University of Connecticut Athletics
Huskies Suffer First Loss of the Season to Boston College
9/13/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
EAST HARTFORD, CT (September 13, 2003) – Running back Derrick Knight rushed for 170 yards and quarterback Quinton Porter threw for two touchdowns as Boston College defeated Connecticut, 24-14, before a record crowd of 40,000 at Rentschler Field Saturday.
The loss, UConn’s first after a six-game winning streak dating back to last season, drops their record on the season to 2-1. The Eagles improve to 2-1 with the win.
The game started off promising for the Huskies as they took the opening kickoff and marched 87 yards in 11 plays, scoring on a 13-yard pass from junior quarterback Dan Orlovsky (Shelton, CT) to sophomore running back Terry Caulley (Lusby, MD). However, the lead was short lived as Boston College, on the very next possession, tied the score on an eight-yard scoring run by Horace Dodd. After UConn was forced to punt, Boston College took the lead for good when Porter hit Jason Lilly with a 25-yard scoring strike. The score gave the Eagles a 14-7 lead with just 20 seconds remaining in the initial quarter.
Midway through the second period, Connecticut marched from its own 37 to the Eagle 15, but the drive stalled and freshman place kicker Matt Nuzie (Trumbull, CT) missed a 34-yard field goal wide left with 9:57 to play before intermission and the Huskies continued to trail, 14-7. The teams traded punts throughout the second quarter before UConn marched to the BC 34, but again the Husky drive stalled and they were forced to punt. It appeared the Huskies would enter the half down 14-7, but Knight raced 34 yards on a key third down, setting up Sandro Sciortino’s 40-yard field goal as time expired in the first half.
The Eagles started the second half in similar fashion to the first, taking the second-half kickoff and scoring on a 29-yard pass from Porter to David Kashetta. With UConn trailing 24-7, the Huskies made a move to get back in the game. Junior linebacker Alfred Fincher (Norwood, MA) intercepted Porter and returned it 26 yards to the Eagle 20. Five plays later, Orlovsky hit junior wide receiver Matt Cutaia (Webster, NY) with a four-yard scoring strike, bringing the Huskies to within 24-14. Unfortunately, it was as close as the Huskies would get. On Connecticut’s next possession, Nuzie missed another 34-yard field goal, and UConn couldn’t score again.
Caulley had another solid day in the UConn backfield. He rushed for 99 yards on 20 carries, which stops his streak of consecutive 100-yard rushing games at six. Caulley also had his school record-tying streak of eight games with a rushing touchdown snapped. Orlovsky finished the game with 26 completions in a career-high 55 attempts, but was intercepted twice. He threw for 256 yards in the contest. Linebackers James Hargrave (Soph., Pleasantville, NJ) and Maurice Lloyd (Jr., Daytona Beach, FL) led the UConn defense with 12 and 11 tackles respectively.
The Huskies return to action next Saturday, September 20, when they travel to Amherst, NY to face Buffalo. Kickoff is set for 6:00 p.m.
CONNECTICUT QUOTES
Head Coach Randy Edsall:
When you play a team like Boston College that is like a Top 25 type caliber team, you can not go out and make the mistakes that we did and not execute and expect to win.
We competed hard, but we’re not a talented enough team to go out and make the mistakes we made and expect to go out and beat a team like Boston College. We’re not in this just to compete. We’re in this to win. We could be a very talented team.
We can’t afford to give six points away in the kicking game.
We have to be able to establish the run. They controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides. That’s something I said coming into the game.
I don’t want to throw the ball 55 times and rush only 34. I don’t want to do that. I don’t think that gives us the type of balance that we need. That keeps the defense out on the filed longer than it has to be.
Competing isn’t what it’s all about – winning is what it’s all about.
I think you saw the excitement today. This was a great atmosphere.
Matt Nuzie
What coach said after the first miss: “Just technical stuff that I came across the ball too much. Keep your head up – you’re going to get another one.”
It’s nothing you ever want to go through – letting your team down . . . letting your whole state down. You’ve just got to move on. Mentally I was fine when I was out there. I was able to block everything out. I felt good out there. I’ll just watch it on tape and see what happened.
Dan Orlovsky
Both teams have respect for each other. The past two seasons they’ve gained respect for us but until we come out and beat them they won’t respect us as much as we would like.
I think this one hurt a little more than last year because last year nobody expected us to win – they didn’t give us a shot. This year we thought we could win – I thought we could win. All of us thought we could win. I thought we should have won. We just didn’t make plays that we needed to make. It came back to haunt us.
Our philosophy is to take things one play by one play. I missed some passes. We had some drops. It’s going to happen in football. We’re not perfect. We’re human. If it happens, we move onto the next play and get it out of our memories.
BOSTON COLLEGE QUOTES
Head Coach Tom O’Brien:
We’re happy with our effort today. It was a tough game and Randy has done a great job here. They have a good football team but I was very proud of our team. [UConn] came right down the field and scored on us. We missed some tackles and had some bad things happen to us on defense, but then we kept our composure and came back. We played a solid football game, with the exception of the turnover in the third quarter.
When they started off the game, they had a lot of quick passes and short passes to try and negate the pass rush. We were eventually able to get a little bit of a pass rush, but not on all of the 50-60 pass attempts they had. That’s a tough day, when you have 89 plays and probably 60 of them are passes, for the defensive line.
We were very concerned with their tailback. He’s better than any back we’ve seen this year, at Wake or Penn State. He causes a lot of problems. I think their quarterback is very good. He does a great job. You can see his experience come through. He checks at the line of scrimmage. He checks back. He’s excellent. Those two kids can beat you on offense and their defensive front is impressive. Those players have been around, some of them are three to four year starters. I think they’ve done a hell of a job.
Quinton Porter:
They’re a good team. There’s no doubt about it. We’ve played some good teams and they definitely deserve some respect. They’re ready to be a BIG EAST team, as far as I’m concerned. They should be right in the middle of the pack in the BIG EAST.
Regarding the response after UConn’s first score: Any time you’re away, that’s what you have to do. You have to shut them down but give credit to them, they came out firing. We knew we had to come out firing as well and then our defense picked it up from there.
Derrick Knight:
Getting no touchdowns doesn’t concern me, getting the W concerns me. I think rushing for 170 yards put my team in a position to win and it’s a great contribution from the offense. It’s a great tribute to our linemen. I think if I keep producing the way that I am, the scores are going to come. I’m not too worried about it.
Play at the end of the first half: When I was grinding it out, I saw the split and I was trying to break away for the score. I should’ve been focused on the clock a little bit but we were so far away that it wasn’t even something we talked about in the huddle. It didn’t cross my mind until I got down into field goal range and then we got a quick timeout.
Caulley is a very good running back, very shifty and very elusive. I was impressed with him. He’s a good tailback and I wish him the best of luck for the rest of the season.
