Opening Big East play on the road against a nationally-ranked opponent would get the members of the UConn football team raring to go under normal circumstances. But when you add in the fact that six New Jersey natives are expected to be members of the travel squad and get to play in front of friends and family at High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway, N.J. and clearly motivation is not going to be an issue.

UConn has three starters who hail from New Jersey led by senior cornerback Dwayne Gratz from Piscataway. Gratz did not pull any punches when talking about playing in his hometown for the final time.

“I get to play in my hometown,” Gratz said. “A lot of people come to see me every time I go to Rutgers. It is a special feeling to play in front of everybody who watched you grow up as a child. I hate Rutgers and that is all that really matters. It doesn’t matter if we are going back home, I am there to beat them. We are just going to go there and try to get this ‘W’.”

Gratz still recalls how Rutgers was indifferent towards him until the Huskies began to pursue him.

“The funny thing about that is they offered me a scholarship only because UConn did,” Gratz said. “I couldn’t respect that and hated them for that because I wanted to go to Rutgers so I am going to use that for motivation.

“(Rutgers) week is always heightened intensity. The team sees how much the guys from New Jersey hate Rutgers and it rubs off on them. Every time we play Rutgers the emotions are high.”

Although there are 10 New Jersey natives on the team, only six are expected to be on the travel squad including starting receiver Nick Williams and defensive tackle Ryan Wirth who were also recruited lightly or not at all by the Scarlet Knights.

“The stage is set,” Williams said. “They are ranked in the top 25, they are undefeated. They just went down to Arkansas in front of 90,000 people and beat a pretty good team. I know the Jersey guys on the team set the tone on the team early on this week and everybody kind of feeds off that energy and I am expecting that to happen this week.

“I think in Big East play everything turns up a little bit. I wish that wasn’t the case. I wish you could simulate that atmosphere for every single game but it is human nature, it is impossible to do that. If you are playing in the Super Bowl it is going to be different than if you are playing in week one. For us New Jersey guys this is kind of like our Super Bowl. The rest of the team sees that, the game is in New Jersey and we lost a couple nail biters to them. It is an important game for us.”

For Wirth, who was called the most pleasant surprise of the team by Paul Pasqualoni during Tuesday’s press conference, one of the highlights of the early portion of his career at UConn was a matchup against former high school teammate Ryan Blaszczyk back in 2009.

“Growing up a couple of my buddies from high school went to Rutgers,” Wirth said. “Ryan Blaszczyk was a center there so looking up to him; that was a place I wanted to go to first. My redshirt freshman year I actually got to play against Blaszczyk. I wanted to go to Rutgers and I landed here and playing Rutgers is going to be exciting.

“I have the same story as everybody else. I guess I wasn’t good enough for them. I am happy where I ended up.”

Other New Jersey products on the two-deep chart are reserve linebacker Ryan Donohue and backup offensive guard Tyler Samra while linebacker David Kenney is a key special teams' player for the Huskies.

Competition for tickets has been fierce among UConn's Jersey contingent.

"All the Jersey guys including this one next to me (Gratz) scooped up all the tickets," Williams said with a laugh. "I struggled to get tickets. I couldn’t meet the demand and couldn’t decide who gets these four tickets out of x amount (he is allotted) so I told everybody you are on your own for this one. I spoke to my mom, my aunts and my brother plus my friends and there will probably be over 100 people at the tailgate they are throwing."

It's never good news when Randy Edsall comes over to address the media in the middle of practice. So when he ambled over Tuesday morning with a list to talk to us, we knew something was up.

Jimmy Bennett was already sitting in the medical tent with his leg heavily bandaged and in a brace. He'd been injured during Saturday's scrimmage, and the news was bad. He'll have surgery and is finished for the year. Tough break, as Bennett was a promising young talent who as a redshirt freshman gave fifth-year senior Dan Ryan a run at a starting tackle spot. With Bennett done, Adam Masters is now Ryan's back-up, while Mike Ryan will flip over from the right side in a pinch. Sophomore back-up safety John Yurek will also endure season-ending knee surgery.

We also learned tight end Yianni Apostostakos is finished with football due to a degenerative hip condition. Yianni, a third-year sophomore, had talent but has been plagued by injury since his arrival at UConn. He was at practice Monday. "Lead us off, coach Yianni," someone said as the tight ends finished post-practice stretching. So he jogged off the field with his teammates following. Nice gesture.

The bad news didn't stop there. Edsall told us safety Aaron Bagsby and defensive tackle Beau Brunelli were suspended indefinitely due to a violation of university athletic department policy.

With Bagsby out for an undisclosed period, and Harris Agbor shelved for "five or six weeks" (another Edsall update), safety is now quite thin. Kijuan Dabney was moved to strong safety and receiver Marcus Aiken is now a free safety. David Kenney, moved up from safety to linebacker last week when Dabney injured his shoulder, will remain at linebacker. Dabney practiced Tuesday, albeit in a red jersey.

Some other updates:

• The team practices again later tonight, and finishes training camp Wednesday with a scrimmage. Edsall said the team needs the work, but will limit the total number of plays to help preserve the Huskies' health.

• Among the players who came to camp in great physical condition were Jasper Howard and Lawrence Wilson. Howard has emerged as a leader on defense while Wilson, who rarely talks, knows what's expected of him.

• Darius Butler had a day off with the Patriots Saturday and drove down to see UConn practice. Edsall said he spoke to the team and delivered "a great message" about the importance of hard work and such.

• If it seemed like Mike Hicks' was on the verge of losing his starting job for four years running, that was part of Edsall's motivational plan. "It's just trying to light a fire under his butt," Edsall said. "Make him feel his job isn't secure. The one thing is, Mike always responds. Not that he can't do it on his own, but when you put a little more pressure on, he cranks it up a bit."

• Jordan Todman is a tougher runner with added strength, but Edsall expects to use Andre Dixon and Robbie Frey often in his running back rotation. Part of that is needing fresh legs in the new offense "we don't have a guy built like Donald Brown, with the strength Donald had", Edsall said. It's also because all three have the ability to make big plays.

• Lindsey Witten and Mike Cox are set on one end of the defensive line. It looks like Jesse Joseph may have a slight lead on the other starting end spot, with Trevardo Williams and A.J. Portee battling for reps.

• Edsall said Michael Smith "has improved dramatically sine last year. He runs crisp, sharp routes and is playing a lot better."

• Michael Box is locked in as third-string quarterback for now, though Edsall likes what he's seen of the true freshman. It sounded like Edsall thinks Box could move into the backup role as the season progresses. Edsall plans to take all of his QB's on the road.

On an unrelated note, I spent Monday working at the Pilot Pen Tennis tournament in New Haven. My assignment for the day was a sidebar on Marcos Bahgdatis, but I had a tough time concentrating on the match because of a celebrity sitting two rows in front of me. Yep. Judge Wapner was there checking out the action. At least that's what I assume. The name plate on the reserved box seats read "Joseph Wapner". At a stuffy event like the Pilot Pen, where 90 percent of the crowd comes up from Westchester and Fairfield County? No chance it was a coincidence. But the elderly man and woman sitting there were both in cognito with their massive floppy sun hats and giant sunglasses, so I never got a great look at his face. I thought about pulling a Kramer and making a commotion to get him to turn around (i.e. the Joe DiMaggio sighting in Dinky Donuts). But they demand silence at tennis matches and I figured they'd throw me out of the stadium if I kept yelling "10 minutes to Wapner".

Post practice updates...

• The injuries to Lindsey Witten and Mike Hicks aren't believed to be serious. Edsall expects them both to be back by Saturday. Receiver Kashif Moore didn't practice as a precaution with a tweaked hamstring. Erik Kuraczea is back at practice after having "his bell rung" last week.

• Kijuan Dabney was hurt during a blitz drill Wednesday. His status is unknown, pending more examinations, but in the meantime David Kenney has been moved up from defensive back to back-up Husky position. He'll remain there as long as Dabney is out.

• Michael Smith's grandmother passed, and he left campus to attend her funeral.

• Linebacker Jerome Williams suffered a burst appendix earlier in the summer, and underwent a difficult surgery that was touch and go. He is slowly working his way back, and will be limited much of this fall.

• Those who were at practice got to see how exciting a player Dwayne Difton really is; the rest of you will be pleasantly surprised this season. Difton evoked images of Donald Brown by stiff-arming Jasper Howard to the turf on one play. Howard got up and drilled Difton, who was already out of bounds, with Difton laughing at his "big brother". Howard has taken Difton, a fellow south Floridian, under his wing, and the two have become close. "It's the same thing Darius Butler did with me," Howard said. "I want to make him feel at home." Still, the pair like to go at it in practices. Howard has been impressed with Difton's ability. "Whatever he was, 4-star, 5-star, he's living up to the billing," Howard said. "He's doing a tremendous job."

• I, for one, keep forgetting Howard isn't a captain. He's such a natural leader, and has really been working with many of the younger players, not just Difton. He also wants to keep the UConn cornerback tradition of heading to the NFL alive. Bigger and stronger this fall, Howard also seems faster. "I can't slack off," Howard said, speaking about leadership as well as pro aspirations. "Tyvon did it, Darius did it. It's up to me and Reggie."

• There was a full referee crew on hand for today's practice, and if I didn't know better I swear the umpire was Tom Morello, the guitarist from Rage Against the Machine. Could have been his twin brother.


Bulls, err...Huskies on parade?



• Michael Box and Cody Endres got more action this afternoon simply because it was the second session of the day, so Zach Frazer got a bit of a break. Both looked good, Box in particular. He seems to be a heady player with lots of potential.

• Netflixed Iron Maiden: Flight 666 last night (which I watched by myself...the wife isn't as enamoured with 80s metal as I am). Great documentary. Iron Maiden is truly a global band, drawing crowds in excess of 100,000 for concerts in places like India, Costa Rica, Mexico and Columbia. In Brazil and Argentina, the band is revered as true rock gods. They were greeted by tens of thousands of fans both at the airport and hotel...incredible. The coolest part is lead singer Bruce Dickinson is also a commercial airline pilot, and personally flies the group and their entire road crew and equipment on a customized 757, known as Ed Force One. Worth watching if you're into that kind of thing. If not, I'll stop now.

Two .... minutes....to touch down...