The media is so playoff-obsessed that many interesting stories are given short shrift. Saturday, in Amherst, Massachusetts, is going to provide both temporary relief and ample joy to one team.
UConn will make a quick 50-mile road trip to play UMass. One team will emerge victorious. Neither team has won a game since 2019! Future prospects for both programs are beyond bleak. Both teams are orphans, relegated to independent status. Scheduling games becomes a nightmare once conference play around the country starts in earnest.
Arguably, UMass never should have ascended to FBS status. UConn is in perhaps a more painful situation. UMass is a “never was” in the highest tier of football. When UConn left 1-AA football in 2000 and later landed in the Big East, not only were the Huskies in a strong conference, UConn experienced success. As 2010 co-champs, the Huskies represented the Big East in the Fiesta Bowl. Heady times. Their coach, Randy Edsall, abruptly left for Maryland and the program careened downward. The Big East imploded as a football conference but the Huskies found a landing spot in the American Athletic Conference.
The death knell for UConn fortunes came when their abysmal record and indifferent attendance led the American Athletic Conference to kick the Huskies to the curb. In utter desperation, UConn rehired Randy Edsall, a move so disastrous that he “retired” after the 2nd game of 2021, a 38-28 clunker to FCS Holy Cross. Car buffs might label his 2nd tenure as a real Edsel.
Post-Edsel, UConn, unlike UMass, has come to life and stopped sputtering the past 2 Saturdays. Last Saturday, UConn QB, Steven Krajewski, scored on a 17-yard scamper with 1:07 left to put UConn ahead of Vanderbilt, 28-27. However, the D did not do their part and allowed Vandy to walk it off with a 31-yard field goal. UConn’s performance in their previous game was stunning. UConn scored a TD against unbeaten Wyoming with 4 seconds left to make the score 24-22 but could not convert the tying, 2-point conversion.
The Odyssey sees no viable path for either to continue at the FBS level in any meaningful fashion. If they persist in their FBS status, we do suggest that the teams schedule each other 6 times a year. Not only is the short travel ecologically attractive, winning does solve some problems. Their mutual issues seem so massive the older elements of their fan bases might yearn for the long gone days of the Yankee Conference.
The experts in the desert have put the total points in the game at 55. With these defenses? Seems a touch low to the Odyssey.
What we do know is that the players on both squads have put in so much effort for so little reward. We wish both teams could win on Saturday. For the winners, there is a going to be a hell of a celebration come Saturday evening. Well deserved!!