UConn Takes Win in Last Seconds Over Akron

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EAST HARTFORD, CT (October 25, 2003) Freshman place kicker Matt Nuzie (Trumbull, CT) hit a game-winning 27-yard field goal as time expired lifting Connecticut to a wild 38-37 come-from-behind victory over Akron before 36,704 at Rentschler Field.

The win improves the Huskies’ record on the campaign to 6-3. The Zips slip to 5-4 on the season.

The Huskies were paced by a solid offensive attack and a sack-happy defense. Junior quarterback Dan Orlovsky (Shelton, CT) tied his own school record by throwing five touchdown passes, breaking the school record for touchdown passes in a season with 27.

UConn registered eight sacks, three apiece by senior Uyi Osunde (Bloomsburg, PA) and junior Tyler King (North Attleboro, MA).

Akron scored first on a four yard run by Bobby Hendry (27 carries, 105 yards, two scores) with 5:23 to play in the opening stanza. Later in the quarter, junior cornerback Justin Perkins (Ft. Lauderdale, FL) intercepted Akron quarterback Charlie Frye and returned it 11 yards to the Zip 41. Five plays later, Orlovsky hit sophomore wide out Brandon Young (Organza, MD) with a five-yard touchdown. He finished the game with four catches for 73 yards and set a career-high with two TD’s.

Akron wasted little time responding as Matt Cherry returned the ensuing kickoff 79 yards, setting up Hendry’s second scoring run. The Huskies marched right down the field behind Orlovsky. He hit senior wide receiver Shaun Feldeisen (Stow, MA) with a nine-yard scoring strike to knot the score at 14. However, the Huskie special teams struggled as Jamie Goodwin returned the following kickoff 100 yards for a score.

After Frye hit Cherry with a touchdown pass to put the Zips up 28-14, Orlovsky and Young connected again, this time on a beautiful 50-yard bomb to inch the Huskies within 28-21 at intermission.

UConn continued to get closer to Akron in the third quarter. Akron took the opening kickoff and scored on a field goal, but Orlovsky responded again. He culminated an eight-play drive after junior linebacker Maurice Lloyd (Daytona Beach, FL) recovered an Akron fumble, by hitting sophomore tight end Tim Lassen (Cheshire, CT) with a nine-yard TD. Lassen has now caught six passes in his UConn career, four for touchdowns.

The Huskies took the lead for the first time when Orlovsky hit senior wide receiver O’Neil Wilson (Scarborough, ON) on a six-yard scoring strike. The five touchdown passes by Orlovsky tied the school mark he set earlier this year at Army. The lead was short-lived as back-up kicker Billy Sullivan put the Zips back ahead 37-35 on a 25-yard field goal with 4:08 to play.

UConn had a chance to win the game with 1:57 to play but Nuzie missed a 46-yard field goal, wide left. The UConn defense gave the offense a chance to win the game by forcing Akron to punt. UConn took over at their own 45 and marched to the Akron 10, setting the stage for Nuzie’s heroics. The key play on the drive was a 14-yard completion from Orlovsky to Feldeisen on fourth and 10.

Junior tailback Chris Bellamy (New Britain, CT) had his third straight solid effort replacing the injured Terry Caulley. Bellamy had 101 yards on 22 carries. Orlovsky finished with 24 completions in 42 attempts for 299 yards. He was intercepted twice.

UConn returns to Rentschler Field next Saturday, November 2, when they host Western Michigan. Kick-off is set for 12 noon, and the game will not be televised locally.

UConn Head Coach Randy Edsall

It wasn’t pretty, but it was a win.  And that’s really the bottom line in our business.  I’m very proud of our football team for hanging in there and doing the things we needed to do to get us in position at the end.  We really kind of shot ourselves in the foot in the first half and even with some things in the second half.  But they really hung in there.

Teams are different – the make up, the personality.  I don’t know what it is.  This team just has a something about them.

Early on in the game I thought they were pressing, I thought they were trying too hard, I thought they wanted to win too bad, trying to make plays.  Then when it got down to crunch time they really kept their poise and did the things and never felt they were going to lose.  That’s something you don’t teach.  You either have that or you don’t….I don’t know how to describe it.  There’s just something unique about this football team.  They’re never going to give up, they don’t think they’re ever going to lose regardless of what kind of position they put themselves in.  It’s nice to be around because you always know you have a chance.

On Nuzie

I couldn’t be happier for that kid.  I put him through a lot this season.  He’s taken a lot of abuse – maybe some of it deserved.  But when he needed to make the kick, he made the kick.  You could see him getting better during the last few weeks of practice.  Hopefully, now, this will be something that will jumpstart him into being a consistent kicker with the leg that we feel that he has.

Dan Orlovsky

On Matt Nuzie’s field goal

During the year, when he was having his struggles, I said to him, “keep your head up because down the road you’re going to make a big kick for this team to win a game for us.”  And that’s exactly what he did, he made a huge kick.  Some may say that was short, but it would have been good from 40.  He did a good job of keeping his head up.

On not getting down when you’re behind

We know we have a pretty explosive offense.  We just try and stay calm and go one play at a time.  Our defense made big stops.  And we realize we’re good enough to move the ball down the field. 

Uyi Osunde

Dan Orlovsky came out their and put together a great drive.  And those guys came through.

How does this game stack up?

It was definitely up there – definitely top three.  Plus it was our biggest win At home in the new stadium.  The fan support was incredible.  The fans really rallied behind us…We can’t thank them enough. 

Justin Perkins

On Akron wide receiver Matt Cherry

Cherry’s a great player.  He’s the kind of player you might see on Sunday.  I tip my hat to him.

This was definitely one of the toughest offenses we’ve played against. 

Tyler King

On Matt Nuzie’s  field goal

When the game’s on the line, I have a lot of confidence in Matt.  He’s been down so many times – the kid just has a lot of heart.  He went out their and did his job.  He really pulled it out for us today.

On the defense’s effort

A couple times we broke down.  But the operative thing today was we bent but did not break.  We refused to break out there. 

Shaun Feldeisen

On Matt Nuzie’s field goal

He’s gone through hell, and he’s a great kid.  Sometimes when you hit the bottom you come up and make a kick like this.  We never lost confidence in him.  It’s just great for him in terms of getting himself back.

On the end of the game

We got some good field position on that last punt return…and we knew that we only needed a field goal.  With two time outs and over a minute to go, we only needed to go about 45 yards.  That should be easy for any offense.

On the 4^th and ten

I’ll admit I was a little nervous, but we figured it out somehow.

On coming back and not panicking

I think it’s just the chemistry we have on our team.  No one ever gets down.  No one ever thinks the game is out of hand and we can’t come back and win it.  In those situations, that’s the most important time to keep your cool and just be able to go out and play football. 

Maurice Lloyd

On the defensive line's sacks

I love those guys.  I really do.  Not just because they came up big this game, but because they let Fincher and Hargrave and me run free like we do.  Tyler King and Uyi Osunde came up big today.

On Matt Nuzie

I knew he’d make it.  The main thing about UConn football is to believe in each other.  And I believe in him.

Akron Head Coach Lee Owens

I was impressed.  It was a gutty performance by Charlie, that was the first part of it.  I’ve never been around a guy who played with so much pain.  I just wish we could have eased the emotional pain that he’s feeling now and that we’re feeling now.  You look at the game and you kind of sensed that it was going to come down to the last 2 minutes.  Everything that happened prior to that you can just erase and then it just comes down to being able to make plays at the end of the game to win.  And we didn’t do that.  We didn’t make a first down when we had to and we didn’t stop them when we needed to on the last drive.  And we had life after the missed field goal. 

If we start to go back and try to retrace everything that happened in this game we’re going to drive ourselves crazy.  It’s a lot simpler for my mind just to sort of say who made the plays at the end?  And it was Connecticut.  That’s game, set and match, they win.

I told our players “I don’t think we didn’t make plays because we didn’t want to, and I don’t think we didn’t make plays because we didn’t call the right things.  We just didn’t make plays.”  And we’re not going to sit around and try to figure out why because we won’t be able to.  We just need to grab each other and pick each other back up, coaches and players alike, regroup and go again.  The next time as players and coaches we’ll find ways to make those plays at the end when we have the chance to do it.

On Frye’s injury

It’s a hip pointer…one of the more painful injuries you can have.  I was assured time and time again by the doctors and trainers that it couldn’t do any further damage to it or slow his recovery time by him playing.  It was all about how much pain he could handle and what we could do to keep it loose….It limited, obviously, what we could do offensively because we like to have him move around and he couldn’t do as much.  Every time he would run you could see that it was a chore for him.

He just refuses to give in.

On sacks

We didn’t protect very well today, particularly against the defensive ends.  Our backs didn’t block their end very well.  We had to change our protection.  It was a mismatch.  Our backs weren’t handling the defensive ends. 

On UConn
They have a good football team.  We knew there was no quit.  We saw how they played Kent last week.  We’ve seen them in other games.  They were going to keep their composure and they were going to find ways to play to the end.  We had to win it. They weren’t going to hand it to us.  We just couldn’t take it from them at the end the way we needed to.  They weren’t going to just buckle on their own.  We couldn’t deliver the knockout punch.  We had a couple of chances to do that. 

Quarterback Charlie Frye
I tell you what, I’ve never played through this kind of pain before in my life.  It kind of made me feel helpless out there.  I know I could have made a lot more plays on two good legs.  I felt like when I was in the pocket I couldn’t move.  Cherry bailed me out a couple of times making some big catches, but it was tough.  It was a tough day for us.

They made the plays when it counted.