Football: UConn Bolsters Run Game With JUCO Arrival Will Knight
Junior college rushing sensation Will Knight announced this week that he is heading to Hartford as the latest acquisition in head coach Jim Mora’s takeover of the Connecticut Huskies’ football program. Knight made his announcement on his social media accounts this week and was greeted on Twitter by both Mora and running backs coach E.J. Barthel.
The most prolific rushers in Delaware high school football history (6,490 yards at Smyrna High School), Knight is coming off a strong season on the JUCO circuit, earning 656 yards on 101 carries, good for a team-best 6.5 average and nine touchdowns for Garden City Community College in Kansas. Notable GCCC alumni include prolific collegiate and professional rusher Corey Dillon, current Kansas City Chiefs star Tyreek Hill and newly-minted Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE PROFILE ON WILL KNIGHT
The well-traveled Knight began his career at Old Dominion before moving on to Delaware in 2019, where he enjoyed a breakout season as a redshirt freshman: Knight put up a team-best 919 rushing yards, becoming the second first-year in program history to pass the 900-yard plateau. He saved his best for the national stage, putting in a 161-total yard performance against top-ranked North Dakota State.
He did not partake in the Blue Hens’ abbreviated 2020 season (held in the spring of 2021) and instead moved onto GCCC. The Broncbusters finished 8-3 this season and finished 12th in the NJCAA final regular-season rankings.
Knight is expected to become a major factor in revolutionizing the Connecticut run game this season, which finished 122nd in the nation last season at 100.9 yards a game. He is set to fill in the void left behind by tenured back Kevin Mensah, who likewise entered the transfer portal. Mensah was 67 yards away from becoming the fourth rusher to attain 3,000 in a UConn uniform, which would’ve joined Donald Brown, Terry Caulley and Jordan Todman. The Huskies are also set to welcome back leading rusher Nathan Carter, who put up 705 yards as a first-year player.
The arrival of Knight is part of a new dedication to expanding the Huskies’ recruitment impact to a national impact, as Barthel previously mentioned to UConn Illustrated earlier this month.
“We're going to be ingrained in the community, that's the reality. We’re going to create the footprint, the Husky footprint, we're going to attack it. We got to find the best players in the region and also find players outside of the region that can help us win,” Barthel said. “We're going to identify our brand of players and recruit the heck out of them, that's the reality: Find the guys that fit our DNA, so we can build the culture back.”
UConn opens its 2022 season on August 27th at Utah State.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
