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6th ranked UConn beats up hapless Pirates, move to 6-0

From 4:35 in the first quarter on, UConn showed that they are capable of being the best of the nation. With a much-needed blowout of winless East Carolina, UConn improved to 6-0 and will likely climb inside the Top 5 of Sunday's latest AP Poll.

As usual, it was the defense that led the victory.

Once Sam Hall led his team into the end zone midway through the first, UConn never looked back.

Bryant Shirreffs keyed UConn's first drive with passes of 16 and 12 to Damon Mitchell, then hit Jon Haden for a big 24 yard pickup. Redshirt freshman Jeff McNeal punched in the 3 yard TD out of the shotgun on a sweep, 7-7.

UConn's D stepped up, holding Kurt Benkert to only 2 passing yards that drive in a 3 and out. UConn would take over at their own 46, and it took Josh Marriner only 3 plays to get to the ECU 10. Mike Miller's field goal at the start of the 2nd made it 10-7 UConn.

ECU's last sniff of the game came before the half, when Benkert made his way down the field, hitting Quay Johnson and Marcus Craft for 13 and 28, then Anthony Scott for 21, getting closer to the end zone to take the lead.

Uh-oh. But have no fear.

Jamar Summers saved the game with a nasty INT, cutting back in front of Trevon Brown, pushing him to the corner of the end zone, then making a falling catch while holding a foot in bounds. UCaaaaahhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnn football!!

Shirreffs thanked his All-American corner by hitting Thomas Lucas for 14, Mitchell for 12, and Ron Johnson broke off a 17 yard run to set up UConn just outside the red zone. Arkeel Newsome got in on the action with a 14 yard sprint to the outside, but he and Marriner were stuffed on 1st, 2nd and 3rd and goal.

Conventional wisdom calls for a field goal, right? Time ticking away, no timeouts, just get 3 points to send the game to the half up 13-7. Right?

Coach Diaco thought it would be funny to mock ECU for not being prepared. He faked the field goal, and it worked. David Hamilton threw a perfect pass to Alec Bloom for the TD. Instead of a one score game, it was 17-7 UConn.

From there, it was all UConn. Shirreffs heave-ho'd a 55 yard bomb to Lucas, which went for a TD.

As soon as ECU made more headway on their next drive, Quintin Harrell snatched a Benkert pass near the end zone. A 29 yard Mitchell completion set up a Marriner TD, and Shirreffs set up himself with a 7 yard TD run to make it 38-7.

Point is, ECU never stood a prayer. Though UConn allowed a bunch of yards, the scoring defense kicked into overdrive and only allowed the 7 from ECU in the 38-7.

Shirreffs and Marriner had fantastic days, Shirreffs with 221 yards, more than a 60% hit rate and a TD, while Marriner ran for 115 to push his streak to 100 yard games in 5 of the first 6 games this season.

Back in The Property next week is UConn, when they face winless Cincinnati. But that is a huge, massive, military sized problem. If you know why, please join me in being deathly scared. If not, I'll cover it later.

See ya then.

Connecticut Huskies at East Carolina Pirates
Oct 14, 2017	1ST	2ND	3RD	4TH	SCORE
#6 Connecticut Huskies (6-0, 3-0)	7	10	14	7	38
East Carolina Pirates (0-6, 0-3)	7	0	0	0	7

Scoring Summary
FIRST QUARTER SCORING		CONN	ECU
4:54	(ECU) Benkert 7 pass Hall (Moody kick)	0	7
1:42	(CONN) McNeal 3 run (Miller kick)	7	7
SECOND QUARTER SCORING		CONN	ECU
4:57	(CONN) Miller 20 FG	10	7
:16	(CONN) Hamilton 4 pass Bloom (Miller kick)	17	7
THIRD QUARTER SCORING		CONN	ECU
5:45	(CONN) Shirreffs 55 pass Lucas (Miller kick)	24	7
2:33	(CONN) Marriner 2 run (Miller kick)	31	7
FOURTH QUARTER SCORING		CONN	ECU
5:33	(CONN) Shirreffs 7 run (Miller kick)	38	7

Connecticut Huskies PASSING C/A YDS TD INT Bryant Shirreffs 12-17 221 1 0 David Hamilton 3-3 34 1 0 RUSHING ATT YDS AVG TD Josh Marriner 25 115 4.6 1 Ron Johnson 9 27 3.0 0 Bryant Shirreffs 4 27 6.7 1 Jeff McNeal 4 12 3.0 1 RECEIVING REC YDS AVG TD Damon Mitchell 4 70 17.5 0 Thomas Lucas 3 90 30.0 1 Alec Bloom 2 25 12.5 1 DEFENSE TACK SACK INT TD Junior Joseph 9 1 0 0 Quintin Harrell 3 1 1 0 Jamar Summers 2 0 1 0

East Carolina Pirates PASSING C/A YDS TD INT Kurt Benkert 18-26 166 1 2 RUSHING ATT YDS AVG TD Anthony Scott 11 79 7.1 0 RECEIVING REC YDS AVG TD Sam Hall 6 62 10.3 1 Anthony Scott 4 11 2.7 0 Steve Baggett 2 22 11.0 0 DEFENSE TACK SACK INT TD Evrett Edwards 12 0 0 0 Travon Simmons 7 0 0 0 Pat Green 6 0 0 0

Quote: Originally Posted by RoundingThird

Those would both be "home games" for BC. Do one and Fenway and one at Yankee Stadium. That would be cool. Loving the BG shoutout too with the NCAA POTW. He would have 4 INT if I was his coach though.

Thing is, I'm still learning what I can do with the editor to replicate Fenway, if anything. Gillette is already in the game (UMass' home stadium, which is weird because they only played there for parts of 3 years while McGuirk was being renovated.) I'd probably go MetLife anyway.

Quote: Originally Posted by kswgrad2012

If I recall, a 12-team conference would mean 8 conference games. 5 division games + half of the other division. In which case, a BC home-and-home is very doable. Anyway, I've been gone for a week. Got some catching up to do.

But in the AAC, we have 12 teams and I have 9 conference games.

I don't know. Maybe it's different in the Big 12. Or I can fix it with the editor.