Mistakes sink UConn
Huskies have four turnovers in loss to Holy Cross in home opener.
EAST HARTFORD — More than 3 ½ hours into a lovely late summer afternoon, 3 ½ hours most at Rentschler Field would surely wish to have back, the UConn football team was left to walk sullenly from its home turf.
Perhaps some players tried not to look, maybe others made it a point to look, to take it in and channel it as Holy Cross players formed a scrum at midfield and celebrated.
“It’s embarrassing any time someone comes on your field and they dance in the middle of your field,” Huskies linebacker Jackson Mitchell said. “Yeah, I would consider that embarrassing.”
It only begins to explain the depths to which the UConn program has plummeted. It was an FCS team, albeit a very successful one in Holy Cross, that was dancing back to Worcester after a 38-28 victory on Saturday.
Two games into the season the Huskies are at the “wake us up
when it’s over” stage, leaving one to wonder if any of their remaining games are winnable.
It feels like rock bottom for UConn football, but the way the last 10 years have gone, who is to say further descent isn’t possible? Maybe UConn could schedule down further and play a Division II opponent like Southern Connecticut.
Oh, wait. Southern upset Central, a high-level FCS program, Friday night. It happens.
But there are reasons programs are DII, FCS or FBS, and the primary separating factor is along the line of scrimmage. A turnover or a fluke play is one thing, but Holy Cross, which last beat an FBS team in 2002, took it right to UConn from the start.
The Crusaders began the day with a nine-play, 77-yard touchdown drive, and though the Huskies briefly led at 14-7, they never established the run, or stopped it, and were pushed around the rest of the afternoon.
Of course we’ll give coach
Bob Chesney and the Crusaders, back-to-back Patriot League champs and playoff participants, the credit they earned, doing the things that give an underdog a chance by playing bold and confident. If anything, they helped UConn stay in the game with 15-yard unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties and an unnecessary onside kick with a 10-point lead.
But the only thing UConn has done well in two games is punt, understandable with a five-star freshman kicker, Joe McFadden, and a lot of reps. McFadden averaged 43.4 yards on five punts with a long of 51, and Haydn Kerr performed his specialty by pinning Holy Cross back at its 2-yard line with 10 minutes, 25 seconds to play, giving his team its last chance to stave off this disaster.
Then Crusaders quarterback Matthew Sluka broke through a hole in the line, shed tacklers and raced 76 yards to set up the touchdown that clinched it, the humiliation complete.
“I’m disappointed because I thought we would be able to do a little bit more than what we’re doing,” UConn coach Randy Edsall said. “It’s up to me to figure it out and get ourselves to play better.
“But the one thing I know is you’ve got to be able to run the ball and create new lines of scrimmage and stop the run. You’ve got to do those things.”
Kevin Mensah inched along for 71 yards on 21 carries until the Huskies had to abandon the run. Jack Zergiotis threw three TD passes but was erratic, going 17-for-41 with three interceptions, one run back for the touchdown that tied the game in the game in the second quarter, wiping out the Huskies’ shortlived first lead of the decade.
It got worse as UConn, which already lost Matt Drayton for the season with a knee injury, lost Cam Ross to a broken foot that will likely end his season. The two most talented receivers are now gone.
“It’s definitely a gut check for the team,” Zergiotis said. But I didn’t lose any faith in that game in the guys. I still trust in them and believe in them. We’ve just got to learn from it.
“This group, it’s tight. We all believe in one another. I don’t think anybody’s lost faith.”
Through it all the 18,782 fans, many of whom showed up early to tailgate, tried to find reasons to cheer but were offered few. A few more weeks of this and they may have to “distribute” tickets by dropping them as warning leaflets from an airplane over enemy territory.
As we know, it wasn’t supposed to be this bad. Not again. UConn canceled last season due to the pandemic and spent a year keeping everyone in the program, getting bigger, stronger, faster, learning the fundamentals and the playbook. But still, they’ve allowed 901 yards in two games while generating 369.
“You’ve got to create your own confidence,” Edsall said. “The way you do that is to go out and do the things you’re supposed to do on every play. And in this game you have to have all 11 do it . ... I’ve got to try to do more myself.”
At this point it’s hard to see what more Edsall can do. He’s been back nearly five years now, these are his players and he’s had, in effect, a full-roster redshirt year to develop them. The time to contemplate the coach’s future is a bit down the road, and the time to contemplate the program’s future is further down the road.
But Purdue is coming to Rentschler next week, Purdue as in Big Ten contender, not Patriot League power. For now, to coach, play for or follow UConn football is to be, as President Lyndon Johnson once said, “a hitchhiker caught in a hailstorm on a Texas highway.”
Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. And no way to make it stop.