This in from UConn:

STORRS, Conn. – The bracket has been set for the 2014 Puerto Rico Tip-Off and the defending NCAA Champion UConn Huskies will open the holiday tournament against College of Charleston on Thursday, Nov. 20, at 12:30 p.m. (EST) at Coliseo Roberto Clemente (capacity: 10,000) in San Juan. The game will be televised on ESPNU.

The eighth annual Puerto Rico Tip-Off will be played on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, Nov. 20, 21 and 23. Additional schools competing in the early-season tournament are Boston College, Dayton, George Mason, New Mexico, Texas A&M and West Virginia. The three-day, 12-game  event will be televised by ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3. The final two Puerto Rico Tip-Off contests on November 23, including the championship game, will be showcased on ESPN2.

In the opening Puerto Rico Tip-Off games on November 20, Texas A&M will play Dayton at 10:30 a.m. (EST), followed by the UConn-Charleston game at 12:30 p.m. – both games will air on ESPNU.  The evening session on Thursday begins at 5 p.m. (EST) with New Mexico facing Boston College on ESPN2, followed by George Mason meeting West Virginia on ESPNU at 7:30 p.m. Locally, San Juan is on Atlantic Standard Time, one hour ahead of Eastern Time.

The losers of the opening two games will meet on Friday, Nov. 21, at noon (EST), while the winners will play in the first semifinal at 2:30 p.m. The second semifinal will begin at 5 p.m., while the second consolation game starts at 7 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 22, will be an off-day, with four games scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 23, including the championship game at 6:30 p.m. (EST).

UConn is 2-0 all-time against College of Charleston, defeating the Cougars, 68-52, on Nov. 24, 1990, in Gampel Pavilion and 77-60 on Dec. 27, 1995, in Charleston. Against the remainder of the teams in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, the Huskies are 0-2 against Dayton, 2-1 against Texas A&M, 55-35 against Boston College, 1-1 against New Mexico, 0-1 against George Mason and 16-5 against West Virginia.

In addition to NCAA Champion Connecticut (American Athletic), Elite 8 participant Dayton (Atlantic 10) and Mountain West postseason champion New Mexico played in the 2014 NCAA Tournament.  Other schools competing in the 2014 postseason were Texas A&M (Southeastern, CBI) and West Virginia (Big 12, NIT).  Boston College (Atlantic Coast), College of Charleston (Colonial) and George Mason (Atlantic 10) participated in their respective conference tournaments.

College of Charleston (2007), Dayton (2009), George Mason (2009) and West Virginia (2010) will be appearing in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off for the second-time. West Virginia advanced to the 2010 Puerto Rico Tip-Off championship game before losing 74-70 to Minnesota.

Charlotte captured the 2013 Puerto Rico Tip-Off as the 49ers upset nationally-ranked Michigan 63-61 in the finals.  In addition to Minnesota, other winners of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off include Miami (Fla., 2007); Xavier (2008); Villanova (2009); Alabama (2011) and Oklahoma State (2012).

For more information, please visit http://www.puertoricotipoff.com/.

Puerto Rico Tip-Off (Schedule subject to change,) 

The UConn Football team gathers around head coach Bob Diaco before breaking into drills at the first practice of the 2014 season.

After having his charges woken up at 7 a.m. with an air horn on Saturday morning, Bob Diaco had hoped to lead his team up the stairs to the outside practice fields for the first time as head coach. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans and forced the UConn Huskies football team to practice indoors.

But when you have one of the finest facilities in the country at the Burton Family Football Complex, going indoors isn’t a big deal at all.

“It’s a great facility, a lot of space, a lot of room, high.” said Diaco. “PAT field specialists were working with the battery. Punters were working, long snappers. We got a look of work done today.”

The biggest difference though was not only how the players look due to the strength and conditioning and nutrition programs but was their retention of what was expected from them during a practice. One of those things was not seeing players with their palms up wondering what was going on.

According to Diaco, it wasn’t a thought.

“They got a better handle on the tempo of practice, what full speed should look like, when they are in movement teaching phase what that should look like and when they are in a truly walk and teach period what that should look like,” Diaco said. “A lot of time you go into full speed drills and people are flopping and flying all around banging into each other. This is not how professionals do their work.”

Diaco’s expectations of the first practice went as exactly as planned. Him and his staff wanted to keep setting the mentality it takes to play winning football.

“We wanted to see the things that cause losing eliminated or starting to be eliminated — 12 men on the field, 10 men on the field, ball security errors, penalties, offsides, things that lack discipline, lining up offsides, not getting aligned, not being in the stance before the ball is snapped. Those were all things we wanted not to see at practice.”

RECRUITS ON HAND

Four 2015 verbal commits to UConn took in the first practice of the season. QB Tyler Davis, LB Connor Freeborn, CB John Robinson and CB Justice Pettus-Dixon all watched their future head coach lead the team through practice.

QUARTERBACK NOTES

As we know, Diaco hopes to name a starting quarterback about two weeks before the opener against BYU on August 29. That leaves approximately two weeks for the competition to sort itself out. He has also said he’ll wants to play two quarterbacks. In Saturday’s first practice, they all got equal repetitions. The team ran 30 plays of 7-on-7 and 24 plays of 11-on-11.

NO PADS JUST YET

Due to NCAA rules, the Huskies cannot practice in pads until the fifth practice of the season which is Wednesday. They will also not have two-a-days until permitted by the NCAA.

CAPTAINS

Diaco would like to see the captains named by the team and would like to do it just before the first game of the 2014 season. My thoughts are that Geremy Davis and Byron Jones are likely to named two of the captains by their peers.

While we never got a depth chart from the UConn Huskies football team after spring practice, we now know what it’ll be when the team takes the practice field on Saturday, August 2.

It’s totally understandable as to why new head coach Bob Diaco waited until now to release it. He only had 15 practices to evaluate an entire college football team.

So as the Huskies get ready for their first practice of 2014, there is still no confirmed starter at quarterback as Casey Cochran, Chandler Whitmer and Tim Boyle are listed as the No. 1 QB. Really no surprise there at all in my opinion.

We do know that Diaco has said he would like to name his QB1 a few weeks into camp so this threesome will be doing battle as there will be at all positions as well.

Besides at quarterback, there are three positions where players are listed as co-starters (OR on the depth chart below). They are Max Delorenzo and Joshua Marriner at running back,  Zach Rugg and Gus Gruz at left guard and Andreas Knappe and Dalton Gifford at right tackle.

Right now, defensively the depth chart is set for a 4-3 alignment. But as we’ve been told over the spring, the Huskies will be switching to a 3-4. So we could see changes there as well.

There is only one true freshman listed on the depth chart and that’s Jamar Summers who is the backup to Jhavon Williams at cornerback. He is the only one listed because he enrolled for the spring semester and was able to compete in spring practice with the team.

It’s still entirely possible that other true freshman could crack the two-deep before the opener against BYU on August 29. They’d have to be awfully impressive to get on it though.

Here’s a full look at the depth chart:

OFFENSE

LT 71 Richard Levy (RSo., 6-6, 305)
62 Thomas Hopkins (RFr., 6-6, 298)

LG 76 Zach Rugg (RSo., 6-3, 285) OR
65 Gus Cruz (RSr., 6-4, 296)

C 73 Alex Mateas (RSr., 6-4, 309)
68 Bryan Paull (RSr., 6-4, 303) OR
70 Kyle Bockeloh (RSo., 6-3, 284)

RG 60 Tyler Samra (Jr., 6-2, 288)
68 Bryan Paull (RSr., 6-4, 303)

RT 53 Andreas Knappe (RSo., 6-8, 300) OR
78 Dalton Gifford (RJr., 6-4, 304)

TE 49 Sean McQuillan (RJr., 6-3, 239)
80 Tommy Myers (RFr., 6-5, 238)

FB 34 Jazzmar Clax (RSo., 5-11, 241)
36 Matt Walsh (So., 6-1, 227)

TB 44 Max DeLorenzo (RJr., 5-11, 210) OR
26 Joshua Marriner (RFr., 5-9, 193)

WR 85 Geremy Davis (RSr., 6-3, 216)
88 Thomas Lucas (RFr., 6-2, 198) OR
5 Noel Thomas (So., 6-1, 187)

WR 4 Deshon Foxx (Sr., 5-10, 173)
1 Dhameer Bradley (So., 5-10, 170)

QB 12 Casey Cochran (RSo., 6-1, 224) OR
10 Chandler Whitmer (RSr., 6-0, 192) OR
14 Tim Boyle (So., 6-3, 216)

DEFENSE

DE 56 Angelo Pruitt (RSr., 6-2, 287)
95 Kenton Adeyemi (RJr., 6-4, 268)

DT 97 B.J. McBryde (RSr., 6-5, 304)
93 Folorunso Fatukasi (RFr., 6-4, 307)

NG 90 Julian Campenni (RJr., 6-0, 299)
92 Mikal Myers (RSo., 6-1, 312)

DE 47 Reuben Frank (RSr., 6-4, 246)
57 Cole Ormsby (RFr., 6-3, 248)

LB 2 Graham Stewart (RJr., 6-1, 227)
10 Cameron Stapleton (RFr., 6-4, 226)

LB 32 Jefferson Ashiru (RJr., 6-2, 230)
54 Omaine Stephens (RSo., 6-3, 223)

LB 46 Marquise Vann (RJr., 6-0, 226)
55 Jon Hicks (RSo., 6-2, 233)

CB 16 Byron Jones (RSr., 6-1, 196)
11 Javon Hadley (So., 5-10, 164)

S 20 Obi Melifonwu (RSo., 6-3, 210)
19 Ellis Marder (RSo., 6-1, 193)

S 22 Andrew Adams (RJr., 6-0, 197)
23 Wilbert Lee (RJr., 6-0, 214)

CB 6 Jhavon Williams (RSo., 5-10, 190)
21 Jamar Summers (Fr., 6-0, 180)

SPECIAL TEAMS

P 42 Justin Wain (RSo., 6-3, 204)
17 Bobby Puyol (RSo., 5-10, 174)
82 Blake Feagles (RFr., 5-10, 205)

K 17 Bobby Puyol (RSo., 5-10, 174)
42 Justin Wain (RSo., 6-3, 204)

LS 66 Dominick Manco (RJr., 6-1, 203)
67 Adam Mueller (RSr., 6-1, 212)

PR 4 Deshon Foxx (Sr., 5-10, 173)
Dhameer Bradley (So., 5-10, 170)
89 Nick Vitale (RSo., 5-8, 176)

KR 4 Deshon Foxx (Sr., 5-10, 173) AND
26 Joshua Marriner (RFr., 5-9, 193)
6 Jhavon Williams (RSo., 5-10, 190)

This probably isn’t the biggest surprise in the world given the fact that the UConn Huskies football team went 3-9 in 2013 but the 2014 version has been picked to finish 9th in the 2014 American Athletic Conference Preseason Poll.

The Cincinnati Bearcats were picked to finish first followed by UCF and Houston. The highest ranked newcomer to the league was the East Carolina Pirates at number 4.

Here’s how the voting breaks down:

I honestly think that the Huskies are going to surprise some people this season.

With new head coach Bob Diaco at the helm, the culture has changed around Storrs. And while the players remain the same for the most part, they are different in that they actually look like football players now.

Diaco and his staff along with the strength and conditioning program have reshaped the entire football team physically and mentally. I think that the bodes well for the long-term.

Here’s the full release from the American:
NEWPORT, R.I. – The Cincinnati Bearcats have been one of the most consistent programs in college football in the last decade. It should be no surprise, then, that Cincinnati has been tabbed as the favorite in the 2014 American Athletic Conference preseason football media poll.

The Bearcats received 17 of a possible 30 first-place votes and had 311 points in the preseason voting of media representatives. UCF, which went 8-0 in The American last season, received seven first-place votes and was second in the poll with 296 points, while Houston had six first-place votes and took third 268 points.

Cincinnati has won at least nine games six times in the last seven years and has reached double digits in wins five times in that stretch. The Bearcats went 9-4 in 2013 – the first year at Cincinnati for veteran head coach Tommy Tuberville, who has 16 starters returning. The Bearcat offense returns starters at quarterback, running back and wide receiver and has an anchor on the offensive line in the form of offensive tackle Eric Lefeld, who was a unanimous all-conference selection last year. The defense loses three all-conference players from last year, but has veterans across the board, including second-team all-conference defensive end Silverberry Mouhon (9.5 sacks in 2013).

UCF was the runner-up to Cincinnati in the 2014 preseason poll, but the Knights were the outright American Athletic Conference champions in 2013. UCF went 12-1 last season, capped by a 52-42 win against Big 12 champion Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl, and finished the season ranked No. 10 in the Associated Press poll. Head coach George O’Leary has 17 starters returning from that team, but will have to replace the 2013 American Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Year as quarterback Blake Bortles declared for the NFL Draft and was selected with the third pick. Linebacker Terrance Plummer, the Defensive MVP of the Fiesta Bowl, leads a group of nine returning defensive starters.

Houston went 8-5 overall and was 5-3 in the American Athletic Conference last year and has the benefit of 19 returning starters and the brand new TDECU Stadium for third-year head coach Tony Levine. While Houston made its name on offense in recent years, it was defense that carried the Cougars last season as Houston led the nation with 43 turnovers gained in 2013. Safety Trevon Stewart had four interceptions and six fumble recoveries on his own and will lead a defense that returns 10 starters. Quarterback John O’Korn was the 2013 American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year after he threw for 3,117 yards and 28 touchdowns.

East Carolina was fourth in the preseason poll with 262 points, just six points behind Houston. Coach Ruffin McNeill led the Pirates to a 10-3 season last year, including a win against Ohio in the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl, but East Carolina has just 11 starters back from that team and faces a schedule that includes two top-10 teams from last year (UCF, South Carolina). Quarterback Shane Carden, who ranked second nationally in completion percentage last season (70.5 percent) returns after he was named the Conference USA Most Valuable Player.

SMU edged USF for fifth in the poll as the Mustangs had 158 points to the Bulls’ 157. SMU saw a streak of four consecutive postseason appearances end with last year’s 5-7 season, but coach June Jones has never had back-to-back losing seasons in 15 years as a head coach. Wide receiver Darius Joseph had 108 receptions last year, good for second in The American, and was eighth nationally in receptions per game (8.6).

USF was sixth in the poll, one point behind SMU. The Bulls went 2-10 in Willie Taggart’s first year in Tampa, but return 16 starters that will be augmented by a recruiting class that was projected as the strongest in The American. Wide receiver Andre Davis returns after he set a school record with 735 receiving yards, despite having four different starting quarterbacks deliver the ball last year.

Memphis was tabbed for seventh in the preseason poll with 133 points. Coach Justin Fuente welcomes 18 starters back from last year, including eight from a defense that ranked 12th nationally against the run last year. Defensive end Martin Ifedi is a contender for national honors after he registered 11.5 sacks last year, while cornerback Bobby McCain led The American with six interceptions despite missing three games due to injury.

Temple was eighth in the poll with 105 points. The Owls went 2-10 overall and 1-7 in The American in the first year for head coach Matt Rhule, a record that belied how competitive Temple was in 2013. The Owls have just seven seniors on their 2014 roster, but have no shortage of top-end talent. Quarterback P.J. Walker ranked third in The American in pass efficiency (150.8) as a true freshman, trailing only Teddy Bridgewater and Blake Bortles. Linebacker Tyler Matakevich led the nation in solo tackles (8.8 per game) and is a strong candidate for national honors.

UConn and Tulane tied for ninth in the poll with 98 points each. The Huskies welcome first-year head coach Bob Diaco, the former Notre Dame defensive coordinator, who inherits a team that won its last three games of the 2013 season. Wide receiver Geremy Davis is a standout on offense following a season in which he registered 71 catches for 1,085 yards.

Tulane has 14 returning starters from last year’s team that went 7-6 as Curtis Johnson’s squad improved by five wins from the previous season. The Green Wave will christen the new Yulman Stadium this season as All-America cornerback Lorenzo Doss leads Tulane against seven teams that played in bowl games last season.

Tulsa was pegged for 11th in the poll with 94 points, but the Golden Hurricane was just 11 points away from the No. 8 spot in the ranking. Recent history suggests that Tulsa will outperform its projection – the Hurricane won the Conference USA title just two years ago and Bill Blankenship has 19 returning starters back from last year’s squad. Defensive back Michael Mudoh, who had 133 tackles last year, leads a group of 10 returning starters on defense.

STORRS, Conn. – The University of Connecticut currently has 21 former players on NFL rosters as league training camps open across the nation this week.

The players range from quarterback Dan Orlovsky, who is entering his tenth NFL season and is back with his original team in the Detroit Lions, to drafted rookies Yawin Smallwood with the Atlanta Falcons and Shamar Stephen with the Minnesota Vikings.

Here’s the complete list:

William Beatty – NY Giants
Tyvon Branch – Oakland Raiders
Donald Brown – San Diego Chargers
Darius Butler – Indianapolis Colts
Marcus Easley – Buffalo Bills
Dwayne Gratz – Jacksonville Jaguars
Ryan Griffin – Houston Texans
Danny Lansanah – Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Robert McClain – Atlanta Falcon
Kashif Moore – Pittsburgh Steelers
Sio Moore – Oakland Raiders
Dan Orlovsky – Detroit Lions
Kendall Reyes – San Diego Chargers
Anthony Sherman – Kansas City Chiefs
Yawin Smallwood – Atlanta Falcons
Shamar Stephen – Minnesota Vikings
Donald Thomas – Indianapolis Colts
Jordan Todman – Jacksonville Jaguars
Nick Williams – Washington Redskins
Trevardo Williams – Houston Texans
Blidi Wreh-Wilson – Tennessee Titans

In addition, there are three former Huskies who are playing North of the Border in the Canadian Football League.

photo credit: uconn huskies

UConn Huskies football coach Bob Diaco addresses the crowd before the 2014 Blue/White Spring Game at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, CT.

STORRS, Conn. – The Greater Hartford Chapter of the UConn Alumni Association will host “An Evening With Head Football Coach Bob Diaco” on Tuesday, July 29 at Rentschler Field. Diaco is entering his first year as the Husky head coach and will be making his debut at the group’s annual football kickoff event.

The event begins at 4:45 p.m. when fans can take to the playing field and have a football toss and get their pictures taken. A buffet dinner will then be served in the Club Level at Rentschler Field with a cash bar and silent auction.

Diaco will then address the group, including a question and answer period.

The event is an annual fundraiser for the UConn Alumni Association Greater Hartford Chapter. Proceeds from the dinner have provided thousands of dollars in academic scholarships to undergraduate students and has funded a variety of alumni and student programming events in the Greater Hartford area.

Tickets are priced at $45 for dues paying members of the UConn Alumni Association and $55 for the non-dues paying attendees.

For additional information or to register, visit www.uconnalumni.com or contact the UConn Alumni Association toll-free at 888-822-5861.

photo credit: ian bethune – sox & dawgs