Fagnano’s Season Over; Roberson to Start
The Story: Quarterback Joe Fagnano is out for the season with a right shoulder injury and Ta’Quan Roberson will take over as the Huskies’ starter beginning Saturday against FIU.
WHAT HAPPENED? Fagnano hurt the shoulder when he was tackled on a designed run in the second quarter of the 35-14 loss at Georgia State on Saturday.
• Jim Mora said an MRI showed the damage to the shoulder was more significant than expected and Fagnano, a transfer from Maine who has one year of eligibility remaining, will undergo surgery on Friday.
BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Roberson, a Penn State transfer, was initially named the Huskies’ starter last season. He tore an ACL in the opener and missed the rest of the season.
• Roberson went 19-for-30 for 216 yards, two touchdowns and an interception against Georgia State. Although Mora called them “empty yards” given the score when he entered, he walked that back yesterday.
• Fagnano was named the starting quarterback over Roberson, and Mora said yesterday that it was a “hard decision” and that “everything was so close” when evaluations were made.
WHAT DID MORA SAY? “Ta’Quan came in and he absolutely gave us a spark, and I would say that he’s probably got a chip on his shoulder, which is a good thing. We have all the [confidence in the] world in Ta’Quan or he wouldn’t have been named our starter last year.”
A TORTURED HISTORY: UConn hasn’t had a quarterback start every game of a season since David Pindell did so in 2018. Before that, Bryant Shirreffs started all 12 games in 2015 and Chandler Whitmer started every game in 2012.
• Since 2018, no opening day starting quarterback has started more than three games that season. Mike Beaudry started only three games in 2019, Jack Zergiotis started three in 2021, and then Roberson last season and Fagnano this season.
OUR TAKE: We were high on Roberson, a redshirt senior and four-star prospect in the Class of 2019, after he transferred to UConn last season. We never got to see what he could do, though, as he threw just two passes before his knee injury. He won his teammates over by mentoring Zion Turner under difficult circumstances last year — Turner, who started the rest of the season, will be Roberson’s backup — and as Mora said, it’s full circle now that Roberson will get a chance to step in as an injury replacement.
— Zac Boyer
Morning Reads
• It’s not quite MVP voting, but maybe it’s a sign of things to come: The New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart was named the Associated Press WNBA Player of the Year yesterday and edged the Las Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson by one vote.
• Virginia Tech women’s basketball coach Kenny Brooks said the organizers of the Cayman Islands Classic wanted to have the Hokies face UConn but he shot that plan down. That makes sense, as nothing brings your attempt to build a program to a halt faster than being steamrolled by the Huskies.
• Paige Buckers has landed yet another NIL deal. This time, she has signed with GoArmy, the U.S. Army’s recruiting arm, and wrote on Instagram about how she traveled to Fort Knox earlier this summer for Cadet Summer Training. This one’s pretty cool.
