Last year at this time it wasn't so much a question of if Byron Jones and Geremy Davis would be taken in the NFL draft but just when would the former UConn teammates hear their names called.

Jones joined Donald Brown as the only UConn player taken in the first round when the Dallas Cowboys took him with the 27th overall pick while Davis was selected by the New York Giants in the sixth round.

There's more of a wait and see approach with the current crop of UConn pro prospects.

At least one UConn player has been selected in each of the last nine NFL drafts and safety Andrew Adams seems like the most likely player capable of extending that streak.

While no former Huskies are listed on the ESPN draft database, Adams is the No. 13 free safety according to NFL Draft database maintained by www.cbsspports.com which I have found to be pretty accurate (or as accurate as these things get) in rating the under the radar prospects. Adams is rated as the 291st best player in the draft and lists him as either a seventh rounder or a free agent. Last year's No. 13 rated free safety was Ladarius Gunter out of Miami who went undrafted but was signed by the Green Bay Packers as a free agent.

At UConn's pro day Adams seemed to do what he needed to remain on the radar of NFL teams and considering the amount of tape that NFL teams must have watched on Jones a season ago, you would have to think Adams might have caught the eye of the film watchers.

I would not be surprised if Adams continues the trend of UConn players being drafted.

The player out of UConn seemingly creating the most pre-draft buzz is fellow safety Junior Lee who absolutely put on a show at UConn's pro day. I've also seen reports that he was impressive at the New York Giants local pro day. Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle and National Football Post tweeted about a week and a half ago that Lee has worked out privately for the Giants, Jets and Colts.

One issue with Lee is that he was not a starter but consider that Jones was a first-round pick, Adams could very well get drafted and I would expect Obi Melifonwu and Jhavon Williams to be very much on the radar of NFL scouts next year with Jamar Summers most definitely being a draftable prospect in the next class so it is not like Lee was playing behind mediocre talents.


A lack of experience is not an issue for defensive lineman Julian Campenni or linebackers Marquise Vann or Graham Stewart. It will be interesting to see what happens with the trio but certainly would not be surprised to see them land in a training camp.

I received this question and answer blog with Campenni emailed to me. I think the key for Campenni could be how NFL teams view the Missouri tape since Campenni was normally lining up across from Evan Boehm, who is rated as the fourth best center in the draft according to cbssports.com. Other than getting invited to the major all-star games, which was an opportunity not afforded any of the UConn players, the best way to catch the eyes of scouts is to have strong tape in head to head matchups with fellow NFL prospects.

Stewart saw his work at UConn's pro day ended prematurely due to a hamstring issue but he had healed up well enough to take part in the Yale pro day held earlier this month. I was covering the women's Final Four at the time but talked to one person who was at the event and was told that Stewart did a nice job there. He is also the only other UConn player listed on the CBS Sports database. Stewart also started his collegiate career at Florida. The Gators have nine players listed in ESPN's draft database and 12 listed by CBS Sports so perhaps NFL scouts' familiarity with Florida players could aid Stewart in his quest to continue his collegiate career.

I haven't been hearing too much about Vann but he's played a ton of football for the Huskies and took part in the Tropic Bowl along with defensive end Kenton Adeyemi and guard Tyler Samra.

I really thought that Adeyemi's stock could take a similar jump to what happened a year ago with B.J. McBryde. While he did not have the eye-popping numbers at UConn's pro day that McBryde did, the 300 pounder showed more than enough to make me think that he could land in a camp.

Running back Max DeLorenzo is a player that David Schuman from NUC Sports believes NFL teams should be looking at.

Normally my late April/early May schedule includes watching the NFL draft waiting for UConn players to be drafted. However, my nephew is graduating from the University of Michigan this weekend so I will be out of the loop and my colleagues at the Register will be called upon to provide NFL draft coverage. Staying on that subject, I am not a pro scout but from what I am hearing the top prospects with Connecticut ties are former high school rivals Tyler Matakevich, a Stratford native who played at St. Joseph High in Trumbull, Milford Academy and Temple, and fellow linebacker Don Cherry, a former Trumbull High star who starred at Villanova. It will also be interesting to see if Yale quarterback Morgan Roberts, Branford's Kyle Nolan out of Georgetown and former Notre Dame of West Haven and University of New Hampshire star Sean Goldrich get signed by NFL teams.

Julian Campenni set to make his 36th career start and final one at home

The last couple of seasons the final home game gave the underclassmen a chance to try to send the seniors out the right way but there wasn't much else on the line.

Both in 2013 and 2014 the Huskies entered the home finale (which doubled as a season finale) with a 2-9 record. In 2013 the Huskies destroyed Memphis before falling to previously winless SMU in the final game of 2014. Other than those wishing to pile on after last year's loss, neither game created much of a stir nationally. That will not be the case tomorrow with an undefeated Houston team which is ranked 13th and has a chance to play in a New Year's Day bowl game coming to town.

For the 13 seniors, there has to be plenty of emotions circling around them this week but they are doing their best to focusing on toppling the Cougars and making them bowl eligible.

"There is a lot of hype to this game but we are not going to let the game be bigger than it really is," Adams said. "I just keep my eye on the ball, just stay focused, stay grounded and basically just stay focused on doing my job, all this stuff is great but I am just focused on playing well."

Julian Campenni, set to make his team-best 36th career start, is taking a similar approach to his final game at Rentschler Field.

"All the other stuff is great but it comes down to we have four quarters to go out there and play the 13th-ranked team in the country so that is what I am excited about and that is what I am really looking forward to," Campenni said.

"It is really exciting. It is an accumulation of five years of work so to have an opportunity to play a great team this week on senior day, I guess you could say that it is a storybook ending.

"It is what you come to a school like this to do, you want to play great teams and you want to play them at home so any chance we get to play at The Rent against a great team it just adds extra excitement."

It won't just be the seniors who are excited, not with a chance to attain bowl eligibility and send out the seniors with a program-defining victory.

"They are doing a great job leading the team, it is not only the captains but everybody who is in that position to be a leader," UConn junior receiver Noel Thomas said. "I think they are great guys and it is important to send them off in the right way.

"We take pride in them and we play hard for these guys and we expect the same from them."

UCONN COMMITS GETTING SOME PRESS
While the focus naturally is on what the Huskies are trying to accomplish tomorrow, I figured I would pass on links to a couple of stories of interest on UConn commits Ryan Gilmartin and one on Quayvon Skanes as well.

Also, UConn commit Jay Rose's Southington team faces Cheshire on Thanksgiving. It is one of the games CPTV Sports is considering televising although currently that game is in second place behind Shelton/Derby with today the last day to vote.

There is nothing quiet about Marquise Vann when he is on or off the field so it was impossible not to notice the difference now that the two-time team captain was back to practice after missing the last two games with a leg injury.

"I just want to play football," Vann said. "Anytime you love the game, you are going to be a little emotional (returning to the field). At the end of the day, you just want to be around the team, you want to see then happy, you want to see them enjoy the opportunity God has given us."
His teammates were thrilled to see him back on the field although his leadership never waned even when he was sidelined.

"Just because he was not playing doesn't mean he wasn't involved," said UConn safety and fellow team captain Andrew Adams said. "He was on the sidelines, coaching guys and as you come to the sidelines, he is drawing up plays with what they are doing because he is watching their offense as well. He is basically like another coach on the sideline which is great.

"He is not down that he was hurt so that is what I like about him, he does whatever he needs to do for the team. He is always upbeat because that is just the way he is. Some days you come out and you aren't really feeling it so you have Marquise, he is there and he is going to bring you along. As soon as he says something to you, you feel a little more upbeat."

During their high school careers Arkeel Newsome and Matt Walsh, playing for two of Connecticut’s most storied programs, won a combined five state titles. When it came time to head to college, they both landed at a UConn program where wins have been somewhat harder to come by.

When Walsh was piling up nearly 300 tackles in his final two seasons at Hand High in Madison, he was hoping to follow in the footsteps of players like Danny Lansanah, Alfred Fincher, Sio Moore and Yawin Smallwood as a linebacker in the middle of the UConn defense. Newsome, who set pretty much every state record for rushing yards and touchdown scoring, wanted to be the player asked to add some punch to an offensive-challenged UConn program.

On Saturday afternoon, those dreams came true in the Huskies’ 22-17 win over Army.

Walsh, who played regularly as a fullback in his first two seasons, was inserted into the starting lineup for the first time since he was switched over to his natural linebacker position. Walsh had four tackles, including one tackle for loss and drew an illegal block in the back penalty as UConn opened the season with two straight wins for the first time since the 2008 season.

“I wasn’t anxious or nervous because I got a lot of playing time last week against Villanova so that kind of helped me settle in, get more comfortable playing linebacker at this level,” Walsh said. “We were very prepared, we knew everything. Coach (Bob) Diaco, Coach (Anthony) Poindexter, Coach (Vincent) Brown did a great job of preparing us.

“Every week you prepare like a starter, when you get your chance you don’t treat it any different. It is the same thing as people always say that practice makes perfect, obviously we were far from perfect, the more practice we got, the more looks we got from them then we were able to figure them out a little bit more.”

Diaco made it clear that Walsh starting ahead of two-time team captain and 2014 leading tackler Marquise Vann was simply a case of putting together a personnel grouping best suited to deal with Army’s triple-option offense and not a sign that Vann lost his job to Walsh.

“It is never like a competition of who is starting,” Walsh said. “It was just what was going to work best against that team and it was to pair Junior (Joseph) and Marquise on the inside and me on the outside.”

Speaking of inside/outside pairings, the feeling was that the bruising Ron Johnson would handle most of the running duties between the tackles while the electrifying Newsome would be used out in the open space.

However, after Army had pulled within five points with 4:51 to play, it was Newsome who was sent onto the field to help UConn try to run out the clock. Three physical runs accounted for 22 yards and a first down. He was a little slow getting up on the final carry so he was replaced by Johnson. While Johnson was stuffed on a 3rd and 1 play, the fact is that Newsome found himself trusted with the ball with the game on the line which is something that didn’t happen often as a freshman especially after he had some fumbling issues during his true freshman season.

“It means a lot, we came a long way because last year I don’t think they would have (given him carries in crunch time),” Newsome said after rushing for a team-high 73 yards. “It is a great feeling that they trusted me to hold onto it.

“It definitely boosted my confidence a lot.”

Newsome has three career receiving touchdowns at UConn including one in a season-opening victory over Villanova but his 10-yard touchdown run in the second quarter was his first as a Husky as he followed blocks by guard Tommy Hopkins and tight end Tommy Myers and wriggled away from Army’s Alex Aukerman, who grabbed Newsome’s jersey around the 5.

“It was great,” said Newsome, who ran for a state record 172 touchdowns in four seasons at Ansonia High. “I just kept striving and kept the mindset that I was going to get in the end zone.”

We already knew they were would be least one different starter in Saturday's Army game as defensive lineman Folorunso Fatukasi has been suspended for the first half after being ejected for fighting late in the season-opening win over Villanova. As expected, Mikal Myers worked with the starters for most of Tuesday's and Wednesday's practices.

However, there are a couple of other positions where we could see a change as Dan Oak was in there at center with the first team for the second half of Tuesday's practice and all of Wednesday's practice and Matt Walsh saw the majority of the first-team snaps at the weak-side linebacker spot ahead of two-time captain and last year's leading tackler Marquise Vann at yesterday's practice after seeing lots of time ahead of Vann on Tuesday as well. That was pretty much the reason why I headed up to practice yesterday because I didn't want to overreact from what I saw on Tuesday. But with Oak and Walsh also working as starters on Wednesday, I'd have to think there is a decent chance that is how it will shake out on Saturday.

The situations are different as starting center Brendan Vechery did not practice. Vann was out there and I thought it was interesting that when linebackers coach Vincent Brown summoned the MIKE or middle linebackers, Vann came over along with starter Junior Joseph and Jon Hicks, listed as the second-string MLB on the depth chart. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but if Vann were going to start at WLB, I don't know why he'd be getting time as a reserve middle linebacker unless he was being prepared to serve as an option at the MLB and WLB positions. Vann saw the majority of the snaps at WLB against Villanova but Walsh was usually in there for a snap or two every series. It is obviously a situation which bears watching but not one coming out of nowhere. When UConn coach Bob Diaco was asked about UConn's most competitive positional battles at American Athletic Conference media day, he dropped a bombshell that Walsh is pushing Vann for the starting WLB spot.

"It is going to be great competition for the WILL linebacker between Marquise Vann and Matt Walsh," Diaco said at the time. "Matt Walsh has been a guy to be in the conversation. The best guys are going to play for as long as they can be the best guy, if we are at the same position and the game is 75 plays and you only better than me for 45 of them the art form is identifying that as a coach and bringing you in on the 46th play."

I would have liked to ask head coach Bob Diaco about these developments but I was told he was unavailable. However, Wednesday's practice is the one where the assistant coaches are available so I did speak to offensive coordinator Frank Verducci and defensive coordinator Anthony Poindexter.

When I spoke with Poindexter, I addressed the challenge of defending Army's triple-option offense, the advantage of having most of the players back from last year's Army game and what he expects to see out of Myers and the other defensive linemen who will fill in for Fatukasi. Then came time for the question about Walsh. The wording was "Is Walsh the starter now?" just so there would be no room for interpretation. This is not Poindexter's first rodeo and he deftly sidestepped the question.

"We are taking him in and out, Matt is doing a nice job but we have a lot of starters, 14/15 guys that we think we can play in knowing we can only play with 11 but we plug different guys in at different times," Poindexter said.

When Walsh was getting so much time with the starters on Tuesday I thought it might be a case of the converted fullback needing more time against the triple-option offense (run by UConn's "look" team) than a veteran like Vann. Here's what Poindexter had to say about that.

"Obviously this is going to be different being on this side of the ball but he did a great job this week preparing so we have to see what he is going to get done," Poindexter said. "He has done everything we have asked for and probably exceeded our expectations. We had heard he was a great high school linebacker and I think that is his natural position and he is doing a great job."

Poindexter is not the only one impressed by Walsh's rapid development.

"He is getting better week," UConn senior safety Andrew Adams said. "You can tell he is becoming more football savvy and more football intelligent so I just look forward to see him make plays this year. There is no drop off when Matt comes into the game and everybody knows that."

Vechery was in full pads but Oak saw the time not only with the first team but also the second team at yesterday's practice. While Verducci wasn't going to blurt out the reason why Vechery (who drew rave reviews for his play against Villanova from Diaco at Tuesday's press conference) was on the sidelines for the last practice and a half, he did address the issue as much as he could.

"You are going to have guys get a bug or the flu or whatever or bust a chin strap and the philosophy here is literally next man up," Verducci said. "For Danny to come in, it isn't really surprising, it is a credit to him but I am not surprised that he did as well as he did. You would really never have noticed that was the next-man center unless somebody had told you. We functioned very well, we had one bad snap and that was it.

"He is a career center but he hasn't really played here yet at this level. I would be excited for him, if he got a chance to play I would be very happy for him. His strengths are more intangible than tangible. He loves football, he understands the position extremely well, he is completely invested in the program so guys like that, you hope to see him have some success."

I tweeted yesterday that I thought the offense looked as sharp as I have seen it since the record-breaking showing in the 2013 season finale against Memphis, Of course, I saw no practices during the 2014 season, one full practice during spring practice and then this was my sixth practice/scrimmage I attended since the start of preseason camp. With all of that being said, the offense was really clicking. It is not a shocking revelation to report that junior receiver Noel Thomas was in the middle of much of it. He had one catch down the sideline where he thought he got one foot in while the defensive back signaled that he was out of bounds. He asked me if it was a good catch but I was looking at the work being done on the other field at the time. Then he had the play of the day. Bryant Shirreffs groaned when he threw a pass to the left corner of the end zone figuring he overthrew it but Thomas reached up, grabbed the ball and looked like he got both feet in bounds despite very tight coverage. Freshmen receivers Tyraiq Beals and Aaron McLean had strong practices with McLean getting praise from coaches for a block he threw which is rare for any true freshman receiver to block well enough this early in the season to get called out for that in a positive manner.

I thought the offense looked significantly better than it did on Tuesday and I am not alone.

"If you had come yesterday, you wouldn't have felt that way," Verducci said with a laugh, "but today they responded and that was encouraging."

Verducci also had an interesting comment when I mentioned how calm Shirreffs looks in the pocket since that was not what I saw in what little amount of spring practice I was able to see.

"That is part of his growth process," Verducci said. "If you remember back to the spring game, he was super excitable in the spring game. I saw him have two cups of coffee (Thursday) morning and I said 'hey, that's the last thing you need.' But he had control of himself, he was poised and it was great progress on his part."

As for the defense, the first drill I saw was a wrap-up tackling drill which is understandable considering how many tackles UConn missed against Villanova. These days you can't just come in and level your teammates in practice so this was a time for the players to get reminded of the proper form and it seemed to go pretty well. It was fascinating seeing how much more comfortable the defensive players seem when UConn's "look" team did its best to run Army's offense. There was tremendous progress even since Tuesday. There were plenty of tackles behind the line of scrimmage and safety Obi Melifonwu had an interception. Andrew Adams seemingly was everywhere during the practice and I liked what I saw from defensive ends Luke Carrezola, Kenton Adeymi and Cole Ormsby. It looked to me like this was one rather productive practice.

1965 TEAM TO BE HONORED
UConn announced that the 1965 team will be recognized at Saturday's game. It is the first UConn team to beat Yale (the Huskies were 0-16 against the Bulldogs before a season-opening 13-6 win.

UConn finished 3-6 during that season, The players and coaches who make it back will be on field during the first media timeout of the game. Head coach Rick Forzano and assistant coach Dan Sekanovich are among those expected to be in attendance.

The frustration was rather obvious when Graham Stewart took a peek into his crystal ball.

Stewart and the rest of the seniors felt incredible pain to seeing a respected group of seniors leave the UConn program with a 2-10 record as well as a string of four straight losing seasons. Stewart doesn't know what the record will be in his final season but he is very clear that Stewart and the fellow seniors are taking the steps they feel are necessary to be more successful.

"I am a guy from Connecticut so it is kind of like taking ownership," Stewart said. "I take a tremendous amount of pride in that I definitely don't want to finish my senior year the way last season finished, I think that would stick with me forever and I can't let that happen."

Just like last season, there is a small group of seniors on the UConn roster. Last year other than receivers Geremy Davis and Deshon Foxx, center Alex Mateas and cornerback Byron Jones, most of the remaining seniors were either players splitting playing time or those who rarely see the field. That is certainly not the case this time around.

Stewart, fellow linebacker and returning captain Marquise Vann, safety Andrew Adams, defensive linemen Kenton Adeyemi and Julian Campenni are defensive players accustomed to playing key roles, tight end Sean McQuillan, guard Tyler Samra and running back Max DeLorenzo are players with at least two years of being regular contributors while Junior Lee and Dom Manco are among UConn's best special teams players.

The seniors are determined to not only walk the walk but talk the talk as well.

"We got together in the beginning and kind of talked about what we wanted to do and the bigger goals," McQuillan said. "We want to be one of the senior groups that everybody feels like you can come up to, you can approach, you can talk to and we just want to be a close-knit group and make sure everybody is comfortable with each other. This senior group has a goal in mind and we are not going to stop until we get there."

UConn coach Bob Diaco has liked what he has seen from his seniors during the early stages of spring practice.

"Even now we are all in so 'what do we do? How does that look like, sound like, smell like, taste like so what do I do?" Diaco said. "We are ready so that is the kind of phase we are in right now, that group helping them have a voice, helping them have an appropriate voice and collectively all of them from John Bogue all the way to Max to Graham to Kenton to Andrew and that whole group, they are really doing a nice job with the team."

Casey Cochran, who made the difficult decision to give up his playing career after suffering one too many concussions, wasn't among the UConn players brought into Tuesday's press conference but his teammates had plenty to say about the loss of the team's starting quarterback.

"He's been a guy who has given it 100 percent," UConn senior cornerback Byron Jones said. "We are 100 percent behind his decision. You use it as motivation because anything can be your last play."

Cochran already had the respect of his teammates but seeing the professional manner in which Cochran addressed the team on Monday to make his decision official only made him go up in their estimation.

"It is tough to see a guy up there who has been around football for so long and probably didn't think for one second, this is going to be my last game to go down like that," Jones said. "It is just one of those unfortunate moments, people get inured and don't come back. We will 100 percent support his decision, no doubt about it.

"He is a very high-quality person, a leader and a person who does everything at 100 percent. He is definitely going to be missed with the football team but he is still going to be a part of us in a coaching capacity."

Fellow team captain Marquise Vann echoed Jones' sentiments.

"You just see a very strong person," Vann said. "He was strong with it, very confident. He wasn't crying, he was very excited tat he was going in a new direction with his life. We are all backing him and he is still going to be around. It wasn't a hard time, it was an exciting time for Casey because we saw how great of a man he was, how great of a leader he was so."

Chandler Whitmer is now UConn's No. 1 quarterback, a position he held for the entire 2012 season and first four games last season. He's also had multiple concussions including ones in the final two games of the 2012 season so he knew there was a chance that Cochran may have some tough decisions to make.

"It was a possibility," Whitmer said. "He's had concussions before and that is not something you fool around with. It is tough because you work your whole life, you put everything you have into it to get to this point and play the game and it kind of gets taken from you like that, it is pretty eye opening. It makes you realize that you never know when it could be your last time so enjoy every day, every moment that you get, go out and give it your best effort."

3, one in high school, back in Louisville and Cincinnati games. I remember one of them was after a throw at Louisville, U got hit and bang bang and the other was on a trick play out at Cincinnati, I was lined up at receiver, a double pass.

Trust the staff for their opinions. You can't play scared or think of things like that, you have to play until it is done.

We feel for him but we are excited for his future and he is still around helping us out, being the same guy. He is going to help me out, me and Tim and we are excited about it.

It took all of one defensive play for it to become apparent that UConn's front four was going to have a more impactful role against Stony Brook than in the season-opening loss to Brigham Young.

In that 35-10 loss UConn's defensive linemen combined for five solo tackles but in a 19-16 victory over Stony Brook the same group had five tackles behind the line of scrimmage even though a leg injury kept Angelo Pruitt, the Huskies' most experienced defensive end, out of the game.

It started right away as nose tackle Julian Campenni, with help from Jefferson Ashiru, held Stacey Bedell to a 1-yard gain on the Seawolves' first offensive play.

The nose tackle duo of Campenni and top reserve Mikal Myers combined for four solo tackles, six assisted stop, 3.5 of UConn's nine tackles for loss and Myers had the team's lone sack. Even more important than any individual statistics was the way the interior of UConn's defensive line pushed the Stony Brook offensive line back at the point of attack, especially in the first half.

"We just did what the coaches teach us to do every day, they do a great job of putting up in position to make plays, we took full advantage of it," Myers said.

"We complement each other. I am going to do as good as he does and he is going to do as good as I do. We try to work together and play well as a collective unit.

Kenton Adeyemi, who got the start in place of Pruitt, B.J. McBryde and Reuben Frank also got into the backfield.

"It always feels good to get a little love, make a couple of plays when we had to,: Myers said.."We did a way better job tackling this week and kudos to a great week of practice."

On his day after the game conference call UConn coach Bob Diaco had some good things to say about the play of the nose tackles.

"I thought they played excellent," Diaco said. "I thought those two players had a major impact on the game and they made it hard for the offense to run the ball and even pressed the pocket back on passes and a lot of first and second down runs. They really had nice great games, great effort both guys and Sean (Marinan) had a great week of practice and I was very pleased with his work all week."

TV DETAILS FOR BOISE GAME
It was announced that Saturday's noon game against Boise will air regionally on ABC and be seen on ESPN2 by the rest of the country. Beth Mowins, Joey Galloway and Paul Carcaterra will call the game.

I caught some of Boise's game against Colorado State and they looked unstoppable on offense piling up 656 yards of total offense led by running back Jay Ajavi's 219 rushing yards and 280 yards of total offense. Ajavi is listed at 216 pounds but looked so much bigger the way he ran through would-be tacklers.

Boise may utilize its running backs in the passing game as well as any team in the country so that will be a test for UConn's linebackers and while he is not Taysom Hill, quarterback Grant Hedrick showed the ability to make plays with his legs.

It should be noted that Boise also gave up 462 yards (434 through the air) and had just two sacks on 58 Colorado State passing attempts.

The offensive coordinator is former Yale assistant coach Mike Sanford, who got plenty of air time on the ESPN2 broadcast due to his wife setting up a separate area in the house for him to sleep following the birth of the couple's second child Gunnar a few days ago.

NCAA STATS UPDATE
The NCAA updated its stats through last night's games and let's start with the good news as the Huskies rank 22nd among 124 FBS team in 3rd down defense, allowing opponents to convert just 26.7 percent of the time. However, there's some scary numbers as well as UConn is 118th in rushing offense (76 yards per game) and 121st with an average of 9.5 tackles for loss surrendered.

Individually Geremy Davis ranks 23rd nationally with an average of 104.5 receiving yards per game. Boise's Matt Miller is among the receivers ahead of him as he ranks 13th with an average of 117.5 yards in the two games. Marquise Vann is 42nd with an average of 10 tackles per game. Deshon Foxx is 14th with an average of 21 yards per punt return (of course 72 of his 84 yards came on one return).

BIG GAME FOR FORMER UCONN RB
While Lyle McCombs debuted with Rhode Island, he was not the former UConn tailback making the biggest splash as Joe Williams ran 10 times for 178 yards and two touchdowns, caught two passes for 26 yards and another score and had a 12-yard punt return in ASA College's 48-21 win over Erie Community College on Saturday.

As for McCombs, he ran 17 times for 39 yards, caught three passes for 31 yards, had 57 yards on three kickoff returns and lost one yard on one punt return in Rhode Island's 48-7 loss to Marshall.

At media day every time I headed towards senior receiver Geremy Davis there was another reporter ready to pepper him with question. My kindergarten teacher would tell you, wherever she is, that I tend not to play well with others so whenever possible I try to do as many 1-on-1 interviews rather than get caught up in the horde mentality. As a result, I missed talking with Davis so I made sure to catch up with him today for a couple of topics that will make for good blog entries or stories down the road. However, it was not all serious business.

I was kicking myself for not playfully asking either Byron Jones or Marquise Vann about which of the three team captains gets the final say when it is time to pick a television program or order dinner since Jones, Vann and Davis are all rooming together.

Well, I got around to getting  Davis on the subject and he responded in the spirit that the question was asked.

"I think it is more of a group thing and we all compromise," Davis said with a laugh. "There isn't an alpha dog, 'I am a leader or I am the leader' but it is more of a compromise so I don't think one of us is going to try to big dog the other."

Before the press conference began UConn coach Bob Diaco debuted on the weekly American Athletic Conference call. UConn SID Mike Enright played the call so we could hear what Diaco had to say and the questions were nothing to write home about (not that the ones during our time with him set the world on fire either) but he did have a nice response when asked how he became such a detail-orientated person.

"I have always done better with a plan although in most cases it was frivolous, like grasping at the wind but I feel more comfortable when I have a plan. I can't stop my brain from thinking about the next moment and sometimes I get complaints from family and friends that it prevents me from enjoying the moment I am in but I feel better when things have a plan and there is detail in the plan."

While linebacker Graham Stewart is expected to be back after missing the last four games with a high-ankle sprain, it is not sounding good for cornerback Taylor Mack to get onto the field for UConn on Saturday.

"He tried to go a little bit and really couldn’t do much so he is going to be a game-time decision for us," UConn interim coach T.J. Weist said on a conference call earlier today. "He has not had much contact this week so we are not sure if he is going to go."

Freshman Jhavon Williams is set to make his fourth straight start at cornerback in Mack's absence.

Although Stewart and Ryan Donohue, who were starting linebackers before getting injured, are both expected back against UCF Jefferson Ashiru and Marquise Vann figure to be the starting outside linebackers.