Akron postgame briefs

Some quickies from the postgame press conference:

• Donald Brown entered the media interview room on crutches, with his foot in a protective boot. He planted awkwardly on a run, and twisted it. Donald says it's just a sprain. From the looks of it, it's a pretty severe sprain. The rest and treatment during the bye week should help.

• Tyvon Branch came out after dinging his shoulder. Branch had nothing on the shoulder postgame, and said he expects to be ready for Virginia in two weeks.

• Also on the injury list are receiver Kevin Poles and defensive end Gary Mack.

• Randy Edsall's 15-year old son, Corey, was the kid who was taken out on the sidelines on the final play of the first half. He got blasted pretty hard by Akron's Bryan Williams near the 5-yard line marker. Time ran out after the play, foiling a potential Akron score, because the referee ruled forward progress on Williams before he was knocked out of bounds. "You (strategically) put your people wherever you can," Randy Edsall joked. Corey is fine.

• The students may be on to the next big promotion. Did you see the signs for Andre Dixon? One of them, "Shake them dreds", was on the big screen at the Runway for an extended period. Edsall suggested UConn give out dredlock wigs in time for the Louisville home game on Oct. 29. "Just in time for Halloween", Edsall said.

• Dixon caught flak from Edsall for his celebration following a 9-yard touchdown reception in the second quarter (the first TD of Dixon's career). Dixon tossed the ball down and did a little shimmy-shake with both hands spread in the back of the end zone. "He just told me to act like I've been there before, and to hand the ball to the referee next time," Dixon said. After Dixon's next score, that's exactly what he did...a quick handoff to the referee.

• Donald Thomas said the offense struggled in the first half mainly because it took some getting used to Akron's 3-3-5 defense. "That's the first time we've seen that," Thomas said. "We worked against it in practice, but it's not the same as game speed. It takes some getting used to. But once we settled down and took the game a little slower, things began to open up." Once UConn opened things up by throwing more in the second half, the offense took off. Edsall and Thomas both suggested the passes tired the Zips out a bit, as well. "We made some adjustments and said we felt we would throw the ball more to loosen the running game up."