This week, Xs and Os don't matter. This week, matchups and coaching adjustments don't matter. This week, the West Virginia Mountaineers don't matter. All that matters for the Connecticut Huskies is their need to grieve.

Yes, Coach Randy Edsall and his football family will have to play a game in Morgantown, W. Va., this Saturday, but a normally high-stakes encounter with a high-profile Big East foe just doesn't carry much significance right now. Not after the death of UConn cornerback Jasper Howard early Sunday morning, on the Storrs campus where his life wasn't supposed to end.

Howard emerged from a rough upbringing in Miami, under the untiring and watchful care of his mother, Joangila, a brave woman who entrusted her son to a peaceful campus in a state without the runaway crime of Florida's southernmost metropolitan area. Yet, it took just one night of trouble--and an assailant's knife--to defy the odds and kill Howard in his newfound New England residence, far away from the mean streets of his hometown. In one haunting and horrifying night, a budding young life was cut short, and a father-to-be was felled before he could see the birth of his first child. Edsall, as reported by Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant, talked to Howard's girlfriend on Sunday afternoon and learned that she was pregnant. If Howard's death wasn't a cruel-enough blow for the Connecticut football community, the awareness that a child would lack a father only added to the grief cascading over a crestfallen university.

The words from members of the UConn football team on a sickening, sad Sunday were as agonizing as they were unforgettable. Edsall, thrust into a role he never expected or hoped to perform, said that "One of my sons has been taken away. There is nothing in my job description that says you have to identify bodies."

UConn punter Desi Cullen, one of the team's captains, spoke with uncommon wisdom for a man so young. The 22-year-old stepped up to a microphone on Sunday, Edsall's arm on his back, and managed to say the following as he wept:

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"We create a bond here that never will be broken, that's thicker than blood. Where he grew up, through childhood to high school, to get through it was a miracle in itself. The idea of him coming all the way to Connecticut, where his mother thought he was safe ... is heartbreaking. To hear the news he is a father ... and that [the child] will grow up without a father tears me apart. As Jazz looks down on us, I can promise his son or daughter will have 105 uncles. We will be better men because of Jazz."

Connecticut, then, isn't really playing West Virginia. A team--a group of coaches and players--simply needs to heal, now and throughout the remainder of this season... and for many more years afterward.

Want to learn how you can help Jasper Howard's family? Contact Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant:  jjacobs@courant.com

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer