You wouldn’t have to stretch very far to make the case that UConn’s Sept. 21 game against Michigan is the biggest non-conference home game in the program’s history.
Just how big? According to the school, an additional 2,000 seats will be added to Rentschler Field to accommodate interest in the game -- specifically, interest in the game on the part of Wolverine fans. Normally, the school allocates 3,000 tickets to the visiting team; UM requested 5,000 tickets, triggering the need for temporary bleachers to be installed.
“We obviously can’t sell season tickets without the Michigan game in them,” UConn spokesman Michael Enright explained to the Associated Press. “So it would pretty much make up the difference, and allow us to sell the same number of season tickets.”
Michigan had originally requested that the game be moved from the East Hartford stadium to a bigger venue. However, the state of Connecticut, which owns the 40,000-seat Rentschler Field, requires that the Huskies play all of its home football games there through June 30, 2023.
It would’ve cost Michigan $2 million to buy its way out of the game, so the additional seating was an amenable compromise for both sides.
This year’s game will serve as the back-end of a home-and-home series. The Huskies traveled to the Big House in 2010, falling to the Wolverines 30-10.