Bob Diaco will tell you that UConn doesn’t do moral victories. That’s the right attitude for him and his team to have.
But for Husky fans, this 31-21 loss to East Carolina was one hell of a moral victory.
Let’s go back a couple weeks. UConn was on the road against a dreadful Tulane team and managed three points all night. Two weeks prior, they were blown out at home by Temple.
So the Huskies had no right to be tied on the road against the No. 18 team in the country in the fourth quarter on Thursday. They were 24.5-point underdogs, and if you’ve watched them play a snap this year, you know that was a generous spread.
Things were different, somehow, on Thursday. Chandler Whitmer played a good game. The Huskies weren’t afraid to throw the ball. There were far fewer three-and-outs.
Whitmer completed a season-high 18 passes for a season-high 303 yards, including two touchdowns. He also ran one in himself in the first quarter to get the Huskies on the board.
By the time UConn had settled in, the usual pleading for Tim Boyle had stopped. Boyle was in the game for just one sequence early in the second quarter, then it was back to work for Whitmer, who brought the Huskies into field goal range before a false start forced a punt.
That turned out to be a huge missed opportunity for UConn and was one of 12 Husky penalties, which cost them 119 yards and momentum several times, so this game was far from perfect. In fact, you could say once again that the Huskies beat themselves. That false start may have taken three points off the board. Two pass interference penalties from Jamar Summers helped the Pirates into the end zone for a touchdown that put the game away late in the fourth.
There were other instances throughout that reminded you that UConn is still a work in progress. But the game never got away. The Huskies kept ECU off the board for 26 minutes, spanning from the first quarter into the second half. In that time, Whitmer hit Noel Thomas with a 32-yard pass for a game-tying touchdown. And when ECU finally scored to go ahead 21-14, the Huskies answered right back. This time it was DeShon Foxx who hauled in an 88-yard pass from Whitmer to pull UConn even again. That was the fourth-longest pass play in UConn history.
It was a winnable game that the Huskies didn’t win, but somehow it seems OK this time. There’s a ton to work on, and the immediate future for this team is still pretty frightening — they get defending conference champ Central Florida next Saturday at the Rent.
Only this time, unlike after the Temple and Tulane games, you get the sense that the team is headed in the right direction. There was visible improvement everywhere, even on the offensive line. UConn was only sacked once all night and was tackled for a loss just two other times. Compare that to four sacks and five additional tackles for loss against Temple.
Defensively, four Huskies set or tied career highs in tackles.
So it’s not all doom and gloom for Diaco’s club, and that’s saying something. But hey, if you’re not convinced, just look at this picture of East Carolina receiver Justin Hardy’s butt. UConn players mooned the nation exactly 0 times all Thursday night!
Progress.
