This Week
The Big East Co-champion UConn Huskies travel to Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC to take on the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in the Meineke Car Care Bowl on Saturday at 1:00 PM.
Here are the rosters for the Huskies and Demon Deacons.
The Line/Prediction
As of this post, Wake Forest is favored by 2.5 points and the over/under is 48 points. My prediction is UConn 24 Wake Forest 17.
Tickets
As of the time of this post, there are still tickets available. You can get them by clicking here.
Getting to the Game
Here is a weather forecast for the Charlotte area on Saturday. Here are directions, parking information and tailgating policies for Bank of America Stadium. Here is the Bank of America Stadium policies.
BROADCAST INFORMATION
Television
ESPN will broadcast the Meineke Car Care Bowl live nationally. The game will also be available in HD. This is UConn’s second appearance on ESPN this season. Dave Pasch (play-by-play), Andre Ware (color) and Quint Kessenich (sidelines) have the call.
Radio
For the 16th consecutive season, WTIC 1080-AM in Hartford serves as the flagship station for the UConn Radio Network. WTIC is the state’s only 50,000 watt signal and can be heard in 23 states and parts of Canada. Veteran UConn announcers Joe D’Ambrosio (play-by-play) and Wayne Norman (color commentary) return to call the action with Kevin Nathan on the sidelines. The UConn pregame show begins 90 minutes prior to kickoff and is hosted by Bob Joyce. The UConn Football Radio Network also includes WILI 1400-AM in Willimantic, WXLM, 102.3-FM in New London, WLIS 1420-AM in Old Saybrook, WMRD 1150-AM in Middletown, and WLAD 800-AM in Danbury. UConn football games are also broadcast over the internet at WTIC.com.
Last Game
UConn got spanked by West Virginia 66-21. Wake Forest beat Vanderbilt 31-17.
History
The series between the two teams stands at 1-1. UConn went into Winston-Salem in 2003 and whooped the Demon Deacons 51-17 behind the arm of Dan Orlovsky. Wake Forest exacted it’s revenge in 2006 as Jeremy Thompson had an 86-yard interception return for a touchdown in their 24-13 win at Rentschler Field.
Connections:
- UConn wide receiver Larry Taylor and Wake Forest linebacker Stanley Arnoux were teammates at Glades Day High School in Fort Lauderdale.
- UConn’s Terence Jeffers and WFU’s Barrett McMillin are both from Lawrenceville, Ga. but attended different high schools.
- Wake Forest defensive coordinator Dean Hood was an assistant under UConn offensive line coach Mike Foley at Colgate in 1989 when Foley was the Red Raiders’ head coach.
- UConn’s Danny Russell and Wake’s Hunter Hayes teamed at Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
- UConn’s kicker Tony Ciaravino’s family moved to Charlotte four years ago.
Other News:
This is UConn’s second bowl game appearance ever. They won their first back in 2004, when they beat Toledo in the Motor City Bowl.
Six members of the current UConn team appeared in the 2004 Motor City Bowl. Five played sparingly as backups and one, Larry Taylor, turned in one of the game’s biggest plays. His 68-yard punt return for a touchdown late in the first quarter gave UConn a 21-0 lead.
Five other current Huskies (Tyvon Branch, Dan Davis, Ryan Henegan, Danny Lansanah and Julius Williams) saw limited action in the game.
Tyler Lorenzen has been to two bowl games (2004 Independence Bowl and 2005 Houston Bowl) while he was with Iowa State. Transfer Zach Frazer was on the sidelines for Notre Dame in the 2007 Allstate Sugar Bowl. Neither saw action in the games.
Wake Forest is playing in its eighth all-time bowl game. The Deacons are 4-3 in their previous seven bowls.
UConn won a share of the Big East Championship when Pittsburgh beat West Virginia in the final regular season game of the year.
UConn sold out it’s allotment of 12,500 tickets for the game while Wake Forest sold over 20,000 tickets. Wake Forest is located only 85 miles from Charlotte.
The Huskies and Demon Deacons participated in a layup contest at halftime of Wednesday’s Charlotte Bobcats game. The contest was won by the Huskies and was highlighted by a 360° dunk UConn DB Darius Butler.
UConn’s Lou Allen has had his suspension lifted and will be dressed for the game.
UConn DE Marcus Campbell and DT Brandon Dillion didn’t make the trip to Charlotte for personal reasons.
Both teams beat Duke this year (UConn won 45-14 and Wake Forest won 41-36). Ironically enough both teams lost to Virginia 17-16.
UConn has scored a school-record eight times this year on either defense or special teams, the third most of any school in the nation. Wake Forest has 10 non-offensive touchdowns.
Wake Forest leads the nation with eight defensive touchdowns . Connecticut is tied for second with five.
Since the 1978 divisional split, UConn is one of seven schools that have won both a bowl game and a Division I-AA Playoff game. UConn is joined in the group by Boise State, Idaho, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Nevada and Troy.
With 17 wins between them, UConn (9-3) and Wake Forest (8-4) tie for for the second-most wins of any pre-New Year’s Day bowl matchup. The Holiday Bowl between 9-3 Texas and 10-2 Arizona State boasts a combined 19 wins.
UConn is playing a 13th game to a season for just the second time in school history. The only other instance of a 13-game season in Storrs came in 1998 as the Huskies advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division I-AA Championship.
UConn’s 9-3 record thus far ties for the winningest regular season in the school’s 109 years of football with the 1998 and 2003 squads. UConn went on to win a school-record 10 games in 1998 as it beat Hampton to advance to the Division I-AA Quarterfinals.
One key to UConn’s early success in 2007 has been its impressive +13 turnover margin as the Huskies have created 27 turnovers while giving the ball away just 14 times. UConn’s ratio ranks seventh in the nation in this critical category. Wake Forest ranks 15th at +10.
UConn went a perfect 7-0 in 2007 at Rentschler Field. UConn joins the 1993 West Virginia Mountaineers as the only teams in BIG EAST history to complete a season with a perfect 7-0 record at home.The Huskies are 31st nationally in total defense yielding 346.33 yards per game.
UConn’s 22 interceptions are third only to Cincinnati and UCF’s 23 in the nation.
UConn ranks 64th nationally at 158.50 running yards per game allowed.
The Huskies are 11th in the nation in scoring defense, allowing 18.6 pts per game.
UConn DT Zack Penwell is one of 12 FBS players, outside of the academies, who have actively served in the military. He is one of 12 native Alaskans on FBS rosters.
At seven games, UConn is presently riding the seventh-longest home winning streak in the country. Oklahoma has the nation’s longest active string with 17 straight wins at Memorial Stadium in Norman. The Sooners are followed by Wisconsin (14), Boise State (13), BYU (12), Kansas (9) and Tennessee (8). With its current home winning streak of seven games, UConn is tied with Missouri for seventh place in this category.
