Remembering the 2025 UConn football season
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The arrow is pointing up for UConn football in ways that would have seemed unimaginable in 2021. But we can all admit that last season ended in a bit of a weird thud. After a coaching change and the turnover of nearly the entire roster, with a half-team making a repeat bowl appearance, one can’t help but wonder if there’s more to life than rooting for a respectable win total every season.
That existential search for FBS-era meaning will have to wait, however, while we figure out what the heck we have in the first year of the Jason Candle era.
This eventful offseason also meant we spent a lot less time looking back on the previous season than we normally would. There’s no use evaluating player trends from last year as considerations for this year, because there are so few returning players on the roster. There isn’t a ton of consistency on the schedule as an independent. Comparing win totals every year will also be schedule dependent.
Change is constant in the NIL era, and we were getting used to seeing new names all over the depth chart, but this year the total is over 70 new guys, it’s all going to look different.
Still, it’s worth looking back on the 2025 season that was, now with the context of a full offseason, to remind us of UConn’s ascent back to FBS competence, and just how much fun that can be — the season was truly fun!
We’ve started our season previews with a look at the quarterbacks. We’ll review all of the position groups and offer up some additional analysis and commentary around interesting storylines across this week leading up to the season opener.
2025 Season in Review
The 2025 campaign began with a lot of hype after the breakthrough of 2024, which ended with a win over UNC in the Fenway Bowl, a postseason opportunity normally reserved for members of the ACC and AAC. UConn returned its starting quarterback, leading receiver and rusher, and maintained continuity on the offensive line. Defensively, a lot of guys graduated or otherwise moved on, leading to questions on that end.
The Huskies clobbered Central Connecticut to start the season, giving peace to fans who were conditioned to expect the worst against FCS opponents. The game itself got off to an awful start, with a botched punt leading to a very short field for the visitors as they quickly took a 7-0 lead at Rentschler Field.
Skyler Bell took a short outside pass 80 yards to the house to tie the game as UConn responded with four unanswered touchdowns by the middle of the second quarter and the rout was on. Backups were in by the third quarter as the Huskies prevailed 58-13. Bell finished with two touchdowns as he set the tone for what would be a record-setting season.
Week Two saw a disappointing loss at Syracuse. After a scoreless first quarter, UConn led the entire way until a touchdown with 0:48 left put the Orange up 20-17. The Huskies managed a field goal to tie but the home team got a touchdown in OT and made the stop to hold on for the win. Syracuse coach Fran Brown famously made his team run sprints on the field afterward.
In Week Three, the season that propelled Jim Mora to a new job fell to 1-2 after another disappointing overtime setback where the Huskies led late in the fourth quarter and seemed to have the win locked up.
This time they were at Delaware, playing in a shootout. They allowed two fourth-down conversions, including one on a pass interference penalty, as the Fightin’ Hens mounted the game-tying field goal drive. In OT, Joe Fagnano was sacked on third and goal to set up a field goal. UD QB Nick Minicucci, their backup who was starting on that day, ran in a 13-yard TD for the win.
At 1-2, things were not looking great. Reactionaries were calling for change at QB, offensive coordinator, in particular, but the Huskies stayed the course. They won their next two, but neither victory came in a convincing or satisfying fashion.
The Huskies evened their record at 2-2 by defeating Ball State at home, welcoming former teammate Nathan Voorhis to the Rent. Voorhis would go on to be one of the nation’s sack leaders and was cut on the final day of this year’s NFL roster decisions. Cam Edwards carried them to victory with 194 rushing yards and two touchdowns as the Huskies held on, 31-25.
UConn was up 24-17 with under four minutes left, facing 3rd & 9 before Edwards broke a 67-yard touchdown to put the game out of reach. Earlier in the fourth quarter, with around 10 minutes left, UConn handed it to Edwards on 4th & 1 and he took that to the house from 32 yards out.
The Huskies won a closer contest at Buffalo the following week. This was also supposed to be a reunion with some former Huskies, Jasaiah Gaithings and Ta’Quan Roberson, but both were injured. After a scoreless first quarter, Fagnano hit Bell at the 12 and the evasive receiver ran it into the end zone to make it 7-0. The Huskies led 17-10 going into the fourth quarter after Edwards finished a drive by punching in an 8-yard TD, but went three-and-out twice in the final frame before allowing a game-tying score with 2:53 left.
In the slightly-more-than-two-minute drill, Fagnano converted two third-and-long attempts through the air to set up Chris Freeman’s game-winning field goal as the visitors prevailed, 20-17. The Huskies now had a winning record, but they were not converting the many doubters who had witnessed a decade-plus of the program’s struggles.
Two weeks later, the entire tone changed as UConn pounded FIU, 51-10, at the Rent, and then clinically took care of Boston College on the road, 38-23.
Against FIU, the Huskies started 17-0 after two early Panthers turnovers and led 24-3 at halftime on the strength of passing touchdowns from Fagnano to Bell and Reymello Murphy plus an Edwards rushing score. In the second half’s first drive, Victor Rosa took a flare pass out of the backfield 65 yards for a touchdown. Fagnano tossed his fourth TD pass and second to Bell in the third quarter to make it 44-3. He completed 79 percent of his passes for 355 yards as it became clear that the passing game was the strength of this team.
The next week, Fagnano set a career high with 362 passing yards, plus four passing TDs and a fifth on the ground, as the Huskies won their fourth game in a row to reach a 5-2 record. They claimed their second-ever victory over the Eagles after Mora’s 2022 squad broke through for the first one. Juice Vereen pulled in two touchdowns in his breakout performance while a 38-yard catch-and-run by Bell helped seal the game late.
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UConn was earning some national recognition after this ACC road win. ESPN’s Bill Connelly’s SP+ efficiency rankings had them at 56th overall, almost certainly a high point over the last 13 seasons. In the KFord Ratings, UConn was 43rd offensively and 73rd defensively. Fagnano was also beginning to earn some national respect, getting a Manning Award weekly nod for that week.
The highest of hopes came crashing down in a highly disappointing loss at Rice. The Huskies allowed 481 yards and gave up the game-tying touchdown in the fourth quarter. The offense was efficient and productive…for the first three quarters. They punted four times in a scoreless final frame to allow overtime.
In OT, Rice had the ball first and scored a touchdown. UConn answered back with a 16-yard Edwards TD run. At this point, UConn probably should have gone for two and the win, but opted for the extra point and the tie.
In the next overtime period, UConn got the ball first and settled for a field goal. As it had no trouble doing all day, Rice moved the ball into the end zone with ease to clinch a win despite trailing after the first, second, and third quarters.
This was a bad loss made worse by an inexcusable late decision. After the game Mora took one question on the virtual press conference and stormed out. He had also previously refused to meet with media after the loss at Syracuse.
Around this time, Mora also reportedly reached out about the head coach opening at Colorado State, which fired Jay Norvell on October 19th, a few days before the Rice game. This offseason Mora shared that he was previously interested in the opening in 2019 and reached out as soon as the opening came up. News broke that he was hired on November 26th.
The Huskies shook off the Rice loss, and their head coach’s active interest in other jobs, with a confident win over UAB at home before the highlight of the season: A hard-fought victory over Duke.
Bell caught three touchdowns in the 38-19 win over UAB as the Huskies led from start to finish. The score was 24-0 at halftime and 31-0 early in the third quarter. Cam Chadwick picked off two passes on the day.
The Duke game is going to get its own article — what a day. UConn improved to 7-3 after beating the eventual ACC Champions.
With a chance to match the previous year’s regular-season win total of eight, UConn defeated Air Force at home, 26-16. Fagnano threw his first interception of the season in that game, and had one of his least productive days, ending a hot streak where he was slinging multiple TDs and 300+ yards, aside from 267 in the UAB rout, while completing two-thirds of his attempts, in every game since Buffalo.
The Huskies overcame a rough first half but made some timely defensive stops to keep the score respectable despite letting Air Force do whatever it wanted offensively. The Falcons’ QB got hurt and then things took a step back. Edwards carried this victory, running for 150 yards in the second half with two touchdowns as he eclipsed 1,000 rushing yards on the season.
The season finale at FAU was a wild one, but it ended with the Huskies’ ninth regular-season win, a first for the program since 2007. UConn jumped out to a 24-3 in the first quarter lead after three Fagnano touchdown passes, spread out across Bell, John Neider, and Alex Honig, aided by a 4th-down stop and an interception.
The Owls responded with two touchdowns separated by a stop to make it 24-17. After a UConn field goal, FAU pulled ahead 31-27 thanks to a 90-yard touchdown scored while facing 4th & 1 from their own 10. An Edwards touchdown put the visitors back ahead, and a 44-yard sprint by Mel Brown made it 44-31 after an FAU fumble. But the Owls didn’t quit.
The home team converted a 4th & 11 for a 33-yard touchdown to make it 41-38. The Huskies went three-and-out and then allowed a QB keep into the end zone on the ensuing drive to give the lead back, 45-41.
On the next UConn drive, Fagnano converted two third downs through the air and Edwards converted a 4th & short on the ground before scoring a two-yard touchdown for what would be the game’s winning points, with 26 seconds left.
But the end was not without drama. FAU returned the ensuing kickoff to its own 11 but a face-mask penalty put them on their own 26 to start their last-chance drive. They completed a 27-yard pass on first down and the next play went 29 yards to the UConn 18, but the clock went down to 4 seconds, leading to a 36-yard field goal attempt that missed wide left, saving the Huskies from a fourth overtime game this season.
With the regular season wrapped up, UConn sat with nine wins awaiting its bowl fate. It was the first time the program had consecutive nine-win seasons, but everything shook in an unexpected direction as Jim Mora was reported to have accepted the CSU job four days after the season finale.
We’ll cover the Mora departure, bowl-game fallout, and eventual hire of Jason Candle in Part 2 of this article.
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