NCAA Football Connecticut Football

I did this last year, so it seems only fitting that I would do it again.

And it wasn't even close. Louisville had five players drafted, while Pitt and West Virginia had three apiece. Rutgers, South Florida, Cincinnati, and Connecticut had two each. And for the first time since 1975, Syracuse did not have anyone selected.

That's 19 players drafted. And any way I slice it, that's just not all that good for a BCS conference. Looking at the distribution of what rounds the players were taken, it was pretty well spread out over the entire draft for the Big East. But that doesn't make it feel any better. It's especially bad if you look at a team like West Virginia that has had three 11 win seasons in a row along with three straight top ten finishes. They've had exactly four players drafted in the last three years. And Chris Henry and Pac Man Jones the year before that. So we won't even go there.

The ACC? Yeah, that conference we've been quietly laughing at after Miami, Va. Tech, and Boston College left. Yeah, they had 33 players drafted this past weekend. The coaching must really suck over there or something.

Pac 10? Oh, they had 37 players drafted. SEC? 35. Big 10? 28. Big 12? 27. Hell, C-USA had 11 players drafted! Patriot League? Never mind.

Even more upsetting for West Virginia fans, two players left early for the NFL and weren't drafted. Those two being Darius Reynaud and Johnny Dingle. Yeah, sorry folks. Those Dingle-Berry photo's won't be happening anymore. Those are definitely two players the Mountaineers could have used this year, though. I'm not saying that their stock would go up any with one more year of college. But it sure wouldn't go down.

Louisville will have the most holes to fill as well. You don't replace Brian Brohm, Harry Douglas, and Art Carmody. I know there are others, but those three were special at their positions. West Virginia won't be far behind with the loss of Slaton and most of the secondary and defensive line. Rutgers, well we don't know how bad it is because we haven't seen anyone but Ray Rice run the ball. The rest of the conference should be fine. And that's not a good thing if you think about it.

Proving that politicians can be bat-crap crazy fans even in the Northeast, the Connecticut legislature gave its approval for UConn to play Notre Dame in a six game home-and-home series starting in 2011, over the objections of Rep. Michael Christ.

Why did they even get involved in whether the football team could schedule a series with Notre Dame? It wasn't about religion. As usual, it was about the money. The way the series with Notre Dame was established, none of UConn's "home" games would take place in Connecticut.

The UConn "home" games would take place in NFL stadiums in Massachusetts, New York (if built) and New Jersey. None of the games would take place in the Connecticut taxpayer subsidized $91.2 million home stadium built in East Hartford. No economic benefit to the state or the local service industries.

OMG! Football news! February is like the worst sports month in the world! Unless you like meaningless mid-season NBA and NHL games. Sure I love NCAA basketball. But that love has been tainted by my coaches fashion sense and my teams ability to rip defeat from the jaws of victory. So I'm kind of not liking February at all.

Anyhow, some good news today football fans. The Big East released the 2008 football schedule. And while that's nothing compared to being in the stands after hours of tailgating and screaming obscenities at opposing fans and players, it is a reason for hope. The hope that another football season will soon be upon us.

And lookie, there are actually some good out of conference games this year. In September:

Cincinnati @ Oklahoma-Will the Sooners crumble again in the face of Big East might?

Penn St. @ Syracuse- When this game was scheduled Jo Pa was heard saying, "That Paul Pasqualoni is a tricky devil. We're going to have to find a way to shut down McNabb!"

Kansas @ South Florida- The Bulls can't be looking at this game the way they were a year ago.

West Virginia @ Colorado- This game fills the void left by Maryland opting out of the series. And given the size of Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen, that's quite a void to fill.

Iowa @ Pitt- Again, Iowa might not like this game as much as they did when they scheduled it.

Rutgers vs. TBA-Ah, the unknown enigma that is TBA. You just never know what team you're going to play.

Fresh off finishing tied for the best record in the Big East, a minor bowl trip, and rebuffing interest from Georgia Tech; the inevitable follows. Yes, UConn Head Coach Randy Edsall has received a raise and a contract extension.

Edsall had two years remaining on his contract, but he now has a new 5-year deal. The new contract apparently puts his salary at about $1.5 million per year. It's a better than $500K raise over his old contract.

Edsall has been the coach resopnsible for leading UConn from 1-AA to 1-A. Since moving up, the Huskies have gone 46-48. He's taken them to their two bowl appearances. Edsall's name regularly pops up in off-season coaching carousel discussions because of the success he's had at building UConn. This won't stop the annual chatter, but it will make it a little more expensive.

Whether you admit it or not, every time the coaching carousel takes an offseason turn, you place teams in a certain hierarchy. You know, find the guy who made a non-BCS team worth caring about and peg him to lead the BCS team that finished 5-7 and is no longer worth caring about. Or, find the awesome coordinator from the team playing on New Year's Day and see if he won't start his career by trying to make some non-BCS team worth caring about again. And the cycle continues.

Things get a little dicier though when it comes to evaluating the merits of teams in differing BCS conferences. For example, Mike Leach has established himself in a way where he can possibly compete for a Big XII title without having a raving fanbase looking to run him out on a rail in the event the Red Raiders finish 8-4. And yet, UCLA, renowned for being a frugal program with a pain-in-the-ass commute to an off-campus stadium and second citizens in their own city is considered a step up. A similar position befell UConn's Randy Edsall; though he basically created UConn as a DI-A contender and, aside from BC, has New England to himself, there were whispers that he could "do better." As in, Georgia Tech, a school with great history and a fertile recruiting ground, but an arguably apathetic fanbase, rigorous academics and a general sense of malaise.

Well, he decided that if Meineke Car Care Bowls are considered reasonable goals any given year, it's probably not best to upend everything unless the job's a dream. Despite overtures from Atlanta, Edsall is staying in Storrs to continue his stewardship of the Huskies program.

Edsall's salary isn't chicken feed: $920k through 2010, which is about half of what the likes of Tommy Bowden and Al Groh make. But considering that, like his Meineke Car Care Bowl counterpart Jim Grobe, is something of a conquering hero on campus, bringing success to where there was none before (even more pronounced at UConn). And he's certainly leaving the door open by saying he's remaining in Storrs for "the good of his family and his team" (so selfless!). Who knows if he'll the UConn Frank Beamer or what have you, but you can expect that this won't be the last open position he's associated with.

With an easy 30-7 win over Syracuse, UConn is actually the team that is in position to win the Big East next weekend. The Huskies are 5-1 in the Big East and 9-2 overall. They will finish their season next week against West Virginia.

If UConn could pull the upset in Morgantown, the Big East and a BCS bid would be theirs outright. West Virgnia still has to play tonight at Cincinnati, and has to win to keep pace with the Huskies. The Mountaineers still have the Backyard Brawl with Pitt a week after UConn as well.

The UConn-Syracuse game was never in doubt. UConn just moved slowly and relatively easily through the Orange. The Husky defense was never seriously challenged.

This should be the final nail in Coach Greg "I am a good coach, really" Robinson's tenure as a head coach (at Syracuse or anywhere). 2-9 this season, 1-5 in the conference. In his 3 seasons, Robinson has won a total of 7 games and lost 27. Only Duke and Ted Roof has had greater ineptitude among BCS schools in that period. Worse than the Orgeron at Ole Miss and Guy Morriss at Baylor.

During Cinci's 2-game losing streak, the Bearcats defense could not get stops. They would give up key conversions or just find ways to hurt themselves. The numerous turnovers a gambling defense had generated in the first six games suddenly weren't happening. Last week Cinci seemed to return to form against USF, but who knew if it was a fluke.

UConn by contrast had run its record to 8-1 on the strength of its defense that would get big stops and put the offense in a short field. The offense was not needed to generate long drives, just take advantage of opportunities. The strength of the Huskies was with a strong running game that could grind and wear down opponents.

Cinci came out and showed that they were playing the way they had in the early part of the season as they took down UConn 27-3. The offense was open and scored on their first possession. The Bearcats got the only turnover in the game and converted that into its second TD. On defense, Cinci stacked the line to stop the run and UConn could not get any offense generated.

UConn is still in contention for the Big East Championship. Stunningly, the three top teams in the Big East -- UConn, Cinci and WVU will play each other in the final weeks. WVU comes to Cincinnati next week and UConn goes to Morgantown the following week.

If you live in New Jersey, chances are pretty good that you don't get ESPNU. And wouldn't you know it, that's where the Rutger-UConn game is going to be aired this weekend. So the bar owners in Jersey have to be smiling like the butchers dog, because that's about the only place you'll be able to watch the game unless your buddy that has a satellite dish lets you come over. But he's gotta check it with his wife first. Which is code for she's not letting you come over and trash their house again. So it's off to the bars.

If you've been following the Big Ten Network saga with Brian, you can see a disturbing trend in college football broadcasting and broadcasting in general. Where networks are leveraging the fans against the cable providers to start carrying the likes of ESPNU, etc. As noted in the first link, Rutgers already played this game with the NFL Network last year for the Texas Bowl. And they were finally able to put enough pressure on to get the game broadcast on a basic channel. But this isn't a bowl game, and chances are that it won't stir up enough trouble to get the game broadcast this year. Although for the Big East, this is a big game. If UConn wins, that game with West Virginia in November becomes huge. If Rutgers wins, they are all of a sudden right back in the mix. Or their chances for a better bowl just went up.

This is a situation where everyone loses out. The fans that can't watch the game. The cable companies definitely in lost earnings. And ESPN's reputation gets another layer of tarnish. And yet somehow, I'm sure you'll be able to watch Man v Kangaroo if you choose.

Maybe it was a bit premature to anoint South Florida as arriving. Losing at Rutgers on a Thursday night wasn't totally unexpected.

Losing at UConn, however, is a different story. This isn't to insult UConn (no, really). The Huskies apparently are a better team than expected. South Florida, however, has done a lot more in the season and was looking like a team ready to make a jump into national contenders from young team on the rise.

Turns out they are not. Good teams looking to make it nationally don't keep losing conference road games. They don't come up with a total of 3 points when starting 1st and goal inside the five -- twice. The Bulls went down to the UConn Huskies 22-15, despite USF QB Matt Grothe generating 335 yards of total offense to the entire UConn team's 353.

The lack of any other running threat -- or that Head Coach Jim Leavitt has lost faith in the other running backs as the season has progressed -- has taken a toll on the USF red zone offense. The shorter field and no other threat, makes it easier to defend. Until USF shows some more faith in, or develops another threat, it will be easier for the Bulls to be stopped.

As for the Huskies, it may be time to give them some credit.

Seriously! Who are these guys? Weren't they supposed to fade away after the cupcake part of their schedule? Well, I'm sure a lot would say they are still in the cupcake part of their schedule. But looking at the Huskies before the year started, I expected them to be 4-1 going into the Virginia game with Pitt being the one. After that, I wasn't expecting another win. So they've already exceeded my low expectations at 6-1. And they could easily still be undefeated if the ball bounces the right way against Virginia.

So who are these guys? First off, Tyler Lorenzen has been a huge upgrade at the quarterback position. Ranking fifth among Big East quarterbacks in yards per game and fourth in completion percentage. Plus he is connecting on over four touchdowns per interception. By comparison, last year UConn's best quarterback, Matt Bonislawski didn't break 1,000 yards passing and completed on 46% of his passes. Plus, Lorenzen is third on the team in rushing with 225 yards.

Also a surprise this year has been Andre Dixon, who leads the team in rushing with 443 yards and two touchdowns. While Donald Brown is second on the team in rushing, he was expected to be the feature back going into this year. So the emergence of Dixon has been a sweet surprise for the Huskies.

And on defense, UConn is second in total defense in the Big East. Lead by freshman linebacker Lawrence Wilson with 73 tackles. Of the top 11 tacklers, only three are seniors, and three are freshman. So the defensive future of this team looks to be in good shape.

Now is all that good enough to beat South Florida, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Syracuse, and West Virginia in the last five weeks of the schedule? Probably not, but it certainly is much better than anyone was giving them credit for. And they could come away with two of those games and find themselves in a bowl game at the end of the year.