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Well, that was a huge win for so many reasons. That we hate BC more than anyone because of its incredibly illegal rationale for talking the ACC out of taking us when it took ‘Cuse and Pitt. Because they are our single biggest competitor for recruiting New England players below a national top 40 level. Because we hadn’t won ON THE ROAD against a power conference team since winning at Maryland in September of 2012. And because the P-4 win sort of cancels out the road loss to Delaware and puts us back on a track where we SHOULD, as opposed to could, finish with at least 8 regular season wins again. And the huge win was totallly deserved. Our offense was truly close to perfect in all aspects — game plan, play calling, execution and players making big plays. Only too many holding penalties on running plays on offense were troublesome. Our defense more than struggled in the first half, and then totally turned it around and played very well in the second half. And special teams held their own. More on each of those later.
The last time we won at a power conference team in ‘12, I was there in Maryland with my younger son who lives in DC. He came up for the weekend to go to the game with me, but it was not without causing an old man to be exhausted. His flight landed at LGA at 11:40 pm Friday night, and it was 1:00 in the morning on technically Saturday when we got home to Fairfield. After not much sleep after getting in that late, it was out of the house at 7:45, a quick stop at Country Cow for breakfast sandwiches (IYKYK) and then on to the 150 mile each way drive to Boston. Not a hint of traffic until we were off the highway, and reached the off campus parking lot we had paid for about 10:45. Unfortunately it was about 11:50 by the time we found our seats due to a combination of waiting for the shuttle bus to drive to the stadium, heavy traffic getting to the stadium and frankly finding the stadium itself very confusing to figure out where our section was. But it was all fine, Beautiful day, we were on time, and I’d say the crowd was at least 15% UConn fans. There was a LOT of blue in the stands. Where we were sitting (upper deck behind the UConn bench at about the 35 yard line) there were both UConn and BC fans, and there was absolutely no tension whatsoever between the two. (Having the home team looking at a 1-11 season will do that for crowds.). By the way — for those constantly whining about how our paying fans don’t get to their seats early enough — you ain’t seen nothing. That might have been the latest arriving crowd I’d ever seen at a sporting event anywhere. But, at the end of the first quarter, between UConn fans and late arrives the building was mostly full. I’d guess attendance at 35k or so . Don’t know what BC reported.
Anyway, on to the game. I don’t know how much better you could ask an offensive unit to play than that. Not counting when we were just killing time at the end of the half and game, I think we scored 5 TDs and 1 FG in just 9 offensive possessions. I think I’m done qualifying my compliments week after week as to Fagano’s play by talking about what he can’t do, because what he can do, and is doing, is giving us really really good QB play. The decision making, the delivery of the ball a high percentage of the time, the occasional scramble and the incredibly number of throws he’s made over 7 games without a single pick is just outstanding. And, sort of increidibly for a guy in his 7th year, we’re seeing him get better and better week to week. But the incredible success of the passing game is not on him. I don’t remember him taking a single hard hit thanks to the pass blocking, I can’t remember a single drop by the varied receiving corps and some of the schemes were so good that making the play was easy. Best example was the first Juice TD. He was hidden in the backfield as a FB at the snap, leaked out and was so unbelievably wide open that any in shape 40 year old (although not me I’d add) could have made that catch and run. And I would be remiss if I fail to note that the defense having to focus on Bell each and every time JF looks to throw has to make everything easier. The running game, although seldom used, was perfectly fine other than the frequent holding penalties. I don’t know if we ran so little to limit Edwards’ carries again or just because passing successfully looked so damn easy, but it certainly didn’t stop the offense as a whole from working.
So on defense, in the first half it looked like they could run on us to their hearts’ desire. And we didn’t seem in a hurry to make changes. I don’t know if our game plan was to bend but not break, and in the red zone with less room behind our DBs bring them up and stop the offense, or we just don’t have a Plan B, but the bend but don’t break, on a day when we could move the ball at will, worked satisfactorily until the defensive breakdown at the end of the first half. When, inexplicitly, we had no deep safety help when without TOs left BC had no way to get into the end zone before running out of time and kicking a 3 unless we let them beat us deep, Mora absolutely lit into Brock on the sideline after that play. Not once. The yelling at him continued at least until everyone headed to the locker room for the half. And then, in the second half, the D was totally different. Some combination of them speeding up to chase points, us playing better and increasing substantially our blitzing held BC to 3 second half points. And the result was what was, in the end, a relatively comfortable win.
I feel like the paragraph on special teams every week is getting boring since we stopped snapping it two stories over our punter’s head. Our punting is consistently good to very good, our placekicking is outstanding and coverage and return teams are neither making no allowing big plays. It would be hard to understate how much confidence I have in Chris Freeman at this point.
So we’re now 5-2, 1-1 against the ACC despite both games being on the road. Yes, we’re 2 OT losses from 7-0, but that is what it is and we’re certainly a better team today than we were back in September. Duke is a good football team, and has a great passing attack. While I never count out the home team winning a football game, that’s not a great recipe for us. If any of the other four games (at Rice and FAU and home to UAB and Air Force) were played next weekend, we’d be favored but none of those games look automatic at the moment based on how 3 of those teams played this weekend and going 4-0 through them would be a really good result. So while anything from 10-2 to 5-7 is still possible, I think 9-3, beating last year’s record, would be a really good result and 8-4 matching last year’s would be o.k. I’m still not sure what to think about our defense, but I’m damn sure that if we keep Fagnano, Bell and Edwards healthy (well, in Edwards case just keeping him on the field because playing hurt doesn’t seem to be an issue for him), we’re going to score points the rest of the way. On to Houston for bowl eligibility heading into a 3 game homestand.
Oh, and one more thing. In case it wasn’t clear, BC sucks. I’m only sorry I couldn’t get other UConn fans to join me in a “Drive home safely” chant when their fans started pouring out of the stadium after we went up 15.
The last time we won at a power conference team in ‘12, I was there in Maryland with my younger son who lives in DC. He came up for the weekend to go to the game with me, but it was not without causing an old man to be exhausted. His flight landed at LGA at 11:40 pm Friday night, and it was 1:00 in the morning on technically Saturday when we got home to Fairfield. After not much sleep after getting in that late, it was out of the house at 7:45, a quick stop at Country Cow for breakfast sandwiches (IYKYK) and then on to the 150 mile each way drive to Boston. Not a hint of traffic until we were off the highway, and reached the off campus parking lot we had paid for about 10:45. Unfortunately it was about 11:50 by the time we found our seats due to a combination of waiting for the shuttle bus to drive to the stadium, heavy traffic getting to the stadium and frankly finding the stadium itself very confusing to figure out where our section was. But it was all fine, Beautiful day, we were on time, and I’d say the crowd was at least 15% UConn fans. There was a LOT of blue in the stands. Where we were sitting (upper deck behind the UConn bench at about the 35 yard line) there were both UConn and BC fans, and there was absolutely no tension whatsoever between the two. (Having the home team looking at a 1-11 season will do that for crowds.). By the way — for those constantly whining about how our paying fans don’t get to their seats early enough — you ain’t seen nothing. That might have been the latest arriving crowd I’d ever seen at a sporting event anywhere. But, at the end of the first quarter, between UConn fans and late arrives the building was mostly full. I’d guess attendance at 35k or so . Don’t know what BC reported.
Anyway, on to the game. I don’t know how much better you could ask an offensive unit to play than that. Not counting when we were just killing time at the end of the half and game, I think we scored 5 TDs and 1 FG in just 9 offensive possessions. I think I’m done qualifying my compliments week after week as to Fagano’s play by talking about what he can’t do, because what he can do, and is doing, is giving us really really good QB play. The decision making, the delivery of the ball a high percentage of the time, the occasional scramble and the incredibly number of throws he’s made over 7 games without a single pick is just outstanding. And, sort of increidibly for a guy in his 7th year, we’re seeing him get better and better week to week. But the incredible success of the passing game is not on him. I don’t remember him taking a single hard hit thanks to the pass blocking, I can’t remember a single drop by the varied receiving corps and some of the schemes were so good that making the play was easy. Best example was the first Juice TD. He was hidden in the backfield as a FB at the snap, leaked out and was so unbelievably wide open that any in shape 40 year old (although not me I’d add) could have made that catch and run. And I would be remiss if I fail to note that the defense having to focus on Bell each and every time JF looks to throw has to make everything easier. The running game, although seldom used, was perfectly fine other than the frequent holding penalties. I don’t know if we ran so little to limit Edwards’ carries again or just because passing successfully looked so damn easy, but it certainly didn’t stop the offense as a whole from working.
So on defense, in the first half it looked like they could run on us to their hearts’ desire. And we didn’t seem in a hurry to make changes. I don’t know if our game plan was to bend but not break, and in the red zone with less room behind our DBs bring them up and stop the offense, or we just don’t have a Plan B, but the bend but don’t break, on a day when we could move the ball at will, worked satisfactorily until the defensive breakdown at the end of the first half. When, inexplicitly, we had no deep safety help when without TOs left BC had no way to get into the end zone before running out of time and kicking a 3 unless we let them beat us deep, Mora absolutely lit into Brock on the sideline after that play. Not once. The yelling at him continued at least until everyone headed to the locker room for the half. And then, in the second half, the D was totally different. Some combination of them speeding up to chase points, us playing better and increasing substantially our blitzing held BC to 3 second half points. And the result was what was, in the end, a relatively comfortable win.
I feel like the paragraph on special teams every week is getting boring since we stopped snapping it two stories over our punter’s head. Our punting is consistently good to very good, our placekicking is outstanding and coverage and return teams are neither making no allowing big plays. It would be hard to understate how much confidence I have in Chris Freeman at this point.
So we’re now 5-2, 1-1 against the ACC despite both games being on the road. Yes, we’re 2 OT losses from 7-0, but that is what it is and we’re certainly a better team today than we were back in September. Duke is a good football team, and has a great passing attack. While I never count out the home team winning a football game, that’s not a great recipe for us. If any of the other four games (at Rice and FAU and home to UAB and Air Force) were played next weekend, we’d be favored but none of those games look automatic at the moment based on how 3 of those teams played this weekend and going 4-0 through them would be a really good result. So while anything from 10-2 to 5-7 is still possible, I think 9-3, beating last year’s record, would be a really good result and 8-4 matching last year’s would be o.k. I’m still not sure what to think about our defense, but I’m damn sure that if we keep Fagnano, Bell and Edwards healthy (well, in Edwards case just keeping him on the field because playing hurt doesn’t seem to be an issue for him), we’re going to score points the rest of the way. On to Houston for bowl eligibility heading into a 3 game homestand.
Oh, and one more thing. In case it wasn’t clear, BC sucks. I’m only sorry I couldn’t get other UConn fans to join me in a “Drive home safely” chant when their fans started pouring out of the stadium after we went up 15.
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