Given a couple of days to reflect on the most debated play call of his brief tenure at the helm of the UConn football program, Bob Diaco admitted that he would have gone down a different road.

"I am getting a do-over and the question is would I do the same thing again," Diaco said with a laugh during Tuesday's press conference. "Absolutely not. What do you think I should do? Do you have an idea, I am all ears. Honestly looking back and inspecting myself, too much time elapsed between the third down and the kick for whatever reason. We were huddled up there and I am thinking 'boy
there is a lot of time elapsing, we are waiting to go on the field and kick and too much time elapsed.

"If I had to do it again, I would have ran (the offense on the field). I still wouldn't have kicked based on past performance, the situation, the SEC ... We went there to win the game. We didn't go there to play into a tie against the SEC on the road, we went there to win the game. Hindsight being 20-20, you are giving me a do-over, I run the offense back out there and call the play."

Diaco took plenty of heat for not kicking the field goal but based on how quickly 335-pound Missouri defensive tackle Josh Augusta burst through the line, it is highly unlikely that Bobby Puyol's field goal would have made it to the line of scrimmage.

 "They are supposed to zone to the right and he just got beat on the play and couldn't reach fast enough and put Timmy (Boyle) under immediate duress because he still has a chance with a top shelf ball to our guy, 6-5, 6-6 (Alec Bloom) and he has great hands. The one that was disappointing was the execution on the first one, he (Bloom) had a real chance and he was behind their defense and that would have been great."

MORE BIG TEN GAMES WOULD BE FINE WITH DIACO
Shortly before the press conference started there were reports that the Big Ten has agreed to count games against UConn as part of the mandatory number of games teams have to play against Power-5 Conference teams.

Diaco didn't know about this turn of events but did not hide his enthusiasm at the news.

"I'd love to although I'd be slightly torn playing the University of Iowa (his alma mater) but I'd love to play Nebraska and the rest of them to be sure," Diaco said. "It would be awesome to play Penn State, Maryland, these local Big Ten teams, it would be awesome along with Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State so I think it is great news and overdue."

UConn is set to play Illinois and Indiana during the 2019 and 2020 seasons but at the current time there are no other games scheduled against Big Ten teams.