Former UConn TE goes after Grey Cup title

While we'll have to wait until the AFC and NFC championship games are played on Jan. 19 to find out if a former UConn player will be suiting up for the Super Bowl, there is a former Husky slated to play in today's Canadian Football League title game.

John Delahunt, a rookie fullback for the Hamilton TigerCats, has nine catches for 104 yards and two touchdowns despite missing a large portion of the season with a knee injury.

The 101st Grey Cup will begin at 6 p.m. and can be seen on the NBC Sports Network

There are a couple of other Connecticut connections in the game. Hamilton's head coach is Kent Austin lived in Woodbridge for a few years growing up while former Bloomfield High star Kory Sheets, a one-time UConn commit before flipping to Purdue, is Saskatchewan's top running back and was the CFL's second-leading rusher during the regular season.

Delahunt back in action

When former UConn tight end John Delahunt injured his knee in an Aug. 30 game against British Columbia the fear was that Delahunt would miss the rest of the season.

After missing a couple of months Delahunt got back onto the field and had a 28-yard reception in a 37-7 win over Winnipeg in the regular-season finale earlier today.

Delahunt finished with nine catches for 104 yards including a pair of touchdown both coming in games against Winnipeg.

Delahunt is back in time to take part in the CFL playoffs as Hamilton will face Montreal in the Eastern Conference semifinals on Sunday Nov. 10. The winner will play Toronto in the Eastern Conference final on Nov. 17.

Former UConn star Larry Taylor's Calgary team earned the top seed in the Western Conference and a first-round bye. Taylor led the CFL with 1,910 return yards.

Todman has big night for Jaguars

With a wave of cuts on the horizon it is now or never for the former UConn stars who are fighting to make it onto the regular-season roster.

Running back Jordan Todman continues to make a statement that he belongs by ripping off a scintillating 63-yard TD run as part of an eight-carry, 105-yard rushing performance in the Jaguars' 31-24 loss to Philadelphia.

With injuries limiting the preseason work of the Jaguars' top running backs, Todman has had plenty of chances to show what he is capable of and he is making the best of his situation. He is currently ranks third with 163 rushing yards in the preseason.

"Any opportunity I get, my goal is to score and make a big play," Todman said in a post on the Jaguars official site. "I’m definitely trying to take advantage of every opportunity. I leave it on the field every day.”

In the same game rookie cornerback Dwayne Gratz intercepted his second pass of the preseason which ties him with three other players for the preseason lead.

As for other UConn products in action:

Donald Brown rushed five times for 35 yards and Darius Butler had two tackles in the Indianapolis Colts' 27-6 win over Cleveland

Danny Lansanah had three tackles in the New York Jets' 24-21 overtime win over the New York Giants.

Nick Williams had two catches for 19 yards during the final scoring drive in Washington's 30-7 win over Buffalo.

Blidi Wreh-Wilson had a tackle and pass breakup in Tennessee's 27-16 win over Atlanta. Robert McClain had solo tackles for the Falcons.

Kendall Reyes had a pair of solo tackles in San Diego's 24-7 win over Arizona.

Four more former Huskies could be in action when New Orleans plays Houston as Lawrence Wilson is a linebacker with the Saints and linebacker Trevardo Williams, tight end Ryan Griffin and receiver Michael Smith play for the Texans.

Also, up North former UConn TE John Delahunt had one catch for 18 yards as the CFL's Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeated Winnipeg 37-14.

Former Huskies shine in CFL

Julius Williams had a sack against his former team

Former UConn defensive end Julius Williams had a pair of tackles including his first sack of the season as the British Columbia Lions defeated Edmonton 17-3 in a Canadian Football League Saturday night.

It was the eighth career sack for Williams and ironically the other seven came with Edmonton, a team he played with during the 2011 and 2012 seasons.

Former UConn tight end John Delahunt registered his first professional touchdown as he caught a 12-yard TD with 6:30 left in the fourth quarter. Delahunt's touchdown proved to be the winning score in Hamilton's 25-20 win over Winnipeg on Saturday.

Former Husky Larry Taylor had 135 all-purpose yards in Calgary's 22-14 win over Montreal on Friday.

Taylor had two catches for 29 yards, returned three kickoffs for 71 yards and added 35 yards on six punt returns.

CFL season kicks off tonight

The Canadian Football League begins its regular season tonight when Montreal plays Winnipeg.

Four UConn products are on opening day rosters as Martin Bedard is a long snapper with Montreal, John Delahunt a fullback with Hamilton, Larry Taylor a receiver and return specialist with Calgary and Julius Williams a defensive end with British Columbia.

ESPN announced that it would be televising 60 CFL games beginning with a doubleheader tomorrow with three of former Huskies in action when Hamilton plays Toronto at 7 p.m. followed by Calgary meeting British Columbia at 10 p.m. Both games will air on ESPN3.

Delahunt makes CFL debut

Former UConn tight end John Delahunt became the first player from the 2012 Connecticut squad to play in a professional game when he suited up in the CFL's Hamilton Tiger-Cats' preseason opener Thursday night.

Delahunt, listed as a fullback for Hamilton, caught an eight-yard pass in the second quarter as Hamilton jumped out to a 23-10 halftime lead.

Pair of former Huskies signed by CFL

The list of former UConn players heading to the Canadian Football League grew this week as running back Andre Dixon was signed by British Columbia and Hamilton signed tight end John Delahunt.

They join long snapper Martin Bedard (Montreal), defensive ends Cody Brown (Montreal), Julius Williams (British Columbia) and Lindsey Witten (Edmonton), safety Jordan Younger (Toronto) and receiver/return specialist Larry Taylor (Calgary) as UConn products on CFL rosters.

Delahunt, who had 18 catches for 223 yards as a senior, becomes the ninth member of the 2012 UConn football team to make it into a pro training camp.

Anxious couple of days for UConn's NFL draft hopefuls

Blidi Wreh-Wilson and Sio Moore lead the list of former
UConn players expected to be taken in the NFL draft.

All the workouts and interviews are in the books, the countless hours of film study are also complete and now it is finally time for the NFL draft.

For a handful of former UConn players it is a couple of days they won't soon forget.

It's a foregone conclusion that cornerbacks Dwayne Gratz and Blidi Wreh-Wilson, linebacker Sio Moore and defensive end Trevardo Williams will heat their names called but the question is which day and by what team.

Donald Brown is the only UConn player to be taken in the first round when the Indianapolis Colts selected him with the 27th overall pick in the 2009. Will he have some company after all 32 first-round picks are announced tonight?

Wreh-Wilson figures to have the best shot of going in the first round although most of the pre-draft databases have him slated as a second rounder. There have been mock drafts with Wreh-Wilson going late in the first round so that means a long night of watching and wondering for the two-time UConn captain as the first round is held tonight. Tomorrow figures to be a special day in UConn football history with as many as four Huskies going by the end of the third round. The NFL draft marathon ends on Saturday with rounds 4-7.

The NFL Network's Mike Mayock, considered by many to be the best NFL draft analyst in the business, has Moore as his top-rated UConn prospect at No. 64 in his final pre-draft Big Board which is two spots ahead of Wreh-Wilson and eight ahead of Gratz.

This draft is intriguing on a variety of levels for the UConn prospects. Of course you have the story line surrounding whether Wreh-Wilson or perhaps even Moore could sneak into the end of the first round and then will four Huskies be gone by the end of day two or will one of them have to wait. Finally, you have players like tight end Ryan Griffin and linebacker Jory Johnson would have a chance to hear their names called late in the draft or at least will get signed as free agents. They could have company as receivers Michael Smith and Nick Williams, tight end John Delahunt and offensive guard Adam Masters are in some draft prospect databases.

Barring a stunning development, there will be a player from Connecticut taken in the first round tonight - kind of. Bjoern Werner out of Florida State is one of the top defensive ends available in the draft and his football career began at Salisbury. As for the former Connecticut public school stars, I would guess that Georgia defensive tackle John Jenkins, who played at Maloney High in Meriden, will be the first one taken. Jenkins' situation is similar to that of Wreh-Wilson as he figures to go either late in the first round or in the second round. Other Connecticut natives to keep an eye on are Florida tight end Jordan Reed out of New London and Rutgers receiver Mark Harrison from Stratford who are projected to go between rounds 3-5.

Plenty of Huskies on NFL Draft Bible's Big Board

                                                                     (Associated Press photo)
Blidi Wreh-Wilson (left) and Sio Moore are both projected to be second-round
 selections in the NFL Draft Bible database which was released on Thursday.

The NFL Draft Bible site released one of the largest databases of draft prospects with 10 members of the 2012 UConn team among those prospects listed.

The list of more than 1,500 players is done by position. Sio Moore, who was the No. 6 outside linebacker Blidi Wreh-Wilson (No. 8 CB) and Trevardo Williams (No. 9 OLB) were the only UConn products to crack the top 10 at their position. A total of 10 Huskies are on the list (actually the number is 11 but Jesse Joseph is listed as the No. 69 defensive end and he is still a member of the Huskies).

Here's the list:
Rank Player Position  Projected round
6 Sio Moore OLB                   2
8 Blidi Wreh-Wilson CB          2
9 Trevardo Williams OLB      2/3
14 Dwayne Gratz CB            2/3
27 Ryan Griffin TE                 FA
45 Jory Johnson OLB           FA
68 John Delahunt  TE            FA
78 Michael Smith WR           FA
83 Adam Masters OG           FA
112 Nick Williams WR          FA

Also listed is former UConn safety Jerome Junior is the No. 50 listed strong safety, the University of New Haven has three players listed as Ryan Osiecki is the 68th quarterback, Kameel Lashley is the 70th rated tight end and Jason Thompson is 159th at the wide receiver position. New Haven native Jeremy Moore out of Georgetown is the 95th rated cornerback sack, Meriden's John Jenkins out of Georgia is No. 5 defensive tackle while Rutgers receiver Mark Harrison out of Stratford is 20th at his position.

Huskies' pro prospects draw a crowd

Maybe it is because this was my first time at UConn's Pro Day and I was accustomed to having another three or four NFL teams at Yale's NFL timing day over the last few years, but I came away extremely impressed with what I saw today.

                                                          (Associated Press photo)
Blidi Wreh-Wilson and Sio Moore could be the first two
UConn players taken in April's NFL draft.

By the count of us media folks, the only teams not sending a scout, coach or player personnel rep to Storrs were Dallas (which is ironically the place head coach Paul Pasqualoni was working when he accepted the UConn job), Minnesota and Washington. Obviously the appearance of New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick created quite the stir but most of the waves were made by the Huskies.

The NFL combine stars (Dwayne Gratz, Sio Moore, Trevardo Williams and Blidi Wreh-Wilson) only did a select few drills because they posted such spectacular numbers at the NFL combine.

Wreh-Wilson did cause a few jaws to drop by running the 40 under 4.4 seconds according to a few of the unofficial times. His two 40s at the combine were so far apart that the scouts wanted him to show he had the elite speed necessary for a cornerback to be drafted in the first or second round.


"I just wanted to put a stamp on it," Wreh-Wilson said. "At the combine my hand time was a 4.47 and my second one wasn’t anything that I even wanted to talk about. The last two weeks, I went home for a couple of days and trained and I really wanted to put a stamp on it and show how fast I really am so there are no question marks."

The news was not as good for Trevardo Williams who was battling ankle, groin and back issues which flared up while doing the agility drills like the 3-cone drill and 60-yard shuttle.


"I gave them everything that I had and I just hope they appreciated it," Williams said. "I was a little concerned about how it was going to affect me especially after the shuttle and kind of tweaked it and I knew right them it wasn’t going to be a good run."

With UConn's top four pro prospects didn't take part in too many drills, that opened up a chance for some of the under the radar prospects to shine.

Nobody seemed to take advantage of that more than receiver Nick Williams as his strong day was highlighted by a 37-inch effort in the vertical jump.

Williams is better known as a dynamic punt and kickoff returner but if he is to make it in the NFL, he will need to do so at a slot receiver as well. The good news is that players like Davone Bess and Danny Amendola have done quite nicely for themselves as NFL slot receivers even though they went undrafted.

"I am not trail blazing right now, guys who are like me have been successful; guys who don’t run 4.3 have gone onto the NFL and have had great careers so you just have to put your mind to it, believe and hopefully you make the most of your opportunity," Williams said.

The day started with offensive guard Adam Masters and defensive tackle Ryan Wirth doing 33 reps at 225 pounds in the bench press.

Tight end Ryan Griffin also did pretty well for himself including a vertical jump of 34.5.


"I just wanted to prove that I deserved a shot at the combine and I deserve a shot in the league," Griffin said. "I feel like I did that. I could have done a little better in some of the areas but overall I am pretty happy with how I performed. I am going to get a shot whether I just sign in camp and hopefully I will hear my name called but either way you have to perform."

It made for a special day for this senior class which has endured some ups and downs over the years.

Tight ends Ryan Griffin and John Delahunt
work out during UConn's Pro Day


"I think we will have a few guys drafted and we will have a couple of guys in camps," Nick Williams said. "It just shows that UConn 10 years ago, that wasn’t the case and now you can see that you can make the professional ranks out of UConn and it is all a cycle. You don’t realize it but it is marketing for the program and even Johnny Mac (quarterback Johnny McEntee) when he makes a trick-shot video it gets five million views and that is five million people seeing the UConn facility so the publicity is a great thing for the program and to see those guys go out and perform on the stage and have (NFL Network drat guru) Mike Mayock and all of those guys talking up the program."

I still have to finish transcribing my tape, especially with the interviews with Moore and Jory Johnson so I will have more at some point but one last thing I found out today is that the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CFL already own tight end John Delahunt's rights so if the NFL doesn't come calling, the Ottawa native could find a home north of the border.

"I’ve talked to them and told them I was going to come down and give the NFL a try and they supported me in that and I will just see what happens after today," Delahunt said.

It's job interview time for former Huskies

                                                                                   (Associated Press photo)
Blidi Wreh-Wilson, Sio Moore and Trevardo Williams lead the list of UConn
products for the 2013 NFL draft. Nearly every NFL team is expected to send
representatives to today's pro day being held at UConn.

It was impossible to walk around the Burton Family Complex during the time that UConn was holding its most recent spring practice yesterday and not bump into one of the seniors from the 2012 squad.

I spotted Sio Moore, Adam Masters, Nick Williams and Michael Smith checking out the practice. They had a good reason to be back in town as they will
take part in UConn's annual pro day this afternoon.

Between strong showings in postseason all-star games or eye-opening efforts at the NFL combine, there is quite the buzz surrounding the UConn's pro prospects.

There may not be a player at any school who has upper his stock more since the season ended than Moore. He went from being an under the radar guy to being the No. 4 rated 4-3 outside linebacker by NFL Network's Mike Mayock. Blidi Wreh-Wilson is Mayock' No. 5 rated cornerback and Wreh-Wilson has been slotted in as a late first-round pick on previous mock drafts done by ESPN's Todd McShay. There are some, however, who rate Dwayne Gratz ahead of Wreh-Wilson in their pre-draft coverage. Trevardo Williams is another one of the former Huskies who put up scintillating testing numbers at the NFL combine. It's not out of the realm of possibility that all four of them could go somewhere in the top four rounds.

Considering how well they performed at the combine, I would not be the least bit surprised to see those four sit out many of the drills today since they have done more than enough to catch the eyes of NFL scouts. However, this is a huge day for players like tight ends Ryan Griffin and John Delahunt, offensive guard Adam Masters, linebacker Jory Johnson and receivers Smith and Williams.

UConn coach Paul Pasqualoni has encouraged all the 2012 seniors to take part because you never know who might catch the attention of the NFL scouts converging on UConn this afternoon.

Here is where the UConn players are ranked on CBS' NFLDraftScout.com database
Player                                 Pos      Posiiton Rank     Overall Rank      Projection
Dwayne Gratz                   CB               12                          86                    2nd-3rd
Ryan Griffin                      TE               22                        414                  Free agent
Jory Johnson                    OLB             34                         366                  Free agent
Sio Moore                        OLB              6                           66                     2nd
Michael Smith                   WR             91                        692                   Free agent
Trevardo Williams           OLB              8                           76                     2nd-3rd
Blidi Wreh-Wilson            CB              14                        101                     3rd

Wreh-Wilson named UConn's MVP

Senior cornerback Blidi Wreh-Wilson was named UConn's MVP at the team's awards banquet on Sunday.

Senior tight end Ryan Griffin was selected as the Offensive Player of the Year, senior defensive end Trevardo Williams and senior receiver Nick Williams were named the Defensive Player of the Year and Special Teams Player of the Year.

Other award winners were DT Ryan Wirth (Jasper T. Howard Award), OG Adam Masters (Football Alumni Award), LB Sio Moore (Kendall Madison Award), TE John Delahunt (Joseph M. Gianelli Unsung Hero Award), LB Jory Johnson (John L. Toner Scholar-Athlete Award) and CB Dwayne Gratz (Brian Kozlowski Award).