UConn Football O-line Report: Week 10 vs. Temple
The Huskies lined up against the Temple Owls on Friday night in East Hartford for a must-win game if UConn wanted to keep their hopes of advancing to a bowl game alive. Unfortunately, the Owls shut out the Huskies, 21-0, leaving UConn at 3-7 (1-6 AAC) on the season with 2 games remaining.
Let’s take a look at how the line performed.
Pass Protection:
A poor showing all-around for the protection by the Huskies. After what had been a few weeks of somewhat promising offensive line play and protection, this game seemed to be a significant step backward.
In a game which would be the first career start for true freshman QB Donovan Williams, the Huskies main focus should have been keeping the pressure off of him as much as possible but the opposite occurred. Pressure found its way back to the QB from almost all directions at one time or another, and occasionally, all at the same time.
One distinct negative that I haven’t seen for most of the season was the O-line getting beat in their one on one match-ups. As much as the Huskies pass protection has struggled, that had yet to be one of the more prevalent issues for UConn this season, so for this to creep in as one of their bigger problems against the Owls was disheartening. While pass protection may have taken a back seat to the changes in offensive coordinator and at QB, the Huskies must get back to playing consistently up front to see success.
This step backward is disappointing in a must-win game that many expected to showcase a new and improved offense.
Run Game:
The Huskies played the entirety, save for the first drive, of the first half from behind which limited the amount of rushing attempts for the offense. The limited attempts were further hindered by a lack of space for the Husky RBs to operate and ultimately resulted in a sub-par showing in the ground game.
UConn’s only decent gains on the ground came from Williams scrambling when he saw an opening in the middle of the field. This is again disappointing to see after the Huskies had shown some progress this season in the ground game and were always looking to be right on the verge of breaking a big run.
Friday night, however, UConn seemed hard-pressed to find a way to move the ball forward at all. The second half was no different as they were playing from behind facing a 21-point deficit. Temple also had a commanding handle on the time of possession for the majority of the second half, causing UConn to throw the ball if they wanted any hope of creating a comeback. The few times the ball was handed off in the second half, it was a tough sledding for the Huskies, who could barely get the ball back past the line of scrimmage.
***
A disappointing performance all around by the Huskies leaves the team at 3-7 on the season with only 2 games remaining. The Huskies will look to salvage this season as they will undoubtedly put in plenty of work to get the train back on the tracks during this bye week before traveling to face Boston College on November 19.