STORRS — When they need a break from basketball, from the constant pressure from their coaches to perform and the fan base to win, win, win, one group of eight players and staffers within the second-ranked UConn men turn to something more serene … leisurely … friendly.
They try to clobber and humble one another.
The group is immersed in the Husky-eat-Husky world of EA Sports’ College Football ’26, Dynasty Deep Dive, a popular video game that assigns coaches, hires and fires them, simulates recruiting and team building. The reward for winning is the right to unleash an interminable flood of trash talk; the price of losing is to absorb it.
“It can ruin your night,” commissioner Alec Millender said.
Karaban, the 18-1 Huskies’ senior captain in real life, talked about the league in a “94-feet” segment with ESPN’s Jay Bilas, which has yet to air, and the group assembled at the Werth Center this week to explain it all for those not literate in the increasingly sophisticated language of video games.
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“It basically started with current manager and one former student manager who created this football league,” Karaban said. “I told them I downloaded the game, so they invited me to join his Dynasty. Me and this other manager were trash-talking each other, we just got into it and everybody heard about it. That’s when Silas (Demary Jr.) joined, and Alec joined.”
The founder of the league, Windsor’s Tyler Ruff, grad student and the Huskies’ head student manager, is the instigator, agitator and original commissioner. He joined this rap session and only after pronouncing, “I created the league. … I am the league.”
However, it was revealed Ruff broke a cardinal rule, playing or simulating a game more than once, and was deposed as commissioner, though there is some disagreement about what exactly happened. “He wasn’t mentally stable,” said guard Alec Millender, who replaced him.
“My WiFi lagged out and I didn’t send a proper picture and I played a game multiple times which is not allowed,” Ruff said.
“Three,” Karaban said. “Three times.”
Ruff huffed. “There is also somebody in this room who played someone twice and never got a punishment for it,” he said. “I’m not naming names, but it could be the new commissioner.”
The players pick FBS teams that are not traditional powers. Millender, who spent a season at IU-Indianapolis before coming to UConn, hit the lottery when he chose Indiana. “The rule was you had to pick a team with a 3-star rating or lower,” Millender explained. “Indiana wasn’t the Indiana they are now.”
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Electronic Arts (EA) Sports released this version last June; after a long absence, the 2025 version of College Football had 2.8 million users at launch, so there are likely far more players now. The game focuses on every aspect of team building, simulating recruiting visits, the transfer portal, assembling of staffs, all to be rolled out in games which take 30-40 minutes. The UConn league has completed several entire seasons since starting last summer, with Karaban’s Northwestern emerging as the blue blood program.
Right now, they are in the 2032 season and the players they’re recruiting are fictional, competing for Heisman Trophies, conference and national championships, and alums moving on to the NFL.
“It’s just like regular recruiting,” said Demary, the point guard who transferred from Georgia. “During the season you’re recruiting high school kids, then the portal opens up and you’ve got four weeks. Whatever you need at that position, you’ve got to recruit ’em. It’s hard to recruit sometimes, based on your coaching prestige.”
Said Millender: “The only sports games I really played were football games, so when College Football came back out the first time in 2025, I was really excited and I played it a lot. I played Madden Football a lot, I’m not really a 2K player. So when I heard they were playing College Football, I knew it better, I said, ‘I’ll run the league.’”
Millender usually puts issues up to a vote of the players, and determines the schedules, adjudicates disputes this way. “If A.K. wins a national championship, he’ll have the toughest schedule,” Millender said.
Demary started with Michigan State, then Nebraska, but now has Michigan and is ranked 15th in the country. “I beat a team that was ranked 22nd,” he said. “And I’ve been winning ever since. The Michigan job opened up and that made recruiting easier.”
Tarris Reed Jr., formerly a Michigan big man himself, had Central Michigan, but left the league after a rough start. “Tarris was a wrecking ball at Central Michigan,” Andrew Hurley said. “He set them back about two years.”
Hurley, walk-on for the Huskies championship teams and now a graduate manager, first coached Hawaii, but after a three-win season, the game notified him that he was fired and had five weeks to find another job. This is a cold business, and you may recall the Hurleys, namely his father, Coach Dan Hurley, have not traditionally fared well in Hawaii.
“There was a lot of friction between me and Hawaii and I was fired after one year,” Hurley said. “It’s pretty much whoever offers you a job after that. You kind of end up wherever you’re meant to end up. Winning’s everything. Things were trending up for Hawaii, but I guess that wasn’t enough for them. I went to a place that wanted me. It worked out for both of us.”
So Andrew landed a new gig on the mainland at Western Michigan, currently ranked 18th, losses to Tulane and Notre Dame. He later avenged his firing, putting up 50-plus points against Hawaii, but is still lamenting a 3-point loss to Toledo some 12 weeks ago.
There are no games, no activity, no trash talking on UConn basketball game days, or the night before, so the league will shutter Friday with the Huskies to play Villanova at PeoplesBank Arena Saturday at 12:30 p.m. But with a break this week, they’ve been at it. After practices, league activity lasts for an hour and half to two hours, one game, followed by time for team-building, recruiting, hiring, firing. The gamers match up on their dorm computers, Karaban, Demary, Millender, Hurley, Ruff , grad assistant T.J. Gibbs, manager Cameron Bill and former manager Nate Herman, who competes from New Jersey.
“We do it by FaceTime calls,” Karaban said. “And group chat. We’re big on FaceTime calls.”
Karaban has built a “dynasty” with his Northwestern program, winning four national championships, “and going on five,” he said. “We’re coming off a big win over Indiana last night.”
Millender responded: “… I’ll say this, Northwestern, they’ve accumulated quite a bit of national championships. But every time they have faced me, they have lost. They’re 0-2 against me in the playoffs. So I would say my two national championships — two of them — is my greatest accomplishment. With three Big Ten championships.”
Ruff boasts his tight end, Sua Tinka, won the Heisman Trophy, the first tight end to win it. Karaban has three Heismans. “I was robbed of the Heisman Trophy last year,” Millender said. “DeAnte Dunn, wide receiver for the Indiana Hoosiers, had 2,500 yards, 33 touchdowns and 110 receptions. It’s hard to win the Heisman Trophy over someone who broke the career receptions record and touchdowns.”
Ruff just smirked. Millender particularly enjoys the chance to include managers in the Huskies’ own team building. “Appreciation,” he said. “They do a lot for us. They’re our friends, they’re more than managers. We get to joke with them.”
Said Hurley, “They’re not an extension of the team, they’re a part of it. They’re here 24/7.”
But Ruff is the trash-talker they all seem to love to hate, or hate to love. “When Tyler wins, he’s going to tell the whole building,” Millender said. “When he loses, you won’t see him for about three hours.”
“He runs away from us,” Karaban said.
As they haggle over rules, results and records, the players and staff burnish the chemistry within the building. “At my old school, we didn’t really have anything like this,” Demary said. “To be able to bond with the managers outside of the basketball court is a lot of fun, and you get to see our true personalities.”
Said Karaban, “It’s a lot of fun, having other things to talk about, other things to do besides basketball. We play so much basketball, it’s good to get our mind off, bond, have fun, crack jokes with each other. Just helps us stay close.”
