Tim Boyle will make his first start Saturday against USF, five games into his college career. And T.J. Weist, his quarterbacks coach for the first month of the season, is now the head coach, the interim replacement for Paul Pasqualoni, who was fired last week.
A lot of firsts for the Huskies, and hopefully in there somewhere is their first win.
Speaking with the media Tuesday, Weist said that he's not second-guessing the decision to turn to Boyle, a true freshman, even though Chandler Whitmer had been the team's starter since last season.
"We made the decision [to go to Boyle] at the right time, we felt," Weist said, via the Hartford Courant. "I'm not going to look back and say we wish we had done it another way. …
"Tim is ready," Weist continued, giving three reasons. "One is maturity. You have to be mature to handle situations on and off the field. As a quarterback, it's twice as much. You've got handle the pressure, the media, expectations of leading the offense.
"Two, he shows a presence on the field in practice and scrimmage situations. He has a command of the offense, not just from an intelligence standpoint, but a mentality and decision-making standpoint. That's probably the biggest thing for us. Third is his intelligence. It's not a simple game plan and we can't lighten the load so much because we've got to win a game."
Those are three pretty good reasons and the silver lining to this dark cloud of a season is that there's really on pressure on Boyle. While it would be nice to win a game, it won't decide whether the Huskies win the American Athletic Conference or qualify for a major bowl game. Those dreams died last month. The upside to 0-4 is that young players like Boyle can be given a chance to succeed, something that might not come immediately for a player who was in high school six months ago.
One person who doesn't seem at all concerned about that transition: Boyle.
"I want to play football. I'm a football player," he said. "I didn't come to UConn to redshirt my freshman year. I came here to play. I'm happy where I am right now. I'm not really worried about the fifth year."
If nothing else, UConn's season just got interesting. The Huskies host USF Saturday at noon at Rentschler Field.
