UConn Football: Now-independent Huskies look for breakout 2020 season

How will UConn football fair in 2020?

The Huskies’ success in 2020 will come to how their young core comes along. They have several of talented skill position players on offense needing to breakout and an experienced defense looking to improve upon a rough 2019 campaign.

Being an independent means a tougher slate of games, as seen in the game-by-game projections below.

• Game 1: vs. UMass (W) — UConn should be able to take down the Minutemen in back to back years.
• Game 2: at Illinois (L) — There’s not enough talent to beat an improving Illinois squad.
• Game 3: at Virginia (L) — Virginia’s program is on the rise in the ACC, this won’t be fun for UConn.
• Game 4: vs. Indiana (L) — The Huskies lost to Indiana on the road last season and will likely lose to the Hoosiers at home this season.
• Game 5: vs. Old Dominion (W) — A great chance for the Huskies to get a home win.
• Game 6: vs. Maine (W) — Main isn’t the strongest FCS foe; thus, UConn should grab back-to-back home wins and improve to .500.
• Game 7: at Ole Miss (L) — Credit to UConn for lining up an SEC foe, but their trip to Oxford likely won’t go well.
• Game 8: vs. Liberty (L) — The program is on the rise and has far more talent than UConn at this point in time.
• Game 9: at North Carolina (L) — Mack Brown has something special brewing in Chapel Hill and a loss to Connecticut isn’t likely in the cards.
• Game 10: at San Jose State (L) — San Jose State was on the cusp of a bowl game last season; UConn is rebuilding.
• Game 11: vs. Middle Tennessee (L) — Middle Tennessee is among the Conference USA powerhouses and will likely be too much for UConn to handle.
• Game 12: Army (L) — Army maybe only behind Notre Dame among the nation’s independents and should take care of business when they travel to East Hartford.

Prediction: 3-9

If the Huskies were still in the AAC, they might have had a legitimate chance to jump from two wins to four with teams like East Carolina and USF in their division. With an independent schedule, they still have the chance to improve their win total but not significantly.

The team will face five Power Five opponents with North Carolina and Ole Miss. They will likely be blowout losses for the Huskies while Indiana, Virginia and Illinois will also likely be too much to handle.

They’ll face two fellow independents who at this point in time have much better rosters in Army and Liberty and then face two Group of Five opponents poised for bowl bids in San Jose State and Middle Tennessee.

While that would put them at nine losses, they’ll have a legitimate for three wins, which would offer slight improvement from last season.

Old Dominion went just 1-11 last season and will travel to East Hartford, Maine is a weak FCS opponent and the Huskies handled UMass on the road last season and should be able to do the same on their home turf this season.

Thus, while they likely won’t be too big of an improvement for the Huskies in 2020, they should be able to at least increase their win total from two to three.