’s really that simple. That’s probably the only way you’ll ever truly be forgiven. Unless your poor egos are hurt that we are rightfully very angry at the ego trips that got us Paul Pasqualoni and George DeLeone.
Moving on to the next game. Hopefully, we’ll win.
Our all-time record against the Temple Owls is 4-9. Our first four games against them were between 1963-1966 and now they are our conference mates. This is our eigth game against them since 2002. After Rutgers leaves after this season, UConn and Temple will be the longest tenured teams or have spent the most time in the AAC/ex-Big East, with UConn being around since the start in 1979 and Temple joining in 1991, being kicked out in 2005 and reinvited in 2012. The Owls would not win a conference game until 1995, and would only win 16 conference games during their 14-year run between 1991 and 2005. Temple and UConn are what’s left of the pre-ACC invasion Big East. Temple is surrounded by a ghetto that requires heavy policing. Al Golden recruited mainly inner city kids so they don’t suffer a culture shock. Sounds as backward as it can get. At the same time, such a neat irony to describe our situation when it comes to conference realignment. We’re in a ghetto of a conference. And 0-5 in it for this season so far! Edsall went 3-3 against Temple, starting in 2001 and ending in 2010, but the Huskies lost to them the only time we played them under Pasqualoni.
The greatest moment in Temple Owl football history is when they hired Glenn “Pop” Warner in 1933 after having 8 straight winning seasons at Stanford. He was Jim Thorpe’s head coach while Thorpe played at Carlisle in the first decade of the 1900s. Pop Warner is best known for the creation of a youth football organization, “Pop Warner Football”, starting in 1929 in northeastern Philadelphia. One can assume his organizational creation is what enticed him to coach at Temple, which is located not too far away from where Pop Warner Football started. His tenures at Carisle, Pittsburgh and Stanford are legendary, winning four national titles at Pittsburgh and Stanford.
Pop Warner was the coach for Stanford in their 1926 championship campaign. Also coached 3 championship squads at Pittsburgh in the coaching stop prior, in 1915, 1916 and 1918. Spent his last 6 seasons at Temple, losing the 1935 Sugar Bowl to our future conference mates, the Tulane Green Wave, 20-14! 22,206 witnessed that game. The average crowd for a modern Temple and Tulane game. The next season was the first year the Heisman was awarded. And just for some more trivia knowledge, the 1936 Sugar Bowl ended with the score, 3-2, TCU defeating LSU.
Enough ancient history. Here we are in 2013, 1 win between Temple and UConn after 18 games. Both are winless in the AAC and at the bottom of conference standings. Temple had a chance for a historic victory against conference leader #15 UCF last weekend but UCF pulled off huge plays to defeat them as time expired. This is a team that lost to Idaho and Fordham in September. Some are expecting Temple to feel let down. But for some others, it’s not easy to assume they’ll emotionally roll over with true freshman quarterback P.J. Walker leading the offense. He was the Newark Star-Ledger’s 2012 New Jersey offensive player of the year. Once a third-string QB at the start the season, then a second-string QB in late September, Temple switched to QB P.J. Walker on October 5th against Louisville and he’s been producing solid results since. 61.6% completion percentage, 1476 yards, 15 TDs and 6 INTs. But his only win came against Army, 33-14. Scoring has not been an issue ever since he took the reigns of the offense. Their defense is their biggest weakness right now. It has been inconsistent throughout the season.
The Huskies are on their third quarterback as well, Casey Cochran. He did show composure but needs to iron out the “rookie mistakes”. But that was against one of the worst defenses in the AAC in SMU. Our offense is ranked lower than Temple in passing yards, rushing yards and points for. And our defense is ranked lower in points allowed. But the difference is not really that big. Our offense and defense still need a lot of work. They are weaker in the secondary but stronger up front, just like our defense.
SMU QB Garrett Gilbert torched the secondary. SMU’s rushing attack ran well. And SMU actually played pretty decent passing defense. Despite all of that, UConn had a chance to win the game until around 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter.
Our work-in-progress football team rolls, or stumbles, into Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday night. Do we have a chance against Temple? Of course we do. If we somehow can contain P.J. Walker’s magical arm or if he is mentally drained from the previous loss, that certainly increases our chances quite a bit. Our rushing defense has generally been solid. It’s the passing defense that needs to play lights out. But the offense is also going to have to keep developing and produce. “The Casey Cochran Show”, episode 2.
Let’s hope the team comes together more and pulls out with a “W”. Never take anyone for granted.
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