Familiar defensive struggles resurface in blowout
For a quarter on Saturday in Fresno. Calif., it appeared that the UConn football team — playing in its first game in 637 days after opting out of the 2020 season — might have exorcised some of its defensive demons that had led to historic struggles in 2018 and 2019.
The Huskies held the Fresno State offense scoreless in the first 15 minutes of the season-opener for both teams and allowed only 32 total yards. UConn was wrapping up its tackles and schemed itself into the correct position.
Then came the second quarter. Bulldogs quarterback Jake Haener got going when he found wide receiver Josh Kelly for a 37-yard connection — the first big play of the game. At that point the Huskies’ defense began to look more like its 2019 edition rather than the stout unit that played in the first quarter. Fresno State scored three touchdowns in the period to seize control, en route to a 45-0 win in front of 26,043 fans at Bulldog Stadium.
“We made strides [over the past 21 months], but it didn’t show in some areas,” UConn head coach Randy Edsall said. “But that’s why you play the game. Some of the concerns I had going into this game, they showed up; there’s no excuses, we weren’t good enough. We were very, very poor offensively. We weren’t consistent enough on defense, and I thought on special teams we did a pretty good job.”
Here’s how the game unraveled for UConn:
Haener’s long connection to Kelly set up a 9-yard touchdown to Ty Washington with 10:47 left in the second quarter. On the play Huskies cornerback Tre Wortham stumbled in the end zone allowing Fresno State’s receiver a wide-open catch in the corner to take a two-score lead.
The Huskies ended a fiveplay drive with a punt on the ensuing possession. Fresno State then had a long touchdown called back due to offensive interference, and UConn capitalized, forcing the Bulldogs to punt. The Huskies then went threeand-out, punted, and the Bulldogs scored on their first play, a 61-yard catchand-run touchdown from Haener (331 yards, three touchdowns) to running back Ronnie Rivers with 3:50 left in the second quarter.
After another UConn punt, Fresno State scored again on the first play of its drive — this time on an 86-yard touchdown from Haener to receiver Jalen Cropper, who bounced off a few UConn tackle attempts while streaking down the field — to put the Bulldogs up four scores with 1:46 until halftime.
In a span of nine minutes, the Huskies went from stillin-the-game, trailing by seven, to down 28-0. Fresno State added a field goal as time expired in the half to take a 31-0 lead into the locker room.
“We missed tackles,” Edsall said. “Whatever reasons why we missed those tackles, and didn’t wrap up, I don’t know. I’ll have to watch the film. But they got a couple of big plays because we didn’t play the coverage from deep to short underneath ... we didn’t keep the ball underneath us. A couple of those other ones, we just didn’t tackle well and we took some bad angles.”
The Bulldogs scored twice more in the second half — an 8-yard run by Jordan Mims in the third quarter and a 1-yard catch by Raymond Pauwels in the fourth — to pad the lead.
Fresno State totaled 538 yards of total offense and was 7-for-16 on third down.
Senior defensive back Diamond Harrell led the team with eight tackles, and junior Jeremy Lucien intercepted a batted pass in the third quarter.
The difference
Defensive struggles aside, UConn’s offense couldn’t keep pace with its opponents either.
The Huskies totaled more punts than first downs (11 to 9), averaged 1.8 yards per play and set a program FBS record for lowest total yards in a game with 108. It was the team’s first shutout loss since a 2016 defeat against Boston College.
“The quarterback takes too much blame when you lose and gets too much credit when you win,” Edsall said. “But again, you’re never going to be good at football unless you get it done up front. Everybody else has to do their job, [the quarterback] is just one of 11 [players].”
Sophomore quarterback Jack Zergiotis, in his 11th career game, started and was 12-for-24 passing for 61 yards. Redshirt sophomore Steven Krajewski played the final two drives of the game, and was 2-for-6 for 11 yards.
A first-quarter fumble, in which defensive end Arron Mosby swatted the ball out of Zergiotis’ hand as he reared back to pass, was returned 31 yards for a touchdown — Fresno State’s first score of the game. It was the only UConn drive of the day which didn’t end in a punt or turnover on downs.
Zergiotis, who was sacked three times, had two key overthrows. Sophomore Cam Ross was wide open down the field in the first
quarter, but Zergiotis threw it well over his receiver’s head. Even had Zergiotis and Ross connected, the play had been called back due to offensive holding. In the second quarter, with UConn down 14, freshman running back Nate Carter was open on a wheel route but Zergiotis airmailed the pass.
Edsall confirmed Zergiotis will start next week against Holy Cross.
“It’s hard to evaluate the quarterback when the offensive line doesn’t do what they should do,” he said. “You can’t put it all on Jack ... we’re not going to start a quarterback controversy. We’re going with Jack.”
UConn’s quarterbacks didn’t get much help from their run game, which averaged 1.1 yards per rush on 31 attempts. Senior back Kevin Mensah, who totaled backto-back 1,000 yard seasons in 2018-19, finished with just 31 rushing yards on 11 carries. Ross was targeted 10 times — seven more than any other player — and caught five passes for 37 yards.
Up next
UConn will play Holy Cross in its home opener Saturday at Rentschler Stadium in East Hartford. The Crusaders, an FCS team, will be the underdogs. The Huskies last played Holy Cross in 2017, a 27-20 win.
“This is just one game,” Edsall said. “We’ve got improve in every area. Again, I have no excuses. We’ve just got to get better.”