Winner could be Big East champ

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Winner could be Big East champ

By JIM BUTTA

STORRS, Conn.-The Big East's newest football member, Connecticut, and its returning co-champion, West Virginia, will meet for the first time ever on Wednesday, Oct. 13, when the blue and gold travel to Rentschler Stadium.

And, the matchup already has some Mountaineer fans anxiously making plans to make the trek into the New England region of the United States.

West Virginia, behind fourth year head coach Rich Rodriguez, is coming off back-to-back bowl appearances and has already been ranked as high as No. 5 in the country by Athlon while the Huskies are coming off the most successful gridiron campaign in school history as UConn posted a 9-3 mark in head coach Randy Edsall's fifth year at the helm.

He has compiled a 24-33 career mark as head of the Husky program but, more importantly, has led UConn to victory in 13 of its last 16 games.

The Huskies ranked eighth nationally in total offense (477.5 yards per game) and 10th in passing (297.9 ypg) as Connecticut compiled wins against three BCS conferences (ACC, Big Ten and Big East).

Offensively, the Huskies should be loaded with the return of quarterback Dan Orlovsky, who passed for 3,485 yards and 33 touchdowns as a junior.

During the 2003 season he completed 279 of 475 passes (58.7 percent) and was intercepted only 14 times which should pose a solid threat to a Mountaineer secondary which lost starters Brian King and Lance Frazier as well as leading sack king Grant Wiley.

Even of more concern to the Mountaineer faithful is the fact that the Huskie offensive line allowed on 10 sacks in 2003-third fewest of any team in the nation.

Defensively, however, UConn allowed 340 yards per game (32nd nationally) and was rated 33rd in passing, allowing 201.2 yards per game. Those should be sweet numbers for WVU quarterback Rasheed Marshall and all-Big East wide receiver Chris Henry.

UConn posted a 1-2 mark against Big East foes a year ago, losing to Boston College (24-14) and Virginia Tech (47-13) and beating Rutgers (38-31).

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