The Huskies kick off their 2018 season with defending conference champion UCF. (Amar Batra/The Daily Campus)
The American released UConn football’s 2018 conference schedule on Wednesday, filling out the rest of UConn’s 2018 dates. The schedule features marquee home matchups against UCF, Cincinnati and UMass and a tough front half of the season.
UConn already had out-of-conference agreements set with Boise State and Syracuse for road games and Rhode Island and UMass for home games, but the rest of the eight-game conference schedule was just filled out.
Take a look at the 2018 schedule by clicking on the link below. The season opener is set for August 30 and spring ball is right around the corner!#UConnNation
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— UConn Football (@UConnFootball) February 13, 2018
UConn will open the season on Aug. 30, the first week of the fall semester, hosting the reigning undefeated national champions of UCF on a Thursday night. Next the Huskies will head out to Idaho to face Boise State, who won the Mountain West in 2017 and defeated Oregon in the Las Vegas Bowl.
The next three weeks on the schedule will be big ones, as UConn will take on three rivals: Rhode Island, Syracuse and Cincinnati. The Huskies will host Rhode Island, a traditional rival from UConn’s Division I-AA days, in week three.
UConn played the Rhodies every year from 1946 to 2000 as part of the Yankee Conference and the Atlantic 10, but the rivalry went by the wayside when UConn joined the Big East. UConn and Rhode Island have played twice since then, the last time in 2009.
UConn will then head to the Carrier Dome to take on Syracuse, fulfilling their end of the home-and-home that began in the 2016 season where Syracuse beat UConn 31-24. The Huskies will then head back home to face Cincinnati, attempting to avenge a 22-21 loss on the final game of the season last year. They will next pay Memphis a visit in week six before taking a bye week.
After the bye, UConn will head to Tampa to take on South Florida before returning home to face regional rival UMass in a likely homecoming matchup on Oct. 27.
The Huskies will travel to Tulsa in week 10, followed by SMU and East Carolina at home before finishing up their 2018 schedule in Rentschler against Temple for senior day.
The full schedule can be found on their website.
Luke Swanson is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email at luke.swanson@uconn.edu.
