So about all the coaching options we had when Pasqualoni was eventually hired....

[JohnFSilver]

I'll say Pasqualoni is a great coach, just past his prime for a head coaching position. He wouldn't keep getting NFL gigs if he didn't know how to coach. Honestly his biggest downfall wasn't so much that he was a bad HC, it was his loyalty to DeLeone. Granted that was a huge strike against him, but he still knows football. And he recruited infinitely better than Red Pants.

P can coach. He should have won here. He didn't. He deserved to be fired.

 

[freescooter]

P can coach. He should have won here. He didn't. He deserved to be fired.

I agree. With what he had and what he recruited I don’t understand why he didn’t put winning teams on the field. But my sense was he sort of lost interest in being a head coach. I don’t know any other way to describe it.

 

[Palatine]

P can coach. He should have won here. He didn't. He deserved to be fired.

That's a fair point. He brought a offense that was out of date by 15 years and an OC that was out of date by decades. That offense got him fired at Syracuse. He would have been a great defensive coordinator but he was more committed to the past than the future.

 

[Bongo Fury]

I believe Morehead interviewed when Diaco got the job. I think. Getting old here.

If that’s the case,Darn! WM really wanted Narduzzi but apparently he was not interested.

 

[UConnJim]

PP could have been a successful coach had he not brought along GDL. He could have had Moorhead as OC and either Orlando or Don Brown as DC. PP would have been the older statesman/CEO head coach. Heck, PP could have kept almost all of the existing coaches and performed better.

 

[Waquoit]

P stole money when he was here. I knew a guy who used to dump all his empties on P's lawn after a loss. I didn't think that was right at the time.

 

[DoctorWho85]

I agree. With what he had and what he recruited I don’t understand why he didn’t put winning teams on the field. But my sense was he sort of lost interest in being a head coach. I don’t know any other way to describe it.

GDL is the reason he couldn't put a winning team together. GDL tried in install a offense that none of the players were recruited for and did literally nothing to try to adapt to the situation. Even Syracuse fans at the end of PP's tenure were saying GDL was the reason Syracuse was on the decline when UConn moved up to DI

 

[ZooCougar]

P can coach. He should have won here. He didn't. He deserved to be fired.

He lost to Towson and Buffalo. He may be able to coach at the NFL level but he lost his touch in the college game years before Syracuse let him go.

 

[buddy]

Because you don't have the right to leave your job and take another one for more money, right?

Employees stay in a job for as long as it's in their interest to do so. That doesn't just mean money, but it means all things considered they don't feel like it's in their interest to switch. It's an AD's job to make sure that a coach you want to stay stays. What Edsall "owed" UConn was not being so self interested that he walked off the stage before the program's biggest moment playing in the Fiesta Bowl. He stayed through then. Period.

If we want to beat on Edsall, beat on him for the record since he's been back.

I don't hate him and I think he can get UConn football back on track. However, I do believe he started the ball rolling in the downward spiral of UConn football by the way he left. Unless the AD was aware of what was happening behind the scenes and did nothing to prepare rather than having to make a quick decision to hire any old loser that was available, then I fault him. I don't like stealth or deceit and I believe that that is what happened leading up to the Fiesta Bowl.

 

[businesslawyer]

That's a fair point. He brought a offense that was out of date by 15 years and an OC that was out of date by decades. That offense got him fired at Syracuse. He would have been a great defensive coordinator but he was more committed to the past than the future.

P was also hurt by his need to undo every last thing Edsall had done just because the two of them didn't get along. He would have been much better served coming in with a "what do I need to improve" attitude than changing everything from the way we dressed for travel to stadiums to the music played when the team came out of the tunnel, much less x's and o's.

 

[businesslawyer]

I don't hate him and I think he can get UConn football back on track. However, I do believe he started the ball rolling in the downward spiral of UConn football by the way he left. Unless the AD was aware of what was happening behind the scenes and did nothing to prepare rather than having to make a quick decision to hire any old loser that was available, then I fault him. I don't like stealth or deceit and I believe that that is what happened leading up to the Fiesta Bowl.

Of course there was stealth and deceit. You think employees always tell their employers that they may be leaving soon ahead of time? Always give two weeks notice (and if he gave two weeks notice the day after the Fiesta Bowl how would that have helped us)? It is an Athletic Director's job to have a plan 365 days a year for what happens if one of his head coaches leaves the next day. If UConn wasn't ready, that's on the school, not the coach.

 

[hardcorehusky]

Of course there was stealth and deceit. You think employees always tell their employers that they may be leaving soon ahead of time? Always give two weeks notice (and if he gave two weeks notice the day after the Fiesta Bowl how would that have helped us)? It is an Athletic Director's job to have a play 365 days a year for what happens if one of his head coaches leaves the next day. If UConn wasn't ready, that's on the school, not the coach.

It is incumbent on the employer(the AD Hathaway) to have a list of names in case the coach leaves, gets sick, or dies. Businesslawyer is correct here. This one isn't on Randy. I hate how he handled it but he has handled a lot of other things like Jazz Howard's death really really well.

Regarding P, he didn't undo all the things Randy did. He loosened certain things that Randy had a tight control over. He let the kids be more accountable but in the process, they lost the culture that Randy had created and that was the beginning of the end.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Next time we hire a head coach I really hope we go somewhere between “0 years head coach experience” and “a billion years head coach experience”

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

It is incumbent on the employer(the AD Hathaway) to have a list of names in case the coach leaves, gets sick, or dies. Businesslawyer is correct here. This one isn't on Randy. I hate how he handled it but he has handled a lot of other things like Jazz Howard's death really really well.

Regarding P, he didn't undo all the things Randy did. He loosened certain things that Randy had a tight control over. He let the kids be more accountable but in the process, they lost the culture that Randy had created and that was the beginning of the end.

With any coaching his rosters were more than good enough to win 8 or 9 games in the late BE and early AAC years. He treated 18-22 year old kids like they were pro football players and we had the worse conditioned team every single game we played. In the long run it hurt the NFL career of guys like Kendall Reyes and Sio Moore

 

[Bongo Fury]

Of course there was stealth and deceit. You think employees always tell their employers that they may be leaving soon ahead of time? Always give two weeks notice (and if he gave two weeks notice the day after the Fiesta Bowl how would that have helped us)? It is an Athletic Director's job to have a play 365 days a year for what happens if one of his head coaches leaves the next day. If UConn wasn't ready, that's on the school, not the coach.

This happens all the time. At least he stayed for the bowl game and didn’t let anyone know so not to be a distraction.

 

[Bongo Fury]

With any coaching his rosters were more than good enough to win 8 or 9 games in the late BE and early AAC years. He treated 18-22 year old kids like they were pro football players and we had the worse conditioned team every single game we played. In the long run it hurt the NFL career of guys like Kendall Reyes and Sio Moore

They always mentioned how things are done in the NFL but that didn’t fit the UCONN teams. They had some bad luck with some missed field goals but generally the team played uninspired especially on offense. BD brought energy but not speed or toughness except for Shireffs.

 

[uconnbill]

Whipple and P were the finalists

The field included
Tom Bradley DC from Penn State.
Former Louisville head coach Steve Kragthorpe
Former Boston College coach Jeff Jagodzinski
Arkansas OC/QB coach Garrick McGee

No one ever made a big deal of this (which they should have) but Pasquaoni was the Defensive Coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys (interim) when he took the UConn job.

Coach P was a nice guy but was too loyal to DeLeone who was terrible and the offense was twenty years in the past

 

[metsfan2323]

Coach P was a nice guy but was too loyal to DeLeone who was terrible and the offense was twenty years in the past

The worst part is UCONN had a high profile donor with first hand experience of P's incompetence screaming not to hire P and the powers that be did it anyway. It hurts just thinking about it.

 

[DoctorWho85]

The worst part is UCONN had a high profile donor with first hand experience of P's incompetence screaming not to hire P and the powers that be did it anyway. It hurts just thinking about it.

I think the worst part was a lot of people just thought Burton was crazy. I know I did. I just saw that he was the second winningest coach in BE history and was a very good recruiter. I was ho hum on the hire because Phil Fulmer was in the mix.

 

[Chief00]

Because you don't have the right to leave your job and take another one for more money, right?

Employees stay in a job for as long as it's in their interest to do so. That doesn't just mean money, but it means all things considered they don't feel like it's in their interest to switch. It's an AD's job to make sure that a coach you want to stay stays. What Edsall "owed" UConn was not being so self interested that he walked off the stage before the program's biggest moment playing in the Fiesta Bowl. He stayed through then. Period.

If we want to beat on Edsall, beat on him for the record since he's been back.

I think the problem is Randy left in the middle of the night and did not travel back with the team. The thing he did calling Todman out so he could cover his own tracks was simply wrong.
He should have traveled back to Storrs with the team after the loss and then done whatever he wanted to the next day.

 

[businesslawyer]

I think the problem is Randy left in the middle of the night and did not travel back with the team. The thing he did calling Todman out so he could cover his own tracks was simply wrong.
He should have traveled back to Storrs with the team after the loss and then done whatever he wanted to the next day.

By how it has been reported, the way he handled Todman was wrong.

But unless you're going to explain to me how UConn was worse off either because he made Todman tell the team he was leaving early or because he flew back separately, what do either of those things have to do with his responsibility for what became of the program after he left.

 

[Chief00]

By how it has been reported, the way he handled Todman was wrong.

But unless you're going to explain to me how UConn was worse off either because he made Todman tell the team he was leaving early or because he flew back separately, what do either of those things have to do with his responsibility for what became of the program after he left.

I am not blaming him for what happened to the program after he left, except for some Randy 2 era stuff. I do think the coach should travel back with the team after the bowl loss and wrapped things up with class rather than take a flight to MD that night.

 

[Waquoit]

Randy clearly wasn't all in for the biggest game in UConn history. I'll never forgive him for that.

 

[DoctorWho85]

Randy clearly wasn't all in for the biggest game in UConn history. I'll never forgive him for that.

I think it's more of opposite. He was trying too hard. Going for it on 4th down several times instead of kicking field goals which made the score look way worse than what the actual game was. If I remember correctly, UConn did significantly better than VT did against Stanford who didn't even make it past the the 50 yard line the entire second half.

 

[Uconnalliance]

Mike Leach was the hot name on the interwebs. Was supposedly second to RE for the Maryland job.

Hank Hughes got the interim tag - currently DL coach at Penn

Some other names offered up by the Courant and others:

Bill McGovern - recently NYG LB coach
Mark Whipple - after a second stint as UMass HC currently Pitt OC

Other NFL names floated included Eric Mangini, Kevin Gilbride, and Tony Soprano (RIP)

Other College names linked by various news papers included:

Mario Cristobal - then HC at FIU currently HC at Oregon
Bud Foster - VT DC then and now

Not sure anyone on this impresses