Back to Reality
TDL plays horrendous game before leaving with injury; I-Jax nearly leads ridiculous rally but UConn falls in Norman 41-38
Alden Rosario had a sensational game on defense, knocking TDL out of the game in the 3rd quarter and stopping UConn dead in its tracks multiple times.
This time, too good was true.
After an incredible 4-0 start to the season led by unheard of play by junior QB
Tanner Dean-Lowry, it all came crashing down in the Huskies' 41-38 defeat at the hands of the now 5-0, #24 Oklahoma Sooners in Norman on Saturday.
TDL's 1400 yards and 12 TD passes in just four games fell quickly into the background with a record low performance. TDL completed just 9 of his 27 passes for 132 yards, only one touchdown and two INT's.
And the record low ended with a thud. In the third quarter, rolling out to the right, TDL got drilled by
Alden Rosario, who tied a school record on the day with a whopping five QB sacks.
TDL crawled to his knees after falling to the turf, clutching his midsection in pain. He wouldn't return and the extent of his injury is unknown.
Down 28-14 at that point midway through the third quarter, the game looked to be slipping out of reach. After all, it was out of reach only a couple of minutes earlier, as UConn had all sorts of troubles getting the offense going in the first half. Incompletions and inaccuracies galore, little running room for emerging star
Luke Williamson, and another missed field goal from senior
Mike Miller (I believe his fourth already this season) doomed UConn from the get-go.
Though the defense was solid early, including another INT from impact sophomore corner
Shavlion Wade, they couldn't get any help from the offense. Oklahoma would soon find their holes, with star QB
Ashton Overstreet connecting with tight end
Brad Charles on a 12 yard TD, followed by tailback
Elston Alpanaria running for a one yard score, and Overstreet scoring on a ridiculous 61 yard run in which Overstreet broke tackles from seemingly the entire state of Connecticut.
Ashton Overstreet proved how dangerous he is on multiple occasions.
The only person responsible for saving UConn from a blowout?
Marcus Bradford. Of course. The senior linebacker and former UCLA transfer, having the best season of his career, made yet another huge, clutch play, just as he has done countless other times in his career.
Bradford picked off Overstreet as the Sooners were threatening to widen the gap even more. Bradford had a lane and clear field in front of him. A quickly fatiguing Bradford took off, shook off a couple tackles (two at the goal line) and would not be denied in completing the pick six to get UConn right back into the game.
UConn had a chance to erase the lead to only one touchdown at the half, but Williamson had the ball knocked loose by Rosario and scooped up by
Earn DeWeaver on the wrong side of the 50. TDL made the touchdown saving tackle, but Alpanaria ran in another TD a few plays later from two yards out.
Despite TDL's early struggles, he did manage to string a drive together with only 39 seconds to work with and had one shot at the end zone before the break. Busting open, TDL found
Jeff McNeal wide open racing into the end zone to make the game 28-14.
The first drive out of the break was when we saw TDL get hurt toward the end of a 13-play drive that would eventually die out and end not with a TD, but only a field goal from presumed new kicker
Tyler McCray.
TDL was initially replaced with freshman
Alex Paige. Unfortunately he'd toss an INT to backup linebacker
Matt Weber, and Williamson lost another fumble after that (forced, of course, by Rosario).
Luke Williamson had a pair of rare fumbles on the afternoon, which would hurt the Huskies hopes.
Diaco had enough.
Enter the newly exiled
Isaac Jackson. Jackson has always had a knack for playing well in clutch/come from behind situations. Kansas State, 2018. Illinois, 2019. My personal favorite, West Virginia, 2019.
He nearly did it again today.
I-Jax helped his newly minted good standing with Coach Diaco. He was thisclose to leading yet another miraculous comeback.
Overstreet ran in a short touchdown to give the Sooners a 38-17 lead, and Jackson went to work.
I-Jax completed eight of his 13 pass attempts for 217 yards
while only playing the fourth quarter. Jackson led two consecutive touchdown drives, having remarkable success with the deep ball, especially to
Rashad Harris. Both TD drives were punctuated by
Carlton Parker and Williamson runs from a couple yards out. With a couple defensive stops, the gap was thinned to seven points with two minutes remaining (38-31 Sooners).
Even with the Huskies suddenly back in the game, an onside kick or a stop was necessary.
Tyler McCray's first onside attempt would go out of bounds, forcing the D to come out themselves. Despite giving up a 21 yard run to Alpanaria, UConn did in fact force a fourth down, finished with Bradford dragging Alpanaria down for a four yard loss. However,
Ricky Congdan would easily connect on the 37 yard field goal to give OU the 41-31 edge.
With a minute to go, Jackson needed a miracle, which he has pulled off many times here. It took three plays for Jackson to find Harris for a 22 yard touchdown in the right corner of the end zone. The game, and the comeback, would hedge on McCray's second attempt at an onside kick. Though the ball stayed in bounds, Sooner wideout
Jay Copeland fielded the kick cleanly off the bounce and OU would kneel out the clock to seal UConn's fate.
Jay Copeland had no problem scooping up UConn's second failed onside attempt.
With that, we're right back to where we started the season. TDL plays his worst game ever in an important Big 12 game and gets hurt. Isaac Jackson cleans up TDL's mess and nearly saved our butts yet again. We'll see how severe TDL's injury is, but if he's good to go in two weeks against Texas Tech, it's going to be hard to pass up I-Jax one more time.
But we'll see. We have a lot to clean up. Including a messy kicking game, apparently.. two missed field goals definitely made a difference.
Oy vey.
See you back at the Property in two weeks.
Connecticut Huskies at Oklahoma Sooners |
Sep 19, 2020 | 1ST | 2ND | 3RD | 4TH | SCORE |
#8 Connecticut Huskies (4-1 (0-1)) | 0 | 14 | 3 | 21 | 38 |
#24 Oklahoma Sooners (5-0 (2-0)) | 7 | 21 | 10 | 3 | 41 |
Team Stats Comparison |
| CONN | OKLA |
Total Offense | 480 | 417 |
Rushing Yards | 131 | 195 |
Passing Yards | 349 | 222 |
First Downs | 20 | 18 |
Punt Return Yards | 44 | 0 |
Kick Return Yards | 194 | 3 |
Total Yards | 718 | 420 |
Turnovers | 5 | 2 |
3rd Down Conversion | 6-18 (33%) | 7-16 (43%) |
4th Down Conversion | 3-4 | 0-0 |
2-Point Conversion | 0-0 | 0-0 |
Red Zone Touchdowns/Field Goals | 3-2-1 | 6-4-2 |
Penalties | 2-15 | 0-0 |
Possession Time | 16:11 | 15:49 |
Scoring Summary |
FIRST QUARTER SCORING | CONN | OKLA |
3:33 | (OKLA) Overstreet 14 pass Charles (Congdan kick) | 0 | 7 |
SECOND QUARTER SCORING | CONN | OKLA |
4:03 | (OKLA) Alpanaria 1 run (Congdan kick) | 0 | 14 |
2:29 | (OKLA) Overstreet 61 run (Congdan kick) | 0 | 21 |
1:29 | (CONN) Bradford 73 returned INT (McCray kick) | 7 | 21 |
:33 | (OKLA) Alpanaria 2 run (Congdan kick) | 7 | 28 |
:00 | (CONN) Dean-Lowry 38 pass McNeal (McCray kick) | 14 | 28 |
THIRD QUARTER SCORING | CONN | OKLA |
4:49 | (CONN) McCray 23 FG | 17 | 28 |
1:59 | (OKLA) Congdan 27 FG | 17 | 31 |
:06 | (OKLA) Overstreet 1 run (Congdan kick) | 17 | 38 |
FOURTH QUARTER SCORING | CONN | OKLA |
4:52 | (CONN) Williamson 1 run (McCray kick) | 24 | 38 |
1:53 | (CONN) Parker 1 run (McCray kick) | 31 | 38 |
1:09 | (OKLA) Congdan 37 FG | 31 | 41 |
:48 | (CONN) Jackson 22 pass Harris (McCray kick) | 38 | 41 |
Connecticut Huskies | PASSING | C/A | YDS | TD | INT | Isaac Jackson | 8-13 | 217 | 1 | 0 | Tanner Dean-Lowry | 9-27 | 132 | 1 | 2 | Alex Paige | 0-2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | RUSHING | ATT | YDS | AVG | TD | Luke Williamson | 23 | 97 | 4.2 | 1 | RECEIVING | REC | YDS | AVG | TD | Rashad Harris | 7 | 195 | 27.8 | 1 | Jeff McNeal | 3 | 51 | 17.0 | 0 | Ja'Montres Jones | 2 | 32 | 16.0 | 0 | DEFENSE | TACK | SACK | INT | TD | Marcus Bradford | 10 (3 TFL) | 0 | 1 | 1 | Shavlion Wade | 8 (TFL) | 0 | 1 | 0 | Sammie Leonard | 8 (2 TFL) | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Oklahoma Sooners | PASSING | C/A | YDS | TD | INT | Ashton Overstreet | 29-42 | 222 | 1 | 2 | RUSHING | ATT | YDS | AVG | TD | Elston Alpanaria | 19 | 99 | 5.2 | 2 | Ashton Overstreet | 14 | 92 | 6.5 | 2 | RECEIVING | REC | YDS | AVG | TD | LaVont'a Dobson | 5 | 52 | 10.4 | 0 | Jay Copeland | 5 | 51 | 10.2 | 0 | Luke Brooks | 5 | 49 | 9.8 | 0 | Brad Charles | 2 | 21 | 10.5 | 1 | DEFENSE | TACK | SACK | INT | TD | Alden Rosario | 10 (4 TFL) | 5 | 0 | 0 | Earn DeWeaver | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Carlton Rollins | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
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Please sir, I want some more! New #1 corner Shavlion Wade snags his fourth INT in three weeks.
Shav is one of my favorite players on this team. Ratings aren't great yet, but he plays so much better. Especially with Crowder's career now likely down the drain, Shav is our #1 corner moving forward, no matter what happens. He's effectively shut down the top receiver for BC last week (Steven McGill) and his assignment against Michigan (who I believe was Timas Scallion, who only had a couple of catches). It's also nice he's emerging now because our leader in the secondary has been Ross Sinclair this year.. he graduates in the spring so it's nice to have a next man up.
D-Ham is a starting QB at Old Dominion now.. he sat out last year and he's off to a good start this year. He popped up a couple weeks ago in one of the recent NCAA Scorecards when ODU beat Virginia Tech (I believe it was), but I didn't really make note of it. Regardless, looks like he's cleaned up his act with the new school.
Thank you for commenting beast. As I've said a bunch already.. I'm thrilled to bring this back and I'm so excited to keep playing. I'm happy folks like yourself are still interested in this project.
OU might have a better team than Michigan did.. and they showed it today. TDL is an enigma whom which I will never clearly understand.. hopefully he'll come back after our bye but we'll see.