The Start That No One Expected
Photo credit: Matt Schonvisky – THE BONEYARD BLOG
The night began with hope, optimism and expectations that things would be different.
BYU struck lightning in a bottle in less than six minutes, going up 14-0 in a flash.
“You can’t start a football game like that thinking you’re going to win, come on,” head coach Bob Diaco said following the game.
However, the Huskies did not quit. When Chandler Whitmer led a 6 play, 52 yard drive to cut the Cougars lead to 21-7 with 2 mintues, 33 seconds left in the first half, The Rent exploded. It was UCONN ball to start the second half. The fans were ready to help carry this team to a come back.
One minute, thirty seconds later, Taysom Hill threw another 35-yard TD strike. 28-7 BYU.
After getting a first down at their own 32, with three timeouts and still 35 seconds left, down 3 touchdowns, the Huskies let the clock wind down and headed in to the locker room.
UCONN played a much better game defensively in the second half, giving up just 7 points. The offense, on the other hand, took a giant step backward from last season’s 45-point outing against Memphis. The passing game was almost non-existent. The receivers were out-of-rhythm and there is clearly an elephant in the room following last night’s game. Did the rotation of quarterbacks ruin the rhythm of the receivers with their signal caller and did that lead to the multiple drops?
Early in camp, Bob Diaco said he would ideally like a running back to get 20 carries a game, as it takes awhile for a player to get into a feel for what the defense is bringing. So, the question needs to be asked, shouldn’t the same hold true at the more important quarterback position?
There were some more decisions that were very questionable:
On the first drive of the 3rd quarter, down 28-7, Casey Cochran orchestrated an 8 play, 64 yard drive to the BYU 17. In came Chandler Whitmer and the drive stalled. A 1-yard QB draw, followed by back-to-back sacks put the Huskies at 4th and 16. Instead of attempting a 38-yard field goal, they faked it with wide receiver Blake Feagles on a rollout, who ran 6 yards and darted out of bounds as no one was open. Head scratcher.
On the first drive of the 4th quarter, still down 3 touchdowns, inside the red zone, Diaco chose to go with a field goal which kept it a three possession game, instead of trying to cut it to two scores and keep a semblance of hope. The reason?
“I wanted to get [kicker] Bobby [Puyol] some work off the right hash,” Diaco said. “Functionally it was like throwing a dart at the dart board, it was nice, the right hash has been a bit of a nemesis, but he’s been getting much, much better at it. I took the opportunity right there to get some right hash work for him.”
This is not the NFL. There are no preseason games. Diaco has insinuated the first three games are preparing them for conference play.
“I don’t have a crystal ball about game four. I know right now that we need to get better as a team and we’ve built a foundation. I hope you saw some of the foundation tonight. You can look at the scoreboard and maybe not feel it, but if you watched the game and you saw the strain and the grit and the toughness that the players displayed, you didn’t see twelve guys on the field, you didn’t see ten guys on the field, delay of game, guys moving, jumping, misaligned or out of stance. The foundation is built, it’s strong and we put a coat of paint on. The only way we are gong to put another coat of paint on is playing in the games. That’s the point where you’re at right now. If you don’t play in the games, you aren’t going to get better.”
All-in-all, everyone needs work, including the coaching staff.
Now, with that said, there was clearly a different energy coming from the UCONN sideline to open the season last night. The freshmen running backs, both true (Arkeel Newsome and Ron Johnson) and redshirt (Joshua Marriner) are a welcome change in style of runners from the last couple of seasons. They all stood out above Berlin’s Max DeLorenzo.
Newsome is already a playmaker and he needs to play more, now. The first touch of his college career, went for 18 yards on a screen, where he finished the play running over a BYU defender on the sideline. He saw just 3 more offensive touches the rest of the way.
On special teams, he looked electric, including a 35-yard kickoff return. His other, went for 15.
Geremy Davis is still Geremy Davis. Seven catches for 96 yards, including a 39-yarder in the fourth, winning a jump-ball up the left sideline.
It was game one in the Diaco era and the fans showed, officially 35,150 after just 31,000 tickets were sold 48 hours before kick off.
“I’d like to thank the people of the state to come out in the opener,” Diaco said. “It was a beautiful night, unofficially 37,000 people here, stayed and cheered, the player’s recognized it, they’re so appreciative of it and we want to thank the people of the state for coming to support. Keep it up, please. Things are changing, I hope you saw it, everybody’s upset we didn’t win, everybody wanted to win and everybody tried hard. But, we’re going to. This football team is getting better, it gets better every day and we got better tonight. I just want to thank the people for coming out and cheering hard and giving us such great heart, we all recognized it and I want to say thank you for that.”
Stony Brook is next, one week from today and improvement is needed across the board.
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