UConn’s rise from one of the worst teams in all the land to a bowl game was one of the most chronicled feel-good stories of the college football season.
The story had an unhappy ending for the Huskies, unable to overcome their early mistakes against Marshall, winner of the Myrtle Beach Bowl, 28-14 on Monday. The opportunity to show how far they have come showed, in fact, they still have a ways to go.
However, their second-half rally indicated that the team without a conference was not out of its league in a bowl game.
“I’m really proud of this football team,” coach Jim Mora said. “And the progress they made, the strides that they made. I’m proud to be their coach. It’s an extremely disappointed locker room and to me, that signals progress again. There was nobody just satisfied to get to a bowl game. We came here to win.”
The lowest point for UConn came when linebacker Ian Swenson, who had stuck with the program through six long, losing seasons, was penalized and ejected for targeting early in the third quarter. He earned an emotional hug from Mora as he left, but his career ended on that difficult note.
Soon after that, Marshall scored to take a 28-0 lead, leaving the Huskies to try to salvage some dignity. True to form, they did more than that, with freshman Victor Rosa scoring on runs of 14 and 24 yards.
“No matter what the score is, we need to keep fighting,” said Rosa, from Bristol. “We can’t fold under pressure. We were planning on coming back, that was the plan. Like Coach Mora said, we didn’t come here to lose.”
To the end, the Huskies of 2022 were everything their most recent predecessors were not: Entertaining, fun to watch and easy to root for, even if their offensive limitations were at times frustrating.
So nothing that happened in Myrtle Beach should douse the enthusiasm the Huskies rekindled under Mora, in his first season. Several thousand UConn fans traveling from Connecticut, or elsewhere, just about filled their half of Brooks Stadium, with 12,023 total fans in attendance. They attended watch parties and a pep rally, a start for a fan base that had little reason to show out over the last 10 years. They brought new pride in the program, and made weekends at Rentschler Field fun, and worth anticipating again.
“This is just the foundation for a lot of what’s to come and a lot of what UConn football is about to become,” said linebacker Jackson Mitchell, from Ridgefield. “We were what we were, and we came out here and made a bowl game, but that’s just a start. Guys like Victor, he’s just a freshman, I can’t imagine what this place is going to be like by the time he leaves here.”
However, the “innocent climb,” to borrow the phrase from legendary basketball coach Pat Riley, doesn’t last long. The brighter the spotlight, the less forgiving it is. A break-even record and a bowl bid is now the minimum achievement for UConn. In Mora’s second season, there will be expectations for more victories, to get back to a bowl game, perhaps a higher-profile bowl game, and win it.
“This is a baseline,” Mora said. “Everything we did this year to get where we are is not going to be good enough anymore to get where we want to go.”
The goals appear possible now, at least. But Monday was just not UConn’s day. It was obvious at the beginning that Marshall (9-4), which defeated Notre Dame early in the season, was playing at a different speed than UConn. And despite two-plus weeks to prepare, it took the Huskies, especially quarterback Zion Turner, time to adjust.
Turner, who was swamped on most of the offensive snaps, was taken out for a few serious to “recalibrate,” Mora said.
During the week, running back Devontae Houston vowed that, “up 30 or down 30, UConn would never quit.” The Huskies made good on that, with two third-quarter touchdowns from Rosa and stop after stop from the defense, including an interception by Malik Dixon-Williams. The Huskies threatened twice more, but a no-call on a potential pass interference, and a 15-yard penalty on Mora for arguing, stopped one drive, and Turner’s third interception, in the end zone with 5:09 left, snuffed out the rally.
The mistakes hurt, the loss hurts, as it should. But as the Huskies boarded their plane and flew home, they could reflect on a lot of good things, solid wins, a comeback from a 1-4 record and three successive blowouts in mid-season, and a bowl game that left no doubts about the desire and effort to build on the season.
“The hunger we had just to get here was a lot,” linebacker Jackson Mitchell said. “So for us to get here, you hear the band out there playing for Marshall, you hear them celebrating, that obviously hurts. It hurts for the seniors because they’re not going to be able to put on this uniform again. But we’re going to honor them and fight and keep working, because of what they did this year.”
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