TWO FOR THE ROAD
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Two road games, two road wins for the UConn Huskies. Saturdays 30-22 win at Baylor was much more impressive than the victory over Ohio for a variety of reasons.
UConn took it to the Bears from start to finish. The offensive and defensive lines were dominant. The big un's on offense opened the holes that allowed Andre Dixon and Jordan Todman to run for 252 net yards. ..Equally impressive is that neither was tackled for a loss in a combined 53 carries. Again, the numbers don't lie and the offensive line was terrific.
Dixon has bounced back from a lost year in 2008 to return to his form of 2007 when he was a second team All Big East running back... 'Dre is running with confidence and football has become fun again for him. Jordan Todman still has the breakaway speed but has added strength and maturity in finding holes, waiting for his blocks and knowing when to go North-South and not East-West.
I wasn't surprised by Cody Endres performance. Solid, not spectacular, he managed the game (yes, I HATE that phrase but really, it;s what he did. Cody also wasn't hesitant to throw the ball downfield and got Anthony Sherman involved in the offense. He still holds onto the ball a little too long at times but that is a correctable area.
And you while the wideouts only caught six balls, you saw a glimpse of the future with true freshman Mike Lang and Nick Williams and veterans Alex Molina and Marcus Easley joining the rotation. Isiah Moore is someone to keep an eye on, he seems to be getting better week to week.
Defensively, it was buisness as usual. This unit has been strong from the opening kickoff of the Ohio game thru the final play yesterday. The front line contnues to play great. They kept containment on Robert Griffin and other than Jay Finley's 72 yard td run on Baylor's 3rd play of the game, they never let the Bears ground game to get going.
Linebackers Lawrence Wilson and Greg Lloyd Jr continued to dominate while the entire secondary shined. In his first signficant playing time, Blidi Wreh-Wilson played like a seasoned veteran while Robert McClain continued his early season excellence.
In a game that most Husky fans looked at with trepedation, their team and coaches gave them lots to be proud of. Now granted, it's still Baylor, a team that hasn't had a winning season in a decade and a half. But don't look at the Bears, look at UConn and how they played and they executed and maybe, just maybe, this team is on the way to being a little better than many thought.
And what a phenominal gesture by Randy Edsall to have all of his players shake hands with the members of the Connecticut National Guard's 118th Medical Battalion who are stationed in Fort Hood and about to deploy to Iraq. What you didn't see was the head coach had ALL the military men and women in the locker room to join in the post game celebration along with former UConn basketball and baseball star and current University of Houston head basketball coach Tom Penders. Tommy, part of the great UConn teams of the mid 60's looks great and was wearing a National Flag Blue UConn shirt as he watched in Jeff Hathaways' box and then joined us at halftime. To see the smiles of the women and men headed overseas as they emerged from the locker room put a great bow on what was a great day for the Huskies.
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