EAST HARTFORD — For UConn football, 2025, the moment had arrived. Oh, sure, there were still nearly 14 minutes to play when the Huskies lined up in punt formation, deep in their own territory, nine yards to the first-down stick.

Coach Jim Mora had wisely, and skillfully avoided the single do-or-die play, settling for field goals to keep the game within reach, but now he felt in his seasoned coaching bones that if he punted the ball back to Duke’s Darian Mensah , he’d be punting the game with it.

“We needed a play,” Mora said. “Because to continue to put the ball in that quarterback’s hands would be very dangerous, so we had to make a play. And we had a high degree of confidence in that play, because we’d practiced it all week. We’d seen all game that we had it.”

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