Five takeaways from UConn football’s season opener as it looks ahead to ‘prove it’ game vs. Maryland

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The most successful UConn football seasons have all included an early-season matchup against an FCS opponent that served as a jump starter for the team and the fanbase.

Saturday’s season-opener, a record-breaking 56-7 blowout of Lafayette – a team that didn’t present much resistance at all – was just that in Year One of new head coach Jason Candle.

The Huskies’ 49-point margin of victory was the third-widest in program history behind only the 62-3 win over Texas Southern in 2010 and the 59-0 win over Liberty in 2005. The 671 total yards of offense surpassed last year’s opener against Central Connecticut State (638 yards) and the second game of the 2024 season against Merrimack (624 yards) for the most in school history. Of course, those two years turned out to be the first back-to-back nine-win campaigns in the program’s FBS era.

But games against FCS opponents are supposed to go that way, to serve as a sort of warm up before the team faces its first real challenge of the year.

Here are five takeaways from the first look at Candle’s group:

Dom Amore: Kalieb Osborne got into the end zone more ways than one in UConn debut: ‘Man, he’s crazy’

‘Prove it’ game coming

It was clear from UConn’s first offensive series, when it cruised 75 yards down the field in six plays and saw two defenders bounce off of receiver Javon Brown on his way into the endzone, that Lafayette was going to be in for a long afternoon.

The Leopards were severely overmatched. But the Patriot League isn’t the Big 10.

And Maryland, the next tenant of the visitor’s locker room at Rentschler Field, saw similar dominance in its 62-0 win over Hampton Saturday night. The Week Two matchup has a similar feel to the Huskies’ 2023 season-opener against NC State, when hopes and expectations were high after reaching the Myrtle Beach Bowl in former coach Jim Mora’s first season. That one got away in the second half and sent the team down a dark path, losing eight of its first nine games before finishing the year 3-9.

The Huskies are well aware of the difference in quality their next opponent presents. The locker room scene after the game was described as “just regular” by senior linebacker and captain K’Von Sherman, who refuses to get ahead of his skis.

“I try to preach that we’re gonna be the most prepared group in the country,” he said. “If you’re kind of iffy about what’s going on, you’re not gonna be as fast. I just believe that we’ve got to be on our ‘A’ game when it comes to that preparation aspect and everything else will take care of itself.”

Partners in crime

Penalties were the only thing that could hurt the UConn defense on Saturday and they did, wiping away the opportunity for a shutout after setting the Leopards up at the 2-yard line in the final minute.

Lafayette’s best scoring chance against the Huskies’ first-team defense came in the second quarter when it was set up at the 30-yard line after a pass interference call. But Sherman and UPenn transfer John Lista had other plans, and the linebacking duo shut it down with sacks on consecutive plays, pushing the threat back near midfield and forcing the fifth of 11 Lafayette punts on the day.

“That really fired me up,” Sherman said. “I even told him, ‘Let’s just keep going back-to-back on ’em…’ That’s my partner in crime… I feel like we played really good team ball, that was the best thing that stood out to me, the communication that we had on the field was pretty good.”

Sherman and Lista both had five total tackles, four solo, and a sack in their UConn debut. Sherman added two tackles for loss; Lista had one with an additional hit on the quarterback.

UConn football begins Jason Candle era with 56-7 drubbing of Lafayette

Osborne’s strong first impression

Kalieb Osborne’s performance earned him the highest quarterback grade of the day (95.3) by Pro Football Focus’ analytics. If he were listed as a running back, his performance on the ground would likely earn him a grade just as high.

Osborne finished 19-for-26 passing for 265 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, and ran eight times for another 90 yards and two scores.

“I think he played how I expected him to play,” said Candle. “We wouldn’t have named him the starting quarterback if we thought he was gonna play bad, right? But the more comfortable he gets, the better it’s going to look.”

“Most of the things I’ve seen him do 1,000 times,” Sherman said. “Even when he was a young pup at Toledo when coach Candle was throwing him in against the threes, he was still running around, still making crazy throws. That’s something we see every day at practice, he’s always making crazy throws and making plays with his legs. I’m just proud of him being able to come out like that and dominate.”

Playmakers on playmakers

The Huskies had the fortune of being able to spread the wealth on Saturday. Four different receivers had at least three targets, led by Brown, who caught all six passes that went his way and finished with a game-high 92 receiving yards.

“Big target, and he’s got strong hands for sure,” Osborne said. “We all connect, after practices we get catches in, extra work in, so we’re really confident with everybody’s abilities. All our receivers have great hands.”

The Huskies had a hand full of big passing plays wiped off the board in the first half because of some mistakes at the line of scrimmage. Ryder Treadway, who ended up with two catches and 33 yards, had a 24-yard catch-and-run taken off the board after a holding call, as did returning Husky Shamar Porter, who had a 23-yard gain negated. The penalty calls hurt JD Willoughby the worst, taking away a 15-yard catch and a 66-yard touchdown just before halftime. He ended up with three catches for 40 yards.

Test in the trenches

The bulk of the work in getting up to speed in preparation for Maryland will fall to UConn’s offensive line, which recovered from the five first-half holding penalties with none after the break. There was one glaring error that allowed the pass rush to get to Osborne and affect his throw, which landed in the arms of a linebacker in the middle of the field for his first interception of the year.

“Preseason camp’s a waste of time if you don’t get your first win, in my opinion,” Candle said. “So you want to do a great job of putting a plan together to go get that win, and then from there, you want to see great growth from Game One to Game Two. I think that’s where we’re at. We had some things on tape today that we want to take off, I mean, we had a (66-yard) touchdown called back from a penalty, right? You don’t get many chances at a (66-yard) touchdown. So we’ve got to take some of that stuff off the tape and fix some of those mistakes.”

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