Dave Teggart the Hero as the UConn Huskies Survive South Florida To Win Big East

In the first five games of the building rivalry between South Florida and Connecticut, the home team won each game.

In his career, Dave Teggart never had made a 50-yard field goal.

Since making the jump to FBS (then Division 1-A) nine seasons ago and joining the Big East Conference seven seasons ago, UConn had not won a BCS berth.

History was made Saturday night.

At Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, the Huskies defeated the Bulls 19-16 on a 52-yard field goal by Dave Teggart with 17 seconds left.

The win means that UConn won the Big East Conference with a record of 5-2 in conference play and 8-4 overall. They hold tiebreakers over West Virginia and Pittsburgh (both 5-2 in conference).

As Big East champions, the Huskies will play in a BCS bowl for the first time ever. The most likely destination is the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Day, with Big 12 champions Oklahoma being the likely opponent.

South Florida came out swinging. The Bulls, led by freshman walk-on Bobby Eveld, pushed the ball down the field. The Huskies stood strong and allowed only a field goal from Maikon Bonani. Teggart matched him with a 40-yarder.

The critical play came in the final moments of the first half.

With about a minute-and-a-half left, UConn quarterback Zach Frazer was picked off by Jon Lejiste to give the Bulls prime field position at the end of the half.

The very next play, Eveld threw it right into the hands of Huskies linebacker Lawrence Wilson, who took it 55 yards to the house. The Huskies headed into halftime with a 10-3 lead.

UConn bent but never broke in the second half. Both Teggart and Bonani converted field goals to make the game 13-6 Huskies heading into the final 15 minutes.

Teggart converted again at the start of the fourth. The 50-yard rocket became Teggart's career long.

USF pulled back to tie the game late in the fourth. Eveld hit star receiver Dontavia Bogan for a 28-yard touchdown pass halfway through the quarter. With about one minute left, Bonani hit a 22-yard chip shot to tie the game up at 16.

The Huskies still had one minute and two timeouts to get down the field and make history.

The Bulls defense held strong, but once again Teggart came through in the clutch, breaking his career high set earlier in the quarter with a 52-yard game winner with 17 seconds left.

Offensive lineman and senior captain Zach Hurd took matters into his own hands for the traditional water cooler bath as he poured the entire cooler over Randy Edsall to begin the celebration. The Huskies ran to a corner of the field where a large crowd from Connecticut who made the trip down were waiting to celebrate history.

The Huskies had a hard time getting anything going on offense all game. Jordan Todman was held to a modest 93 yards and Frazer managed 112.

The important thing is that the Huskies got the critical yards to put themselves in position to score.

Teggart has hit several clutch field goals in his career. He hit a game-winner as time expired in last year's 29-27 win over USF and also hit a chip shot against West Virginia in October to start UConn's current five-game win streak.

"You dream about those situations all the time as a kicker," Teggart said. "We kickers don't get on the field that much, so you want to make the most of your opportunities when you're out there and that's what I tried to do."

Randy Edsall has been UConn's coach since current South Florida coach Skip Holtz left to be closer to family in 1999. He finished what Holtz started by bringing the Huskies into the FBS. He could not be happier.

"To be heading to a BCS game and to win the Big East championship within seven years of being in this league and really, the short time we've been a Division I-A program, says a lot about the character, the resolve, the work ethic of all these people that are in the program now but even the guys that came before and all the former players from when this program started, so I couldn't be happier for everybody and the people in the state."

Connecticut will learn its fate on Sunday night, when the bowl matchups are announced. It is most likely that a date with Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl is the future for the Huskies. In that case, they will play in Glendale, Arizona on New Year's Day. The other possibility is the Discover Orange Bowl in Miami on January 3rd. The Orange Bowl, however, does not seem likely to pass up on Pac-10 at-large Stanford, despite Stanford's bad reputation for poor traveling by fans. Whoever they pick will take on ACC champion Virginia Tech.

The automatic BCS berths went to Oregon (Pac-10), Auburn (SEC), Oklahoma (Big 12), Virginia Tech (ACC), Connecticut (Big East) and we have to wait for the final BCS standings released tonight to learn whether Wisconsin, Ohio State or Michigan State will be representing the Big Ten. Wisconsin is the most likely.

Future Big East team TCU is the only announced at-large. The Horned Frogs, 12-0 (8-0 Mountain West) will play in the Rose Bowl.