Well I was dangerously close to blowing off UConn, but I felt this immense sense of guilt and so I figured I might as well do this thing.  So let’s get right at it.

What we know

The Huskies wrapped up last season ranked 5th in the Big East with an 8-5 (3-4) record.  The season started off great (and really what BCS team doesn’t start well, considering all the creampuffs – on second thought don’t answer that) reeling off their first 5 games.  Wins were to Hofstra, Temple, Virginia, Baylor, Louisville, Cincinnati, Syracuse and Buffalo in the International Bowl.   Losses were to North Carolina, Rutgers, West Virginia, South Florida and Pittsburgh.

Spring Developments

The Huskies must deal with some massive losses this season. Four players were selected in the first day of the NFL draft.  This from a team that managed to only finish 5th in the BE!  Goes to show that a team is more than the sum of its players.  The big loss is Donald Brown.  The Husky offense could be easily described as a seesaw.  Led by Brown’s 2083 yards rushing, the UConn rushing ranked 13th in the nation.  Conversely the passing was a pitiful 109th in the nation.  New OC Joe Moorhead is tasked with balancing the equation some.  He is trying to install a hurry up style offense.  It could help mask the concerns at QB and WR.  Right now it looks like Zach Frazer will be the starting qb.  Kashif Moore is the top receiver returning with 27 catches.  Although there is hope that a healthy Brad Kanuch and newcomers like Mike Lang and Dwayne Difton can challenge.  The RB slot is likely to be manned by Jordan Todman, although senior Andre Dixon does have experience, running for 823 yards as a sophomore.

On defense, the strength is going to be at LB where the unit returns intact and it was a good one.  Scott Lutrus, Greg Lloyd and Lawrence Wilson are big and strong tacklers and probably one of the top set of LBers in the nation.  Losing Darius Butler at CB will be hard to replace.  Jasper Howard returns on the other side and Robert Vaughn is back at safety.  After them its a toss  up as to who will step in.  The Dline also only returns one starter and that is tackle Twyon Martin.   They must find replacements for Cody Brown and Julius Williams who combined for 17 sacks last year.  Getting pressure will be a concern this season.

Interesting Fact

Well Nike is at it again.  They have their evil little hands on Storrs.  Despite only having two colors in their uniform, this is another dull uni – at least that large “Connecticut” wording has been removed in favor of the “C”.  Still its still an ugly uni.  See it here.

Chattering masses

UConn Nation is a bit light on the blogging side of things, especially in the football side of things.  The best one is TheUConnBlog.  You can find the usual suspects of preview articles on the Huskies at Rivals, National Champs and the Quad Blog.

Why we can win

There should be plenty of motivation for Cuse in this game.  HC Randy Edsall turned down overtures to take the helm at Syracuse.  HC Doug Marrone will have special emphasis in beating UConn and Rutgers mainly to help re-affirm recruiting in the Northeast.  This also could be a must win game if the Orange makes significant strides towards a bowl game.  The Huskies could really struggle on offense if they cannot run the ball as well as they did last season and its a stretch to think that they will be as productive as last season.

Why we can lose

We’ve been pretty much man handled at the point of attack versus the Huskies the last two seasons.  We haven’t fared well at the ‘Rent either.  Weather will certainly be a factor and frankly playing 75% of our games indoors could have an impact on this game.  If we cannot win the battle of the trenches we will be susceptible to the ground attack of UConn.  Also we are really thin depth wise.  I have no idea what type of injuries we will be facing at this time, just that there will be some losses by this time of the year

The Pick

Very intriguing game to pick at this stage.  Most pundits have picked the Huskies to finish 6th in the league.  If they get their offense moving, I expect they could slide up into the conference mix.  Still they were only able to manage 5th last year with all those horses in the NFL now.  So what gives?  The schedule is tough this year – they easily could be 2-2 heading into conference play.  I’d love to pick this game as a W and what would be a 6-6 season.  However I think there will be some unknown issue that could tip the scales in UConn’s favor.  Can we make a critical kick under pressure?  Sadly I am going to follow my head and pick the Huskies, although it will be a tense one – say 23-20.

Well that concludes the offseason previews.  We will shift gears and start looking at the various position battles in the next few blog posts or not depending how lazy this quadragenerian gets in the next week or so.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 9:27 am by LvilleOrange . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.