Lightning in a bottle? That would be an exaggeration. More accurate, perhaps, to say that Connecticut football plugged into a 120-watt bulb from 2007 to ’10. Just enough to illuminate a false beacon of hope that still faintly glows today.
The Huskies went 33–19 in that stretch, tying for the Big East championship twice and finishing fifth in the league twice. They did not win more than nine games in any season and did not win a postseason game more prestigious than the PapaJohns.com Bowl. The signature moments were beating a 2009 Notre Dame team that would fire Charlie Weis nine days later, and sliding into the Fiesta Bowl in ’10 at 8–4, having won a three-way tie for the Big East despite being outgained for the season. UConn lost that Fiesta Bowl 48–20 to Oklahoma, and coach Randy Edsall never even boarded the team flight home—he left for the Maryland job instead.
UConn came out of that modest glow-up foolishly fancying itself something of a football school, and spent a lot of money trying to play the part. It didn’t go well and it shouldn’t be repeated, if another realignment spasm shakes the college athletics landscape.
