TORONTO — Connecticut’s Donald Brown showed Saturday he has nothing left to prove at the college level.
Brown ran for a career-best 261 yards in his final college game, helping the fumble-prone Huskies overcome a mistake-filled first half and defeat Buffalo 38-20 in the International Bowl.
After becoming the 14th player in major-college history to run for 2,000 yards in a season, the junior running back broke thenews to UConn fans.
“OK, tell them, bud,” coach Randy Edsall said, slapping Brown on the back at the postgame interview table.
“I’m not coming back,” Brown said. “I’m going to pursue the NFL.”
He then apologized for saying three weeks ago that he planned to return to Connecticut for his senior season.
The nation’s leading rusher said he made the commitment to return to stop speculation and negate a potential distraction for his team heading into the game at Toronto.
“I apologize for the quote, but I did it to protect my team,” Brown said.
He proved that in the first half against the Bulls (8-6), when he had 208 yards rushing — 6 short of matching a career best — and kept the Huskies (8-5) in the game. UConn turned the ball over five times in the first 30 minutes.
Brown scored on a 45-yard run and then added a career-best 75-yarder to set up quarterback Tyler Lorenzen’s touchdown run.
