Just when people say, “You can’t” — you can (hat tip to Jim Nantz). UConn football (7-3) stays on the right track with a 37-34 upset win over the Duke Blue Devils (5-4, 4-1 ACC) on Saturday.
In front of a crowd of 38,106, the largest crowd at a UConn home game since No. 15 Michigan came to East Hartford in 2013, the Huskies’ two-minute defense was superb for the first time this season.
“I think if we hadn’t had the failures that we had in the two-minute drives early in the year, maybe we wouldn’t have had the success that we had tonight,” UConn head coach Jim Mora said after the game. “I know that sounds really strange, but there was a calmness and a confidence to the defense tonight that I think was born from those experiences that they had, and they were able to get it done at the end.”
Duke had a chance to tie the game with a field goal and send the game into overtime, where UConn has not had much success. However, the two-minute defense came up massively with Bryun Parham forcing a strip sack on Duke quarterback Darian Mensah, which was recovered by Trent Jones to seal the game for the Huskies.
“I had to go make the play to win the game,” Parham said. “Man, this is surreal. I always wanted to make a play like that, and I finally did it.”
To close out the first half, Connecticut’s defense looked poised in a two-minute drill. Devin Pringle picked Mensah off with 1:10 remaining in the second quarter, which set up a crucial field goal made by Chris Freeman from 45 yards out. With 51 seconds left in the half, the Blue Devils could not move the sticks as the Huskies’ defense forced a three-and-out to head into the locker room with a 20-14 lead.
Skyler Bell had another historic day, eclipsing 1,000 receiving yards on the season while also finding the end zone twice for 13 on the season. The latter is the new program record in a single season. Despite the whole stadium knowing the ball is going primarily to Bell, he showed out on Saturday with a stat line of 11 receptions for 87 yards, including those two house calls.
“That’s what the great ones do,” Bell said. “If you’re great, they’re going to try to find ways to stop you. So, you’ve got to find ways to not let them stop you.”
In addition to Bell’s historic day, Reymello Murphy had the best performance of his career. Despite not scoring a touchdown, the former Arizona Wildcat led all receivers with 110 receiving yards on five catches. Every single one of them seemed to come at a critical moment in the game, with each one of them resulting in a first down.
“He’s great after catch-and-run, contested catches,” Joe Fagnano said. “He can do it all. His route tree is, you know, there’s no end to it. It was good to see him have a big game for us.”
Fagnano continued to shine as one of the top quarterbacks in college football. According to CBS Sports (the graphic is from early in the game), he tied former LSU quarterback Joe Burrow for the most consecutive games with over 250 passing yards, at least three touchdowns and zero interceptions in the last 10 seasons (5). He finished the game with 311 yards on a 27-39 completion rate with three touchdowns.
“It’s a pretty darn good feeling when you’ve got Joe back there,” Mora said. “You feel like you always have a chance, you know? And the thing about Joe that’s so special is his situational awareness in a football game and his decision-making. It’s just rare, it’s so rare.”
Saturday afternoon was a quarterback duel between Fagnano and Mensah. Coming into the game, Mensah and Fagnano were respectively fifth and sixth in the FBS in passing yards, accounting for 43 passing touchdowns and two interceptions combined this season.
However, Mensah would match his season total of interceptions in one game. On his third passing attempt of the game, Kamo’i Latu deflected his pass, which let Parham get the interception in a day that was spectacular for him, finishing the afternoon with 16 tackles, one sack, 1.5 tackles for loss, one interception and one forced fumble.
“He’s our energy guy,” Fagnano said. “He brings the energy, especially on defense, obviously, and he’s a hard worker. Super proud of him, proud of the way he played today.”
Despite Mensah’s two interceptions, he was able to shake off the mistakes with 222 passing yards on a 22-31 completion rate with three touchdowns.
“Boy, that kid is special,” Mora said. “That’s a $4 million quarterback right there. He’s worth every penny.”
Duke’s offense was still tough to stop, but it seemed like the Huskies’ defense tackled better after Mora emphasized how the tackling needs to improve after the win over UAB the week before. Against UAB, UConn had 63 total tackles. Against Duke, that number improved to 77.
“It’s something you just have to constantly work on,” Mora said.
One player who was hard to stop for UConn’s defense was Duke running back Nate Sheppard; the freshman was phenomenal on Saturday, rushing for 100 yards on 16 carries with two touchdowns.
Mora was impressed by the “juice and lightning” Sheppard has, even despite him being the second-string running back on Duke’s depth chart.
Connecticut now leads in the all-time series against Duke, 3-2. It was the first UConn win in the series since 2007. The Huskies are now 2-1 against ACC teams this season, with a win over Boston College and a heartbreaking loss to Syracuse. According to the Hartford Courant’s Joe Arruda, the Huskies have not beaten multiple power conference opponents (excluding the Big East) in the same season since 2009.
The Huskies will close out their home schedule, where they are 5-0, next weekend against Air Force.