UConn football: Commemorating 10 years since Big East title
By John Scimeca
From Big East champs to a moribund program
It’s hard to imagine championship hardware gracing the football offices in East Hartford, Conn. But believe or not, the Huskies stumbled their way into first place during the 2010 season.
UConn began the 2010 season with a 3-4 record, which included dropping its first two conference games. After opening with a 30-10 loss to Michigan, the Huskies marched into Big East play by losing twice on the road to Rutgers and Louisville, the latter of which was a 26-0 defeat.
It’s tough taking the gridiron when your student-athlete peers participate in one of the nation’s premier college basketball programs. Since 1999, the men’s hoops program has won three national titles. Everyone knows about the unmatched juggernaut that is the UConn women’s basketball program, which has compiled an astounding 11 national titles since 1995.
And then, you know, there’s a football team that has won a total of three games since the end of the 2017 season.
Head coach Randy Edsall left after the 2010 season for the greener pastures of Maryland. He had brought the Huskies up from the I-AA (now FCS) ranks in the late 1990s.
The move from the ACC to the Big Ten didn’t go well, and Edsall didn’t even last five seasons with the Terrapins after compiling a 22-34 record. He came back to Connecticut in 2017 and has put together a 6-30 mark in his first three seasons back with the Huskies.
What exactly changed for UConn football during Edsall’s absence?
After being unranked the entire season, UConn moved to No. 25 in the AP poll with its win against South Florida. The Huskies promptly fell out of the Top 25 with their Fiesta Bowl loss to the Sooners and ended the 2010 season with an 8-5 record.