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To paraphrase President Kennedy, today we are all Pasquolinis. Just a nice, solid effort and a surprisingly easy win in a game we couldn't lose for so many reasons. Extending the season a game. Recruiting. Not losing the fanbase. Keeping Rutgers from celebrating on our field. Had to have it and got it. Now, how much of that was our play and how much was their self-destructive choking? Honestly, I'm not that sure. I'm not sure I ever saw a game where statistics had less meaning than that one. The only stats that mattered were rushing yardage and turnovers. Sorry TDH, but yesterday is a perfect example that you don't need a ton of passing yards to win most football games. But today, I don't care. We're at a time of year where you win or you lose and we won. And we have a chance to show whether and how much we're improving Saturday at noon anyway.
So, offense, defense and specials. This week, specials played a huge role in winning the game for us. Teggart missed his first career extra point, but drilled both his FGs. Christen got I believed a whopping 4 touchbacks, reducing the risk of a kickoff return like the one that cost us the LV game. Wagner put the ball inside the 1 not once but twice (once downed by Taylor Mack, making the first play he's made on any unit all year that I've noticed). Coverages were great on both units. And Nick Williams got us field position again and again and again. Rutgers will be seeing him in their sleep. If you're going to get less than 300 yards of total offense and put up 40 points, the specials are doing their job, and they did. We need another week of that.
Defense gave up a boatload of passing yards, most of them, however, after the outcome was long decided. Far more importantly, the defense totally shut down the run and forced what -- six turnovers, not counting one more on a two poitn conversion. It was a dominating performance. How much of it was due to Rutgers choking, and how much our D -- ask me next Saturday at 4. Trevardo, obviously, was great. Just unbelievably great. We've been watching him get better and better year to year, and now it's game to game. He will be a beast next year. Tymeer Brown is also getting better game to game. Reyes has been great, and seeing him getting a TD this year on senior day, when he was robbed last year, was poetic justice. We saw a lot more 3 down lineman fronts Saturday than we've been seeing, largely with Shamar Stephen in the middle flanked by Reyes and Williams. Expect to see a lot more of that next year, with Joseph, Jennings and Trevardo flanking Stephen. And next year, we'll have the depth at LB to make a 3-4 work. Great game by Sio also, and Blidi looked much, much better. And Gratz looked better with him back.
On offense, the offense did everything you could have asked it to. Now, it did it after the D and specials made it easy. We didn't have a scoring drive that started inside our 40, and if I had to guess our average scoring drive probably only covered about 30 yards. So I'm not sure that the offense was really that much better, or at least ready to carry the team, than it had been, but having said that if we were as effective in the red zone, and inside the opponents 40, as we were yesterday, we'd have at least two more wins this year. So it was good to see. McEntee still has all the footwork issues, but the OL kept RU out of his face in the first half and he threw the ball, conservatively, where he wanted to. It was great to see JJL actually get a chance to carry 10 times and senior day, and to do a solid job with it (he really couldn't have gotten 5 carries a game this year?). I. Moore wasn't even looked at, but the WR blocking was much better than it had been. We had fewer WR snaps, with little 3 WR sets and a lot of 1 WR sets with Manning and Griffin at TE. And the OL was just great (and it was nice to see Gary Bardzak get a quick chance with Petrus out on Senior Day).
For the coaching, I have given up on managing the timeouts during the last two minutes this year. I agreed with the strategy that the first goal at the end of the half was to get in FG range and run out the clock, since we started the second half with the ball, but after the Davis crossing pattern if we had called TO we could have gotten three plays in. It was just messed up. And, P has to know that Schiano won't ever quit (more on that later) and, up 24, kick the damn FG. Had they meade the two point coversion to cut it to 16, and then recovered the onside kick, I don't even want to think about what would have happened. I didn't blame the coaches for last week's loss, and this week's win was that the players executed far, far better than Rutgers did. (Executed doesn't get you there -- we just wanted it much, much more in the trenches.) But the coaches did their part and absolutely get credit for doing so.
At the start of the game, the stadium was appalling. It looked like it would be lucky to be two thirds full. But, late or not, people got there. And enthusiasm wasn't like it might be in a better season, but it was fine. And it was fun -- fans stayed into the game in the 4th, even after the place had emptied. I would guess there were about 5k Rutgers fans. A good showing but, frankly, I thought they brought more fans to the Rent in '07 for the night game. They were enthusiastic to start the game. That didn't last long. Oh, and note to one RU fan I heard leaving the stadium saying "enjoy Bridgeport." Really? You thought that was an effective insult? Coming from a state with, among others, Camden and Patterson? I did think that both fanbased did a good job, however, of not getting in each other's faces. Maybe the fact that we're stuck in the same realignment nightmare helped contribute to that.
So there we are. One more week for the seniors to fight to our 5th straight bowl eligibie season, and only our 3rd ever winning conference record. I didn't tape the Cincy game, so I don't know how they put that many points on the board without Collaros. Did they show enough to make me think Saturday will take a major upset? Don't know. But my view of the game Saturday is that I'd much, much, much rather play it from ahead than from behind. Neither team throws the ball right now well enough to come back from more than 7 down, even early in the game. Scoring and defending early will be incredibly key. Winning special teams and avoiding turnovers. What else is new for Uconn football.
If we win, do we go bowling at 6-6? Almost definitely. This is how I see it, and I'll give you my assumptions so you can understand the conclusions. I will assume the following: (i) LSU and Oregon win their conference championship games; (ii) UConn wins, because otherwise I don't care, which means that Louisville, after losing to FIU and Marshall, is going to the Orange Bowl (and Louisville to the Orange will make the BCS long for the good old days when UConn went to the Fiesta in terms of quality of team); and (iii) the 4 BCS non-AQs are Houston, Michigan, Stanford and 'Bama. What does that mean for the Big East:
1. If we beat Cincy, Louisville wins the Big East, no matter what WVU does, and goes to the Orange.
2. Champs chooses Notre Dame to play either FSU or the loser of the ACC Championship game. Last year, the Champs passed on the Irish. With all the uncertainty of conference realignment, and the fact that Notre Dame may be getting closer to making a run at a BCS bowl, I can't see them passing on the Irish again. The Big XII fills its Pinstripe Bowl commitment, so that takes ND's other contract out of the picture.
3. Charlotte takes WVU to play an ACC opponent. Can't see them passing over the 'Neers for Rutgers, but stranger things have happened. Rutgers has never played there, would probably do well selling tickets, and it makes it an easier win for the ACC if Charlotte takes UNC or State and doesn't need WVU to bring 30 k fans to fill the place up.
4. Next is Pinstripe. If it has gone as I'm guessing, the Yankee organization takes Rutgers (whether Syracuse has beaten Pitt or not). I can't see them taking a 6-6 UConn over a 8-4 Rutgers no matter what head to head was given that neither has played there yet.
5. Next is Birmingham with a but. The same organization runs the Liberty Bowl, Birmingham and St Petes. If the SEC fills its commitment in both the Liberty and Birmingham, the CUSA champ (this year #2 with Houston to the BCS) goes to the Liberty and the Big East goes to Birmingham. If, however, the SEC only fills one of the slots, then the bowl can take Big East teams to play in both the Liberty and Birmingham, one against the SEC and one against the CUSA champ, and release the Big East from its St. Petes commitment. So, I predict that, the Liberty takes Cincy to play an SEC team (most likely Vandy but possibly Miss State).
6. Birmingham, going next takes UConn to play either Southern Miss or Tulsa. Pitt played this bowl last year, so isn't going there if it beats Syracuse which, at home, I expect it to. If Syracuse beats Pitt, they haven't had the honor of Birmingham yet and go there. This is not effected whether USF wins or loses versus WVU.
7. Next, the Big East is invited to send a team to St. Pete, anyway, whether they have to or not, and does to protect its relationship with the bowl. USF if they beat WVU. Otherwise, UConn, who hasn't been there yet, if they don't go to Birmingham, or the Pitt-- Syracuse winner if it's PItt.
8. If the Big East still needs to get a team to a bowl, there will be two open slots in San Francisco (from the Pac Ten and Army), one of which will llikely be filled by MWC, one in DC (Navy), and the two at the bottom of CUSA's list (guessing but maybe New Orleans and Hawaii)? So it's not likely to be a good destination, especially with both the Big Ten and Big XII having an extra team, but all BCS bowl eligible teams will go somewhere.
Bottom line for UConn with a win: most likely Birmingham, with Pinstripe and St Petes being the next most likely scenarios.
So, offense, defense and specials. This week, specials played a huge role in winning the game for us. Teggart missed his first career extra point, but drilled both his FGs. Christen got I believed a whopping 4 touchbacks, reducing the risk of a kickoff return like the one that cost us the LV game. Wagner put the ball inside the 1 not once but twice (once downed by Taylor Mack, making the first play he's made on any unit all year that I've noticed). Coverages were great on both units. And Nick Williams got us field position again and again and again. Rutgers will be seeing him in their sleep. If you're going to get less than 300 yards of total offense and put up 40 points, the specials are doing their job, and they did. We need another week of that.
Defense gave up a boatload of passing yards, most of them, however, after the outcome was long decided. Far more importantly, the defense totally shut down the run and forced what -- six turnovers, not counting one more on a two poitn conversion. It was a dominating performance. How much of it was due to Rutgers choking, and how much our D -- ask me next Saturday at 4. Trevardo, obviously, was great. Just unbelievably great. We've been watching him get better and better year to year, and now it's game to game. He will be a beast next year. Tymeer Brown is also getting better game to game. Reyes has been great, and seeing him getting a TD this year on senior day, when he was robbed last year, was poetic justice. We saw a lot more 3 down lineman fronts Saturday than we've been seeing, largely with Shamar Stephen in the middle flanked by Reyes and Williams. Expect to see a lot more of that next year, with Joseph, Jennings and Trevardo flanking Stephen. And next year, we'll have the depth at LB to make a 3-4 work. Great game by Sio also, and Blidi looked much, much better. And Gratz looked better with him back.
On offense, the offense did everything you could have asked it to. Now, it did it after the D and specials made it easy. We didn't have a scoring drive that started inside our 40, and if I had to guess our average scoring drive probably only covered about 30 yards. So I'm not sure that the offense was really that much better, or at least ready to carry the team, than it had been, but having said that if we were as effective in the red zone, and inside the opponents 40, as we were yesterday, we'd have at least two more wins this year. So it was good to see. McEntee still has all the footwork issues, but the OL kept RU out of his face in the first half and he threw the ball, conservatively, where he wanted to. It was great to see JJL actually get a chance to carry 10 times and senior day, and to do a solid job with it (he really couldn't have gotten 5 carries a game this year?). I. Moore wasn't even looked at, but the WR blocking was much better than it had been. We had fewer WR snaps, with little 3 WR sets and a lot of 1 WR sets with Manning and Griffin at TE. And the OL was just great (and it was nice to see Gary Bardzak get a quick chance with Petrus out on Senior Day).
For the coaching, I have given up on managing the timeouts during the last two minutes this year. I agreed with the strategy that the first goal at the end of the half was to get in FG range and run out the clock, since we started the second half with the ball, but after the Davis crossing pattern if we had called TO we could have gotten three plays in. It was just messed up. And, P has to know that Schiano won't ever quit (more on that later) and, up 24, kick the damn FG. Had they meade the two point coversion to cut it to 16, and then recovered the onside kick, I don't even want to think about what would have happened. I didn't blame the coaches for last week's loss, and this week's win was that the players executed far, far better than Rutgers did. (Executed doesn't get you there -- we just wanted it much, much more in the trenches.) But the coaches did their part and absolutely get credit for doing so.
At the start of the game, the stadium was appalling. It looked like it would be lucky to be two thirds full. But, late or not, people got there. And enthusiasm wasn't like it might be in a better season, but it was fine. And it was fun -- fans stayed into the game in the 4th, even after the place had emptied. I would guess there were about 5k Rutgers fans. A good showing but, frankly, I thought they brought more fans to the Rent in '07 for the night game. They were enthusiastic to start the game. That didn't last long. Oh, and note to one RU fan I heard leaving the stadium saying "enjoy Bridgeport." Really? You thought that was an effective insult? Coming from a state with, among others, Camden and Patterson? I did think that both fanbased did a good job, however, of not getting in each other's faces. Maybe the fact that we're stuck in the same realignment nightmare helped contribute to that.
So there we are. One more week for the seniors to fight to our 5th straight bowl eligibie season, and only our 3rd ever winning conference record. I didn't tape the Cincy game, so I don't know how they put that many points on the board without Collaros. Did they show enough to make me think Saturday will take a major upset? Don't know. But my view of the game Saturday is that I'd much, much, much rather play it from ahead than from behind. Neither team throws the ball right now well enough to come back from more than 7 down, even early in the game. Scoring and defending early will be incredibly key. Winning special teams and avoiding turnovers. What else is new for Uconn football.
If we win, do we go bowling at 6-6? Almost definitely. This is how I see it, and I'll give you my assumptions so you can understand the conclusions. I will assume the following: (i) LSU and Oregon win their conference championship games; (ii) UConn wins, because otherwise I don't care, which means that Louisville, after losing to FIU and Marshall, is going to the Orange Bowl (and Louisville to the Orange will make the BCS long for the good old days when UConn went to the Fiesta in terms of quality of team); and (iii) the 4 BCS non-AQs are Houston, Michigan, Stanford and 'Bama. What does that mean for the Big East:
1. If we beat Cincy, Louisville wins the Big East, no matter what WVU does, and goes to the Orange.
2. Champs chooses Notre Dame to play either FSU or the loser of the ACC Championship game. Last year, the Champs passed on the Irish. With all the uncertainty of conference realignment, and the fact that Notre Dame may be getting closer to making a run at a BCS bowl, I can't see them passing on the Irish again. The Big XII fills its Pinstripe Bowl commitment, so that takes ND's other contract out of the picture.
3. Charlotte takes WVU to play an ACC opponent. Can't see them passing over the 'Neers for Rutgers, but stranger things have happened. Rutgers has never played there, would probably do well selling tickets, and it makes it an easier win for the ACC if Charlotte takes UNC or State and doesn't need WVU to bring 30 k fans to fill the place up.
4. Next is Pinstripe. If it has gone as I'm guessing, the Yankee organization takes Rutgers (whether Syracuse has beaten Pitt or not). I can't see them taking a 6-6 UConn over a 8-4 Rutgers no matter what head to head was given that neither has played there yet.
5. Next is Birmingham with a but. The same organization runs the Liberty Bowl, Birmingham and St Petes. If the SEC fills its commitment in both the Liberty and Birmingham, the CUSA champ (this year #2 with Houston to the BCS) goes to the Liberty and the Big East goes to Birmingham. If, however, the SEC only fills one of the slots, then the bowl can take Big East teams to play in both the Liberty and Birmingham, one against the SEC and one against the CUSA champ, and release the Big East from its St. Petes commitment. So, I predict that, the Liberty takes Cincy to play an SEC team (most likely Vandy but possibly Miss State).
6. Birmingham, going next takes UConn to play either Southern Miss or Tulsa. Pitt played this bowl last year, so isn't going there if it beats Syracuse which, at home, I expect it to. If Syracuse beats Pitt, they haven't had the honor of Birmingham yet and go there. This is not effected whether USF wins or loses versus WVU.
7. Next, the Big East is invited to send a team to St. Pete, anyway, whether they have to or not, and does to protect its relationship with the bowl. USF if they beat WVU. Otherwise, UConn, who hasn't been there yet, if they don't go to Birmingham, or the Pitt-- Syracuse winner if it's PItt.
8. If the Big East still needs to get a team to a bowl, there will be two open slots in San Francisco (from the Pac Ten and Army), one of which will llikely be filled by MWC, one in DC (Navy), and the two at the bottom of CUSA's list (guessing but maybe New Orleans and Hawaii)? So it's not likely to be a good destination, especially with both the Big Ten and Big XII having an extra team, but all BCS bowl eligible teams will go somewhere.
Bottom line for UConn with a win: most likely Birmingham, with Pinstripe and St Petes being the next most likely scenarios.
