It had to go down as one of the most important under the radar plays of the 31-13 win over East Carolina if not the season.

UConn was leading 17-6 when Nick Vitale fumbled a punt near the Huskies' 10. If East Carolina recovered the Pirates had a glorious chance to make it a one-score game. However, even though there were plenty of bodies on the ground in pursuit of the loose football by the time Josh Marriner arrived on the scene, he was the one to come up with the ball.

"I saw the ball, the whistle hadn't blown and that is what we are taught to do - keep playing until the whistle is blown," Marriner said. "It felt great because the next play was a touchdown, it could have changed the game and it is did change the game. We recovered it and we scored. If we didn't recover it, we wouldn't have known what would have happened."

The next play was the electrifying 90-yard touchdown run by Arkeel Newsome. Rather than East Carolina being down perhaps only by four points, suddenly it was a 24-6 game.

Normally special teams the best way for Marriner to get his hands on the ball as he is a starting kickoff return man as well as playing on the punt-return unit. Marriner did get five carries in the game with three coming on UConn' first two touchdown-scoring drives of the game.

It's been an interesting season for Marriner. At the 2014 American Athletic Conference media day, the way UConn coach Bob Diaco raved about Marriner I went out and did a feature on him because I expected him to be a featured part of the running game. He had 24 carries in the first four games of the 2014 campaign but had 12 the rest of the way while this season three of his four carries coming into the East Carolina game came in garbage time against Central Florida. Despite a lack of touches, Marriner's enthusiasm for playing has not waned.

"I am able to play football," Marriner said. "A lot of my friends back home wish they were in the spot I am in. I just love it every day I am out there, this is a blessing to be here and a blessing to be a part of this team and play football."

Much of Marriner's playing time has come as an h-back providing blocking for quarterback Bryant Shirreffs or fellow running backs Arkeel Newsome or Ron Johnson.

"Anytime they call my name to do my job, I am ready to do it," Marriner said. "It is different for me but I love my brothers so I made sure I got better at it and when they call my name, I could do it."

PUYOL A SEMIFINALIST FOR LOU GROZA AWARD
UConn junior kicker Bobby Puyol is one of 20 semifinalists for the Lou Groza Award, presented annually to the nation's top kicker.

Puyol is 12 of 13 on field goals this season with a long of 45 coming in last week's win over East Carolina.

Among players who have attempted at least 10 field goals, only Oregon's Aidan Schneider and UCLA's Ka'imi Fairbaim have made a higher percentage of field goals than Puyol this season at the FBS level as both are 13 for 14.

The scrimmage stretched from the late morning to the early afternoon on a balmy Thursday at Rentschler Field but Max DeLorenzo's work was far from being finished.

While his five carries only netted 11 yards, the lone senior running back on the UConn squad had a chance to display another aspect of his game when he floated down the near sideline. Bryant Shirreffs' pass was just a tad on the high side and a little behind him when DeLorenzo reached up and snared the ball for the most impressive reception by somebody not named Noel Thomas. The 12-yard catch got the drive going in the right direction and could be a sign of things to come.

DeLorenzo has caught a total of 14 passes in three seasons at UConn but it is a part of his game that is has a lot of confidence in.

"That is one of my strengths. In (Berlin) high school I was good with my hands, came into high school with good hands but now I am finally getting utilized as a receiver, in the slot and I love it," DeLorenzo said. "I love being versatile and consistent with everything I do whether that is fullback, tailback, slot, wideout or whatever."

At the first practice the media was allowed in to watch, offensive coordinator and running backs coach Frank Verducci could be heard saying to DeLorenzo "I've never seen you catch the ball better."

If that is what it takes for DeLorenzo to get on the field, that is fine with him. A year ago DeLorenzo had a bit of a bizarre season. He led the team with 57 rushing attempts in the first five games of the season. Then he had just 13 carries over the next six games as true freshmen Ron Johnson and Arkeel Newsome became featured backs. Then in a season-ending loss to SMU he ran for a season-high 66 yards aided by a 46-yard touchdown scamper.

Johnson and Newsome are both back and looking more confident as well as quicker so it would seem likely they will once again be key cogs in the running game. Josh Marriner, also heading into his sophomore season, is another young runner with plenty of promise. DeLorenzo knows the deal and he is ready to embrace any role the coaches have for him.

"It comes to the point where we have so much talent especially us four at tailback and we are all going to have a role," DeLorenzo said. "Some games I may get less than five carries, some games I might get 15 plus you never know. It is just what the coaches want, how the rhythm of the game is going and who is hot."

So what has DeLorenzo seen in his younger tailbacks?

"Mental growth and maturity," DeLorenzo said. "They are all obviously talented and not knowing the game, the defenses too much last year and they are starting to pick it up. You can see the blitzes that are coming, see holes, set up blocks so as long as they keep going like that, they will be great."

There are plenty of intriguing angles off tomorrow's UConn/Tulane game but none drew my attention more than the Huskies' and Green Wave's reliance on freshmen - especially at the running back position.

The headliners are Tulane's Sherman Badie, who has three runs of more than 70 yards in Tulane's first five games of the season and UConn's Arkeel Newsome, who had a 74-yard touchdown on a screen pass in the Huskies' last game which is the longest offensive scoring play since Shakim Phillips' 75-yard TD catch in a 2013 game against Maryland.

However, there are other newcomers making an impact for both teams as Dontrell Hilliard have added 101 rushing yards for Tulane while Ron Johnson and Josh Marriner are the UConn freshmen very much in the running back mix at UConn.

What I find interesting is that of the 125 Football Bowl Subdivision programs, Tulane and UConn rank ninth and 11th in the percentage of rushing yards coming from the freshman class and with UConn coach Bob Diaco stating that he intends to get Newsome and Johnson more offensive touches, the Huskies could be moving up the charts.

Here is the breakdown (not including this week's games).
Team                     PCT  FR. YARDS TOTAL YARDS
Washington State 110.0 95-373 122-339
USF                        95.0 128-643 169-677
Vanderbilt              84.2 136-558 182-663
FIU                        78.8 127-484 217-614
Northwestern         72.1 105-470 198-652
Western Michigan 72.1 118-676 188-937
Virginia Tech         67.9 155-706 252-1040
Arizona                  67.4 146-755 217-1120
Tulane                    63.9 110-546 184-855
Clemson                 61.9 116-480 228-775
UConn                    59.5 71-232 174-390

Josh Marriner and the other UConn freshmen running backs were
involved in the running and passing game in season-opening loss

While the way quarterbacks Casey Cochran and Chandler Whitmer were utilized in last night's game against BYU continues to be a popular topic of conversation, I was more concerned with who was getting the ball thrown to them.

The first thing that caught my eye is that freshmen running backs Arkeel Newsome, Josh Marriner and Ron Johnson had receptions of 18, 17 and 11 yards respectively. So what you may say but a season ago you would have to go to the 11th game of the season to document three catches of at least 10 yards by the running backs and the 49 receiving yards by the backs tops any number the Huskies put forth a season ago.

"It is an important piece," Diaco said. "As a (former) defensive coordinator and (former) linebacker, those guys are hard to cover."

As for overall targets, I went through last night's tape and here is what I came up with (this includes plays wiped out due to penalty)

Player               Targets     Catches

Geremy Davis     13            7

Deshon Foxx        9            2

Sean McQuillan    6            3

Kamal Abrams     5            3

Noel Thomas       4            2

Dhameer Bradley 4            1

Alec Bloom          2            2

Thomas Lucas      2           0

Ron Johnson        2            1

Jazzmar Clax       1            1

Josh Marriner      1            1

Tommy Myers     1            1

Arkeel Newsome 1           1

Although UConn's tailbacks only combined for 84 yards on 24 carries, Diaco liked what he saw from them. The play calling was slanted more to the pass game (52 to 27 if you count the four sacks as pass plays even though they go down as running plays). Much of that has to do with getting down 14-0 early.

He had good things to say about both true freshmen Arkeel Newsome, who he said uses all of his body mass as a runner as he is at optimal speed when he has the ball in his hands. He said Johnson also impressed him but in a different way. Newsome added a 34-yard kickoff return and he looked like the most explosive of the three players sent back on kickoffs.

Diaco also said that the team came through the game in pretty good shape health wise with nothing but the normal bumps and bruises. He said he was happy with what he heard from the training staff including that offensive tackle Andreas Knappe "is getting better."

Now that the drama surrounding the naming of a starting quarterback is out of the way, it is a perfect time to focus on some other hotly-contested battles for starting positions at UConn.

TAILBACK: Max DeLorenzo is the returnee with the most experience but I will go on the record as saying that I expect Josh Marriner to be UConn's leading rusher this season. I am very interested to see how true freshmen Arkeel Newsome and Ron Johnson are utilized. Springing a game-breaking player like Newsome on teams for 6-10 snaps a game could add some much-needed juice to the offense.

Brian Lemelle (84) and Dhameer Bradley (1) are in the mix
to be the No. 3 wide receiver for UConn during 2014 season

NO. 3 WIDE RECEIVER: I do not expect UConn to use the three-receiver sets as much this year as a season ago simply because UConn coach Bob Diaco is going to use more multiple tight end formations. Geremy Davis and Deshon Foxx are unquestionably the top two receivers. Thomas Lucas has been getting plenty of love in the preseason. Brian Lemelle, Dhameer Bradley and Noel Thomas, who had 16, 13 and five catches respectively as true freshmen, will be in the mix. I haven't heard much about Kamal Abrams but wouldn't be surprised to see him in the rotation.
DEFENSIVE END: There's been plenty of buzz surrounding Reuben Frank, whether he lines up as a defensive end or outside linebacker on the right side, but no position appears to be more competitive than the defensive end on the other side of the ball as B.J. McBryde and Kenton Adeyemi appear to be running neck and neck. Adeyemi has run out with the first unit in the last two practices the media was able to attend but Diaco raved about McBryde when I asked about the competition between the two of them after a recent practice.

Both Adeyemi and McBride had sacks during the spring game and figure prominently in UConn's defensive line rotation regardless of which one ends up drawing the starting position.

NO. 2 CORNERBACK: Byron Jones is unquestionably UConn's top corner. Jhavon Williams received plenty of work as a nickel corner a season ago and he figured to be a starting CB this year. However, true freshman Jamar Summers has been opening eyes since he arrived on campus in January. He finished tied for third on the team with five tackles in the spring game and with Williams less than 100 percent early in camp, Summers was seeing plenty of first-team work. Javon Hadley is another talented youngster with the capability to push for playing time.

KICK RETURNER: Diaco said that Foxx will be the primary punt returner and will be handling kickoffs as well. Now the question is who will go back with Foxx on kickoff returns. Diaco said that Bradley, Lemelle and all the tailbacks are in the mix for that position. Unfortunately, I did not see UConn work on shagging kickoffs during the media access portion of practice so can't offer too much insight into who has been getting most of the work back there.

ANOTHER MAJOR AWARD FOR JENNINGS?
The Arena Football League will hand out its individual awards tomorrow in Cleveland and among the candidates for the Rookie of the Year has to be former UConn star Teddy Jennings.

Jennings led all rookies with 11 sacks during his rookie season with the Philadelphia Soul as he was a first team AFL pick at defensive end. I can't say I follow the Arena Football League enough to come up with a complete list of the top candidates but the only other player to earn first team honors was Portland defensive back Varmah Sonie, who had nine interceptions and led all first-year players with 86 tackles. Orlando receiver Greg Carr was a second team selection and he finished sixth in the league with 113 catches and 1,435 yards. Another player to consider is A.J. Cruz as the former Brown star led the league in kickoff return average, was sixth in punt returns and also returned a missed field goal 58 yards for a score.

The major news to come out of a Monday press conference that ranges somewhere from the bizarre to the surreal was that Casey Cochran, who led UConn to all of its three wins a season ago, has been named the Huskies' starting quarterback while former starter Chandler Whitmer will be featured in the offensive game plan on a weekly basis.

However, it would be a mistake to downplay the importance of Tim Boyle's role in the quarterback derby at UConn. With all due respect to Cochran and Whitmer, Boyle is the most physically gifted of the trio. It was Boyle who ascended to become UConn's starting quarterback in game No. 5 after Whitmer and the Huskies began the season with four straight losses. When Boyle was pulled in favor of Cochran after he started four games, all UConn losses, I remember hearing rumblings from a pretty reliable source that Boyle was at least pondering his future with the Huskies. A call to his former high school coach (Xavier's Sean Marinan) quelled those rumors.

I've gone on a couple of radio shows to discuss the prospects of the 2014 Huskies and naturally the quarterback situation was a popular topic of conversation. I predicted that either Cochran or Boyle would win the starting job. It wasn't due to any insight I gained from watching practice because I did not see one 11 on 11 or 7 on 7 drill due to the limited amount of practice time the media was allowed to watch but simply that if the quarterback competition was going to as close as I expected it to be, why would Bob Diaco and his staff use this year to develop a senior like Whitmer when they could build the offense around a player with two more seasons of eligibility after this year? The other concern I mentioned was whether one of the sophomores would exit stage right if the other one was named the No. 1 quarterback.

Well, Boyle certainly said all the right things during the press conference.

"I am extremely happy," Boyle said. "I appreciate Coach Diaco and the coaches doing what they are doing with me but my role this year is to help Chandler and Casey prepare for games, continue to push them to improve their games so they can perform on Saturdays. I have my role this year and I am 100 percent willing to do it. I have learned that getting mental reps is a huge part of the development in a football player. I think seeing things in practice and from the sideline and hearing the play call in the headphones, seeing that the defense does to prepare for it is going to help me prepare for it mentally. Like Coach said I am going to be ready to play games this year, it is not like I am going to take a year off. I am going to be studying BYU film in a couple of hours with the quarterbacks and I am going to be ready to go but my job this year is going to be to push these guys to their best levels."

If that proves to be the case, the quarterback situation played out perfectly as UConn will be able to bring back both Cochran and Boyle next season with Boyle having three more seasons of eligibility and Cochran would have two years left. Also, North Carolina State transfer Bryant Shirreffs, who has to sit out this season due to NCAA regulations, would have three seasons remaining while highly-touted high school quarterback Tyler Davis will be in the mix as well.

Here is what Diaco said about Boyle's role.

"With some nagging injuries here and there through this fall camp, it has slowed his competitive portion and with that, he is going to prepare for the games and help the team prepare to win games. We would expect him to go in and perform at a winning level - and we have no doubt he would do that. But, all in all, if we can, we are going to protect him. He is a four-to-play-three (in terms of eligibility), so that will give us an opportunity to create separation in terms of years between he and other guys. If is possible, I say that with great clarity, we will make every effort to do that. If it's not possible, we will not hesitate and he's going to be ready and be diligent in his preparation to get that done."

Some other thoughts and items from yesterday's practice that I didn't get into previous blogs.

First, while it is impressive to hear that both Cochran and Whitmer completed nearly 65 percent of their passes during this competition, I have to wonder what that says about the quality of the pass defense since those numbers occurred in drills against the defense. I have no idea how many of these completions were against the first, second or third team defenses but for every pass completed by the UConn offense, that is one pass not broken up by the defense.

For the second straight practice I was able to attend, true freshmen Ryan Crozier and Trey Rutherford continue to work with the second team offensive line at guard.  Redshirt freshman Thomas Hopkins continued to be the second-string left tackle. Redshirt freshmen Tommy Myers at tight end and Thomas Lucas at receiver continue to look like they will play significant roles while I would be surprised if redshirt freshman Josh Marriner is not the Huskies' leading rusher this season while I have long said that of the true freshmen, I predict tight end Alec Bloom would have the biggest impact early on. Of course Arkeel Newsome, who is the all-time leading rusher in Connecticut high school football history, is a true freshman with an exciting future while every time I looked over to see the offensive drills yesterday I saw fellow true freshman Ron Johnson with the ball tucked under his arm. On the defensive side of the ball, redshirt freshman Foley Fatukasi has been with the second unit at defensive tackle at every practice I have seen while redshirt freshmen Cam Stapleton, Cole Ormsby and Junior Joseph were working with the second team defense at linebacker. It has been reported multiple times that true freshman Jamar Summers is pushing for a major role at cornerback. In other words, there will be plenty of youth on display during the 2014 season.

After hearing Bob Diaco heap as much praise on Josh Marriner at American Athletic Conference media day as any other player I recall him talking about I knew the redshirt freshman running back from Chesapeake, Virginia was a player I wanted to write a feature on. I was happy that he was one of the players made available to the media after Wednesday's practice.

As I did some research on him, I came away even more impressed. I knew he was a top-notch long jumper and triple jumper in high school who was talented enough to compete in the New Balance National Championships and Penn Relays.Doing a little more checking I saw that his father is a highly-decorated pastor in Virginia who has won a myriad of "man of the year" type awards.

I reached out to Greg Gibson, who coached Marriner during his final season at Western Branch High School and was glad that I did because he provided some pretty amazing insight into not only Marriner's physical gifts but also his character as well.

Here is a quote that due to space limitations I was not able to get into the feature I filed on him for tomorrow's paper that I thought people would love.

"Here is why you want him on your football team. he is one of those kids that when you are at your big dinners when your big boosters and alumni are writing those big-time checks, he is the kid up front talking and being at that three-piece suit. When he gets done talking they say 'he is the type of kid that you have on this football team? How much do you want?'"

There's so much more.

"He was one of those kids that all of his teammates rallied around, really wanted to play extra hard for him because of the work he put in. He was one of the kids who, he was also a track star on top of being a football guy and he would be in the middle of track season, get done with a workout, he comes in and starts to workout with me doing some football ability drills inside the football complex. Guys knew he got done doing a full track workout and he is doing football stuff. He is that kind of leader and kid that just had an unbelievable work ethic and a great kid too. He was somebody you never had to worry about getting into trouble, just impeccable character guy in top of being a phenomenal football player. He is fast, elusive, strong so he can run through guys, he can run around guys but what I think made him so special and set him apart from other kids is all the intangible things in terms of character, leadership abilities and the way our kids wanted to block for him because they knew the type of guy that he was.

"He was a 500-pound plus squat guy for us in high school and a 300-pound bencher, a 300-pound power clean, he was one of the strongest kids on our team as our tailback and we had some strong kids. He is a legitimate, we were 9-3 as a football team so we had some strong kids but he was a cut above as far as his strength and work. It is Thursday the day before a game and he is box squatting reps of 550 pounds and he turns around 24 hours later and carries the ball 25 times for 200-plus yards. He is a special kid, he comes from a great family. You can tell that he tells that he comes from a really strong family and that is how we carries himself with a lot of genuine humility. That kind of translates to pulling people around him and people willing to do things for him."

You can check the Register's site later today for the feature which includes Gibson's thoughts on UConn picking up a player that he told former Husky assistant coach Darrell Perkins 'you are going to get the steal of the whole Eastern seaboard.' Gibson, who coached in California before moving to Virginia also said that if Marriner was a player in California he would have received around 8-10 offers from Pac-12 schools.


BYU RECEIVER TO MISS UCONN GAME
First news hit that BYU's leading rusher Jamaal Williams will be suspended for the Aug. 29 game against UConn and now comes word that the Cougars will be without another key offensive player as wide receiver Nick Kurtz has a stress fracture in his left foot and is expected to be out for the next 6-8 weeks. Kurtz is a 6-foot-6 junior who was one of the top junior-college receivers in the nation a season ago.