Perusing the college football lines this morning looking to fill out my weekly “crazy parlay to put $1 on for fun”, I noticed something that was both surprising and unsurprising: Yale was favored over UConn.
It’s surprising because it’s an Ivy League team favored over an FBS school. It’s unsurprising because UConn is very bad! The Huskies have been shut out twice, by Fresno State and Purdue. They were blown out by Army, and they lost to Holy Cross and UMass. Their best game: a two-point loss on the road at Vandy, who is also very bad.
Yale, to be clear, is not a world-beating Ivy League team. They also lost to Holy Cross, though they played them tougher than UConn did. They also lost to Dartmouth in overtime.
All of that combined for possible weirdness today in East Hartford, and the game certainly delivered. UConn raced out to a 21-0 lead in the third quarter before Yale scored 15 unanswered points.
After forcing a stop, Yale had it all in front of them.
folks, 0-7 UConn was up 21-0 on Yale but now Yale has the ball and a chance to win. pic.twitter.com/4VXsglJsNe
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) October 16, 2021
UConn seemingly had the game won with a stop to end regulation, only to be flagged for an illegal substitution penalty. That led to some of the most exciting words in football: untimed down Hail Mary attempt.
As we talked about earlier during Florida’s first half Hail Mary completion, it’s really hard to actually even get close to catching one of these. Watching this play, though, it’s almost harder to figure out how Yale doesn’t come down with it.
UConn radio: not exactly thrilled.
As called on UConn radio: pic.twitter.com/kh0VWGpf1W
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) October 16, 2021
In the end, though, UConn won a game! for the first time since 2019! Let’s see how happy interim UConn coach Lou Spanos was:
Yeah, when you’re an interim coach who needs to dodge an untimed down Hail Mary after blowing a 21-point lead in order to pull an upset over Yale, it’s probably hard to go full celebration.