Three games in, the UConn football team is starting to realize its identity under Jason Candle

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STORRS – There aren’t many bonding experiences better for a team than a few hours on a plane, with nothing to do but bask in the glory of a big win.

The UConn football team’s 1,300-mile trip back home from Hattiesburg, Miss. on Saturday night featured two and a half hours of celebrating a 48-20 win over Southern Miss, a dominant showing in all three phases as the program moved to 2-1 for the first time in a decade.

“It’s awesome, everybody’s kind of joking on the flight back. A big win, we’re celebrating, so it was good to have,” said receiver Ryder Treadway, one of 85-plus new players in the building.

“It definitely helps the chemistry,” said defensive back Jayden Price, another newcomer.

The collection of fresh faces largely came together in the winter, everyone trading in their old team-issued gear for a new haul with Huskies branding as they joined with almost 30 returning players from last season. They put in hours training together with strength coach Brad Bichey and his staff, and furthered their bond through spring ball and fall camp. But it takes real games, real adversity, against real opponents to fully solidify the chemistry and realize the team’s identity.

Through the first two weeks, the Huskies cruised against a lesser opponent in Lafayette and struggled with a far more challenging power conference team in Maryland. Saturday’s game at Southern Miss was somewhere in the middle, and coach Jason Candle’s group passed that test with flying colors.

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“The truth is always somewhere in the middle,” Candle said Monday. “We’re just a group of guys that are on a journey here that are trying to improve every week. And as long as we’re honest with ourselves and tell ourselves the truth, we’re gonna end up in a good place. I think that’s a tough thing for young people to grasp, it’s a really tough thing for adults to grasp, to really just come in and look yourself in the mirror and fix what you didn’t do well. You’re allowed to be proud of what you did well – we did a lot of things really good on Saturday and we’re allowed to be proud of those, we’re allowed to celebrate those successes, but not in a manner to where it doesn’t shed the proper light on the things we didn’t do well. And then we’ve got to go address it and we’ve got to fix it.”

From the opening kickoff on Saturday, the offense methodically marching down the field with positive plays through the air and on the ground, converting multiple 3rd down situations to find the end zone, then getting the ball back after an interception by the defense and scoring again, it was complimentary football on display.

Still though, Candle and his coaches won’t look past the eight penalties, the three sacks, six plays on 3rd down that came up short or the defense surrendering 245 yards in the second half – 211 of which came after the Huskies’ lead ballooned to 41-6 early in the third quarter.

If it can capitalize on the momentum and continue in this direction, UConn has a chance to beat Miami (OH) on the road and come back to Rentschler Field with a 3-1 record ahead of its next power conference test against Syracuse, an old rival the program has come just short of taking down in each of the last two seasons.

Candle and his Huskies aren’t thinking that far ahead.

“Now can we take success this week and go handle that a little bit better than maybe the last time we won a football game here? That’ll be our challenge this week,” Candle said. “…The great teams that can keep the consistency from start to finish, there’s only a few of them, they have to have a great process, they have to great detail each and every day when they come in the building, and that’s just what we’re trying to do. And we’ve tried to do that since January. What we’re asking them to do right now is not a shock to them. So we’ve got to stick to our process here and continue to improve.”

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