Kalieb Osborne ripped off a 38-yard touchdown run to cap a 14-0 lead in the first quarter at Miami (Ohio). Then the RedHawks scored 21 straight points, capped by a Scoop Smith touchdown catch for a 21-14 lead, Cyncir Bowers' 1-yard plunge tied it back at 21, and Brady Stidham's 33-yard field goal with 1:58 left decided a 24-21 Miami win after UConn failed to convert on its final possession.
Jason Candle didn't dress it up. He called Miami a good team, liked the start, and said his young players in those late situational moments "haven't been in those types of situations before." That is the honest version of what this roster is. UConn brought in more than 80 new players, handed all three phases to new coordinators in Nunzio Campanile, Ryan Manalac and Pat Cashmore, and replaced its quarterback, its record-setting receiver and its lead back in one offseason. Nobody around East Hartford signed up for a rebuild. That is exactly why a blown two-score lead stings more than the three-point margin suggests. UConn lost to Miami (OH) 24-21 in Week 4.
Where the offense narrowed and the defense held up
The offense got narrow at the wrong time. Outside Osborne's legs, the backfield committee of Bowers, Kenji Christian and Trey Cornist managed about 66 rushing yards, and Brown and Shamar Porter accounted for essentially all of the meaningful receiving work with six catches for 105 yards. A long way from the week before against Southern Miss, when Bowers, Christian and Cornist combined for 166 yards and ten different Huskies caught passes. A holding call also wiped out a long Christian run in the fourth quarter. Campanile coached Syracuse's quarterbacks in 2024, when the Orange broke or tied 24 program records involving passing or total offense, so a passing game that funnels to two targets in the fourth quarter is not the version of this offense he is building toward.
Manalac's defense had its best individual game of the year from K'Von Sherman, whose third-quarter sack pushed Miami out of field-goal range and whose first-quarter stop on fourth-and-1 was the kind of downhill play the new scheme is built on. Walk-on linebacker Hayden Pegg led the team with eight tackles and broke up what would have been a fourth-quarter Miami touchdown. The unit still gave up 377 total yards, and Esean Carter's line stayed quiet, so this is not a finished product, but the pieces the Huskies expected to lean on are showing up.
What UConn still has not done is hold a lead late. Osborne threw a third-quarter interception, the final drive died on fourth down at the Miami 38, and a 14-0 start turned into a three-point loss.
Syracuse at noon, and an old friend on the other headset
Syracuse visits Rentschler Field on Saturday, October 3 at noon ET on CBSSN, and the model makes UConn an 81 percent favorite. That number is generous for a team that just lost, and it reflects where the Huskies play. They are 12-1 at The Rent across 2024 and 2025, including a 6-0 home slate last year. It also reflects a Syracuse team in trouble at quarterback. Steve Angeli threw two fourth-quarter interceptions against Pittsburgh and was replaced by Amari Odom, following a three-interception game against Cal, and Fran Brown has called it a competition from the beginning without naming a starter.
The complication is history. Syracuse trailed UConn 6-4 in the all-time series through the 2022 meeting; the last time Syracuse came to Rentschler, in 2022, they left with a 48-14 win. UConn's home record and this rivalry have not been the same story.
There is also a genuinely strange wrinkle on the Syracuse sideline. Defensive coordinator Vince Kehres and Candle go back to Mount Union, where Candle played and later coordinated the offense while Kehres ran the defense under his father; Candle later hired him as Toledo's defensive coordinator in 2020, and they worked together through a 2025 season in which Toledo finished second nationally in total defense. They left Toledo the same day, December 6, 2025. Candle to UConn, Kehres to Syracuse rather than following him. Kehres knows precisely what Candle likes to call.
The fixes are not mysterious. Campanile needs four or five different Huskies involved in the passing game instead of two, and Christian and Bowers have to carry enough of the run game that Osborne isn't the whole plan in the fourth quarter. A win here is expected, which is its own kind of pressure, and the way it is won will tell UConn fans more about October than the final score does.
Full numbers and matchup detail are in the interactive guide, and the methodology explains how the projections are built.