The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Huskies escape the embarrassment of a winless season
EAST HARTFORD — Before the locker room celebration and before a news conference starring an interim coach turned giddy child who deserves of a bar of soap in the mouth, there was a final play that left most UConn football players feeling hopeful and helpless.
Yale quarterback Nolan Grooms lofted a pass toward the end zone with time expired, and in the balance hung this game with UConn nursing a five-point lead.
“Just silently praying to myself,” said Huskies quarterback
Steven Krajewski.
“I couldn’t even see who came down with the ball until the very end,” said defensive back Tre Wortham.
It was UConn’s Tui FaumuinaBrown. His interception sealed the Huskies’ 21-15 win Saturday at Rentschler Field, so into the conversation about a season that was shaping up as something all-time and historically bad enters “Couldabeenworse.”
That’s how fast-talking Lou Spanos sounded about a halfhour later while discussing the program’s first victory since Oct. 26, 2019, a span of 721 days. He was asked about the final play, during which several players from both teams converged on the ball.
“With the analytics and the hieroglyphics and then the 3-D of the chalkboard,” Spanos said, “it came out the way we wanted: a win.”
Spanos brought the game ball, presented to him by players, to the news conference and placed it on the podium.
“It’s the best ball I ever had,” Spanos said. “I’m going to be sleeping with this tonight. There’s going to be a 24-hour rule. I’m going to tuck it when I get up about four in the morning