EAST HARTFORD — A few Buffalo players walked over to the half of the turf where UConn was starting to warm up and got in a little pregame trash talk. Maybe in years gone by or, the way things have been going, weeks gone by, this wouldn’t have caused a stir.
But the Huskies of this moment would have none of it, not at Rentschler Field , not on a single blade of their grass. There was pushing and jawing , coach Jim Mora was animated and, next thing you know, UConn commenced to clobbering another opponent.
“A little heckler on the team,” Huskies linebacker Tui Faumuina-Brown said. “Tried to come push up on us, walk through our warmup, but he really didn’t do anything but fuel us. That’s all he did, he fueled the fire.”
No Bull: UConn football continues home dominance, throttles Buffalo, 47-3
Lets follow this trail. Northern Illinois beats Notre Dame on Sept. 7 , then Buffalo beats Northern Illinois last week, and now it’s UConn 47, Buffalo 3 at Rentschler Field on Saturday. So bring on the Fighting Irish for supremacy of independents?
Let’s not go over the top, but the long downtrodden UConn football program, which began this season with dozens of new players who came in over the spring and summer and lost the opener at Maryland, 50-7, has folks asking how the Huskies got this good, this fast. Two weeks in a row they’ve left an FBS opponent flattened in East Hartford, squinting to get the license plate of whatever just ran them down.
Following the 48-14 win over Florida International last week, coach Tom Herman vowed to look at UConn’s depth chart and try to figure out what transfers they got, how much NIL money they gave them and why his program didn’t get them. At the same time, Buffalo coach Pete Lembo marveled at how UConn had become a completely different team than what he saw on film from last season.
These were meant to be compliments, maybe a little backhanded, but Mora is a football coach. He knows how to get his players an edge.
“The success the team’s had and the improvement they are making is rooted in the work they’re doing,” Mora said. “That the players are doing, the staff has been doing, the athletic department is doing. There’s just too much chatter about that , and it pissed our players off because it’s disparaging.”
What we have seen the last month represents a startling change in UConn football, from the inside and the perception outside. In two short weeks, the Huskies have gone from a punch line, a program that was supposedly dead in the water as an independent, to one that has group-of-five conference coaches saying, “ I’ll have what they’re having.”
“When people say that, we really don’t take that as a compliment sometimes because that’s disrespect to people who have been here the last couple of years like me,” Faumuina-Brown said. “We try to keep the outside noise outside.”
Never before had UConn scored 95 points in back-to-back games vs. FBS opponents, and now the Huskies have to block out the praise. How did this happen? Long story short: A year ago, as UConn was finishing a 3-9 season, Mora called stridently for a greater commitment to raising name-image-likeness funds to take into the transfer portal. With more resources, he overhauled roster with 51 new players, 28 transfers and, from way up in the press box, the upgrades in a size, speed and skill is apparent.
Why an opposing coach says UConn football looks like a ‘dramatically different team’ this year
It was most apparent against Buffalo when they got the ball to receiver Skyler Bell, transfer from Wisconsin , who caught six passes for 153 and three touchdowns, 90 yards coming after the catch.
“We try not to get too wrapped up in it,” Bell said, clutching his game ball. “You lose focus when you look at stuff like that. It’s cool when people talk (positively) about us, but we let our pads do the talking on Saturday. Praise is great, but you’ve got to keep working.”
It was apparent when T.J. Sheffield, transfer from Purdue, boldly returned punts where UConn returners of the past would fair catch, and gave the Huskies field position. It was apparent when UConn stormed the line of scrimmage and swamped Buffalo’s backfield, preventing a third-down conversion until the final minutes.
UConn had 537 yards to Buffalo’s 198, the kind of ratio that used to have the Huskies on the wrong end.
“Everyone feels a little disrespected sometimes,” said Langston Hardy, whose pick-six at Duke two weeks ago seems to be a turning point. “We have guys from all over and we all bought into it together. It feels good when you’re on a team like this and everybody has the same mission.”
UConn football notes: Huskies to ‘be careful’ with QB Nick Evers after another head injury; defense dominates
But UConn also has a lot of core players who have been here for two or more years, like Faumuina-Brown, who had six tackles and a sack, Hardy, who had two sacks, and running back Cam Edwards, who ran for 98 yards and a touchdown. Joe Fagnano, in his second year at UConn, relieved injured Nick Evers with a 13-0 lead and threw for 217 yards and three touchdowns.
“That first game, we weren’t gelling together yet,” Fagnano said. “Now I think we’ve shown who we can be if we don’t stop ourselves.”
The Huskies (3-2) are two games into a string of six consecutive home games, and halfway to reached a goal of winning all their home games. The only thing missing was a full student section among the 20,347 (tickets distributed) at Rentschler Field. Presumably, the current state of affairs and a 3:30 start will change that for the game next week vs. Temple. UConn has outsiders believing, now they have to get the state to buy in. D-lineman Jack Barton, transfer from Furman, announced via social media that the Huskies were “accepting any and all bandwagon fans .”
“We’ve got this rare schedule,” Mora said. “You’ve got to win at home, that’s mandatory. That’s not negotiable. If we can win at home, more people will start coming to games. We have to earn that. If you want to see some exciting football, there are trust issues, we’ve got to earn us, but just give us a chance, man.”
Dom Amore’s Sunday Read: Dan Hurley out to three-peat the old fashioned way; UConn hockey vets push reset button and more
,
Local News
Comments / 0