When UConn football coach Paul Pasqualoni took questions from the media on Tuesday it did not take long before he was asked if he was concerned about a letdown following an emotional win over a Maryland squad coached by former UConn head coach Randy Edsall.

Perhaps if Buffalo was Saturday's opponent that would have been the case but Pasqualoni knew that motivation would not be an issue this week.

When UConn and Western Michigan played at Rentschler Field on Oct. 1 it was a day that the members of the UConn defense would like to forget. Pasqualoni wanted to make sure they did not let those painful memories fade.

After misfiring on his first pass of the fourth quarter, Western Michigan completed his final 14 passes for 178 yards and three touchdowns to lift the Broncos to a 38-31 win over UConn.


“That is definitely going through our heads a little bit that this team put up so many yards, we have that in the back of our minds,” said senior linebacker Jory Johnson. “We are preparing like it is another game but we know this team is talented and we kind of owe it to them for what they did to us last year.”

The good news is that senior cornerback Blidi Wreh-Wilson is expected to be back in the lineup after a tight hamstring sidelined him in last week’s win at Maryland. Wreh-Wilson also missed the ’11 game against the Broncos and his absence certainly didn’t help UConn match up with Carder’s stable of playmaking receivers.

Most of those guys are now gone including Jordan White, who had 12 catches for 173 yards and a pair of touchdowns against the Huskie, and Chleb Ravenell, who had two TD receptions in the final six minutes and had eight of his nine catches in the fourth quarter.

Western Michigan coach Bill Cubit bluntly said “they are better and we are not as good.”

UConn coach Paul Pasqualoni is having none of that especially with dynamic freshman Jaime Wilson (29 catches for 330 yards and four touchdowns) leading a new group of targets for Carder.

“I really like their receiving corps,” Pasqualoni said. “I know that they lost some outstanding receivers but I think they have some outstanding receivers. Alex does a great job of engineering the whole thing and driving the bus. It is pretty impressive.

“He throws it very well, we know that. He threw it against us for almost 500 yards against us last year. He's a senior, he has been through everything. I don't know if there is anything we can give him that he hasn't seen before.”