Dom Amore
Hartford Courant
STORRS, Conn. — The memory was faded, if not erased, by what came in the ensuing weeks. UConn had lost successive games to Syracuse, Michigan and NC State, outscored 148 to 24.
The Huskies, at that point in the 2022 season, were 1-4, the only win against Central Connecticut.
So there was not a lot to go on, little reason to believe UConn would win five of the next seven games.
Can Jim Mora and his staff turn here-we-go-again despair into hope, and pull the yes-we-can rabbit out of a helmet all over again? If UConn is truly a resurgent program, didn’t write a one-year record in disappearing ink, it can save its season.
“Yes, I do (have optimism),” coach Jim Mora said this week. “What gives me the optimism is the people in the building and how important it is to them, the attitude they bring to work every day, and maybe what happened at halftime last Saturday, the way we stuck together, the change in our mindset.”
Mora never sounded more angry or discouraged than he did as he spoke to the radio broadcasters at halftime, with UConn trailing Florida International 24-3. How or why UConn could come out so soft, in a must-win game at home that was eminently winnable is the unanswerable question, but the Huskies did play dominant defense in the second half and nearly came back to tie the game.
“He was frustrated with us,” tight end Justin Joly said. “But he told us that the only one that can get it done is us.”
The way back to respectability has a major roadblock on Saturday. UConn plays Duke, 21 1/2-point favorites, ranked No. 18 in the country, a team Mora compared to Michigan of a year ago, in the Cooper Flagg Bowl. The Huskies lost at Michigan 59-0, so maybe a big Duke buildup could make a more competitive loss look better, that we shall see.
As, indeed, we will see if UConn can make something of the eight games left on its schedule after this, and we will see if Mora’s first-year magic was mirage, or something to be sustained.
It’s not the unsinkable, hopeful vibe of 2022; the schedule is different and the opponents are lined up differently. The losses to Syracuse, Michigan and NC State were lopsided, but not crushing or unexpected. Losses to Georgia State and FIU are different. These are opponents a truly resurgent program should be beating in Year 2. The Huskies can’t be 0-3 right now.
But they are, and starting from a lower place than they did when they began turning their ’22 season around in the sixth game, with a win over Fresno State — 23-point favorites that day.
Mora and his staff will be searching for ways to ignite the offense, how to get receivers open, how to get more carries for running backs like Jalen Mitchell, the transfer from Louisville, or Cam Edwards, the former Connecticut player of the year from Norwalk. They will be looking to simplify the defensive assignments, to keep players from getting out of position and opening the door to big plays, like the two that killed the Huskies last week.
But Mora also reached deeper, as the situation demanded, into his bag of messages when the Huskies gathered for their team dinner last Sunday.
“I brought it up to the team,” Mora said. “Last year we were sitting at 1-4 and the previous games we just played, we gave up 148 points and scored 24, then we won four of the next five. We’ve got to be that gritty little team again, we’ve got to fight for everything, we can’t expect anything.”
After the loss Saturday, Mora raised some eyebrows in saying he would not allow the UConn program to descend back to where it was. This gave the cynical their chance to say, “too late, it already has.” ESPN confirmed that, in its way, by dropping UConn back among the 10 worst programs in FBS football.
It’s hard to believe that could happen so quickly, after the Huskies opened the season with high hopes and put forth a respectable effort against NC State. But UConn is in a unique, tricky place. It labors under the illusion that the school can score a power-conference invitation by winning this game, or that (even though it doesn’t work that way), or on the other hand, should consider dropping football to FCS, or altogether, by losing this game, or that (even though that’s not happening).
Tough way to run a program, but it’s where UConn is, and must start this week to play itself up and out of the dark place into which it has fallen. If the Huskies can play as well against Duke as they did against NC State, that would be a start.
Utah State at home, Rice on the road and South Florida at home follow Duke, none of them easy games, but games a truly resurgent UConn program should have a chance to win.
“We came out stronger, we came out with a mentality that we can win this game,” Joly said, referring to the second half of the FIU game. “We were on the hunt. I know we didn’t get it done, but trust me, we’re going to have that mindset the rest of the season. … I know this is not the way you want to start the season, but the way this team’s mentality is, the way we come back from things, it’s something special.”
For the better part of 12 seasons, UConn football would sink to rock bottom and skid along, as if searching for a deeper nook in which to fall. Last season, UConn bounced off the bottom and rose up, out of the “Bottom 10,” above .500 and to a bowl game. Can the Jim Mora’s Huskies — and make no mistake, this is his program, he and his staff own the present — climb up off the ocean floor again? A buoyant, and truly resurgent program could do it.
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