{"id":947896,"date":"2026-07-17T10:37:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T10:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/947896\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T10:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T10:37:13","slug":"what-to-know-about-uconn-in-ea-college-football-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/947896\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know about UConn in EA College Football 27"},"content":{"rendered":"

UConn football fans<\/a> will get to experience the inaugural season of the Jason Candle era<\/a> when it starts the first weekend of September at Rentschler Field against Lafayette.<\/p>\n

But they can get an early look at the Huskies \u2013 the virtual version \u2013 in the EA Sports College Football 27<\/a> video game, which was released earlier this month. UConn\u2019s new-look roster was rated a 71 overall, balanced with the same rating on offense and defense. It is the same rating the Huskies had in last year\u2019s version of the game before stars like Joe Fagnano, Skyler Bell and Cam Edwards developed over the course of the real, non-virtual college football season.<\/p>\n

Since the game returned with CFB 25, it has been a staple in team rooms around the country, including Storrs, where student-athletes of all sports have played as the Huskies. The men\u2019s basketball team and its managers notably<\/a> had a long-running competition where they played in a league run by Alec Millender and dominated by Alex Karaban\u2019s dynasty at Northwestern.<\/p>\n

The video game allows users to take over a program acting as its head coach with the ability to recruit, manage a staff and improve facilities, just like in real life.<\/p>\n

UConn men found the secret to unwind. It involves cutthroat competition, trash talk and gaming glory<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

That could be tough to do with UConn, which has a smaller allotment of dynasty points \u2013 or a smaller NIL budget. Taking over the Huskies is considered \u201cvery high\u201d difficulty, but we\u2019ll go for it to get a deeper look at the virtual Huskies.<\/p>\n

Like last summer<\/a>, when the game predicted seven wins for a team that finished 9-4, we simulated the 2026 season 10 times on its highest difficulty (Heisman) to see how the game developers have the year shaking out.<\/p>\n

The first thing that stands out when starting a UConn dynasty is Candle\u2019s character, which begins with a C+ rating. Candle is considered a \u201cTalent Developer\u201d in the game and starts at level 34 of 100. The expectations put on the coach when taking the job include making a bowl game within the next four seasons, beating UMass by three or more points and signing at least one recruit ranked three stars or better.<\/p>\n

Getting into the roster, which includes the nearly 70 new players Candle brought in this offseason, UConn only has two players rated an 80 or better in linebacker K\u2019Von Sherman (84) and running back Kenji Christian (81), who both followed Candle from Toledo. The Huskies\u2019 other highest-rated players include defensive tackle Esean Carter (79), center Terrence Moore (79), returning guard Ty Chan (78), receiver Shamar Porter (77) and MIKE linebacker Luke Murphy (77).<\/p>\n

Our simulation experiment started tremendously as the virtual Huskies, led by 75 overall quarterback Jake Merklinger, the Tennessee transfer, finished 10-3 and beat UTEP in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Merklinger completed 58% of his passes for 3,550 yards and 28 touchdowns to just seven interceptions.<\/p>\n

That was by far the best result of the 10 seasons we simulated. The worst came in the final simulation, when UConn lost to FCS East (the game\u2019s placeholder for FCS opponents like Lafayette) and finished 4-8, failing to make a bowl appearance for just the second time in our 10 seasons. The other time came in the fifth simulation, when the Huskies started 1-5 and finished 6-6 but didn\u2019t receive a bowl bid.<\/p>\n

But those rough seasons were outliers as the virtual Huskies averaged 7.6 wins, slightly better than last year\u2019s 7.2.\u00a0They made eight bowl appearances, four times in the Fenway Bowl and three in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.<\/p>\n

UConn lost to Maryland in all 10 simulations and fell to Syracuse eight times. The game seems to view North Carolina and Wyoming as difficult games to win as well.<\/p>\n

The star of the simulations was Christian, who rushed for more than 1,000 yards on six different occasions. Merklinger threw for more than 3,000 yards in six simulations with Ryder Treadway, Shamar Porter and Emmanuel Ross serving as his top receiving targets.<\/p>\n

In reality, Merklinger may not even end up being the Huskies\u2019 starting QB when the season begins on Sept. 5. Candle and his new staff will only start to get an idea of what the depth chart looks like when training camp starts up in August. But seven wins, 10 being the ceiling and four being the floor, doesn\u2019t sound too bad for his first season in Storrs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UConn football fans will get to experience the inaugural season of the Jason Candle era when it starts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[4248,4246,125349,125348,1629,23947,7,4249,20715,33943,125350,4247,98274,977,4250,18072],"class_list":["post-947896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-connecticut-news","tag-ct-news","tag-ea-cfb-27","tag-ea-sports-cfb-27","tag-fbs-football","tag-fbs-independent","tag-football","tag-hartford-courant","tag-jake-merklinger","tag-jason-candle","tag-kenji-christian","tag-local-news","tag-max-image-preview","tag-uconn","tag-uconn-football","tag-video-game"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116934884939809704","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}