UConn football to play bowl rematch vs. Marshall in Myrtle Beach Bowl Dec. 19

The UConn football team is headed to South Carolina to play Marshall in the Myrtle Beach Bowl at 2:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 19, it was announced Sunday.

The Huskies’ bowl bid is their first since 2015, when they lost to Marshall, 16-10, in the St. Petersburg Bowl. UConn, 6-6, entered this season having won just 10 of 50 contests in the six years since that game (the Huskies didn’t play any games in 2020).

“I’m most excited just for our players and it’s been a long, tough road for many of these young men and from the day I got here they’ve had a goal and they’ve never blinked,” head coach Jim Mora said Sunday.

“So to have the chance to go to a bowl, and a great bowl like the Myrtle Beach Bowl, to play a great team like Marshall. To play together one more time as a football team and have that opportunity to go get a seventh win, which would make this a winning season, is something that I know I’m personally excited about and I can promise you our players are excited about it as well.”

Mora, who is in his first season as the leader in Storrs, brought UCLA to four straight bowl games from 2012 to 2015, winning two.

The 2022 regular season, which Mora said beforehand he hoped would be a “Husky Revolution,” was highlighted by late comebacks over Fresno State and Liberty as well as a clean sweep over the pair of New England FBS opponents, Boston College and UMass. Wins over FIU and FCS opponent Central Connecticut earlier in the season helped the Huskies to .500.

“For me to say that I expected it, I don’t know that I thought about it, but I will tell you that it’s not something that surprises me,” Mora said, referring to the program’s one-year turnaround after going 1-11 last season. “Not as I’ve gotten to know these young men and this staff and people on this campus, it doesn’t surprise me.”

UConn was forced to wait through rivalry week, wishing losses upon as many 5-6 teams as possible, after finishing the season with a loss at Army. As an independent, UConn was not guaranteed to receive a bid. Enough teams did end up losing and, after Buffalo became the last bowl-eligible team with a one-point win over Akron on Friday, there were 80 eligible teams for 82 spots. That left two open for a pair of 5-7 teams to receive a bid, meaning UConn, at 6-6, had clinched one because it finished at least .500.

UConn is 3-3 all-time in bowl games. The last one came after a 6-6 regular season under Bob Diaco in 2015. Before then, the Huskies made four straight bowls from 2007 to 2010 in Randy Edsall’s first stint as head coach. Edsall also led the program to its first bowl game in 2004, a 39-10 win over Toledo with Dan Orlovsky at quarterback.

“It’s a culmination event of a lot of hard work that has really taken place over the past year,” athletic director David Benedict said Sunday. “There hasn’t been a day that has gone by since (Mora was announced as head coach) where he and his staff and these young men haven’t worked tirelessly to put themselves in this position.”

The 2015 bowl game was the only ever matchup between UConn and Marshall, which finished this season 8-4, highlighted by a win over Notre Dame in September.

When he was working at ESPN after being let go by UCLA, Mora was the color commentator for Marshall’s game at Boise State in 2019 and came away impressed by the Thundering Herd’s defense, which currently boasts the best third-down percentage in the nation.

“Just an impressive program,” Mora said as he prepares to learn more. “I know that they beat Notre Dame, and that’s an impressive feat right there. I just know that historically it’s been a really solid program. They play good football, they’re disciplined, their sound, they have good athletes, they play hard. We’ll learn more about them but I know that they have my respect and I believe that they have our team’s respect immediately just because of what we know of their history.”

UConn said fans can purchase tickets from their site, UConnBowl.com, where they will be able to select seats in the UConn block. Benedict is also in conversations with sponsor Avelo Airlines to “create as much opportunity for our fans to get down as easy, efficiently and cost effectively as possible,” he said.

The game will be played at Brooks Stadium, which seats 21,000, on the campus of Coastal Carolina University. It will be broadcast nationally on ESPN.

“I think that we’re headed in the right direction,” Mora said. “It’s still a long road, but it’s an excited road. We’ve loved every day of it and we’re excited about this game and the future of the program.”