Huskies head to Myrtle Beach Bowl against Marshall
Nearly 13 months after he took the wheel of the beleaguered UConn football program, Jim Mora has the Huskies in a bowl game.
UConn accepted an invitation Sunday to play in the Myrtle Beach Bowl on Dec. 19 at the 20,000-seat Brooks Stadium on the campus of Coastal Carolina in Conway, S.C. UConn will face Marshall in its 13th game of the season — Mora’s first, and a season that was not expected to conclude with a bowl appearance.
Marshall (8-4) won its final four games of a regular season that included an upset victory over Notre Dame in Week 2.
It will be UConn’s first bowl game since 2015, when the Huskies lost to Marshall in the St. Petersburg Bowl. That’s the only time the programs have met.
The Huskies were 10-50 in the five seasons between that bowl game and the start of the Mora era. So return
ing to a bowl is significant for the program.
“It’s a big deal,” Mora said. “Right now, our focus is on the fact that these young men achieved what they set out to achieve at the start of this year and worked hard for it, and they earned it.”
Mora, the former NFL coach who last led UCLA, talked for months about reviving the program while cautioning that the steps could be small and incremental.
UConn (6-6) lost four of its first five games this season, with the only win coming against FCS-level Central Connecticut State. There were losses against Power Five schools such as Syracuse, NC State, and Michigan, the secondranked team in the country and a participant in the College Football Playoff.
Meanwhile, there was a rash of injuries that spread a young roster thin. Starting quarterback Ta’Quan Roberson tore his ACL in the season-opener against Utah State and was lost for the season, leaving true freshman Zion Turner as the No. 1 signal caller.
UConn also lost top running backs (Nate Carter, Brian Brewton, Devontae Houston) and receivers (Cam Ross, Keelan Marion) to injuries of varying severity. Mora and his staff turned to inexperienced
understudies such as Bristol native Victor Rosa, who emerged as the primary running back.
With the defense — led by Connecticut native Jackson Mitchell — improving, UConn won five of its last seven games to become bowl eligible. The run included a win over Power Five school Boston College, along with a victory over nationally-ranked Liberty that guaranteed a .500 record and bowl eligibility.
Even after ending the season with a loss at Army, UConn managed to secure a bowl berth. As an independent program with no conference home, UConn had not contractual path to a bowl game.
But there were enough teams that fell below the six-win threshold to open a door for UConn.
Mora has said all season that he’s enjoyed working this team as much as any that he has coached. On Sunday, the team gathered at a bowling alley in East Hartford — you guessed it — a bowl party. That idea was courtesy of offensive analyst Mickey Grace.
That’s a window into a team that has enjoyed the season,
“We had a great time,” Mora said. “We had a wonderful time. These guys are just, honestly, just a joy to be around. Every minute I can be around them, I like being around them.”
Mora said Sunday he’s not surprised the Huskies are in a bowl game. But
Myrtle Beach Bowl UCONN VS. MARSHALL Dec. 19, 2:30 p.m. (ESPN)
UConn’s turnaround is viewed nationally as stunning, given Mora inherited a team that was 1-11 last season after missing the 2020 season because of the pandemic. The Huskies were 2-10 in 2019 and 1-11 in 2018.
That’s seven wins over four seasons since UConn brought Randy Edsall back following the failed Bob Diaco experiment. The players on Mora’s roster lost 32 of 35 games while enduring a fall without games.
Overall, the program went a decade without a winning season. UConn was 8-5 in 2010, when the Huskies played in the New Year’s Day Fiesta Bowl in Arizona. After losing to Oklahoma in that game, Edsall bolted for Maryland and the school hired Cheshire native and former Syracuse coach Paul Pasqualoni to steer the program.
Pasqualoni was 10-14 over two seasons and was fired during his third season. Diaco, the former Notre Dame defensive coordinator, was hired and UConn managed to grabbed a bowl berth in 2015, losing to Marshall in the St. Petersburg Bowl to finish 6-7.
There would be one more
season for Diaco before Edsall 2.0.
That loss to Marshall was the last time UConn appeared in a bowl game. The program has been to six bowl games, starting with the 2004 Motor City Bowl in Detroit. There would also be bowl appearances in Charlotte, Toronto, and Birmingham before the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona and the St. Petersburg Bowl in Florida.
Now they’re heading to South Carolina.
“I’m most excited just for our players,” Mora said. “It’s been a it’s been a long, tough road for many of these young men. And you know, from the day I got here, they’ve had a goal and they’ve never blinked and they’ve just worked hard every day, had a tremendous attitude and have really built a unique bond amongst each other.
“And, and so to have the chance to go to a bowl and a great bowl like the Myrtle Beach Bowl to play a great team like Marshall, to play together one more time as a football team and have that opportunity to go get a seventh win, which would make this a winning season, is something that I know I’m personally excited about and I can promise you our players are excited about it, as well. So we’re ready to get going.”
The game against Marshall will begin at 2:30 p.m. and will air on ESPN.
According to UConn, information on the school’s seat block ticketing will be coming soon.
The school said in a release Sunday, “We encourage fans to buy through UConn to directly support the bowl experience for our student-athletes and show the nation how UConn bleeds blue! Fans who cannot attend the game, but still want to support the Huskies, can donate tickets to UConn students and/or groups in the local community. More information on ticket donation coming soon.”
Athletic director David Benedict said tickets were set to go on sale Sunday afternoon. Benedict said he anticipates a high level of interest in tickets from UConn fans, given the easy access to Myrtle Beach — there are direct flights from New Haven.
It was Benedict who traveled to Idaho just over year ago to meet with Mora about the football coaching vacancy for a program that had nowhere to go but up.
Now, the program is in a bowl game.
“It’s a culmination event,” Benedict said. “Of a lot of hard work that has really taken place over the past year. If you think back to when we hired and announced Coach Mora’s appointment as the next head coach ... there hasn’t been a day that has gone by since that point in time when he, his staff, and these young men, have worked tirelessly to put themselves int his position.”