Rutgers Rallies To Beat UConn 27-24

We all know that when the UConn Huskies and Rutgers Scarlet Knights get together on the gridiron, that it’s going to be a close game.

Two years ago, it was a missed UConn field goal off the upright. Last year, it was a late touchdown pass that doomed the Huskies. Well in the 2010 version of UConn vs Rutgers, it was a late field goal that did the Huskies in.

San San Te’s 34 yard field with 13 seconds left in the game gave the Scarlet Knights a 27-24 win over UConn in front of 48,413 and a national audience on ESPN at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, NJ on Friday night.

UConn drops to 3-3 (0-1, Big East) on the season while Rutgers improves to 3-2 (1-0).

Sure the UConn defense looked like a piece of swiss cheese at times but to me the downfall was the play calling. And when I say play calling, I mean the ones called late in the game with UConn holding onto a 24-17 lead and then when it was tied 24-24.

After Rutgers drove the ball 82 yards, they had it 4th and 2 at the UConn 13 yard line. They were able to stop the Scarlet Knights when Kendall Reyes knocked down a Chas Dodd pass. And that’s where the conservative play calling came in.

Other than when Jordan Todman broke open a 66 yard touchdown run in the 2nd quarter, he wasn’t able to get much done against a stingy Rutgers run defense who came in 7th in FBS allowing just around 80 yards a game. Edsall called three straight running plays for Todman. The first went two yards, the second a loss of one yard and the final one went for two yards.

Cole Wagner shanked a punt that went for 35 yards and gave the Scarlet Knights the ball a their 48. On the first play from scrimmage, Dodd hit Mark Harrison for a 52 yard touchdown and just like that it was all knotted up at 24.

You had to figure that with the score tied, Edsall would try to have his Huskies go down the field to win the game. But instead of that, Mr. Conservative came out to play again.

Todman went for one yard on first down and the next two plays were pass calls that fell incomplete. The Huskies punted the ball back and stopped the Scarlet Knights and forced them to punt. UConn got the ball at their 26 and Endres promptly threw three straight incomplete passes and the Huskies had to punt the ball away.

Another crappy punt from Wagner gave the Scarlet Knights the ball at their 38 and on the first play went 45 yards to get the ball down at the UConn 17. From there, Rutgers set up Te for the game-winning field goal.

I would have to think that if Edsall’s play calling was a little different with the lead, UConn might have held on. Instead, Dodd exploited the holes in the UConn secondary taking full advantage of them to lead his team to the comeback win.

You definitely don’t want to start out the Big East season with a loss but that’s exactly what happened. And now the Huskies need to dig out of the hole and start playing better football for 60 minutes. Not 15 like they did on Friday night.

Scoring:

1st quarter

RUT – 8:49 – Jeremy Deering 46 Yd Pass From Chas Dodd (San San Te Kick) – RUT 7 CON 0

CON – 8:33 – Nick Williams 100 Yd Kickoff Return (Dave Teggart Kick) – CON 7 RUT 7

RUT – 6:05 – Mohamed Sanu 2 Yd Run (San San Te Kick) – RUT 14 CON 7

2nd quarter

RUT – 9:43 – San San Te 28 Yd Field Goal – RUT 17 CON 7

CON – 6:36 – Jordan Todman 66 Yd Run (Dave Teggart Kick) – RUT 17 CON 14

CON – 4:13 – Kashif Moore 22 Yd Pass From Cody Endres (Dave Teggart Kick) – CON 21 RUT 17

CON – 0:00 – Dave Teggart 17 Yd Field Goal – CON 24 – RUT 17

3rd quarter

No Scoring

4th quarter

RUT – 3:53 – Mark Harrison 52 Yd Pass From Chas Dodd (San San Te Kick) – CON 24 RUT 24

RUT – 0:13 – San San Te 34 Yd Field Goal – RUT 27 CON 24

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Offensive Players of the Game:

Rutgers true freshman quarterback Chas Dodd was 18-of-29 for 322 yards and two touchdowns.

Defensive Players of the Game:

UConn linebacker Lawrence Wilson had 14 tackles (seven solo, seven assisted) and had 1.5 sacks for a combined loss of seven yards.

Turning Point(s) of the Game:

With UConn up 24-17, Edsall went into conservative play calling mode and the Huskies went three and out. Rutgers scored immediately and with it tied, Edsall went back to conservative mode and it ultimately doomed the Huskies.

Offensive Notes:

Cody Endres was 17-of-34 with 153 yards and two touchdown passes. He did throw a meaningless interception at the end of the game. Jordan Todman had 24 carries for 123 yards and a touchdown. His touchdown came on a career-long 66 yard run. Kashif Moore had five catches for 64 yards and a touchdown. Michael Smith had three catches for 38 yards. Ryan Griffin caught four balls for 26 yards.

Defensive Notes:

Lawrence Wilson led all tacklers in the game with 14 (seven solo, seven assisted). He also had 1.5 sacks. Sio Moore had 12 tackles (eight solo, four assisted) while Mike Lang had seven tackles. Trevardo Williams had a sack and four tackles while Twyon Martin had three tackles and a sack. A.J. Portee also had a sack and two tackles while Kendall Reyes was credited with a half sack and finished with four tackles.

Special Teams Notes:

The New Jersey native Nick Williams returned a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter. Cole Wagner had two punts over 50 yards (53, 54) and one over 60 yards (63). He also shanked a few of his 11 punts on the night.  Dave Teggart was perfect on his extra points (three) and made his only field goal attempt from 17 yards.

Injuries:

UConn fullback Anthony Sherman suffered an undisclosed injury during the game.

UConn cornerback Blidi Wreh-Wilson went down twice with injuries but returned to the game.

Officials:

Referee: D. Hennigan; Umpire: M. Delaney; Linesman: M. Fitzgerald; Line judge: K. Codey; Back judge: G. Dancewicz; Field judge: T. Tarantini; Side judge: H. Curry

Game Notes:

UConn Huskies @ Rutgers Scarlet Knights 10.08.10 box score

Here are some postgame quotes from UConn head coach Randy Edsall after the game. Quotes are courtesy of the UConn Athletics Communication Department:

UConn Head Coach Randy Edsall

Opening Statement: “When you don’t make plays at the end of the game when you have the opportunity – those are the things that happened to us. I said we have opportunities to make some plays and we did not make them at the end. In the second half, we did do anything at all offensively. We had some breakdowns in coverage on the big touchdown pass and then we didn’t maintain leverage on another one. It is disappointing, but we have to finish the games and expect if you are going to win them. We didn’t finish it.”

(Rutgers QB Chas) Dodd, a true freshman in his first start gets 322 yards and two touchdowns: “We pressured him and got after him a little bit and then he escaped us. And a couple of times, we didn’t play as good as we needed to technique-wise. We played man and played zone, pressured him. We just have to be able to make plays when we have the opportunity and we didn’t make them when we needed to make them.”

Was it evident that defense was gassed at the end: “I don’t think so. It doesn’t matter how many plays that you are out there, they only played 70 plays. In the second half, the offense didn’t hold the ball that long. Like I said, we had the ability to make some plays and if we could have just made them and we didn’t. That’s the bottom line. You must be able to play 70 plays.”

Appeared you wanted to win the game with your defense: “No, we were trying to score on offense the entire second half. They were trying to score the whole second half. You get backed up there and you are up by seven and maybe on third down you didn’t want to throw it. Again, if we have a young man get a block Jordan (Todman) may be able to get a first down on the run play. They were things that go around on offense, defense and special teams we could have done better and we didn’t do better so we all have to sit here and stew over it for two weeks before we can go play again. We all didn’t get the job done.”

Third down on last possession, what were you looking for there: “The second down play we should have played it for a first down. We had the guy wide open on the second down play. Then again, we had a situation there and I will have to look at the film that maybe if he threw a little bit quicker. Like I said, the second down play should have been a first down.”

Are you happy with the guys that came in first significant action: “I am not happy at all. When you don’t win, you are not happy at all. That’s the bottom line, we didn’t win. We had opportunities to me were we could have won had we some plays, offensively and defensively and we didn’t get it done.”

Last four minutes of second quarter and why momentum didn’t carry over: “I don’t know, I don’t know. We made some yards, but we weren’t scoring. That was the thing. Like I said, I will have to take a look at the film and find out and really why. A lot of it had to do we couldn’t make some plays. Some guys got overpowered a little bit in the run game.”

Were there issues up front: “Again, I will have to take a look at the film but I there was some things that – again- we just didn’t get it done. I thought a couple times we might be able to get a run here or there. We didn’t finish, didn’t finish a block.”

You came out aggressive on offense, kept Rutgers off-balance early: “We didn’t move the ball. We came out and threw the ball because of some of the things they wanted to do. We didn’t score any points early with that, just one of those things we have to do a better job of making sure that we try and put the guys in the right position and again, we have to go out and make plays when we have the opportunity to make plays. As I said, you cant give up the big plays. I can guarantee you there will be a lot of big plays again. That is something that we told team in locker room that until we eliminate the big plays we were always give ourselves some problems. That’s what we have to continue to work on.”

Big East Games and Results:

Saturday, October 9

Syracuse
South Florida, 12:00 p.m.

Memphis
Louisville, 2:00 p.m.

Pittsburgh
Notre Dame, 3:30 p.m.

UNLV
West Virginia, 3:30 p.m.

Miami, OH
Cincinnati, 7:00 p.m.

Things to Work On:

• UConn needs to get rid of the swiss cheese secondary and make it more of a sharp cheddar. Too many times, they were beat deep and that was part of the reason they lost the game.
• Since it was just Endres second game back, the week off will give him some more time to gel with his receivers. He overthrew a few balls that could have been caught if they were better.
• UConn still has some holes in it’s kick coverage. After Nick Williams kick return for a touchdown, they let Rutgers get a good return that set up an eventual touchdown.
• The play calling needs to change. Personally, I think they need to be a little more aggressive.
• Execution on offense and defense.

Up Next:

The Huskies are off next week. They’ll return to action on Saturday, October 23rd when they head to Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium in Louisville, KY to take on the Louisville Cardinals.

Photo credit: Getty Images, Getty Images