UConn football signs 64 new players

UConn football has confirmed the addition of 64 new players to the roster following the close of the transfer portal window. Jason Candle and his staff have added 29 players on offense, 32 on defense, and three special teamers, with 21 coming from P4 programs. The group consists of 57 transfers and seven freshman early-enrollees.

Many of the names were known or announced over the last few weeks, including quarterbacks Jake Merklinger, Kalieb Osborne, and Bo Polston. A lot of them are coming from Toledo, but they’re also coming from schools like Syracuse, Wake Forest, West Virginia, Northwestern, Iowa, Duke, Texas, NC State, Ohio State, USC, Michigan State, Ole Miss, and Kentucky. Others were productive players at lower-level schools.

The running back room has a few high-potential additions in Trey Cornist, who ran for 470 yards at Central Michigan last season, Dashun Reeder, who dashed for 222 on just 22 carries for Northwestern last season, Cyncir Bowers, who totaled 365 yards from scrimmage for West Virginia, and Jaden Hart from Syracuse, along with Toledo transfer Kenji Christian, who was one of the early commitments to for Candle and his staff at UConn.

At receiver, UConn has a young group that will be looking for options to go alongside one of the Huskies’ key returning player Shamar Porter. This group includes Cam Abshire, a 6-4 transfer from Oklahoma State who was productive at D2 Emory & Henry before joining the Cowboys last season, pulling in 10 catches for 92 yards. Emmanuel Ross had similar production at Syracuse last season while Ky “Flash” Wilson comes from Youngstown State by way of Slippery Rock. Logan Barnes is a three-star Class of 2026 recruit from Indiana who played some QB in high school while also starring in basketball, baseball, and track.

Julian Allen, Javon Brown, Kamren Flowers, Zy’Marion Lang, Ryder Treadway, and Jediyah Willoughby are all former Toledo receivers making the move to Storrs. Most of them have played a little bit — the Texas native Treadway showed some early potential with 176 yards and three touchdowns last season as a freshman — but their time on the field has been minimal as younger players.

Tight end Alex Godvaritine comes from Division II Wheeling, where he caught five touchdowns as a senior. He’s joined by Matt Ragan, a 6-foot-5 Massachusetts native transferring from Boston College.

Nine of the new players are offensive linemen, including four from Toledo and three from power-four programs. Among the most experienced of them, Hannes Hammer appeared in five games last season for Virginia Tech, while Fred Johnson made two appearances for Louisville, and Christian Richter played in eight games for Marshall. Raphael Greene-Nyarko played in five games last season as a freshman at Toledo, and Ben Mulholland played in 12 games for Houston Christian.

On defense, 12 new players are defensive backs, seven are linebackers, three are listed as EDGE, and another 10 are linemen. Defensive tackle Desmond Aladuge made 11 appearances for Duke over the last two seasons, while Chamberlain Campbell, Esean Carter, and Avery Dunn all played 11 or more games for Toledo last season. Campbell and Dunn are former P4 transfers while Carter was a Third Teamm All-MAC selection.

DL Melvin Hills and DE Joshua Mickens come from top-tier programs where they made a handful of appearances, Hills at Texas and Mickens at Ohio State. Andrew Laurich played in 10 games for Colorado State and Anas Luqman played 13 for Ohio. Two of the EDGE players are coming from high school while the third is Shamar Riser-Pressley, who appeared in 11 games last season for Buffalo.

Linebacker K’von Sherman was a First Team All-MAC selection at Toledo while fellow Rocket-turned-Husky Rickey Williams made 13 appearances for Toledo last season. Another new LB, John Lista, made 78 tackles for Penn last season, while Luke Murphy from Coastal Carolina and Zakaih Saez from Oregon State played healthy rotational roles before transferring to UConn.

The Huskies also added three specialists: Mike Baker was the backup kicker at Ole Miss last season, punter Tommy Warner comes from Northwest Missouri State, and long snapper David LaGanga comes from Kentucky by way of Lehigh.