UConn sports

We now know who the mystery player on coach Randy Edsall’s injury list was.

Defensive tackle Alex Polito is the one with the bum ankle. The 6-foot-5, 280-pound sophomore is injured and did not make the trip to Louisville with his teammates.

Polito’s replacement in the starting lineup is probably going to be Kendall Reyes, though the loss probably means more playing time for Reyes and Twyon Martin.

On a side note, I made the drive out to Valhalla with Chuck Banning of The Day to check out the Ryder Cup venue.

I got some merchandise (not too cheap but whatever) and took some pictures I hoped to but on the blog. Problem is, I forgot the studpid USB connector at home and can’t move them over.

Oh well…

- Neill

A few notes from the lovely Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Louisville:

– UConn WR Ellis Gaulden told WTIC-AM’s Joe D’Ambrosio on the coaches show Thursday night that he is planning to apply to the NCAA for a sixth year of eligibility.

Gaulden has missed parts of three seasons with injuries. He missed one season entirely and played in only a single game in another.

– UConn basketball player Nate Miles is in a bit of hot water, though the details have yet to come out completely.

He’s due in court Tuesday for violating a restraining order. UConn Police served Miles with the order on Sept. 22 and he allegedly violated it with a phone call the same day.

My competitor/colleague/friend Mike Anthony over at the Courant has the story.

(I don’t mind complimenting Mike or attributing news to him but I refuse to link his story here. I don’t know, maybe it’s pride.)

- Neill

Hello Cleveland! (Hello Peter)

Oh wait, I only stopped over in Cleveland. I’m in Louisville now. Waking up before the sun even thinks of showing its face will make the mind wander.

Checked into the hotel here in the Derby City and now I’m trying to get some work done.

“The Legend of Bagger Vance” is on in the background as I work. I’ve got a question. I’m a fan of Matt Damon and a fan of Will Smith and a big fan of golf in general. Why then can I not embrace this P.O.S. movie?

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. Time to earn my keep and write about Friday’s game.

Be back soon.

- Neill

OK, I admit it. I gave myself a half-day today.

During football season it’s usually a seven-day grind but you have to take breaks now and then. Wednesday my colleague Chris Elsberry and I played some golf. (Long hitter, the Llama).

Now, just because I was on the links doesn’t mean I was derelict in my duties as the UConn football beat writer at the Post. Far from it.

I dialed in to coach Randy Edsall’s conference call Wednesday afternoon from the 11th tee at Pautipaug/Mohegan Sun (nice course, by the way, but hard to find) to get an update.

There was plenty of background noise courtesy of some idiot who celebrated a 10-foot putt for bogey like it was a 35-footer for eagle, but I got the info I needed:

– The player-to-be-named later that Edsall said had an ankle injury on Tuesday? He’s still hurt. And he’s still nameless.

The coach is really playing this thing to the hilt. Does he think Steve Kragthorpe and his staff at Louisville would throw the playbook out the window if they knew who the injured Husky was? I don’t get it, but I can’t complain too much on a day when I play golf.

“We’re still working with him,” Edsall said. “We’ll see what happens after today (Wednesday).”

Edsall speaks to us media dolts prior to practice, so he meant after Wednesday afternoon’s workout.

– Zach Frazer is the No. 2 quarterback, for what it’s worth.

Cody Endres had been the backup to Tyler Lorenzen for the first four games.

Endres got a chance for some mop-up duty. It’s not likely that there will be anything to mop up Friday night (should be a pretty close game).

– That’s about it. Heading to Louisville Thursday. Talk to you from the Derby City.

By the way, anybody know how to hail a cab at the airport in Louisville?

I hear the folks there wave both arms back and forth like crazy, not just the quick one-handed swipe like people from Connecticut do.

Too soon for that joke?

- Neill

Not much in the way of bombshells at the press conference today in Storrs. A few interesting items, though:

– No Larry Taylor fair catch talk of any kind. It seems the players and coaches want to put it behind them.

Well, that’s probably not true. It’s what they’re saying in public, though.

The UConn side probably still thinks they would have won the game without the gift _ not that they’d ever call it a gift _ and want to prove it with a big victory Friday.

The Louisville side probably still thinks they would have won if Taylor’s return hadn’t counted and want to prove it with a big victory Friday.

UConn coach Randy Edsall’s answer when asked about the Taylor play:

“We’re just ready to go down to Louisville and play the game Friday night,” Edsall said.

Oh, OK. That clears it up.

– In yet another moment of stark honesty, Edsall said he has an injured player. He just wouldn’t say which one of his players was injured.

“We have one guy with a little bit of an ankle,” Edsall said. “He should be OK.”

When asked which player that is, Edsall retorted: “I don’t know. I have amnesia right now.”

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

(The first three ha’s were real and only the final five were sarcastic).

On a serious note, Edsall said running back Andre Dixon’s ankle is much healthier than in recent weeks.

“He’s had a good practice week so far,” Edsall said. “You can see he’s starting to get his stamina back. He’s ready to go.”

– I give Edsall a hard time for being so tight-lipped but he, like many coaches, also loves to praise opponents. Louisville coach Steve Kragthorpe enjoys this, too.

Kragthorpe, when talking about UConn’s run game, said quarterback Tyler Lorenzen is like Tim Tebow.

Yes, that Tim Tebow.

“Tyler is running the ball so well right now,” Kragthorpe said. “He reminds me a lot of Tim Tebow. He’s the Big East Tim Tebow right now.”

Other than Pat White and Matt Grothe, Kragthorpe is right on.

– A clever member of the media (no, it wasn’t me; there’s more than one on the beat) kiddingly asked Edsall if he asked UConn basketball center Hasheem Thabeet to practice this week on the scout team. Louisville has a 6-foot-8 wide receiver in Josh Chichester.

“I don’t think they would allow that,” Edsall said of his men’s basketball coaching counterparts. “They’d be too worried that he’d get hurt.”

– Edsall repeated his assertion that Donald Brown will occasionally leave the game. The coach also said he might not like it.

“He gets in a rhythm and he doesn’t want to come out. He wants to play every play,” Edsall said. “But there’s things we’ll have in our offense that Jordan (Todman) and Andre can do for us.”

– Tyler Lorenzen is UConn’s quarterback. That’s what Edsall said when asked about the senior’s interception total.

“He’s our quarterback. We’re moving the ball, we’re scoring points and we’ve got four wins,” Edsall said. “Numbers are numbers.”

Edsall then admitted he’s worried about turnovers, too.

“We do need to cut down on interceptions,” Edsall said. “The only number that really concerns me are the turnovers.”

– Defensive tackle Rob Lunn’s blog has a number of readers, including fans, reporters (I admit to scanning it and sometimes busting a gut), and now his teammates.

Linebacker Scott Lutrus playfully even asked Lunn when he might get the Lunn-Sung-Hero Award from his teammate.

“When you start making some plays and stop taking plays off,” Lunn retorted.

Center Keith Gray said he finally got around to reading it Monday.

“I read it last night for the first time,” Gray said. “Interesting guy.”

“He has a lot of time on his hands.”

– There were five NFL scouts at the Shenkman Center Tuesday afternoon who were presumably going to watch the Huskies practice. They were sitting down for a little lunch with Andy Baylock when us reporter types saw them.

An afternoon with Coach B (the former UConn baseball coach, former UConn assistant football coach and current director of football alumni and community affairs) could go a long way to getting the Darius Butler and Cody Brown’s of the world drafted even higher.

OK, it might not help the players get drafted but Baylock is still the classiest of class acts.

- Neill

I’m watching the very long line of cars leave Rentschler Field as I try and make some sense of Friday’s UConn-Baylor game.

The Huskies won 31-28 but had to survive a number of close (and sometimes bizarre) calls, not to mention a quarterback who is more elusive than perhaps anyone UConn has seen before.

A few quick points:

– Donald Brown has gone over the 100-yard rushing mark in the first HALF of every game this season.

“I think I’m seeing the field pretty well. The offensive line is doing a great job sorting things out for me,” Brown said. “Patience in the key for me. You’re not always going to have big, long runs, you have to stay patient and times it’ll be just a one or two-yard run but then you’ll crack an 11, 12-yard run.”

Brown has 716 yards rushing and 10 touchdowns already this season. He also moved past Vinny Clements (1968-70) for fourth place on UConn’s all-time rushing list and now has 2,433.

– It hasn’t been a good week for the Hochuli family. Sunday afternoon NFL referee Ed botched a call in the Denver-San Diego game and Friday son Shawn was part of an interesting crew working the UConn-Baylor game.

Shawn Hochuli was the back judge at Rentschler Field, part of a hybrid crew of officials from the Big 12, Mountain West and WAC.

The replay official, lest you accuse Baylor backers of any homer-ism, was from the Big East.

There haven’t been many games with as many close, perhaps controversial calls.

UConn coach Randy Edsall was livid for much of the game but was relatively quiet after it.

“I have no comments whatsoever about the officials,” Edsall said. “I can’t afford to pay a fine.”

I’m of the opinion that none of the calls were that horrible.

The safety that Julius Williams appeared to score when he tackled Baylor QB Robert Griffin in the end zone was the most controversial but wasn’t that egregious.

Don’t forget, QB’s are given forward progress on their sacks. When Griffin is first hit, his feet are in the end zone but the ball is pretty close to the line. The fact that he’s dragged down in the end zone and the ball is in the end zone when he’s tackled doesn’t necessarily matter. If the official determined that Griffin’s forward progress was to the 1-inch line (and that he was pushed back, not went back to avoid the hit) then the call might be correct.

And from the replay official’s view, I’m not sure he can review that judgment call. All he can look at is where the ball was when Griffin was first hit.

The play looked like a clear safety but I’m not sure fans should be killing the refs over it.

Now, a number of the other calls probably were wrong.

The interference that Baylor was called for when Jasper Howard fielded that final punt? Howard was hit by his own guy and I don’t think he was “blocked” into him.

The officials called it on Baylor’s No. 26. That guy was no where near the play (I don’t think he was even on the field). At best _ and we’re giving the officials a big break _ it was No. 21 or No. 12.

The fumble at the end of the first half that wasn’t? Another poor call.

UConn’s Terry Baltimore strips the ball from Baylor’s Joe Bennett before he goes down. UConn should have been given a chance to run a play _ probably a field goal attempt.

How that one stood up to official review is beyond me.

There were a number of other iffy ones _ the spot on Griffin’s third-down scramble when he appeared to slide…a number of could-have-been late hits on the sidelines both ways…etc.

The one call that was overturned, Baylor tight end Justin Akers‘ first touchdown, was blown by the on-field officials and ruled incomplete. The man in the booth, Charles Philips, corrected that one.

– I might have more later but the traffic has cleared and I’m ready to sleepwalk (drive) home.

- Neill

Greetings from Rentschler Field and lovely town of East Hartford. A couple of notes to pass along before kickoff between Baylor and UConn.

– RB Andre Dixon and DE Lindsey Witten are in uniform and seemingly ready to go. Don’t know how much they’ll play.

– There are 17 NFL scouts here tonight from 13 teams.

Some are locals, three from the Patriots and one from the Giants.

Miami Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland is here. He’s a graduate and former kicker at Baylor, giving him more than one reason to come.

Eyes are probably on Darius Butler, Cody Brown and company, as well as perhaps Baylor freshman QB Robert Griffin (though he might not be a QB in the NFL).

- Neill

UConn is looking for some help Friday. Here’s the release:

EAST HARTFORD _ The University of Connecticut Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and the Red Cross Charter Oak Chapter of Connecticut will be collecting financial donations from fans at Friday’s UConn vs. Baylor football game to benefit those that were affected during the hurricane season of 2008.

UConn student-athletes will be at the gates of Rentschler Field as fans enter the game, which begins at 8 p.m. Donations can be in the form of cash or checks made payable to the “American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund”.