BYU vs. UConn Final Score: Cougars Win 35-10
By Mitch Harper
That haunting nightmare that was Virginia last year can now be removed from everyone’s mind. BYU went to the east coast on Friday night to open the 2014 season, and dominated a rebuilding UConn squad in head coach Bob Diaco’s first game under the helm for the Huskies.
Cougars leave East Hartford with a 35-10 win and a lot of confidence heading into Austin next week for the rubber match with the Texas Longhorns in week two.
Quarterback Taysom Hill was the star of the night. The BYU signal caller was in control and confident in the second year of this go fast, go hard offense.
To think where Hill was one year ago for BYU, and where he is now; it’s a night and day difference. Hill threw for 308 yards, three touchdowns, and more importantly zero interceptions on 28-of-36 passing. He also displayed that elusive running he made famous against Texas a year ago. Hill ran for 97 yards on 11 carries.
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Hill never forced the issue. Played calm and made wise decisions from sliding before contact, and throwing the football out of bounds when no receivers were open. It was Taysom’s best performance as a Cougar, and the best game from a BYU quarterback since the days of Max Hall were under center for the blue & white.
The low point of the night was the penalties. The officials in this game lacked control at times and made questionable calls on both teams, but BYU made silly mental errors that kept UConn in the game at times in the second half.
BYU racked up 15 penalties for 150 yards on the night. UConn wasn’t much better with eight penalties for 90 yards.
UConn made a push in the fourth quarter to get back in the game after being down 28-7. The Huskies tacked on a field goal to cut their deficit to 18, then had a 4th & 3 inside the red zone with 6:10 remaining to get within two possessions. Diaco made a questionable decision going for it on 4th down and the BYU defense stopped them. BYU retained possession and the BYU offense put an exclamation point on the game going up 35-10.
Stay tuned for more coverage of the BYU-UConn game here at @LawlessRepublic.