Game week

How is everyone? Hope Xmas went well. Let's just say the blog suffers when you have 2 children around the Christmas time and about 10 nieces and nephews around the holiday's to shop for. About to get back into the swing of things for the Papajohns.com Bowl this week. I must say bowl season is still kind of rough. The season just loses momentum.I understand this is the third straight year to a bowl, but at least in Connecticut, December has always belonged to the hoops teams.


Since UConn defeated South Florida, there has been only a singular media availability (Dec. 21). That makes stories rough for the bowl season. As a writer, you get into a nice rhythm during the week, and that has been blown up here. It's too bad this is getting lost in the shuffle because South Carolina-UConn interests me.

Here's what interests me. The Huskies have had a month to prepare their secondary for this game.  That should help the secondary which was poor this year, especially at strong safety. The Huskies are giving up 66.7 percent completion percentage. That means 2 things all the way around.

1. Soft coverage
2. Confidence

The Huskies need to be more aggressive and more confidence. During the season it is really hard to re-tool. Randy Edsall stressed that the Huskies never get away from fundamentals, but for most of the practices let's hope the secondary has taken a deep breath and reoriented itself. Sure, the lack of a pass rush is another major reason for the passing success, but I don't think the secondary played aggressive enough.

This will be a danger point for the Huskies. South Carolina has excellent tall and athletic receivers. If the Huskies don't improve markedly on defense this will get ugly.

On the flip side, UConn's offense is for real. the Huskies have a big offensive line and dynamic running backs and a terrific wide receiver in Marcus Easley. They can get into a shootout, and Zach Frazer's confidence should be at an all-time high.

This talk of SEC vs. Big East is nice, but UConn isn't Cincinnati and South Carolina isn't Florida. This isn't some proxy war, and I don't think South Carolina's schedule gives them an advantage. UConn has played four Top 25 teams this year in Cincinnati, West Virginia, Pittsburgh and North Carolina (just fell out, but in poll for most of year), and three on the road. they lost in the last minutes to all of them.I would also count at Baylor (with Robert Griffin) and a road win at Ohio U. as good stiff tests. UConn was superior to both teams, but those were far from cupcakes on the road. 

This is an important game for the Huskies. A win here would mean a 4-game winning streak headed into the offseason and with 18 starters coming back (roughly), would set the Huskies up for a nice run for next season and knocking on the door of the Top 25 preseason (UConn isn't Rutgers, Huskies will get some votes, but they don't have the machine to get them into the Top 25 preseason).

a lot of times bowl games go one of two ways. It can be looked off as a reward and a sendoff of the previous years teams. Last year was very much a sendoff for Donald Brown. This year, instead of being a reward for this season, I think it is more the first game for next year.

I think in 2010, the Huskies could have a lot to be excited about. We'll see how it plays out on Saturday.