Mike Anthony: Another miserable UConn football season is not cause for Randy Edsall’s firing

[huskymedic]

Mike Anthony: Another miserable UConn football season is not cause for Randy Edsall’s firing

>Did you really expect Edsall, standing outside the Huskies’ locker room following a 49-17 loss to Temple Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field, to say much more than that? He’s not built that way.

What would you want to hear, anyway? A long-winded justification for remaining as coach into a fourth year? I tried to get Edsall to open up about process, plan and program but knew I had the same odds of succeeding there as UConn had of succeeding on the field against the Owls.

UConn lost and we knew this would be. Edsall is the coach and we know this will continue to be, particularly after athletic director David Benedict voiced his full support during a halftime conversation.<<

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[rbny1]

I agree with the article. You can't keep changing coaches and expect to build a program. You have to let Edsall's tenure play out and see whether he can turn the program around, no matter how painful it may be (and is) for those of us who are die-hard UConn fans.

 

[cohenzone]

Edsall was an adequate coach 10 years ago. Never as good as he thought he was. His overall defensive conservatism won’t change. As an independent I can’t imagine his ability to draw game changing recruits will improve. So I can’t see his defenses improving. But hey, he doubled the win total from last year and they were competitive in an additional two losses.

 

[SubbaBub]

This. This is were we are as a program. We can pretend we are like every other program who has a disappointing season but we aren't.

Many would argue, I said to Benedict at halftime, that the process should be farther along than it is.


“I totally disagree,” he said. “You can’t just look at it in the window of Randy’s three years. You have to look at the previous six years. When you have four different head coaches leading a program in the span of six years, you’re totally rebuilding from the ground up, just in the nature of how recruiting classes work. When you have a transition year between coaches, you in essence lose a class. A coaching staff, it takes a year or two to develop the relationships to recruit the kids that they want. Obviously, you can’t do that in 30 days. So we’ve had multiple transitions in a short period of time.”


“Absolutely,” Benedict said. “For the same reasons we brought him here. Randy understands how to evaluate kids we can recruit to UConn, which is different than other places. And he understands what it takes to develop kids. He's very disciplined. He's very straightforward with the guys. You're beginning to see some of the younger talent develop. That's an evolution and you can't speed that up in the sport of football. It takes so many kids to be successful in a game and over the course of an entire season.”


“I think Randy is very committed to our program,” Benedict said. “This is more than a paycheck for him. This means a lot for him. … Randy cares about this place deeply.

 

[History Geek]

Next year it will be (almost) all Randy’s recruits. If there are no signs if life, then we move on. Not now.

 

[huskysupporter]

Next year it will be (almost) all Randy’s recruits. If there are no signs if life, then we move on. Not now.

we can’t wait. There has been nothing to indicate this team will be good anytime soon. Absolute best case scenario is the team is mediocre next year. And that’s with a ton of things falling their way.

get rid of the staff.

 

[gampelcrazies]

Huge mistake not making a change now. Everyone wants to give him 1 more year but don't see much improvement coming and are willing to fire him then. We are just delaying the inevitable.

 

[ZooCougar]

Who wants to play football for a really unsuccessful, unfun and unappealing head coach?

 

[History Geek]

How bad was the situation Diaco left us in? Too many of his recruits could not complete at this level. Last year, and this year, are evidence of that. Yes, the record was only marginally better this year than last. However, all who have a clue about football could tell we performed marginally better. Next year Randy’s first real recruiting class will be upperclassmen, facing an easier schedule. They should finally be able to at least consistently compete. If not, then I’m on board with going in a new direction. But not now. He gets next year. But the seat is now officially hot.

 

[ZooCougar]

How bad was the situation Diaco left us in? Too many of his recruits could not complete at this level. Last year, and this year, are evidence of that. Yes, the record was only marginally better this year than last. However, all who have a clue about football could tell we performed marginally better. Next year Randy’s first real recruiting class will be upperclassmen, facing an easier schedule. They should finally be able to at least consistently compete. If not, then I’m on board with going in a new direction. But not now. He gets next year. But the seat is now officially hot.

Hopefully his class is still playing football at UConn. (This is not a given.)

 

[noeynox]

Who wants to play football for a really unsuccessful, unfun and unappealing head coach?

Since you put it that way.

 

[2UCONN04]

Edsell needs to be thrown out the door. This second time around with Edsell has been an absolute failure in all phases and the depth of his failure continues. No offensive sparks and his defense has reached historical levels of futility. Independance in football is the next step in the death of UConn FBS dreams as we move further towards football purgatory.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Who wants to play football for a really unsuccessful, unfun and unappealing head coach?

Not too mention he runs schemes like it was still the 1960's and offense was simply something you did to pass time until you could go back on defense.

 

[ZooCougar]

Not too mention he runs schemes like it was still the 1960's and offense was simply something you did to pass time until you could go back on defense.

He calls plays like he doesn’t believe in his players. Players can tell he doesn’t have their best interest in mind.

 

[tower1]

I agree with the article. You can't keep changing coaches and expect to build a program. You have to let Edsall's tenure play out and see whether he can turn the program around, no matter how painful it may be (and is) for those of us who are die-hard UConn fans.

Sure give him 10 more years of no improvement and why don't we hand him a $6 million raise like Diaco and Ollie. Our problem is Benedict get rid of him and he can take Edsall with him !

 

[History Geek]

Hopefully his class is still playing football at UConn. (This is not a given.)

Point given. This would push me to change my mind. I’m very interested in seeing how this off-season shakes out.

 

[huskysupporter]

How bad was the situation Diaco left us in? Too many of his recruits could not complete at this level. Last year, and this year, are evidence of that. Yes, the record was only marginally better this year than last. However, all who have a clue about football could tell we performed marginally better. Next year Randy’s first real recruiting class will be upperclassmen, facing an easier schedule. They should finally be able to at least consistently compete. If not, then I’m on board with going in a new direction. But not now. He gets next year. But the seat is now officially hot.

The seat is NOW officially hot?!??

If they continue with the marginal improvement how will they be next year?

The time is now.

 

[Bongo Fury]

Sure give him 10 more years of no improvement and why don't we hand him a $6 million raise like Diaco and Ollie. Our problem is Benedict get rid of him and he can take Edsall with him !

Who said anything about raise? He is not in demand and he is already wealthy and not looking for high salary

 

[History Geek]

The seat is NOW officially hot?!??

If they continue with the marginal improvement how will they be next year?

The time is now.

In my mind yes. His seat was not hot this year given the situation. Y’all need to evaluate people in context.

 

[DoctorWho85]

Giufre needs to be relieved of his duties immediately. The O-Line got worse and he's just a yes man to Edsall. Has no idea how to play call and does zero in game adjustments. We can get an OC that likes to game manage like Edsall creams himself over as long as we get a line coach that actually coaches the line to get better. And the OC actually has a gameplan instead of just selecting plays randomly like in Madden

 

[BugsyCT]

What would it take for Edsall to get fired after next season's results? 4 wins or less? We've heard for about 3 years now how young this team is and how some players shouldn't even be playing. Shouldn't they finally be maturing and showing some progress by next season? What will the excuses be if they don't? The majority of their games have been unwatchable. How long is what's left of the fan base supposed to just go along with the status quo?

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Hey Mike, out of curiosity if "another miserable" year at your job doesn't warrant being fired, what exactly does move the needle? A decade of misery?

 

[huskysupporter]

In my mind yes. His seat was not hot this year given the situation. Y’all need to evaluate people in context.

he was horrendous in any context. Again he beat a 1-11 FCS team and beat the worst team in FBS. He has to go.

 

[Bobol]

Time for the UConn Administration and Trustees to have a serious discussion about ending the financial drain of UConn playing FBS football.

 

[ZooCougar]

Time for the UConn Administration and Trustees to have a serious discussion about ending the financial drain of UConn playing FBS football.

Can someone call the eye doctor? Because I just sprained my eyeballs.