The Daily Campus and UCTV mutually coexist for 364 days a year. They’re almost forced to, in some regard, as two of the campus’s premier student media outlets.
Saturday is the exception.
A brief but bitter rivalry — one not short of bad blood on either side — will be reborn when the 14th annual Pearlman Cup kicks off at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Morrone Stadium.
“I’ve never stepped foot in a UCTV meeting,” senior leader Brayden Gorski said. “I’ve never stepped foot in a WHUS meeting. I’m loyal to The Daily Campus until the day I walk off this campus. This club means everything to me. The win we got last year brought so much joy to my heart.”
For the first time in its 14-year history, the long-lauded Pearlman Cup won’t be played on a Sunday. And, more importantly, for the first time ever, The Daily Campus will defend “The Cup” from UCTV after winning in overtime last fall.
“Got a really important win last year,” captain Thaddeus Sawyer said. “That doesn’t matter anymore. We have to focus on what’s in front of us and going out, getting another one.”
The hostilities between these two programs are well documented. The bad feelings. The spite. It’s what’s fueled the powder keg nature of this perpetual back-and-forth for years.
“There’s a lot of emotion in this, no doubt,” Sawyer said. “But, at the end of the day, we can’t be worried about what the other side is doing, because the only way we’re going to win is if we execute on offense, defense and special teams.”
The over decade-long drought that subjected The Daily Campus to ceaseless teasing and name-calling suddenly snapped when Sawyer rumbled into the endzone in overtime last October, which didn’t help relations, either.
Yes, The Daily Campus is 1-12 overall. Yes, it took extra time for The Daily Campus to notch its first win in the series last year. Yes, The Daily Campus has a much smaller roster — both figuratively and literally. But The Daily Campus, personified in Sawyer’s rollicking nature, has proven its resiliency since it came oh-so-close to winning in 2024. It’s looking to capitalize on that consistency this year.
“We’ve been practicing,” Sawyer said. “We know we’re good. We know we have some good players; they’re going to have some good players, too. We have to trust what we’ve been doing.”
Sawyer and star wide receiver Elliot Koplas will again lead The Daily Campus, which is looking for its second consecutive Pearlman Cup win and third Pearlman Series win (counting the Pearlman Jam, a basketball game played in April each year) in four tries.
“We have a lot of multifaceted players,” Sawyer said. “Elliot, you can split him out wide, you can put him under center, he’s going to be strong defensively.”
Spunky wide out James Badeau, often referred to as the heartbeat of the team, is also good-to-go, as are venerable pieces Gorski, Connor Lafferty and Patrick Minnerly, giving The Daily Campus a deep and experienced roster heading into Saturday.
“He’s a gamer,” Sawyer said of Badeau. “I trust him to go out there and execute when it really matters under the bright lights.”
How The Daily Campus’ depth steps up against the uber-talented back end of the UCTV defense could key in determining the outcome of UConn’s richest on-campus rivalry.
“Brayden has some speed and he has previous experience in this game,” Sawyer said of Gorski. “Anytime you can bring that kind of experience back — retention is really important, and I think retention is going to be one of our greatest strengths.”
This band of misfits, for so long the victims of losing, play with a great deal of passion for one another and are prepared to go to extremes to win.
“The scrappy bunch we have with that chemistry,” Gorski said, “it’s just huge. It’s going to play a big factor on Saturday because UCTV, a lot of egos there, not sure if they can play together.”