The story of how UConn came to play at “The Rent” could be easily summed up as, “it’s better to be lucky than good.” The 75-acre plot of land that “The Rent” was built on was donated to the state of Connecticut in 1999 by United Technologies. United Technologies used to use the site as an airfield called Rentschler Field, which conveniently also makes a good name for a football stadium.
The stadium was developed by the Connecticut Office of Policy and Construction because Connecticut desired to build a venue that would host not only the UConn Huskies football team, but also concerts and other sporting events. Four years and $91.2 million later, the first football game was played at “The Rent,” resulting in a 34-10 UConn mauling of Indiana.
This will be the first time these two teams have met since Oct. 26, 2002, in what turned out to be a thrilling 28-24 Commodore victory at Vanderbilt. Now the Commodores must go up to East Hartford, Conn., to take on a Huskies team that is 35-12 all-time at “The Rent” and 2-0 there so far this season.
The average attendance last year at “The Rent” was 38,229 fans, but so far this year they have only managed to get an average of 36,869 fans through the gates. Considering that “The Rent” and the University of Connecticut’s main campus are separated by 21.8 miles, that’s actually pretty good.
“The Rent” is easily one of the newest, modern, and most advanced fields in the Big East being only seven years old, making it the youngest in the conference. The field boasts a 24-by-32 foot video replay screen at its west end zone and if it were not for the six sections of seats directly in front of that scoreboard, the stadium’s configuration would be identical to Vanderbilt Stadium. This familiarity will work to the Commodores’ advantage as they head out on their longest road trip of the 2010 season.
