East Hartford — Oh, how tempting. How tempting to call out all the masterminds who had decided two weeks into the season — two weeks— that UConn’s offense was hopelessly vanilla. That UConn needed a quarterback change. Blah, blah, blah.

But after watching Tyler Lorenzen direct drives of 70, 76, 86 and 75 yards with complementary throws and nothing extravagant on Saturday night, UConn coach Randy Edsall’s critics either went into Witness Protection or are vehemently denying they ever criticized him in the first place.

Whatever.

This isn’t about who was right and who was wrong. This is about watching an undefeated team discover more about itself a little more every week. And a program that has won 12 of its last 16 games.

The fallout of UConn 45, Virginia 10 was a defense that maintained a level of excellence that in the past 16 games has hiccupped only at West Virginia. And a quarterback who stopped trying to be perfect … and was darn near so Saturday.

Edsall’s advice to Lorenzen last week wasn’t exactly something from Churchill. It was nothing that’s ever going to be carved into a wall for posterity. But it’s the best advice a coach can give a player: Relax. Exhale. Decaf. Have some fun. And most of all stop trying to be perfect on every play.

Fancy Lorenzen’s situation. He’s the quarterback in his senior year in a program that has most of its players returning. Except at receiver. Lorenzen has tried to make big plays because that’s expected of him. He’s tried to make big plays even when they’re not realistic.

But that’s what is expected.

And so no touchdown passes and four interceptions later and the fandom went hysterical. Edsall went the opposite. They all might be bananas out there. But you? Just go have fun.

“He was so at ease with himself,” Edsall said after Saturday’s game. “He was dumping the ball, hitting backs on the checkdowns. If he didn’t have (an open receiver), he ran. He did what we wanted him to do: Be decisive.”

Lorenzen threw for 124 yards in this game. If some of the fans knew before the game that UConn’s passing game would generate 124 yards, they’d have bet Virginia with both hands. They’d have clamored for the spread, five wide receivers and a crash course from Urban Meyer.

But Lorenzen was never better.

“We want to have balance,” Edsall said.

Balance means beginning with a power running game and allowing everything else to fill in the cracks.

This just in: It’s good, sound football. Especially with Donald Brown averaging nearly 200 yards a week.

After the game, Lorenzen said, “I don’t know if anything was different. Things just got rolling our way.”

But things were different. The game wasn’t played in a tropical storm. Darius Butler became an official offensive weapon. Jordan Todman showed flashes of why Edsall is so excited to have him in the program. Andre Dixon is still out there. Suddenly, there are options. And the Huskies have the perfect quarterback to lead the personnel and the scheme Edsall wants.

So now after last week’s angst over barely beating Temple, we’ll get the opposite this week. UConn belongs in the Top 25 or the voters are dumber than the one-out bunt. Bring on Southern Cal. You know the drill. If you insist on taking this program’s temperature after every week, you go right ahead. But the reality is that it’s awfully hard to tell where the Huskies belong.

Hofstra, Temple and Virginia are terrible. But UConn has a really good defense. UConn has a horse in Brown. Offensive players are appearing left and right around Lorenzen. There’s reason to be optimistic.

We’ll know more after Baylor, which appears to be improved. But for now, the Huskies sure look like they’ll finish higher than sixth in the Big East — as predicted by all the Mensa media people. Looks like they’ll be a contender for the conference title, actually. And for now, the Tyler Lorenzen that helped the Huskies become one of the surprise teams in the nation last season is Tyler Lorenzen again.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.

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