So about all the coaching options we had when Pasqualoni was eventually hired.... | Page 2 | The Boneyard

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

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.
 
In hindsight we should have just hired Don Brown. Wouldn't have been a sexy hire, but he had success as a head coach and clearly knew what he was doing defensively.
 
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.
At least we didn't take Kragthorpe. He would have been even more damaging than PP
 
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At least we didn't take Kragthorpe. He would have been even more damaging than PP

How was he even considered? He had just been diagnosed with Parkinson's and has been out of coaching for a while now.
 
There was no mutual interest IIRC... kind of an agent reach out.
Nothing against the guy but he absolutely killed Louisville's momentum after Petrino left for Arkansas. It was almost as bad as Greg Robinson after PP at Syracuse lol
 
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.
that was a big issue with us.... we ALWAYS came to the party too doggone late.. Pasquaphony was past his prime and he was "interm" DC for my Cowboys, who were awful (IIRC) .. we still are (get well soon Dak... we need you bro)....

Just sayin, PP was a sexy name for us when he came on because of his home ties alone... nothing more... Horrible job by the AD at the time.. horrible.. I honestly thought a guy like Bradley or McGee would work, but, in hindsight, and some might think I'm nuts for saying this... Joe Moorehead might've been the best option for us at that point.. seriously... He was a good fit here... and, quite frankly, honestly speaking, until Edsall 2.0 and company can show a team that is ready to play real games, Moorehead might still be that ideal fit... Only issue now though is affordability... He got that taste of SEC $$$...
 
I wonder if anyone suggested Moorhead at that time. I certainly don’t remember that. PP didn’t respect him. RE didn’t take him with him. He’ll make 1 mil next year as a coordinator for a relevant team.
 
In hindsight we should have just hired Don Brown. Wouldn't have been a sexy hire, but he had success as a head coach and clearly knew what he was doing defensively.

Don Brown should have been hired instead of Diaco in 2013. Most of the Boneyard foolishly thought he was too old at the time and wanted the "sexy" hire and Warde delivered sexy.

Whipple would have been a solid hire in 2011. He would have figured out a way to score points (probably would have aggressively brought in his own handpicked QB to the team) and I assume we would have still had Brown on defense. Our receivers in 2011 were Nick Williams, Geremy Davis, Kashif Moore and Ryan Griffin, Whipple would have lit up the scoreboard with those guys. Whipple and Brown probably would have had us competing for another Big East title in 2011.
 
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Leach’s stock was much higher than Edsall’s like so much higher.

Pasqualoni was a not even a mediocre hire. Hathaway was terrible at getting money and the bug donor at the time had zero confidence in him. So Hathaway took the path of least resistance which was Pasqualoni and DeLeone.
 
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I wonder if anyone suggested Moorhead at that time. I certainly don’t remember that. PP didn’t respect him. RE didn’t take him with him. He’ll make 1 mil next year as a coordinator for a relevant team.

Didn’t Moorhead go to head coaching gig?
 
Didn’t Moorhead go to head coaching gig?
Yeah, he was HC @ Fordham...and his teams lit it up... he ends up as OC @ Penn State which lead to his hire as HC @ Miss State, where he wasn't actually terrible. The SEC is just a different animal. Now, he landed on his feet as OC @ Oregon... wishful thinking would make him our next hire. He'd be a great fit... Unfortunately, we have that less than desirable wrap here. GREAT facilities with a little less than a clue on the field.
 
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Hindsight tells us that but at the time Hughes or Foley would have been considered before and thought of as being disappointing hire. Ambrose had some good seasons.
I believe Morehead interviewed when Diaco got the job. I think. Getting old here.
 
and to think. People still defend P.
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.
 
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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.

All these coaches know football. There is nothing remarkable there.

What he doesn’t know how to do anymore is win more games than he loses.

He sucked at that. He demoted Moorhead who had made the UConn offense look explosive and modern. That’s a fireable offense.
 
None of this would be an issue if Randy Edsall didn't sneak away in the middle of the night and stab UConn in the back. If he had stayed he could have built on the Fiesta Bowl season and UConn would have been more than competitive and would likely have been in the ACC now. We can all blame Pasqualoni or Diaco, but the fault lies with Randy. Sorry.

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'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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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