UConn Huskies Nation

Now that the regular season is over, the guessing begins as to where the UConn football team plays its next game.
As one of three teams finishing the season at 9-3, the range of possibilities include cross-country travel and even leaving the country. Based solely on the Huskies’ second-place finish in the Big East, they should find themselves in a Sun Bowl matchup against a Pac-10 opponent (Cal, Oregon or Arizona State). But if the Sun Bowl committee decides to go with Cincinnati, considered a more exciting team and one of three to defeat UConn, the Huskies will look for a spot in the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte, N.C.
“I had the chance to play golf with the Meineke people this summer (at Big East Media Day) and the Sun Bowl people as well,” UConn coach Randy Edsall said Sunday, when asked if he would be willing to make sales pitch to bowl committees.
Charlotte would provide the Huskies with a great regional matchup, facing a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference, giving both high profile and a respectable opponent. The possibilities go from Clemson to Virginia to Wake Forest to Georgia Tech to Florida State.
If somehow that were to fall through, the Papa John’s Bowl in Birmingham, Ala., would be waiting. This is the least appealing option for the Huskies because it opens up the possibility of them losing to a team from what is considered an inferior Conference USA. For all of the progress the program has made this year, a loss to say, Memphis, would validate the criticism of UConn being a product of a weak schedule.
Lastly, the International Bowl in Toronto would provide the Huskies with a Mid-American Conference opponent, either Bowling Green or Miami (Ohio).
“We’ll be happy wherever we’re going,” Edsall said. “The Big East has five bowl opportunities. There are five teams that are bowl eligible. I would just think with what we accomplished this year, people would look at the whole season and see a 9-3 football that was ranked for a number of weeks during the season. ... I think we’ll fare well.
“Whoever wants us, we’re going to go there and enjoy it and enjoy their hospitality and play a whale of game for those people that are going to be in those stands wherever it is.”
One monkey wrench in all of this would be if the Gator Bowl, long suspected to pass on a Big East team, chooses a Big East school (therefore committing itself to the Big 12 for the next two seasons) such as South Florida, then Cincinnati becomes a greater possibility to play in Charlotte. That leaves the Huskies to decide between travel to Birmingham and Toronto.
An outside possibility, according to Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese, is that the conference may trade out of a bowl game in exchange for a game associated with another conference.
“We can; it depends who’s in the game,” Tranghese said. “It all depends on who’s in the game. We won’t even get to this until next week. We have to play out this week. ... Then we’ve got to see who’s where. There’s still a possibility of a trade out, but there’s still some other games to be played.”