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The Athletiic: Strangest College Coaches Hirings

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UCONNJACK

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Coming in at number 5 of the top ten strangest college football hirings.

5. Paul Pasqualoni, UConn (2011)

A day after coaching UConn in the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma, longtime coach Randy Edsall pulled a stunner in leaving for Maryland. Twelve days later, AD Jeff Hathaway introduced his successor, Connecticut native Pasqualoni, former head coach of the Donovan McNabb Syracuse teams back in the late ’90s.

But this was 2011, not 1997. Pasqualoni, then a defensive line coach for the Dallas Cowboys, was 61 and seven years removed from his last college job, walking into one of the most difficult programs in the country to recruit to.

The Huskies, coming off four consecutive bowl seasons, went 5-7 in Pasqualoni’s first two seasons, then started the 2013 campaign 0-4. He was fired by future Michigan AD Warde Manuel following a 41-12 loss to Buffalo.
 
Buffalo, what ahould have stood as the worst loss in program FBS history, is sadly no longer even in the top 3.
 
UCONNJACK said:
Coming in at number 5 of the top ten strangest college football hirings.

5. Paul Pasqualoni, UConn (2011)

A day after coaching UConn in the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma, longtime coach Randy Edsall pulled a stunner in leaving for Maryland. Twelve days later, AD Jeff Hathaway introduced his successor, Connecticut native Pasqualoni, former head coach of the Donovan McNabb Syracuse teams back in the late ’90s.

But this was 2011, not 1997. Pasqualoni, then a defensive line coach for the Dallas Cowboys, was 61 and seven years removed from his last college job, walking into one of the most difficult programs in the country to recruit to.

The Huskies, coming off four consecutive bowl seasons, went 5-7 in Pasqualoni’s first two seasons, then started the 2013 campaign 0-4. He was fired by future Michigan AD Warde Manuel following a 41-12 loss to Buffalo.
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P was the acting defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys. UConn should have made much more of that fact and much less of the fact he used to coach Syracuse. Wanna get the league? Come play for the Cowboys DC.

UConn is NOT one of the most difficult places to recruit to. They had just had been to a BCS bowl, they had just hired the DC of the Cowboys, and the Connecticut high school coaches were instrumental and excited about his hiring.

There is virtually noting strange about the hire.

The only strange thing was how unmotivated P was.
 
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Palatine said:
P was the acting defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys. UConn should have made much more of that fact and much less of the fact he used to coach Syracuse. Wanna get the league? Come play for the Cowboys DC.

UConn is NOT one of the most difficult places to recruit to. They had just had been to a BCS bowl, they had just hired the DC of the Cowboys, and the Connecticut high school coaches were instrumental and excited about his hiring.

There is virtually noting strange about the hire.

The only strange thing was how unmotivated P was.
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Yeah. The hire was so obvious it was uninspiring.

Safest thing to do was go with pasqualoni, who just didn’t win enough games those first two years.

They were 5-7, but had a lot of talent and awful QB play. They brought in Whitmer, who had talent and thought they were going 8-4. But they were turnover prone. All fell apart the next year.
 
Palatine said:
The only strange thing was how unmotivated P was.
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Unmotivated? You must have never seen P jogging around campus! He might have been in better shape than some of the O-lineman by the end of his tenure. /s

I honestly thought it was going to be Bob Diaco was near the top of the strangest coaches list.
 
mikedog10 said:
Unmotivated? You must have never seen P jogging around campus! He might have been in better shape than some of the O-lineman by the end of his tenure. /s

I honestly thought it was going to be Bob Diaco was near the top of the strangest coaches list.
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I don't think there was anything unusual about his hire when it happened. Say what you will about Diaco as a coach while he held the job, but when before he was hired, he was regarded as one of the best defensive coordinators in college football at a major program. Every FBS program in the country tries to hire those types of coaches when their HC positions open up.
 
So much blame to go around. Hathaway for sure. But the President role was a revolving door and the trustees were dysfunctional. Someone should have fired Hathaway the minute he proposed Pasqualoni
 
Skiblets said:
So much blame to go around. Hathaway for sure. But the President role was a revolving door and the trustees were dysfunctional. Someone should have fired Hathaway the minute he proposed Pasqualoni
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The entire list of candidates was lazy. P, Whipple, Penn State DC Tom Bradley, and Arkansas OC Garrick McGee.

It was B listers all the way.
 
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Palatine said:
P was the acting defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys. UConn should have made much more of that fact and much less of the fact he used to coach Syracuse. Wanna get the league? Come play for the Cowboys DC.

UConn is NOT one of the most difficult places to recruit to. They had just had been to a BCS bowl, they had just hired the DC of the Cowboys, and the Connecticut high school coaches were instrumental and excited about his hiring.

There is virtually noting strange about the hire.

The only strange thing was how unmotivated P was.
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No. Hiring him at the time was a terrible choice and everybody knew it. Sure the high school coaches liked it but they'd like anybody that played nice with them. There were plenty of others who could have done that. The administration wanted somebody safe because that's what administrations who don't know what they're doing do for a living.
 
Palatine said:
The entire list of candidates was lazy. P, Whipple, Penn State DC Tom Bradley, and Arkansas OC Garrick McGee.

It was B listers all the way.
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Yes. Agree where. That’s the best the search firm came up with?
 
Waquoit said:
I still chuckle at PP's hire being called "safe". It was a disaster of epic proportions.
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It was safe if you're an administrator. I didn't like it when it happened because "safe" just means "going backwards" in sports.
 
Palatine said:
P was the acting defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys. UConn should have made much more of that fact and much less of the fact he used to coach Syracuse. Wanna get the league? Come play for the Cowboys DC.

UConn is NOT one of the most difficult places to recruit to. They had just had been to a BCS bowl, they had just hired the DC of the Cowboys, and the Connecticut high school coaches were instrumental and excited about his hiring.

There is virtually noting strange about the hire.

The only strange thing was how unmotivated P was.
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He acted just like he did at the end of his time at Syracuse. He didn’t understand how much energy it takes to be successful in college. He might have been great at Xs and Os. But that’s only a small part of it.
 
Patman said:
It was safe if you're an administrator. I didn't like it when it happened because "safe" just means "going backwards" in sports.
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Hathaway basically said we just needed a caretaker. It was a catastrophic decision.
 
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ZooCougar said:
Hathaway basically said we just needed a caretaker. It was a catastrophic decision.
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Hathaway was a pathetic athletic director and felt that the whole time at UConn. Coming from UMass Lowell where the AD knew they had to hustle to get things done UConn seemed abjectly lazy in their approach all around. I formed that opinion quickly (04-05) and I haven't changed my view since.
 
Robert Burton told you so. Whatever happened to him? Is he still in the loop?
 
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J187Money said:
If PP hadn't stuck with GDL - might have worked out great. We had a top 20 defense with DB.
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No. His first year he took a bowl team to a 5-7 record. It wasn't GDL, it was him. That the next two hires were just as bad shouldn't let him off the hook. He took millions of dollars and gave us nothing back.
 
Waquoit said:
No. His first year he took a bowl team to a 5-7 record. It wasn't GDL, it was him. That the next two hires were just as bad shouldn't let him off the hook. He took millions of dollars and gave us nothing back.
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Yes. It was him. Because he hired a terrible OC. He is 100% responsible. But sometimes coaches stink because they can't coach. Sometimes they stink because they make hiring mistakes. Sometimes they stink because they can't recruit. I thought that PP made one fatally bad decision and wouldn't course correct. It is on him, but those teams were not the train wrecks that followed.
 
Pasqualoni is still coaching in the NFL, so he can't completely suck. Someone out there respects his abilities.

Of all the recent UConn Head Coaches, the one with the most puzzling post-UConn career is TJ Weist. He went 3-5 as UConn's interim HC in 2013, and then didn't get a coordinator job again for 3 years. In 2016, he did such a good job as co-OC at USF that his head coach got the Oregon HC job. Weist coached the bowl game, beating South Carolina, and never get a coordinator or HC job again. He is the Baltimore Ravens ST coach, which is a solid job, but I can't figure out why no one even gave him a chance as HC.
 
My impression of Pasqualoni was he was very knowledgeable football guy but past his sell by date as a college coach. He thought guys could/would do things like stay in shape like NFL players do. He didn’t relate to players very well. And he refused to dump DeLeon when it was clear he couldn’t get things done.

I agree on Weist. Seems odd that he never landed a coordinator job. I figured he would likely end up a head coach somewhere within a couple of years.
 
J187Money said:
But sometimes coaches stink because they can't coach. Sometimes they stink because they make hiring mistakes. Sometimes they stink because they can't recruit. I thought that PP made one fatally bad decision and wouldn't course correct. It is on him, but those teams were not the train wrecks that followed.
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P stunk because his heart wasn't in it. And it was a train wreck given a good team, losing all those winnable games, stopping the program in it's tracks. He set the tone for what followed.
 
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