Connecticut Huskies vs Fordham Rams Football Recap

Connecticut 35, Fordham 3

The last time Paul Pasqualoni was a major college head coach, he was still plying his trade in the Big East Conference. He was simply working at a different school. In the world of basketball, making the jump from Syracuse to Connecticut would have been viewed as blasphemy and treason in upstate New York. In football, though, it’s merely a new business office for Pasqualoni.
 
The new UConn boss can now feel just a little more comfortable in his new environment.
 
Connecticut coach Paul Pasqualoni returned to college football on Saturday, guiding his Huskies to a season-opening 35-3 rout of the Fordham Rams. The contest was moved back two days as a result of extensive tropical storm activity that had ravaged the Northeast over the past week.

The individual star of this Connecticut romp was freshman tailback Lyle McCombs, an alert ballcarrier who ran for 141 yards and four touchdowns for the Huskies, two of them in each half.
 
The Huskies held Fordham, a foe from the Football Championship Subdivision, to just 169 yards of offense, consistently smothering anything and everything the Rams tried to do.  
 
Pasqualoni was coaching his first game since leaving Syracuse in 2004. Pasqualoni took Syracuse to a BCS bowl in the 1998 season. With Connecticut coming off a Fiesta Bowl campaign, Pasqualoni’s challenge is to sustain all the good things established by his predecessor, Randy Edsall, who is now the sideline sultan at the University of Maryland.
 
Junior Johnny McEntee started at quarterback for Connecticut, completing 8 of 12 passes for 113 yards, but that stat line wasn’t really what mattered to Pasqualoni and his staff. All three Husky quarterbacks played, which was part of a conscious attempt to spread around playing time and allow Pasqualoni to evaluate the personnel at his disposal.

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Freshman Mike Nebrich threw for 60 yards and redshirt freshman Scott McCummings got his feet wet as well under center, giving UConn a three-headed monster and Pasqualoni a better sense of where his offense stands. McCummings threw just one pass, but it was a 55-yard touchdown bomb to tight end Ryan Griffin in the second stanza that gave UConn a 14-0 cushion. The third-stringer also ran for 23 yards.

In the end, though, it has to be said that McCombs carried the day. It wasn’t just that he played well. It’s that he played well in the early stages of this game and did not allow Fordham’s defense to breathe. McCombs had 122 yards rushing and two 2-yard touchdown runs in the first half.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer