The Huskies pose with their trophy after defeating Buffalo by a convincing score of 38-20.

UConn dominates Buffalo in International Bowl, 38-20

Donald Brown rushes for 261 yards, defense holds Buffalo's top back to just 25 yards

By: Kevin Duffy

Posted: 1/4/09

TORONTO - Tyler Lorenzen is a quarterback, but, through three quarters of Saturday's International Bowl, you wouldn't know it.

With 5:22 remaining in the third quarter, Lorenzen sold a play-fake, dropped back and calmly connected with tight end Steve Brouse for a four-yard touchdown.

By all accounts, it was a routine play. It was a maneuver that the senior quarterback had pulled off a thousand times throughout his life.

But here's the catch (no pun intended): Lorenzen's four-yard strike to Brouse was his first completion of the entire game. It took him 39 minutes to do something that essentially defines the job description of a quarterback. Given that Lorenzen had only attempted one other pass - a ball thrown behind freshman wide receiver Mike Smith in the first quarter - the seemingly shocking statistic wasn't much of a surprise.

Rather than throw the ball and spread the field, the Huskies (8-5) rode junior tailback Donald Brown, the man UConn coach Randy Edsall called the team's "stallion" and "triple crown winner," to a convincing 38-20 victory over Buffalo (8-6) Saturday in Toronto at the International Bowl.

Brown rushed 29 times for 261 yards, scored a 45-yard touchdown and added a 75-yard scamper - one which set up a touchdown run for Lorenzen - in UConn's second-ever bowl victory. He finished 18 yards shy of the International Bowl rushing record, set two years ago by former Rutgers running back Ray Rice. Brown gained an astonishing 209 yards in the first half, a 30-minute period that Edsall simply called "very interesting to say the least."

The Huskies trailed 20-17 at the halfway mark, thanks largely in part to a host of unimaginable mental and physical errors. Sophomore cornerback Jasper Howard dropped a sure-fire pick-six on the first play of the game, and junior Robert McClain let a potential drive-stopping interception bounce off his chest in the first quarter as well. The drive, which started when Buffalo recovered a punt that hit UConn cornerback Jonathan Jean-Louis at the Huskies' 23-yard-line, resulted in a field goal for the Bulls.

The special teams' mistakes didn't stop there, however.

With 11:36 remaining in the second quarter, Howard misfielded a punt at his own 13-yard-line, failed to pick the ball up, accidentally kicked it into the end zone and allowed Buffalo linebacker Ray Anthony Long to fall on it for a touchdown that tied the game at 10-apiece.

Just three minutes later, with the score 13-10 in Buffalo's favor, redshirt freshman Robbie Frey let a kickoff bounce into the end-zone and decided to run it out instead of taking the touchback. When he fumbled after being hit at the four-yard-line, Buffalo's John Syty recovered the ball, setting up a touchdown run for teammate James Sparks.

"We kind of shot ourselves in the foot in the first half," Edsall said. "All the fumbles and some missed interceptions, but we showed a lot of pride and we did what we had to do."

The second half was a different story. Frey set the tone on special teams by making a sensational play on punt coverage and downing the ball at Buffalo's 1-yard-line with 11:04 in the third quarter. After fumbling the ball five times in the first half, the Huskies did not commit a single turnover in the second.

Instead, they relied on an overpowering running game that featured not only Brown, but Jordan Todman as well. The speedy freshman carried seven times for 62 yards in the second half.

Lorenzen finished the game with just six pass attempts. He completed four of them for 49 yards and a touchdown. The 6-foot-5, 240-pound senior, who Edsall says "receives a lot of criticism," added 32 yards rushing and two scores on the ground. Edsall said he'd miss the leadership and stability that Lorenzen brought to the position.

"The guy's a winner," he said. "Seventeen wins in two years, two bowl games, I'll take that. He's a guy I'd take to be my quarterback any day, a guy I'd want as a coach any day."

UConn's defense - led by seniors Cody Brown, who notched his 11th sack of the year, and Dahna Deleston, who capped his career with a 100-yard interception return for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter - held Buffalo star running back Starks (1,308 yards on the season) to just 25 yards rushing on 13 carries.

"I give them credit, they're a good defense," said Buffalo coach Turner Gill. "I just hoped we could have done more offensively."