HARTFORD, Conn. _ After back-to-back 3-9 seasons, UConn's ceiling for the coming football season will be only so high. In fact, having lost their top quarterback and most of their starting defense, the Huskies could be facing a 2018 season every bit as challenging as 2017. Six wins and bowl eligibility seems like an absolute best-case scenario.
But although no self-respecting program will ever pump its fist after a 4-8 season, athletic director David Benedict says the Huskies could find "success" in Randy Edsall's second season even without winning a whole lot of games. To Benedict, the most important goal this fall will be progress toward the program's long-term goals.
"I don't want to say I don't care about the record, because that's not an accurate statement because we all want to win," Benedict said recently, "but ultimately if we want to get to where we all do, (progress) is more important right now than what the record is."
In asking more than a dozen people in and around the UConn program how they would measure success this season, The Courant heard a wide range of answers. Junior linebacker Marshe Terry said anything short of a championship would represent a failure. Former quarterback Dan Orlovsky said simply looking like a college football team more often than not would constitute a positive step.
But most Huskies acknowledged that there's middle ground. That wins and losses are important but that there's more at play for the Huskies in 2018. That there's more than one way to measure "success" _ and more than one way to achieve it.
Here are a few ways UConn could have a successful season even without a strong win-loss record.
