UConn football seeks bounce-back win at Southern Miss on Saturday

STORRS — UConn's showing against Maryland was somewhat expected given the talent gap between the two programs.

The Huskies ' offensive line surrendered five sacks. Quarterback Kalieb Osborne threw for just 156 yards. UConn 's rushing attack managed a paltry 2.2 yards per carry.

By the time the final whistle blew on a 38-14 defeat at home, the Huskies had been exposed in every way a Big Ten opponent can expose a young, developing roster.

But now, first-year coach Jason Candle has six days to turn that exposure into a lesson before UConn travels to Hattiesburg this weekend.

UConn (1-1) will hit the road for the first time this season on Saturday to face a Southern Mississippi (1-1) team that absorbed its own lopsided defeat last week, a 43-8 loss at Auburn.

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Both teams will be searching for different answers after difficult Week 2 outings, but for UConn, the Maryland game offered something that the Week 1 blowout of Lafayette a week before couldn't: a measurement of the work ahead.

"We got enough veteran people here to understand that this is a growth process," Candle said on Monday. "Last week we're the best team ever to step in Rentschler Field. This week we're the worst team ever to put on a uniform. And I get it. The truth is somewhere in the middle. We got to find out where that is and find a level of consistency there and then work to improve."

A big takeaway from UConn's loss to Maryland was the Huskies' inability to create a rhythm running the ball. The offense managed just 67 yards on 31 carries with Osborne leading all rushers with 30 total yards.

UConn's running back trio of Kenji Christian, Cyncir Bowers and Trey Cornist will have an opportunity to bounce back this week against a Southern Mississippi defense that gave up nearly 350 ground yards to Auburn.

But for that to happen, Candle believes the Huskies need to be more efficient.

"I want more plays than what we got, which means we have to be better on third down and on first down," Candle said. "It's all a vicious cycle that you get caught up into. ... We got to play more efficiently. And when we do that, we'll run it a little bit better because we have more opportunities."

Defensively, UConn has been solid in stopping the run in both games, surrendering just 125 yards to Maryland and 64 yards to Lafayette the week before. Where the defense will be tested most on Saturday will be against Southern Mississippi quarterback Ethan Hampton , who Candle coached against when Hampton was at Northern Illinois.

Hampton is no stranger to winning big games, helping Northern Illinois pull off a stunning upset of Notre Dame in 2024. Hampton, along with a plethora of speedy receivers and running backs, is the heartbeat of the Golden Eagles' offense.

"They fly around and they're high energy," linebacker Hayden Pegg said. "They're going to run around. They're going to make plays, and they're a really physical team. It's going to be a great challenge for us."

For a program that is still finding its identity under a first-year coach, this week's response will matter as much as the result. Candle has preached that growth comes from how his team answer early setbacks, and inside the locker room, the message appears to have landed.

"I think we got a lot of guys in there who are underdogs," Pegg said. "That's the mindset you got to have. No one has a doubt in that locker room that we can't bounce back."

Bowers, who will be counted on to help jumpstart a rushing attack that stalled against Maryland, echoed that sentiment.

"We just got to use it as fuel," Bowers said. "We lost and it is what it is. We got to attack this week, be physical, and just execute what we got to do."

Whether that will translate into a bounce-back week for the Huskies remains to be seen. But if Candle's vision for UConn this week holds — that the truth about this team lies somewhere between its best and worst versions — Saturday in Hattiesburg will be an early glimpse of it.