EAST HARTFORD – The UConn football team will take Saturday’s ugly win, especially after disappointing losses two weeks in a row.
Favored by more than three touchdowns entering the matchup with Ball State, a team ranked in the basement of the FBS with a first-year head coach, UConn had command early and held on until it got dangerously close to disaster. Fans were on edge in the fourth quarter as the Cardinals made big passing plays and drove down the field for a touchdown that made it a seven-point game with three and a half minutes to go.
It was similar to what happened at Syracuse in Week 2 and the Huskies desperately needed their offense to run time off the clock. Cam Edwards answered the bell on a 3rd-and-9 option play, running 67 yards into the end zone, but there was a minute and 50 seconds left in regulation and the UConn defense has been porous in two-minute drills.
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While it didn’t end up mattering because Skyler Bell recovered the ensuing onside kick, the Huskies made it all too easy for Ball State to drive 65 yards in 90 seconds and make the two-point conversion to cut the deficit to six.
“We have not yet gotten a stop this season in a two-minute situation, so that cannot continue to go on. It makes a game that shouldn’t have been close, close. That’s my No. 1 concern and we’ll get it broken down and figured out and corrected,” head coach Jim Mora said.
Ball State hadn’t scored a touchdown against an FBS opponent until Saturday. The Cardinals outgained UConn on offense, 404 total yards to 398, and had more success through the air than they’ve had all season with 228 yards through the air.
On the final touchdown play, the Huskies had receiver Dahya Patel stood up at the 5-yard line. There were seven UConn players surrounding him, holding him up to take as much time off the clock as they could before the referee whistled the play dead. But the whistle never came and the Cardinals joined the scrum, pushing the pack of Huskies into the end zone with Patel and the ball in the center.
“I’m in (the locker room) and I’m talking to the players, we just won a game and everyone’s excited and I could hear the defensive guys. They were pissed,” Mora said. “They were pissed and they were embarrassed by that last play, where they just got bullied into the end zone. They got bullied into the end zone, there’s no other way of saying it. And we all take that very personally, starting with me and (defensive coordinator Matt Brock) and every coach and every player. At least they take it personal. If they didn’t take it personal, it’d be a real difficult time getting it fixed.”
UConn had to replace nine starters from a defense filled with veterans and long-time Huskies this offseason. They brought in talent, a number of older, experienced players, and didn’t anticipate there being a significant drop-off from last year’s nine-win team.
Mora said they looked soft up the middle in the season-opening victory over Central Connecticut State, and there was noticeable improvement as they diced up the Syracuse offensive line in Week 2. But the Huskies were exposed in the fourth quarter of that game and came out with a disappointing effort last week at Delaware.
“It’s really bothersome. It is. I thought that we’d play better on defense at this point in the season,” Mora said. “Thought there might be some growing pains as we assembled nine new starters, but I didn’t think that it would be like this, especially at critical moments. I think what’s really disappointing for me is that we work so hard on our two-minute stuff. So maybe we’re not doing the right things as a coaching staff, so we have to look at that. And I’m not second-guessing Matt, I’m saying us as a coaching staff, me – am I doing the right thing in our two-minute drills, putting our defense in the right situations to learn so they can go out there on Saturdays and perform the way they should perform? But it’s very disappointing.”
Neider with the top play of the weekend! pic.twitter.com/ThY2qH1UYD
— UConn Football (@UConnFootball) September 21, 2025
Top play of the weekend
When she heard him get asked a question about receiver John Neider, Mora’s wife, Kathy, raised her hand from the perimeter of the post-game press conference room.
“A couple weeks ago she told me late at night, she said, ‘You should get the ball to John Neider more, I think he’s a really good player,’” Mora said. “She was right.”
Neider only made one catch on Saturday but he only needed one hand to make it. It was 4th-and-8 and he gained 26 yards, setting up UConn’s first touchdown of the game. The Milford native, who was named Gatorade CT Player of the Year in 2022 at Jonathan Law and walked-on as a quarterback, has made highlight plays three weeks in a row, throwing a touchdown pass on a trick play at Syracuse and making some tremendous catches at Delaware.
His catch on Saturday was good enough for the No. 1 spot on Sportscenter’s top plays of the weekend.
“John Neider is a special kid,” Mora said. “We all have a lot of trust in him, faith in him and it’s kind of been a reserve trust and reserve faith like, is it really real? And the last three weeks really – he had the touchdown pass against Syracuse, he had a couple great catches last week and an amazing catch today – and then it’s the unseen things he does. The blocking aspect of it, the special teams stuff. You just love those stories. You love to see kids from this state play at this university and doing really good things.”
One catch shy of a record
Skyler Bell couldn’t think of a time in his life where he had 14 touches in a game as a receiver. Until Saturday. With 113 yards and a touchdown on 14 catches, he came one catch shy of the program’s single-game record for receptions which was set at 15 by Geremy Davis against Memphis in 2013.
Outside of Bell, only Reymello Murphy had multiple catches (two for six yards).
“We lost Thai Bowman early in this game, he was going to be a big part of the plan. Juice Vereen wasn’t able to play, he was gonna be a big part of the plan. We have to continue to try to get the ball to Reymello. Shamar (Porter) came up with that one catch for 33 yards on 4th down,” Mora said. “You would like to see a little bit more equal distribution, yet you still want to see Skyler as the guy that’s the main target because he’s a heck of a player.”
Special guests
UConn welcomed back its 1965 football team, which was responsible for the program’s first-ever win over Yale, and several members of the 1975 group as it celebrated its 50th anniversary. … The reigning national champion UConn women’s basketball team was introduced on the field with the trophy during a timeout in the first quarter and heard the loudest ovation of the day to that point.
