5 things to know about Connecticut

The last time Duke played Connecticut in football, Brandon King caught a 6-yard touchdown pass from Thaddeus Lewis and Jabari Marshall returned a kickoff for a touchdown.

It was the 2007 season opener, the last for Ted Roof as the Blue Devils’ coach. Those were the points that put Duke ahead 14-8 before losing 45-14, the start of a 1-11 season.

So, it’s been a while.

Connecticut was in the Big East at that time and was in the American Athletic Conference for seven years, and is now an independent. It was in the middle Randy Edsall’s first stint — the successful one — and is on its sixth head coach since 2010, which includes Edsall’s woeful second stint.

Here are five things to know about UConn ahead of Saturday’s game:

The vibes from UConn winning six games last season — twice as many as the most in the previous five seasons — and reaching the program’s first bowl have dissipated.

UConn is one of seven teams in the country without a win (of note: Virginia is the only Power 5 team without a win).

The Huskies have played teams tough at home, though. N.C. State won at UConn in the opener 24-14 after the Huskies took the opening drive 75 yards against what’s supposed to be one of the top defenses in the ACC, and after a 71-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter made it a 17-14 game.

And last week UConn pitched a second-half shutout in a 24-17 loss to FIU, scoring a pair of touchdowns and reaching FIU’s 9-yard line in the final minute before being unable to score.

Last season started rough too, in the form of a 1-4 start, before UConn rolled off five wins in its next six games.

Duke won’t see the same quarterback who played against the Wolfpack.

Joe Fagnano suffered a season-ending shoulder injury against Georgia State in UConn’s 35-14 loss in Atlanta.

In has stepped Ta’Quan Roberson, who Duke coach Mike Elko feels like found his groove in the second half of last weekend’s game.

“Obviously losing their starting quarterback in the beginning of Week 2 is a challenge,” Elko said. “I think they got out of sync a little bit until about the midway point of last weekend. … I think they found a rhythm, put a furious comeback together and came up just a little bit short.”

Things have come full circle here; Roberson was UConn’s starting quarterback last season and suffered a season-ending injury on the second series of the season. He’s a 5-11, 205-pounder who transferred from Penn State.

N.C. State and Georgia State gashed UConn on the ground, with 209 and 250 yards on the ground, respectively.

FIU didn’t find the same type of success against the Huskies.

UConn limited FIU to 80 rushing yards on 33 attempts last weekend. That helps explain how the Huskies came close to engineering a three-touchdown comeback in the second half.

Size isn’t an issue in the middle of UConn’s defense. The five players listed at interior defensive line positions on the depth chart average 301.2 pounds; Jelani Stafford, at 6-foot, 303, is second on the team in TFLs (five).

There are seven “OR” listings on UConn’s depth chart, which isn’t all that uncommon of a number these days.

It is uncommon to see five of them at the same position.

UConn lists six players at its tight end position and based on all of the names but the last one being followed by “OR,” any of them could be the Huskies’ starter.

Or maybe they’ll just line up with all of them on the field to start Saturday’s game.

Diving into the numbers, the leading receiver among the six is Justin Joly, who’s second on the team with 11 catches for 125 yards. Go figure, he’s listed atop the position on the depth chart.

Joly has also taken the bulk of snaps, per Pro Football Focus, having played 140 of 204 offensive snaps this season. By comparison, the next three tight ends — Nick Harris, Louis Hansen, Alexander Honig — have played a combined 127.

Every coach in college football has performance bonuses wired into their contract.

Connecticut took it to an extreme in Edsall’s second stint, which was from 2017 to the first two games of 2021, in which the Huskies were combined 6-32 (the 2020 season was cancelled).

UConn scored first? That was an extra two grand. Win the turnover margin? Also 2K. Just simply win a game? Well that’s up to five figures.

(here’s the full story from 2018)

This isn’t the case for Mora, at least according to this detailed account of his contract when he took the job in November 2021.