I haven't posted anything in awhile. To be frank, sports have made me somewhat sick to my stomach lately. I consider myself to be anything but a fairweather fan, and thus I invest much of my emotion and mental health into the success of my sports teams. The Atlanta Braves had a stellar season erased in one game not too long ago. The 49ers were utterly outclassed by the New York Giants yesterday. The Knicks may be better than I give them credit for, but they do not excite me in the slightest. The New York Rangers were poised to potentially be the class of the NHL this year, but the season is all but cancelled at this point. Yet, considering all of this, nothing made me sicker than the way UConn football looked against Temple this past Saturday. Absolutely unacceptable.
Let me start by stating that my vehement disgust for this game was greatly heightened by the fact that I witnessed it live. That's right, I wasted my Saturday at Rentschler Field watching the Connecticut Huskies play like trash. There are many UConn defenders who claim that we should still give them credit for the fact that the program has come a long way since it became Division 1-A in 2000. I, however, am no apologist. Why oh why did they lose to Temple? I could not believe what I witnessed. Firstly, Temple looked awful for the vast majority of the game, and they had no business beating anyone on that day. But UConn looked determined to lose that game ever since they scored their second touchdown of the first quarter. The offense took what the defense gave them during this period of time, which was basically the middle of the field. Well timed slant routes worked perfectly against this. But Temple closed up the middle after that, and UConn did not score again the whole afternoon. This team is unable to work the sidelines. Their receivers are not athletic. The only positive thing about quarterback Chandler Whitmer is that he's not as god awful as all the other UConn qb's since Dan Orlovsky. The only chance UConn ever seems at scoring points is by dominating the run game, and their rushing attack is less than stellar. You might have noticed that I have not mentioned the defense yet. The defense looks strong consistently, but can someone tell me why they allowed a touchdown at the very end of each half? The drive at the end of the game was abysmal because the defense looked entirely different than the one that had shut down the pass all day.
I personally like Paul Pasqualoni, but the blame has to fall on him at some point. He's the head coach. This team makes way too many mistakes. As soon as Chad Christen missed his second field goal in the 3rd quarter, I knew the game was all but over, despite the fact that they were still leading 14-7 at the time. All they needed to do was score once more to make it a 2 possession game, which would have been more than enough to hold off the Owls. But they let it remain a 7 point game, and eventually Temple tied it. Temple was begging UConn to beat them, and the Huskies still came up short. I am baffled at the horrid level of play I saw. I am sure that most people have no feeling whatsoever about UConn football, and are thus amused by this rant. But I was born and bred in the great state of Connecticut, and by golly I just want some watchable football going on in my state. My goodness, is that asking too much? I'm not saying that I need them to be title contenders, but can ya beat Temple??? I observed this same team look anemic against NC State earlier this year, and I left with a similar sense of nausea. And they never led that game 14-0. This team has proven to be unworthy of my fandom. They never get into a rhythm offensively because they never seem to have any conception of what they are doing. The look like the New York Jets on their worst day. I admit that I did not stay for the overtime. Say what you will about my love for the team, but my heart was ripped out on the final drive in regulation where Temple tied it. Temple had all of the momentum going into overtime, so I knew UConn did not have a chance. All in all, the day was fun because seeing a live game is always fun. But it would have been nice to have seen some real football.
Note: Over the next two weeks I will do more NBA blogs in anticipation for the upcoming season, with the occasional NFL posts. I probably will not do any more baseball posts until toward the end of the postseason.
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