The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
UConn defense to be tested, UCF to feature nation’s best offense
UCF features nation’s top-scoring offense
STORRS — Billy Crocker, the mastermind behind the No. 1-ranked defense at the Football Championship Subdivision level in 2016, had his work cut out for him when he agreed to become the defensive coordinator at UConn.
Still, not even Crocker, coming off a successful run at Villanova, could have imagined the struggles that awaited him.
UConn has already given up more passing yards, completions and touchdown passes in a season in program history and there are three regular-season games left to play. Statistically, it is not just the worst pass defense in program history, but since making the jump to the Football Bowl Subdivision level in 2002, no team has given up more passing yards per game than the 378.6 surrendered by this UConn squad.
Things don’t get any easier with the Huskies hitting the road Saturday (noon, ESPNU) to play No. 14 UCF, the highest-scoring team at the FBS level.
UConn gave up seven touchdown passes to Riley Ferguson of Memphis and 516 yards of total offense to noted UConn tormentor Quinton Flowers of South Florida. The scary thing is that UCF quarterback McKenzie Milton — the American Athletic Conference leader in passing efficiency and total offensive yards per game — has been posting better numbers than both Ferguson and Flowers.
“We knew it was going to be a rough road with all the new faces that were going to be back there (in the secondary) and coupled with the quarterbacks and passing attacks that we’ve seen,” Crocker said. “It’s not good, but if we
make some tackles where we need to make some tackles ... Honestly, the last two weeks there haven’t been a ton of balls over our head. Some of the quick throws that are 5-, 10-yard throws have turned into 30-yard gains because we’ve missed the tackles.”
UConn has given up more passing plays of 10 yards or more than any other FBS team and also ranks last nationally in the number of 20-yard pass plays. It doesn’t help that the Huskies are expected to use their eighth different starting combination in the secondary, or that 10 of the 13 defensive backs to have tackles this season had never started a game for the Huskies until this year. At various times, true freshman defensive backs Brayden Brown, Omar Fortt, Jordan Swann and Ian Swenson have started, while redshirt freshmen
Tyler Coyle and Tahj Herring-Wilson have also played significant roles in Crocker’s 3-3-5 scheme featuring five starting defensive backs.
With so many new faces out there, it’s been hard for Crocker to open up his defensive playbook and give opposing offenses a variety of different looks.
“You try to keep it simple, especially with the number of young guys we’re playing on the back end; we try to make things as simple as we can for those guys,” Crocker said. “We’re probably not talented enough to stay in one thing against the teams that we’re seeing, so we’re going to have to do multiple things, but it’s a double-edged sword: Are we good enough to handle all of that stuff and at the same time get lined up and execute?”
With more than 50 missed tackles over the past two weeks, the issues seem to have been caused more by a lack of execution than by the scheme.
UConn coach Randy Edsall wondered after the South Florida game whether some of the freshman defensive backs had hit the proverbial wall, as the Huskies had 28 missed tackles, about three times what is considered an acceptable total.
“I wouldn’t say we necessarily hit a wall,” said sophomore safety Marshe Terry, whose eight starts this season are the most of any defensive back. “Guys just have to get their confidence back. I think guys might have lost their confidence a little. We have to look in the mirror, look at ourselves individually, see what we can do better.”
The Huskies will be without Brown, who is eighth on the team with 21 solo tackles, as he returned home following a death in the family. With Tony Watkins starting for Brown and seniors Jamar Summers and Tre Bell starting at cornerback ahead of Swann, this could be the first game without a true freshman defensive starter in nearly two months.
There’s much more to the UCF offense than Milton, as 10 different players have at least one play from scrimmage of at least 40 yards. Sophomore Adrian Killins could be the fastest running back in the country. He ripped off a 96-yard run against Memphis and a 79-yarder against Navy.
“He’s a home run every time he touches the football,” Crocker said of Killins, the Knights’ leading rusher. Nine UCF players have at least 100 receiving yards, and seven of them average more than 15 yards per reception, so a UConn defense struggling to make tackles has quite a task ahead of them.
“It’s frustrating to deal with, but you’re not going to put your head in the sand,” Crocker said. “We have to figure out ways to get out guys in the right position to make plays.”