25 Worst College Football Coaching Hires of the 21st Century | Page 2 | The Boneyard

25 Worst College Football Coaching Hires of the 21st Century

ScottVib said:
Pasqualoni did the worst job. He had good talent left to him... (8 draft picks in his 3 years (plus a pair of UDFA); while Edsall V1 had 15 in his 11. He also brought in 2 guys who were drafted the year after he left (and one more draft pick). Pasqualoni had the talent needed to keep things rolling and only his poor performance coaching the talent led to back-to-back 5-7s and a level of disfunction the final year that forced his termination (I remain convinced that had UConn not reached the Fiesta Bowl and Edsall leaves a week earlier, the Huskies land Addazzio (rather than his going to Temple) and likely keeps things on the tracks).

Had Pasqualoni not squandered the talent and UConn coming off of a run of five straight bowls, including (at least) two conference title shares and a BCS appearance, it may well have been harder to bypass UConn for Louisville on the final life raft to the ACC (if not harder to displace UConn for Pitt).

Diaco looked like a good hire on paper and he was going to land a head-coaching job in that cycle. He was the reigning Broyles Award winner for top assistant. He struggled to bring in talent and in many phases of running the program.
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Plus Teggart and a Puyol Thomas at wr, Shakim Phillips wr, decent OL players from Edsall...had a Joe Williams that never played(yes the credit card) Nice college DEs even without Trevardo...lots of talent on his teams.
 
It will never cease to amaze me how much of a grip Edsall has on this board.
 
I think one of the all-time dumb moves was Nebraska firing Frank Solich and hiring Bill Callahan. Solich had taken the Huskers to the National Title Game, running the triple option with a team of mostly Osborne's Players. UNL Leadership could not accept the fact that they were no longer at the pinnacle of the game and went with the nuclear option. They bagged Solich and the option offense that had brought them so much success in the 80's and 90's. In comes Callahan and some abomination version of the West Coast Offense. This was decades before the transfer portal, so he tried to run it with players ill fit to do so. It was a disaster that has set their program back for a LONG time.
 
KembaKek said:
Diaco wasn’t a bad hire by any means. Just didn’t work out as a head coach. There was genuinely nothing that could’ve indicated he wouldn’t work out, and was certainly highly sought after
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There were definitely red flags, but he was a defensible hire at the time (though I'll point out that I am on record here as not wanting him).

Pasqualoni was a monumentally uninspired decision. Low energy and the end of his prior tenure strongly indicated that the game had passed him by. His recruiting here was vastly overrated.

If P hadn't brought in Brown to coach the defense, he wouldn't have won 5 games in his entire tenure here.
 
JMick said:
Randy 2 and Diaco were worse coaches, but the Pasqualoni hire was worse. It hurt the program more than those two did
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Completely agree. As a casual football fan, Pasqualoni was the ultimate small-time Hathaway hire at a time when we needed to show we were exciting and could draw eyeballs, not try to rest on our meager laurels with a safe, boring, retread.
 
My take on the coaching hires.

PP could have worked out if he took on the role of football CEO and left Joe Moorhead in charge of the offense (hiring Donald Brown was a great move) instead of bringing on GDL which was his biggest mistake. He could have groomed Moorhead to succeed him as head coach. Also, year 1, he had no QB (Nebrich was a true freshman and not ready and McEntee became the starter) and the portal didn't exist. And, it didn't help UConn was demoted to the AAC during his tenure. In my opinion, the wrong hire, but it could have worked.

Diaco, on paper, looked like a good candidate, but Notre Dame fans thought he was kind of crazy which turned out to be true. In way over his head as a head coach and he hasn't had much success as an assistant coach after he left. And, being in the AAC didn't help. I blame Manuel for this bad hire, but Diaco was not fit to be a head coach.

Edsall 2.0 was a bad idea from the start. He had spurned UConn once and he was coming back on the cheap. Two big red flags. Throw in the move to become and independent and the cancellation of the 2020 season and I don't think anyone could have righted the ship especially when it didn't seem like the administration was committed to football.

My ranking of the worst UConn hire:

1) Edsall 2.0
2) Diaco
3) PP
 
Less and less talent was brought into the program the further away it was removed from a BCS/Px conference. The decision to hire RE2 was just the final turd to drop in the Punch Bowl. He didn't get to choose his coordinators, who he was philosophically at odds with. Tried gearing up and recruiting the D for B12 lite offenses. ended up with 190-200lbs and 30 DBs. Lost the OC because he would not allow him to fully run his own offense. Played a host of freshmen because the previous staff's upper-class recruits were lacking. Supported by the AD btw. Historically and nationally bad outcome. Tried keeping an OC he felt t he could work with by offering him 15% of his own salary. Faling this he made his OL coach the OC too. Surprise! His AD was negotiating leaving the conference during his first year. Had little say in future scheduling. Though not really getting the new transfer portal thing he did manage to pick up some contributors. 2020. 2021, good start to 2022 recruiting class and current players and coaches complaining they were working the kids too hard. Fresno and Holy Cross disasters and another nationally laughing stock year.
 
I can't think of a hire that was worse in college football than hiring Edsall back again. It signaled at the time we had completely given up on football and it was a huge embarrassment hiring him back after the cowardly way Edsall handled his departure. Everything about it was awful and embarrassing. The guy never took accountability for anything, the game had passed him by, and the results were disastrous.

It was pretty shocking Mora was willing to take over.
 
I have a different take on RE v2. He went to the well of what he did V1. Cleaned house on players, built a good D and running game, and then got real lucky by getting Orlovsky, which moved timelines to success up quickly. When he cleaned house, we were 1aa moving to D1.

V2 knew the talent level was not there Day 1 and went old school with running guys off and playing guys who were too young and should have redshirted. Because we were in the AAC, it was ugly. By the time we pulled the plug on him literally, he had started to recruit better players. He recruited Lundt, Haynes and most of our OLine from the last year. Stafford, Gourdine, Yates, Hardy, Tui, etc. were all his recruits too. For all the bashing, remember he brought in the base that Mora retained so we could be revived.

Times had changed with the portal and RE was the wrong guy for that. He also wasn't adept at finding good Qb's. That said, Diaco was the worst hire, even worse than PP who left him with more talent than he left RE
 
Paul Pasqualani is the reason why our football program is an independent today and we're not part of a power conference

He was so bad, he couldn't compete against MAC schools. He destroyed UConn football, robbed the state of millions of dollars and cost the university scores or millions and counting

You can't do worse. He was the worst coaching hire in the history of all sports. Worst than Rich Kotite and Jerad Mayo and Les Steckel combined
 
UConnJim said:
My take on the coaching hires.

PP could have worked out if he took on the role of football CEO and left Joe Moorhead in charge of the offense (hiring Donald Brown was a great move) instead of bringing on GDL which was his biggest mistake. He could have groomed Moorhead to succeed him as head coach. Also, year 1, he had no QB (Nebrich was a true freshman and not ready and McEntee became the starter) and the portal didn't exist. And, it didn't help UConn was demoted to the AAC during his tenure. In my opinion, the wrong hire, but it could have worked.

Diaco, on paper, looked like a good candidate, but Notre Dame fans thought he was kind of crazy which turned out to be true. In way over his head as a head coach and he hasn't had much success as an assistant coach after he left. And, being in the AAC didn't help. I blame Manuel for this bad hire, but Diaco was not fit to be a head coach.

Edsall 2.0 was a bad idea from the start. He had spurned UConn once and he was coming back on the cheap. Two big red flags. Throw in the move to become and independent and the cancellation of the 2020 season and I don't think anyone could have righted the ship especially when it didn't seem like the administration was committed to football.

My ranking of the worst UConn hire:

1) Edsall 2.0
2) Diaco
3) PP
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If P acted merely as CEO as you suggested, things would have turned out far better but people are forgetting something about the defense.

Yes, Brown is an exceptional college level defensive coordinator, but there was a massive learning curve that cost us in 2011. Also, Todd Orlando wasn't all that far below Brown in terms of quality as a DC.

If we had left Moorehead in charge of the offense and kept Orlando, and the defensive philosophy that we were built for, at a minimum, the losses to Vanderbilt, Iowa St & Western Michigan would have been wins. We could not get stops against those opponents in critical spots (WMU, most of the game) when in prior years, we were at our best in those situations.

Personally I'm tired of reliving the misery that we were dealt, but if others want to continue suffering over things that transpired from 2011 - 2021, I won't argue.
 
hardcorehusky said:
I have a different take on RE v2. He went to the well of what he did V1. Cleaned house on players, built a good D and running game, and then got real lucky by getting Orlovsky, which moved timelines to success up quickly. When he cleaned house, we were 1aa moving to D1.

V2 knew the talent level was not there Day 1 and went old school with running guys off and playing guys who were too young and should have redshirted. Because we were in the AAC, it was ugly. By the time we pulled the plug on him literally, he had started to recruit better players. He recruited Lundt, Haynes and most of our OLine from the last year. Stafford, Gourdine, Yates, Hardy, Tui, etc. were all his recruits too. For all the bashing, remember he brought in the base that Mora retained so we could be revived.

Times had changed with the portal and RE was the wrong guy for that. He also wasn't adept at finding good Qb's. That said, Diaco was the worst hire, even worse than PP who left him with more talent than he left RE
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I think this is a pretty fair analysis of RE2. Diaco recruited FCS players. Edsall didn’t. Pasqualoni didn’t. And he knew the first few years could be very rough. For all the crap it got AAC football was quite good. Houston, UCF Cincinnati we’re all very legitimate programs. Memphis was solid too. Not SEC level but all could have played in the P5 (at the time). I thought Edsall got something of a raw deal with the move from the AAC followed by COVID and getting blamed for the cancellation of the season, which was an AD level decision made after 6 teams had cancelled games with UConn and at least 2 P5 cancelled their seasons. Those leagues later played limited league only schedules but it looked like that was the trend at the time.

I certainly am thrilled we have Mora now. But Diaco was the disaster of epic proportions.
 
freescooter said:
I think this is a pretty fair analysis of RE2. Diaco recruited FCS players. Edsall didn’t. Pasqualoni didn’t. And he knew the first few years could be very rough. For all the crap it got AAC football was quite good. Houston, UCF Cincinnati we’re all very legitimate programs. Memphis was solid too. Not SEC level but all could have played in the P5 (at the time). I thought Edsall got something of a raw deal with the move from the AAC followed by COVID and getting blamed for the cancellation of the season, which was an AD level decision made after 6 teams had cancelled games with UConn and at least 2 P5 cancelled their seasons. Those leagues later played limited league only schedules but it looked like that was the trend at the time.

I certainly am thrilled we have Mora now. But Diaco was the disaster of epic proportions.
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There is a lot of truth here but I think you are too easy on Randy. Diaco recruited slow players, but he found ways to win some games and keep others close. He actually improved in year two. Randy just got worse and worse. My bet is that had we kept Diaco, we'd have won a handful more games than RE2.0 won over the same stretch.

Both were really bad, but I'd say 2.0 was worse.
 
I think if we win vs Michigan in PP’s era that would and could have been a program defining win which would have sparked even more interest and upticked recruiting, Diaco was a solid hire ON PAPER but it was obvious he was in over his head and no where near ready to lead a program with some of the sideline antics and really embarrassing the program by trying to FORCE UCF to be our rivals, RE2 is by far the worst of the worst, from the records we set on defense when the coach is a DEFENSIVE coach to the laziness in recruiting and not hiring a competent staff besides Lashlee, the way he left us for Maryland, the fact he hired him again in the first place makes it the worst hire
 
SportsFan88 said:
I think if we win vs Michigan in PP’s era that would and could have been a program defining win which would have sparked even more interest and upticked recruiting,
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Pasqualoni was gone a week later... the talent and recruiting wasn't the problem (in fact Diaco's high water mark was a bowl that was realized with the remaining Pasqualoni recruits and Pasqualoni had more NFL talent from his roster and recruits on a per year basis than any other UConn coach); it was the rest of job that did him in.

Ultimately Pasqualoni took a team that should've skated into bowl appearances and dropped game after game to MAC and by the end 1AA schools.
 
Pasqualoni was by far the worst coaching hire in UConn Football history. Uninspiring, supposedly ran counter to the "search committee's" recommendation, and anyone who played a down of football since Pop Warner could see the game passed him by at Syracuse a decade before, but hey, he had the backing of the CHSCA, when a podunk Texas freshman squad could probably kick the stuffing out of a CT All Star team full of Seniors who had been playing together for 4 years.

Given that TJ Weist's record consists on two "interim" tenures, he probably didn't want it or was unqualified. Head Coach is really only a "coach" in name only. Judging from Weist's positions since UConn, he was probably more comfortable in the weeds of the Xs & Os.

Diaco was a Broyles award winner, coming off a NC game appearance, and was presumably highly sought. He turned out to be crazy, but was that the case when hired? He was bowl eligible in year 2.

Edsall 2.0 was bad, but there was at least a justification. There was no justification upon which to fall with the Pasqualoni hire.
 
LetsGoUC said:
PP should easily be top 10.
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That's insane.

Paul went 5-7 and 5-7, should have went 7-5 and 7-5.

The collapse came due to Big East essentially going away, which was not Paul's fault and nothing to do with hire.

Diaco, though, absolutely shredded this program.

That said, I had a convo with Paul when the AAC was made. He said the league was gonna be good, better than what the Big East was. That was a problem. Because fans here thought the AAC was beneath them.

Paul had two under performing years, but 5-7 isn't like top 10 worst hires ever. Diaco was bad, Edsall 2.0 didn't have juice or resources.
 
B1GEast said:
Somewhere along the line it's not as much as who the worst coach was as much how bad a job did former AD Hathaway do.

He deserves a lot of this blame too
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He deserves most of the blame. He was a coaster with no drive to get people to do good things. The years I complained that the hockey team could be benefitted by small things like a bucket of paint. My then D2 alma mater had more hustle than UConn did on campus.
 
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