UConn says NCAA will have response on Tuesday - Associated Press
UConn will give the NCAA its response to allegations against the men's basketball team today, but compliance officials need to review it before it is released to the media, so fans will still have to wait to find out what it says.

Huskies Add Defensive Lineman For 2011 - UConn Huskies Football Blog | Hartford Courant | Desmond Conner
Note the high school: Obum Obukwelu has committed to the UConn football program. Obukwelu, listed as three-star recurit by rivals.com and a two-star by scout.com, is 6-1, 255. He's a senior at Boston (MA) College High.

Big East power rankings, Week 2 - Big East Blog - ESPN
On my original power ranking ballot, I had UConn third. Known Husky-haters Justin and Meacham made me lower them to sixth. Brian Bennett? He has UConn 3rd. Smart man that Bennett.

Central Florida added to schedule for 2014, 2015 - The New Haven Register Blogs: Ramblings from The Runway
UCF will head to East Hartford in 2014, Huskies go south the following year.

Much more after the jump.

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More photos » Michael Switzer - AP

West Virginia players celebrate being ranked first in the inaugural Big East Power Rankings. Well, either that or they were excited about beating Coastal Carolina. You be the judge.

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Welcome to the SB Nation Big East Power Rankings. This is a new feature I'm really excited about. SB Nation's collection of Big East blogs have joined together to vote on conference rankings, which will be updated each and every Monday during the football season. Each blog gets one ballot and will rank Big East teams from first to eighth. A first-place vote is worth eight points, second place seven and so on. Without further ado, here are your Week 1 rankings:

1. West Virginia (4): 39 points -- vs. Coastal Carolina W 31-0  -- Last Week: N/R

2. Pittsburgh: (1) 34 points -- @ Utah L 27-24 (OT) -- Last Week: N/R

3. South Florida: 26 points -- vs. Stony Brook W 59-14 -- Last Week: N/R

4. Rutgers: 22 points -- vs. Norfolk St. W 31-0 -- Last Week: N/R

T-5. Cincinnati: 19 points -- @ Fresno St. L 28-14 -- Last Week: N/R

T-5. Syracuse: 19 points -- @ Akron W 29-3 -- Last Week: N/R

7. UConn: 16 points -- @ Michigan L 30-10 -- Last Week N/R

8. Louisville: 5 points -- vs. Kentucky L 23-16 -- Last Week: N/R

Hit the jump to check out my thoughts and the individual ballots from each blog.

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Aftermath: Third Down A Lost Cause For UConn Football Team - Courant.com
Michigan converted 14 of 19 third downs, including five on the third-quarter drive, and six when facing a distance greater than 5 yards.

UConn’s thumping by Michigan doesn’t dampen chances of winning Big East :: Mansfield Today
Here is a long recap of almost everything UConn-Michigan.

Jeff Jacobs column: UConn coach hiding behind Big East injury policy - Courant.com
Jeff Jacobs does not like how Edsall handles injuries: "Permit me to be so bold as to say this [injury] new policy, as it's being employed by Edsall, isn't starting out so swell. I'd argue it isn't giving everybody — namely the fans — the information they need."

UConn's Edsall: Battle lost in the trenches - GreenwichTime
Randy Edsall may play coy when it comes to the injury status of his key players, but the UConn coach didn't mince words when it came to the reason his Huskies were beaten by Michigan Saturday in Ann Arbor. "I thought we got whupped on both sides of the line of scrimmage," Edsall said Sunday afternoon. "We didn't win the battle in the trenches."

What we learned in the Big East - Big East Blog - ESPN
2. No clear favorite exists: We knew the Big East was fairly wide open, but at least Pitt was viewed as a solid favorite. It's clear after the first week that every team is flawed in some way. West Virginia is the only one of the preseason contenders still undefeated, but the Mountaineers needed a while before they could put away Coastal Carolina at home. Buckle up for a wild conference title race.

Former Huskies had biggest impact - ESPN.com
Taurasi made spectacular shots look routine, as she's known for. Cash played with that fierce sense of purpose, as she's known for. And Bird came through in the clutch, as she's know for.

Fewer MA students at UMass; more at UConn | WWLP.com
Well this is pretty hilarious: The number of undergraduates from the Bay State at the university dropped by 5.5%, while the number of Massachusetts students at the University of Connecticut jumped by 70%.

More photos » Tony Ding - AP

I can't say enough good things about Michigan fans. They were great hosts.

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Proponents of college football's bowl system love to point to the fact that the current system means every regular season game matters. Their theory is basically that one loss can derail a season and wreck national title hopes. So sorry, UConn fans, I don't think UConn is winning it all this year. Of course, the flip-side of that theory is that it really only applies to the top 10 or so teams in the country and UConn, as yesterday made painfully clear, is not one of those teams. As such, in the long run, yesterday's game is little more than a three-hour disappointment. The good news is that the Huskies are still 0-0 in the Big East and still have a few weeks to tune-up for a run to the Big East title.

So with that in mind, let's take a look at some of the good and the bad things that came out of yesterday.

The good: UConn will never have to play against Denard Robinson again, and thank God for that. A few weeks ago I drew the ire of Michigan fans by saying I felt the Huskies had more talent than the Wolverines. Clearly, I was wrong. After yesterday, I'd say that on-balance, for every position but quarterback, the teams are pretty equal, maybe with Michigan grabbing a slight edge. But holy hell what a difference that quarterback makes. Video I had seen of Robinson didn't even come close to doing justice to the monster that he was yesterday. I don't care if UConn always struggles against mobile QBs, Robinson is something special.

The bad: UConn still struggles terribly against mobile quarterbacks. It has been a problem without an answer for years, and I hoped with an offseason to prepare for Rich Rodriguez's system, Randy Edsall might have been able to find some sort of answer, but this is looking like a permanent flaw in UConn's system. Honorable mention for the bad: The fact that Devin Gardner exists and will be Michigan's senior quarterback when they visit East Hartford in 2013.

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The results obviously were not too good.

The aftermath, however, may be even worse.

Just a season removed from tracking the swishiness of Scott Lutrus' pantaloons, the great Lutrus Watch of 2010 has begun. ... Maybe.

Lutrus, who battled through stingers most of last season, left Saturday's loss to Michigan with what appeared to be an injury. But no one can say for sure, because Randy Edsall ain't talkin'.

Local reporters asked the UConn head coach about Lutrus' status during Sunday's weekly conference call, but Edsall went all "no comment" on them, instead choosing to hide behind the Big East's new injury report, which will be released on Monday.

"I've got no comment on anything about injuries on anybody," Edsall said, responding to a question asked by Neill Ostrout of the Connecticut Post. "Not Scott or anybody. Monday they'll have the Big East [report], and on Thursday we'll have the update on what the situation is for the game."

Well, OK then.

When the injury report was first announced, it seemed as though Edsall had possibly come around from his days of juking the stats, so to speak, on the media.

But now it's clear now that that's certainly not the case. Instead, Edsall appears poised to use the conference's injury report as a force field to deflect all unwelcome inquiries into his top-secret doctor's notes; not only did the coach delay dropping the hammer on everyone about the return of middle linebacker Greg Lloyd, but now it seems he will never discuss another injury for the rest of the season.

Which would be fine, if the conference dealt out any penalties at all for false reports. Or if it was, y'know, accurate, as The Courant's Zac Boyer points out:

But that's not the end-all, be-all of the report. Just last week, for example, South Florida coach Skip Holtz didn't turn in any players for Monday's list, and Big East associate commissioner for communications said on the weekly coaches' conference call that USF "had no players on the injury list."

Holtz laughed, then said, "We do have three. They're not new, just old lingering injuries, and they will be back at some point in time during the season: A.J. Love and Sterling Griffin, and Mark Popek, an offensive lineman, are the three right now that look like they will be out for this game."

More photos » Tony Ding - AP

Denard Robinson just scored again. (AP Photo/Tony Ding)

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Randy Edsall did not have his team ready to play today. Flat out. I have no idea whether Michigan is a top 15 or top 25 team, but they damn sure looked like one today. To sum up:

--Would you be interested in converting your third downs to first downs? We at the First National Bank Of Edsall would like to accommodate your request!

--UConn still can't defend the read-option. Its tiny defensive line was manhandled by Michigan's offensive line, giving Denard Robinson and a cast of thousands plenty of running room.

--UConn still can't develop receivers. Marcus Easley, God bless him, is proving to be the exception to the rule. One potential touchdown drop by Michael Smith, several other costly mistakes, and the one big play UConn made in the passing game came on an impossible circus catch.

--UConn's defenders are still reacting, not acting. If Robinson wanted to run for a first down, he could. If he wanted to pass it, he had a wide open receiver in a hole in the zone. It was a masterful performance by Robinson, who I really hope becomes a star.

--Zach Frazer simply has not improved from last year. He still throws the ball 175 mph, and it still sails. He didn't get much help from the receivers, but this offense already appears to have regressed back to the Donald Brown run-run-pass-fest from 2008.

Michigan had the big edge at quarterback, and that was the difference. UConn's offense wasn't even that terrible; the Huskies pushed around Michigan's defense plenty. But Robinson's complete dominance, combined with a really, really poorly-timed turnover and some very poor execution exacerbated the problem of needing to score on almost every possession.

UConn can still have a great year, and if they aren't a much better team by late October and early November, I'll eat my hat. The Big East title is still very much out there, and through Week 1 the league appears to be down. Plus, they won't be facing anyone like Denard Robinson every week.

But this...this was an absolute disaster.

In UConn's only chance to showcase itself against a name-brand non-Big East opponent this year, the Huskies looked more like one of Michigan's typical September MAC cupcake opponents. Right or wrong, the average college football fan will write off UConn for the remainder of the season. And so after all the positive chatter, with all the returning starters, UConn will return to the anonymous backwaters of college football for a little while longer.

Status report: the sun is shining, the weather is a little bit cooler, and Randy Edsall and his charges are in Ann Arbor.

It is a beautiful morning.

We have been banging the "UConn-as-BCS-Contender" drum roughly since Thanksgiving, and today, finally, is the day when they begin to prove us right or hilariously, hilariously wrong.

Optimism is at an all-time high in Huskyland, which makes today a Great Moment of Opportunity for UConn football. Beating Michigan, even a Michigan program that is 8-16 in its last two years, could go a long way toward validating the program in the eyes of the college football world. And since this is a sport that decides its champions by the same method we determine figure skating Olympic medalists, that means a great deal.

Having conquered Notre Dame and ended 2009 on a five-game winning streak, the Huskies are suddenly a chic pick to have a big year in 2010. A win on the road, on national television, against a brand-name opponent - even one who has struggled recently - will send us fans, frankly, through the goddamn roof.

I don't think it is hyperbole to say that this is about as high as the stakes have ever been for the fledgling, 10-year-old UConn football program, and it's clearly the second-most important game in school history. Hopefully, by December, that latter statement will no longer be true.

Of course, Michigan fans have their own reasons to be desperate. They've seen their proud program drop off the map in the last two seasons. They need a statement win to validate their coach and to ensure that the Wolverines end 2010 in a better place than it ended 2009. They need to have a happy ending for their first game in refurbished Michigan Stadium.

There are a ton of other factors which make this game, I think, the most interesting game not involving a ranked team this season:

• UConn's biggest game in school history also happened to be Rich Rodriguez's last win as West Virginia coach, and Edsall has never beaten RRod.
  
• Michigan will (likely) start Denard Robinson, and as WVU, USF and Baylor fans can tell you, UConn is practically helpless against a running QB
• Edsall, that sly dog, raising Greg Lloyd from the dead surprising us by listing Greg Lloyd on the depth chart in a Belichickian ploy to control the world money supply(?)
  
• Much like Notre Dame and South Carolina fans, Michigan fans are adamant that they have better players because the fine people at Rivals.com say so. They also equated UConn to Fran Drescher, but the joke is on them because Fran Drescher would totally beat Michigan in a football game.
  
• Neither team can apparently play defense worth a shit

I shouldn't have to explain more. You should be pumped. Let's preview this thing, below the jump.

The game: UConn (0-0) at Michigan (0-0)

The place: Michigan Stadium - Whore, MI

The time: 3:30 p.m. ET

The media: TV: ABC (for most of the country) or ESPN2; Radio: WTIC 1080-AM

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Hello and welcome to TheUConnBlog. I'm sure many of you have been here before, but since football season is kicking off tomorrow and we might have some new guests, this seemed like a fine time to reintroduce ourselves and the site.

I started this baby up about two years ago and was luckily able to convince Kevin Meacham and UConnBlog Justin to lend their considerable writing talents to the site. We're all UConn alums and husky fans. I'm a huge homer, Justin's our voice of reason/cynic and Meacham, along with some solid analysis, brings the funny.

We became SB Nation's home for UConn sports in January of this year and we've enjoyed our time with our new corporate overlords.

So, a few things you should know:

• We want to hear from you, really. Don't be shy, SB Nation gives fans a ton of tools to communicate and we want to hear your opinion. Jump into the comments, we want to hear your opinions.
• We run an open thread for each and every UConn game. It should be live about an hour before kickoff tomorrow. I know the word thread might conjure up images of constantly refreshing a message board, but not here. As long as you are a member of the site (joining is free) everything updates instantly and automatically. Its pretty cool.
• Follow us on Twitter. You can find us at Twitter.com/TheUConnBlog You may or may not be into the whole twitter thing, but it really is a great way to keep up with the site. We'll post breaking news there before it makes the main page, any new content we put up gets linked to there and its another great way to join in discussions about UConn, college football and whatever is on your mind. As a side note, I'll be in Ann Arbor tomorrow, so check the twitter feed for updates and photos from the game. Well your at it, you can become a fan of our page on Facebook.
• Write a FanShot, or a FanPost. You'll see options for both over on the right sidebar. FanShots are your chance to link to videos, pictures or news you find around the net that you think is relevant. FanPosts are your chance to sound off on whatever you want. If you put something good up, we'll be sure to highlight it and throw it on the front page.
• Vote in the confidence poll. If you look in the upper-left corner of the homepage, you can find the fan-confidence poll, which is updated every week and tracks the mood of UConn nation. If UConn stomps Michigan tomorrow and you're feeling great about the team, give them a 90 or 100. If they lose a heartbreaker, drop that down a bit. Either way, its a nice tool to track the pulse of the fanbase.
• Finally, enjoy. We're happy to have you here. This blog literally started in a dormroom with me begging friends and family to read. We seem to have done something right because we've grown exponentially since then, and only seem to be growing faster. Thanks for your support, enjoy the site and go Huskies!

More photos » Jessica Hill - AP

UConn's Kashif Moore is jumping for joy because the season starts tomorrow.

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UConn Football Preview: Read Stories From The Courant's Special Section - Courant.com
The Courant went all-out for their season preview. Tons of stuff to check out here.

How Frey, Shoemate fit into UConn mix not entirely clear - GreenwichTime
Unofficially, Todman begins the season with two backups. Both Robbie Frey and D.J. Shoemate, the latter an offseason transfer from USC, are listed as second on the depth chart. Which of those two spells Todman when the Huskies open the season Saturday against Michigan is still in doubt.

Huskies expect to see more than one Michigan QB
Sophomores Denard Robinson and Tate Forcier along with freshman Devin Gardner have been close throughout preseason camp, Rodriguez said, and it’s likely that more than one will play against the Huskies.

UConn Injury Report | mgoblog
Here's Michigan's injury report: Out: Fitzgerald Toussaint (knee), Jared Van Slyke (clavicle), Troy Woolfolk (ankle) Questionable: Junior Hemingway (hamstring) Never doubt Junior Hemingway's ability to get injured.

UConn Hopes to Spoil Michigan Stadium Party :: SportsPageMagazine.com
One of college football's all-time great stadiums will show off a complete face lift when the University of Connecticut Huskies visit Ann Arbor for the season opener against the vaunted Michigan Wolverines on Saturday.

From 'never' to walking: Brock Mealer will lead Michigan football team onto field Saturday - AnnArbor.com
Check out the story of Brock Mealer, brother a Michigan offensive lineman Elliott Mealer. After a 2007 car accident, doctors said Brock would never walk again. Tomorrow he'll lead Michigan's team onto the field.

 More after the jump...

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