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* Senior Johnny McEntee (Fullerton, Calif.) -- Walk-on who has played in two games over the past two seasons...gained international fame last winter with his “trick shot” video on YouTube...the video now has over six millions hits. * Redshirt freshman Scott McCummings (Natick, Mass.) -Redshirt freshman who attended same high school as Doug Flutie...had over 2,000 yards of passing in senior year with over 1,000 yards of rushing...passed for 15 TDs as a senior and rushed for another 12. * Freshman Mike Nebrich (Burke, Va.) -- Highly-decorated Virginia high school player who enrolled at UConn for the spring 2011 semester...as a senior, broke the Virginia state record for all-purpose yards with 4,968 and scored 59 TDs. EXPERIENCE ON THE LINE Whoever gets the nod at quarterback for the Huskies against the Rams, will be able to play behind an experienced offensive line. Senior center Moe Petrus (St. Laurent, Que.) has started 39 consecutive games for the Huskies -- and the last 26 at center. Senior left tackle Mike Ryan (Tamaqua, Pa.) returns after earning All-BIG EAST first team honors last year and has started 21 games over the past two years. Junior Adam Masters (Bethesda, Md.) will play right guard and started ten games last year -- the final six at right tackle. Sophomore Kevin Friend (Warrentown, Va.) will start at right tackle and had a pair of starts last year.
DEFENSE NOTES LOTS OF STARTS, STARTERS BACK Connecticut returns on of the most experienced defenses in the country and in the BIG EAST Conference this season. On the defensive line, UConn returns players that started 45 games in 2010 and 93 for their career. The linebackers have just nine career and nine starts from ‘10 returning. The secondary is also very experienced with 45 starts back from last year and 71 for their careers. For totals, the UConn defense has 100 starts returning from last season and a total of 173 career starts.
SPECiAL TEAMS NOTES TEGGART CAREER LEADER IN FIELD GOALS Redshirt senior Dave Teggart (Northborough, Mass.) has connected on all 99 of his extra point attempts during his career -including 36 in 2010 and 47 in 2009. The 47-straight extra points from 2009 is a school record while his 36 from 2010 is third. His 52 career field goals is a school record, which he broke with a 24-yard FG vs. Cincinnati in 2010. His 99 extra points is tied for second in school history while Matt Nuzie had 124 from 2003-06 for the record and Nick Sosik (1990-93) also is second with 99. His 254 career points is second in school history while again Nuzie leads with 259. Teggart’s 25 field goals last year was a school singleseaosn record. He had a total of 14 field goals in 2009 which is tied as the sixth-highest in school history while his 13 as a freshman is seventh. Teggart recorded what is arguably the biggest play in school history in the regular seaso finale of 2010 as he kicked a 52-yard field
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goal with 17 seconds left to play to lift UConn to a 19-16 win over USF that sent the Huskies to their first BCS game in school history. Earlier in the fourth quarter of that game, he kicked a 50-yarder. Teggart kicked a 27-yard field goal in overtime to lift UConn to a 16-13 win over West Virginia on Oct. 29 of last year. He had a total of three field goals in that game and was named the BIG EAST Special Teams Player of the Week for his efforts. Those “final play” game-winners were the second and third of his career as he ended the 2009 regular season in fine form as he booted a 42-yard field goal as time expired to give the Huskies a 29-27 win over USF. Dating back to 2009, Teggart had kicked a field goal in 14 of the past 15 games. Teggart kicked a 29-yard field goal with 1:10 to go that tied the game vs. Notre Dame (Nov. 21, 2009) -- a contest the Huskies eventually won in overtime. Teggart is the first kicker in school history to successfully convert his first 11 field goal attempts. NICK WILLIAMS LEADS THE COUNTRY IN KO RETURNS UConn sophomore Nick Williams (East Windsor, N.J.) has returned two kickoffs for TDs in 2010. Against Pittsburgh he returned a kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown. The KO return came at a key time as the Panthers had just gone up by eight points, 2113. Williams also had a 100-yard KO return for a touchdown vs. Rutgers -- the fourth in school history. Williams led the country in kickoff returns last year with 35.29 yards per return. Williams becomes just the second Husky ever to have two KO returns for a TD in a career -- joined by Tyvon Branch, who had both of his in 1997.
STADiUM/ATTENDANCE NOTES RENTSCHLER FIELD The Huskies moved into brand new Rentschler Field in East Hartford for the 2003 season. Conveniently located within miles of Interstates 91, 84 and 384, the home of the Huskies lies on 75 acres of land donated to the State of Connecticut from the historic Pratt & Whitney Airfield. The stadium, like the former airfield, is named for that company’s founder, Frederick Rentschler. The stadium boasts a capacity of 40,000 with 38 luxury suites in a massive press box tower which helps enclose the natural grass field. A HOT TICKET Swelling interest in the Husky football program as it gradually moved up into BIG EAST play can perhaps be best evidenced by the rise in attendance. UConn sold 28,000 season tickets in 2008 and sold its entire allotment of student season tickets at 4,700. These figures are staggering sums considering that the entire 2001 season ticket base was around 4,000. In 2002, the number reached 11,300 in the final season of Memorial Stadium. The burgeoning season ticket base more than doubled to 24,000 for the inaugural season at Rentschler Field and rose to 28,000 a year later in 2004. UConn reached an all-time high of 32,000 season tickets in 2005. SELLOUT STATS The Huskies have sold out 29 of their first 51 dates at Rentschler Field, including a stretch of 12 in a row. UConn has played to 96.7-pct. of capacity all-time there, drawing 1,963,448 fans, or an average of 38,469 per game.
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