The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
A Long Learning Curve
Huskies have few answers in road loss to Syracuse
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — There’s not a person who better understands just what the UConn football program can achieve than Randy Edsall.
The winningest coach in program history guided the Huskies to five bowl appearances in a seven-year span during his first stint at the helm of the UConn program. Nothing would make Edsall happier than to have returned home from his alma mater with another victory over Syracuse on his resume. However, Edsall knows that while better days might be ahead, it could be a while until the long hours on the practice field result in another winning season.
More lessons were learned during Saturday’s 51-21 loss to Syracuse before a crowd of 36,632 at the Carrier Dome even as the Huskies gave up 24 first-quarter points and 636 yards of total offense by game’s end.
“We bounced off people, the missed tackles, we have to get stronger,” Edsall said. “Some of that is just youth and it is going to take time. People don’t want to hear it but I thought they competed. It wasn’t like when we played Central Florida and we were all over the place. We are going to continue to practice and continue to get better.”
UConn started six true freshmen and two redshirt freshmen on defense against a senior and junior laden Syracuse offense resulting in some predictable results early.
Senior quarterback Eric Dungey had two touchdown runs and a short TD pass during the Orange’s 24-point opening quarter and even after the Huskies pulled with 10 points, there was never a feeling that Syracuse was in danger of suffering its first loss of 2018. Still, the young defenders made enough plays during the second and third quarters for Edsall to believe that better days are coming even if he doesn’t know just how quickly the maturation process to translate into on-field success.
“It is hard for me to get up here and talk about certain
things but this is what it is and all I want to do is get our kids to play better,” Edsall said. “We shouldn’t be playing with this many freshmen and sophomores but we are. What we are going to do is we are going to make the best of it, get the guys to go play hard. We all want to win but we want to get a lot more consistent.”
A total of 22 solo tackles were made by true freshmen as UConn fell to 1-3 and 0-3 against Football Bowl Subdivision competition.
Sure, Dungey passed for 286 yards and a pair of scores while tallying all three of his team’s rushing TDs. Alton Robinson sacked UConn quarterback David Pindell three times and forced a few more incompletions with his relentless pressure. Surrendering 341 rushing yards is not going to have Edsall ready to throw a parade but he is seeing just enough growth to believe that the hard lessons will eventually benefit the program especially after surrendering just one offensive touchdown in the second and third quarters.
“We are getting better and at this point we are going to win games,” said sophomore linebacker Eddie Hahn, who led the Huskies with 11 tackles. “I think it is clear on the field that we are going to win games, it might not be next week, it may not be the week after that but things are going to get turned around here and we are going to win games.”
If it happens this year, senior quarterback David Pindell will probably be a reason why. Pindell had a 75-yard touchdown run and a TD pass to freshman running back Zavier Scott. Since UConn moved to the FBS level in 2002, only Bryant Shirreffs recorded more yards of total offense through the first four games than the 1,217 Pindell has during UConn’s time as an FBS program. Former NFL running backs Donald Brown and Jordan Todman as well as Terry Caulley are the only players other than Pindell to have more than 400 rushing yards in the opening four games during that span.
Pindell took a helmet to his knee and did not play in the fourth quarter. Redshirt freshman Marvin Washington threw for 66 yards including a 26-yard scoring pass to Tyler Davis on his first collegiate throw but also had a pair of turnovers. Pindell and Edsall both said UConn’s No. 1 quarterback should be fine for Saturday’s home game against Cincinnati.
Sean Riley caught six passes for 120 yards and had a pair of touchdowns including one on a 69-yard punt return.