Where I come from: My all-time favorite UConn team
This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.
Let's all be honest. There is not exactly a wealth of UConn teams to choose from to pick a favorite squad. Sure, UConn has been playing football for a century, but it has really only mattered for the last decade. In that decade, there are a few teams that you could make an argument for.
The 2003 and 2004 squads both proved that UConn could at least be moderately competitive in Division 1-A, capped off with the 2004 Motor City Bowl win. You could certainly make a strong case for the 2007 team, which was the first UConn group to be ranked, had some of the school's biggest wins, featured the first (and only) rush-the-field moment in Rentschler Field's history and won a share of the Big East title.
However, at the end of the day, my all-time favorite UConn team is last year's squad. The 2009 Huskies had an absolute roller coaster of a season. In many ways, talking about what the team did on the field feels irrelevant because of the tragic mid-season murder of Jasper Howard that defined the team's season. The squad went 8-5, with the five losses coming by a combined 15 points. Three of them came immediately following Howard's death, but then the Huskies went to South Bend and this happened:
The Huskies knocked off Notre Dame in double overtime, sparking a four-game winning streak to end the season, which was capped off with a 20-7 whipping of South Carolina, UConn's first win over an SEC team.
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It's been a while since I watched those highlights
Seems like it happened five years ago. Anyway, cue the “But Notre Dame sucked last year!” haters, but any time you can get a win in an emotional rollercoaster of a game AND have your previously-unknown team become a trending topic on Twitter, that’s a great moment. And that even ignores the whole context of the 2009 season.
My favorite team, though, is that inexplicable 2007 team that lucked their way to the share of the BE Championship. There were the crazy fluke wins over Temple, Louisville and South Florida, the best three-game homestand ever, Tyler Lorenzen not being the awful quarterback he regressed to in ‘08, and it’s the year of the only bowl game I’ve been to in person.
Can’t disagree with this choice, though. 2009 is probably the best team UConn’s ever had (could’ve gone 12-0 in the regular season, a passing game, legit D-I athletes at every position for the first time).
Orange Bowl/dual Final Fours or bust in 2011. We're going all-in.
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