THE END OF THE ROAD (for now)
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It was not the way any of the UConn Huskies wanted the 19 seniors who were playing their final home game at Rentschler Field to go out. A demoralizing, disappointing 34-10 loss to Pittsburgh that ends the regular season at 7-5.
The momenteum in this game changed suddenly. Pitt, impotent offensively in the first half, got a 67 yard, 6 play drive on their first possesion of the third quarter to take the lead for good, capped by a 47 yard lightning bolt of a touchdown run from Le Sean Mc Coy. Then it began to rain turnovers, After the first of two Greg Williams interceptions set the Panthers up for a field goal after first and goal from the 5, the only offensive highlight of the game for UConn came four plays later. A Donald Brown 57 yard touchdown run that showed all the reasons why Brown should be the Big East Offensive Player of the Year. A burst of speed, a stiff arm, breakaway speed and then a change of pace to get to the end zone. After that, it was all Pitt as Tyler Lorenzen and Zack Frazier ended up completing five passes to Pittsburgh defenders and six passes to their own receivers.
Randy Edsall took the last minutes of his post game press conference to defend his team, log onto Des Connor's blog at www.courant.com//uconn_football to see the video or listen to the audio. And when you consider it will be two straight bowl games, it does say a lot about the problem. My thought is that people will feel when you start 5-0 and then finish 7-5, the season hasn't been a success. The public has the right to their opinion.
I had thought the Huskies would finish 7-5 this season so to be honest, I am not surprised. But today's performance was disappointing. The fact that Donald Brown could gain 189 yards rushing with the woeful passing attack is mind boggling. The passing attack has to be better no matter where the Huskies go for a bowl game .(and no, I am not going to speculate, we will know sooner rather than later).
The senior ceremonies were pretty emotional, it's too bad there weren't more of you motivated enough to get inside. Don't give me the bull about how hard it is to get into the Rent. When you start to make your way towards the gates at 11:40, you aren't going to be in at 11:45. Congratulations to the 7500 or so of you who thought enough of the 19 Huskies playing their final games to get inside the stadium. To the rest of you .......
So whether it's Birmingham, Toronto, Detroit or anywhere else, the Huskies have one more chance to play this season. Two straight bowls and three in five years is a pretty solid accomplishment. And UConn will get a chance to put the bad taste from the season finale out of their mouth.
Join me on SportsTalk, Monday night at 6:10 on WTIC and WTIC.com
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