STORRS – For the first time in Jim Mora’s tenure as head coach at UConn, it was clear who the Huskies’ starting quarterback would be from the start of camp.
Joe Fagnano, returning for his seventh year of college football, was made available to speak with the media before practices began, signaling his role as the team’s leader. He then took consistent reps with the first team throughout August. Nothing is promised in Storrs, but the clear favorite to win the job held up his end of the bargain and will be behind center when the team opens its season against Central Connecticut at Rentschler Field Saturday afternoon.
“It’s a tremendous honor to be the quarterback for this offense, for this team,” Fagnano said. “A lot of guys counting on me and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I knew coming back that we were going to have a good team, a lot of good players and that’s exciting.”
Fagnano won UConn’s quarterback competition when he first transferred in from Maine in 2023, but suffered a season-ending injury to his shoulder in Week 2. He lost the starting QB battle last summer to Nick Evers, who had transferred in from Wisconsin, but ultimately took over the job as Evers dealt with a series of injuries and he finished the season with over 1,600 passing yards, 20 touchdowns and just four interceptions in 10 games played.
Evers and Tucker McDonald, in no clear order, will serve as backups to start the season.
Dom Amore: No one expected UConn’s Joe Fagnano to be back. But here he is, ready for Season 7
A Williamsport, Pa., native, Fagnano started for the Huskies in the Fenway Bowl and threw for 151 yards and a pair of touchdowns. At that point, he – and the entire program – thought he had played the final game of his college career.
When Fagnano later learned he was granted another year of eligibility, the person most surprised was Mora.
“I don’t have a clue (how it happened), but I’m not going to question it,” Mora quipped a day before camp began.
After Evers went down in the season-opening blowout loss at Maryland last fall, Fagnano was able to start the Huskies’ home opener and, albeit against an FCS opponent in Merrimack, put together a performance that kept the fan base from fleeing. He completed 13 of 19 passes for 328 yards and five touchdown passes, tying the single-game program record that Dan Orlovsky set on three separate occasions.
UConn welcomes CCSU, the reigning NEC champion and an FCS playoff team, on Saturday. The Huskies haven’t won a season-opener since they barely held off Wagner, 24-21, to start a 2-10 campaign in 2019.
“It doesn’t matter how old you get, you still get butterflies (for the start of football season),” Fagnano said. “It’s just a different energy because we’ve been working really from January to get to this moment, so a lot of work has been put in, a lot of time, a lot of effort from all of these guys coming from different places. Now we’re finally able to go out on the field and display that work.”
Fagnano carried himself with a different confidence and maturity this fall. He looks and sounds like a starting quarterback, and his teammates have benefitted from it.
“His first couple of years, just the uncertainty of if he was going to be the guy or not, and then the injuries set him back in terms of his ability to take the helm and be the kind of leader that you want your quarterback to be,” Mora said. “Joe’s not a loud, demonstrative guy. He’s not going to cuss guys out, but he is stern. In order to be a good leader you’ve got to demonstrate what the team’s about, what the standard is, what the expectations are. You’ve got to do it all the time and Joe’s doing that.”
Skyler Bell, Fagnano’s favorite target for game-changing plays last season, was considering taking a significant sum of NIL money to transfer to Michigan when he found out his quarterback had another year. It had some effect on his decision to return.
“It’s good having that confidence, knowing who’s going to be behind center, knowing that he knows what to do, he knows what you have to do. So even if I forget the play or whatever, I could go to Joe and he’ll tell me what I have and how to run it,” Bell said Tuesday. “Having him at the helm is big because he’s smart, he knows a lot, he can make all the throws and he’s fun to play with. He brings energy and he gets the guys going, I like that.”
Bell says Fagnano has come out of his shell a bit since they first met last spring.
UConn running back Cam Edwards (0) celebrates his touchdown with quarterback Joe Fagnano (2) and wide receiver TJ Sheffield (8) during an NCAA college football game against Merrimack at Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. (Jessica Hill/Special to the Courant)
“He’s talking a little bit more, talking some trash to the defense a little bit here and there. You like that from a quarterback, it makes you want to play for him a little bit more,” Bell said. “We told him if he runs somebody over he’s got to talk some (smack) so it’s good having Joe back, he’s done everything right for us.”
Fagnano doesn’t run much. And if the Huskies want to make it through the season without juggling injuries at QB for the first time under Mora, there won’t be any shoulders lowered to plow anyone over.
The 24-year-old pocket passer has taken strides in understanding the Huskies’ offense, reading defenses, knowing where to go with the ball and how to get it out quickly – so he doesn’t have to fall back on scrambling. It helps, too, that UConn was able to return a number of skill position players, like Bell, who he grew connections with last season.
“Knowing the scheme better gives him more consistency, it makes him a better decision-maker,” Mora said. “He’s got some time now, I think he’s working on his Doctorate. He’s got some time now that he can really spend on football. He’s in the office a lot, he’s meeting with (new quarterbacks coach Pryce Tracy), he’s expanding his knowledge of the game.”
“That’s one of the key points of being a quarterback is decision-making,” Fagnano said. “Because you’ve got the program in your hands every play. You’ve got the ball in your hands, everybody’s counting on you to see the right defense, get the ball to the right player. So that’s something I’m always looking to improve each and every day is just decision-making, decision-making, decision-making. And that really comes with repetition and how fast you can make those decisions. A split hair could be the difference.”
