UConn Blogger Roundtable : Are the Huskies a legit contender for the Big East title?

Welcome to this edition of the UConn Bloggers Roundtable. This time, our panel – composed of Mike Grant of UCHuskies.com, Ian Bethune of Sox & Dawgs and Kevin Meacham of TheUConnBlog - exchanged opinions via e-mail about whether UConn football is a contender for the Big East title, and whether the Huskies need to contend in 2010:

Mike Grant, UCHuskies.com: Is UConn a legitimate contender for the Big East title?  Absolutely.  What we saw from Moorhead last season was nothing short of spectacular, and that was year one.   Imagine what the offense may be able to do this season?  Losing Easy Ease hurts, but Kashif Moore showed flashes of brilliance last season, and Isiah Moore and Michael Smith look ready to take the next step…I think we’ll be fine at WR.
 
Jordan Todman is a special talent, and I am absolutely thrilled with the addition of Shoemate.  Kid is an athlete…and a highly motivated one.  If I could point to two weaknesses, one is the obvious, the secondary…the other would be RB depth.  Maybe Wylie, Hyppolite, Frey, et al are the goods, but it’s scary having so little experience behind Todman.  That’s why Shoemate is huge…if he becomes what the staff hopes, we are all set at RB for 2010, and then some. 
 
Frazer at times last season was frankly, terrible, BUT he steadily improved and shows a real knack for pulling off the big throw at the right moment.  He’s a leader, and a kid that buckles down late in games.  
 
If the Huskies learned anything last year it was how to win close games…heartbreaking loss after heartbreaking loss turned into elation vs Notre Dame and South Florida, and the Huskies out-muscled both Cuse and South Carolina…the momentum from last season couldn’t be any greater. 
 
We’ll learn a ton about the Huskies chances right out of the gate…at Michigan.  I think it’s a tough game for the Huskies for some obvious reasons (it’s Michigan, it’s away, etc), and playing Ol’ Rich Rod and his mobile quarterbacks hasn’t worked out too well in the past.    If UConn walks out of Ann Arbor with a dubya, the sky is the limit.  With WVU, Pitt and Cincy all paying a visit to the Rent, this could very well be the year.
 
With all of that said…we should temper some of our enthusiasm.  The Huskies have some serious issues in the secondary.  Gratz and Wreh-Wilson are athletic and have shown flashes, but the safety play is a huge unknown at this point.  The Huskies will blitz to hide some shortcomings back there, but good teams will exploit that weakness.  Jerome Junior and Kijuan Dabney must get better, and they must do so very quickly. 
 
Other reasons we should temper our enthusiasm is that the Huskies overall record in the Big East, particularly on the road, where they’ll play four conference games his season, hasn’t been anything special. Since 2007 the Huskies are 11-10 in the Big East, and just 3-7 on the road.  Obviously they’ll have to play better on the road if they want to get serious about winning a title.  They were 3-4 in the BE in both of the last two seasons and now they have to have an eye towards a 6-1 type season. 

The December 4th game at South Florida, where the Huskies have yet to win, will be huge…as will finding out whether the Huskies can finally defeat West Virginia. For the Huskies to get to 6-1, they’ll have to achieve one of the two things that have eluded them to this point…a win over the Mountaineers or a win at South Florida.  It’s wide open, anything can happen, but I see UConn as legit contender for the title, not necessarily the favorite.

Ian Bethune, Sox & Dawgs: While it would be great to think of UConn as a BCS contender, I just don’t think they’re there just yet. They are close but until the secondary can stop someone, UConn isn’t ready to step up all the way to the next level.

Last year was a tough year for the Huskies for two reasons. Obviously the tragedy involving Jasper Howard was the big thing but the institution of Joe Moorhead’s offense was one as well.

The Huskies played through some emotionally tough losses after Howard’s tragic passing even with the offense still being taught and learned. A injury to Zach Frazer set them back a little but Cody Endres stepped right in and did an admirable job. Things got better offensively as the season went as we saw them close out the season with four straight wins.

And now with D.J. Shoemate in the mix at running back, it’s quite possible we could see a two-headed monster with him and Jordan Todman.

If Lawrence Wilson, Scott Lutrus and the defensive line can play up to their potential things could look really good for the Huskies but as I said earlier, all hopes of a successful season ride on the play of the secondary.

Mike: I don’t disagree Ian, clearly there’s a lot riding on the secondary.  The Huskies are going to have to blitz, and they are going to have to blitz a lot.  If the schemes are successful, as they were vs South Carolina, some of the load will be lightened back there.  I know we all saw the Spring game debacle, and sure it was troubling, but remember we don’t blitz in the Spring game.
 
I have to believe that Coach Edsall, a former NFL defensive backs coach, and Coach Orlando, who aside from last season has had excellent defenses at Connecticut, will get the ship righted.  Look what they did given the month off between the win over USF and the South Carolina game…that was a different defense we saw in Birmingham.
 
I think the defense improves enough to have the Huskies in it late.

Kevin Meacham, TheUConnBlog.com: UConn is absolutely a legitimate contender for the Big East title, for all the reasons you’ve listed. There is legitimate offensive talent at positions other than running back, Frazer and the wide receivers should take another step forward in Year Two of Moorhead’s system, the offensive line should be able to at least match anyone on the schedule, and I’m a big fan of our defensive front seven. This is a veteran team that appears to have more talent up and down the lineup than any team in UConn history.

And yes, there are some big holes. Someone in the secondary is going to have to step up (I expect big things from Dabney, Gratz and Wilson), and Zach Frazer needs to stop throwing the ball into coverage. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that the margin for error for the defense is pretty thin, and I think Ian’s absolutely right to be skeptical. There’s a reason UConn was 8-5 last year, and it’s because even with a much improved offense, the defense was a sieve. It’s tough to go unbeaten in the Big East when you give up 30 points a game.

But here’s where I take issue: the gap between 3-4/PapaJohns and 6-1/Orange really isn’t that great. Certainly not in the Big East, it’s not. The issues we’re talking about with this year’s team? They were all there last season. This time, hopefully, the coaching staff will be able to diagnose the major issues before the season.

It’s worth noting here that the Jasper Howard tragedy had an enormous on-field impact too, robbing the secondary of an NFL-caliber talent. The coaches only had 6 days to figure that out, as opposed to March-August this season. For that reason alone I think you can bet on some improvement in the secondary, and that’s really the missing piece between three league wins and five or six.

Mike: Valid point about how close last years 3-4 team was to being 6-1.  They were, however, still 3-4, and did not win a conference road game. I’d be remiss to not factor in the Howard tragedy though, so I mostly agree with you.

Kevin: I’m not sure that UConn not winning a conference road game in 2009 is instructive for this year. Not only was UConn’s entire Big East road schedule composed of the teams that finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd, but UConn come within a play or two of winning two of those games anyway. Plus, the road schedule eases up just a tad, going from Cincinnati/Pitt/WVU to Syracuse/Louisville/Rutgers/USF.

Good cases could be made for Pitt, WVU and the Huskies…and I’m sure no one would be shocked if South Florida or Cincy stuck their noses in their for look.  I think the Huskies need to be in it late for the season to be successful, but they don’t have to win it. I can’t see looking at the season as if the Huskies underachieved if they go 9-3, and 5-2 or something to that effect.  Worse than that, then depending on the circumstances, yes, maybe we can start talking about disappointments…

Kevin: At what point do we start expecting more from UConn football?

UConn has been a program with minimal expectations (basically, get to a bowl game) for a long time now, and rightly so. But the transition to I-A is over now. This is a legitimate, full-fledged, BCS-conference team. The reason I posed this question was to see if you guys believed that a) there is pressure on this team to perform and b) should there be. I would contend the answer is yes to both questions.

I don’t mean to sound restless and impatient, and I will always give Edsall the benefit of the doubt. I think he is a wonderful coach and I hope he stays at UConn forever.

But last year should have been eye-opening for UConn fans. They were outclassed by no one, and they were reasonably successful in a season where almost everything went wrong.

Therefore, with 17 starters back and improvement at almost every position, I think UConn HAS to take a step forward this year and become a legitimate contender/darkhorse favorite for the Big East title. The Big East is wide open, and unless we get another Cincinnati type coming from nowhere (UConn?) to dominate the league, the league champion could very well have two losses. Falling out of the Big East race before Thanksgiving would be, I think, a quiet yet massive failure, and a severe blow to what everyone wants this program to be.

Mike: About the expectations, which have never been higher (or even close to this high).  It’s certainly a fascinating wrinkle… I can’t wait to see how Edsall and the staff perform as darkhorse favorites…they won’t be picked 6-8 this year in Newport, that’s for sure. 

I agree that there is, and should be pressure to contend this season, but I don’t see 2010 as a make or break season. I appreciate your want to win, and your want to win now, and we might well do that…I just think saying that “UConn HAS to take a step forward” and “a severe blow to what everyone wants this program to be” is overstating it.   I think if we were a little more certain at the QB position and on the defensive side of the ball, I may agree with you…but I still see enough deficiencies on this team to make me think we are good and a title contender, but not great and the clear-cut favorite…

Kevin: Perhaps I went a bit over the top with the rhetoric, but my expectations are very high with this team. (Well, that and when you go seven months without football, you start dreaming about every crazy scenario…)

Yes, a conference title isn’t automatic, and certainly not when there are four or five teams capable of winning the league. A football season is too short and too prone to random chance for anything to be a lock.

All I’m saying is that, if this team is out of contention for the Big East title when Cincinnati comes to East Hartford Thanksgiving weekend, it will be a setback. Even the most marginal improvement should lead to 9 against this schedule. Anything less than that would (theoretically, anyway) mean that a veteran team didn’t improve at all during the last six months, and that would open up a whole lot of questions.

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