I'm not sure if he called any last year. That's good to see, that the coaches trust him and/or Hill feels comfortable enough to do that. That can only help.

Also, they averaged 22 seconds/play last night, which is on the slow end of what they did last year (although still pretty fast). It will be interesting to see if that was by design, or if that was just how it turned out last night. Obviously, having Hill read the defense pre-snap and call audibles is going to take a few extra seconds, so maybe it was intentional.

Especially in the first half, UConn was committed to dropping 8 and only rushing 3 on defense. That doesn't often work against dual-threat QBs, and it was not effective last night. But it does explain (at least in part) why Hill held the ball so long, why he didn't go deep as much as we had been led to believe he would, and why there were so many dump-off passes to the RB and TE. It's what the defense gave him. It's impressive that he still averaged 9 yards per pass attempt given that.

Also, the fact that UConn rushed 3 a lot of the time, and almost never sent more than 4 does temper how good I feel about the Oline performance last night. They were rarely challenged. On so many plays (particularly in the first half), we were able to double team each pass rusher (using the RB in pass protection). So the fact that they kept UConn from getting pressure on Hill isn't really all that impressive. But last year we often had trouble blocking 3 pass rushers, so this game marked a significant improvement. Also, even though they didn't really get stressed much with blitzes, it was clear that all 5 O linemen knew who they were supposed to block each play, which is also a marked improved over last year. They made some mistakes, but I focused on them as I re-watched the game, and they looked so much better than they did last year. That is a big relief.