The players walked as a group over to the UConn band and clapped as the fight song was played.
“That will become a tradition,” coach Jim Mora said.
Mora stood outside the locker room, as he did last week at Utah State, greeting each player as he walked through the door.
“I can’t really explain how well he does everything he does,” quarterback Zion Turner said. “Coach Mora is Coach Mora.”
Jacob Flynn, the walk-on-turned-scholarship wide receiver from Southington, and Victor Rosa, the freshman from Bristol, were pulled into the middle of the room and swamped under their teammates. Both had scored touchdowns.
“It was the best feeling, it really, really was,” Flynn said. “C-T kids. Homegrown.”
There is supposed to come a time when moments like this, following the Huskies’ 28-3 win over an FCS program, Central Connecticut on Saturday at Rentschler Field, won’t be such a big deal. Maybe when these teams meet again in 2025, the entire game will look like the second half did in 2022, with UConn looking the way an FBS program is supposed to look against a team from the tier below.
But the last 10 years have taught UConn’s followers not to take these games for granted. A year ago, the Huskies were not only beaten, 38-28, but pushed around by an FCS opponent, Holy Cross, in the home opener. It was a very different locker room atmosphere after that game. Coach Randy Edsall announced his retirement and within a week he was gone, and Holy Cross lost to Merrimack. Later UConn got its only win over Yale, hanging on for dear life.
The first job for Mora was to put humiliations and near humiliations like those in the rearview mirror and this, at least, was accomplished Saturday. The Huskies had a right to revel in the moment.
“Relief? Probably, yeah,” Mora said. “Right now, I’m just proud of those young men who have been through so much the last few years. The things that they’ve endured, the way the have stuck together, the commitment they’ve shown, it’s almost overwhelming, really. Going through COVID was very, very different for these kids, they were isolated, they missed a season (2020). Last year, they only win one game, their coach quits on them and they stick together. Adversity has revealed the character in these young men.”
A word about Central Connecticut: The Blue Devils, 17- to 19-point underdogs, played hard, tough and well into the second half looked as if they might pull it off. Down 7-3, they were threatening to take the lead when UConn’s Dal’mont Gourdine tore through the line and sacked Romelo Williams. Then Christiano Rosa’s field goal attempt hit the left upright and the Huskies dominated the last 24 minutes. Central’s players came in with a lot of confidence and gave themselves every reason to believe success awaits them in the NEC schedule.
But UConn needed a convincing win, and got it. Mora got his ice bath and enough teachable moments, turnovers on offense and explosive running plays allowed on defense, for the week ahead, with a much tougher opponent, Syracuse, coming to Rentschler Saturday night.
“It means everything,” said Flynn, who hauled in Zion Turner’s 10-yard pass in the fourth quarter to make it 21-3. “The first win of ‘The Revolution.'”
Revolutions start with small victories, like keeping it close at Utah State last week, looking like they belonged on the field. This was a small step further.
“You see it, it’s just a different mindset, a change of culture,” said Nate Carter, who gained 123 yards on 23 carries. “I give props to Coach Mora and all the coaches for coming here and putting that inside of us. We’re not the same time mentally as we were last year. We get in close games, like how it was in the first half, we were able to come back in the second half and finish like that, that’s all mindset. And Coach Mora really put that into us since he got here and I’m really glad he did.”
At least two things should separate teams on different levels of college football — size and depth. UConn controlled both sides of the line of scrimmage and wore its opponent down, a testament to the new coaches and players. They gained 274 yards on the ground, held Central to 78. The Huskies’ offensive line and running game made it possible to overcome a few true-freshman moments from Turner. He forced a ball into the end zone at the end of the first half and a chance for a field goal was lost. Earlier, on what may or may not have been a forward pass, he fumbled, and with maturity took the blame himself. Otherwise, an encouraging performance, 14-for-22, 172 yards and two TDs.
Turner, who won 37 of 39 starts in high school, is now 1-0 as a starter in college and he vowed to start looking at film on the bus ride back to Storrs in the relentless pursuit of self-improvement.
Rosa, who’s presence is evidence of Mora’s commitment to get Connecticut’s best high school players to UConn, scored on a hard-nosed 11-yard run in the waning minutes, and earned the distinction of being the first freshman from Bristol Central to score for the Huskies this year; his close friend and classmate Donovan Clingan will get his chance when the men’s basketball season starts.
All of these things suggest a program that is, at the very least, doing the things it’s supposed to do and feeling good about it. Next, the Huskies aim higher, take aim at doing things outsiders, beyond the 22,442 that showed out Saturday, don’t yet believe they can do.
“The players are starting to believe,” Mora said. “They’re starting to believe in each other, they’re starting to believe in the process. I shouldn’t say starting, we’d already started believing, but they’re really feeling it and they understand what it takes to be a winner. That’s one of the reasons I love to go to work every day. I get to be around these kids, and they’re just desperate to win. Freaking desperate to win, and it’s awesome to be around that kind of environment as a coach.”
Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com
