UConn’s Randy Edsall Out Immediately; Who Could Replace Him?

Edsall Out; All Hell Breaking Loose

The Story: Randy Edsall has stepped down immediately after he and athletic director Dave Benedict reached a mutual decision in their meeting yesterday. Defensive coordinator Lou Spanos will take over as the interim coach.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Did you think anyone could have had a messier exit than Edsall did the first time he left UConn? Here we are again.

• UConn released a statement saying it was a mutual decision, but it really isn’t. This is Benedict’s call and The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman tweeted that there were “locker room fireworks” in the wake of Edsall’s decision to retire at the end of the season.

• Edsall, who finished his second stint 6-32 and went 80-102 overall, will be paid his entire $1.256 million salary for the season. Benedict told the players Edsall would be departing immediately at around 5:30 p.m.

SPANOS TAKES OVER: Spanos, 50, is in his second year as the defensive coordinator after he spent a season as an analyst at Alabama. Once the defensive coordinator at UCLA, Spanos coached linebackers in the NFL for 21 seasons.

• He will try to salvage this season and the recruiting class and set UConn up for the future. He seems to have the personality of a mortician, but the less drama the better with UConn these days. Just get the players to play well, and if he catches lightning in a bottle, he could get the gig.

OUR TAKE: This is another poorly handled public relations disaster that will have long ramifications for the program. It is self-inflicted, too. It’s not that Edsall leaving now isn’t the right move. It may well be, but how about a little communication and grace? What changed in two games? Losing to Holy Cross is the least of the program’s concerns right now. That’s a problem.

• What necessitated the move? Fans, stakeholders and alumni deserve some transparency and accountability. We should get those answers today during the weekly press conference, but that seems unlikely. Benedict needs to be the adult in the room and take control of the football program. It didn’t play last season because of the pandemic, preached significant improvement for a year and now two games in, it’s in crisis mode? We don’t care about the Holy Cross loss. Teams lose. The off-the-field issues are disappointing. With an interim school president and interim football coach, the program needs someone to manage things properly. Heck, put Jim Calhoun in charge. UConn needs someone just to watch what is going on.

• Purdue is a 33-point favorite over UConn on Saturday — and that is if everything is going well behind the scenes. Edsall said there were going to be significant changes to the depth chart; let’s see of that still happens later this afternoon. This is another disastrous turn for a floundering program. A house cleaning is in order, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Who Could Replace Edsall at UConn?

The Story: Let’s do what everyone does when a coaching search begins by breaking out the dartboard and haphazardly discussing some people who coach football.

A DIFFICULT SITUATION: The future coach will inherit one heck of a rebuilding project and will likely need many years to get things back on track.

• Who will be on the team? Even though UConn has one of its best recruiting classes in many years (it has 14 known commitments, half of whom are three-star prospects), some players may look elsewhere given the transition. And, given how football works these days, anyone could decide to transfer to a new program, perhaps even immediately. With only two (terrible, horrible, no good, very bad) games in the books, a player could say he’s done, shut it down and preserve a year of eligibility by redshirting and transferring. There may not be a lot of elite high schoolers in the northeast, but a good recruiter can scour the region, as well as New York, New Jersey, the Mid-Atlantic and Florida — just as Edsall has for years — and find enough quality overlooked FBS-caliber players. There’s also the transfer portal, which has made finding disgruntled players remarkably easier in recent years. A good coach could take advantage of that situation and offer them the immediate playing time they covet.

• What will the coach earn? Even though Edsall signed a contract extension that lasts through the 2023 season earlier this year, the athletic department will owe him nothing. That’s good news for a department that’s cash-strapped. If there’s no movement by big-money boosters (who, we must remember, love Edsall), UConn can expect to offer about $1.2 million to the person it chooses. That’s more than most MAC and Sun Belt head coaches make, let alone FCS head coaches, but it’s not a significant raise for the nation’s top FBS coordinators. What’s clear is UConn can’t keep going cheap with its hires. Either pay market rate or punt on the idea of competency.

• Who will help coach? Related to the last point, UConn also hasn’t been able to pay coordinators or assistant coaches a respectable salary in recent years, which is one of the less-discussed reasons for the Huskies’ lack of success. (Every coordinator during Edsall’s first tenure has either become a Division I head coach or a coordinator at a large Power 5 school since leaving.) Remember John Dunn, who was the offensive coordinator in 2018? UConn couldn’t give him a salary increase when NFL teams came calling, so Edsall offered to pay him a portion of his own salary to keep him from leaving — only for Dunn to bolt to become the Jets’ tight end coach three weeks later. To fill his spot, UConn promoted Frank Giufre, a career offensive line coach who was an analyst for the Colts for six seasons before spending one year in Storrs. And no disrespect to Kyle Weiss, who was a defensive quality control coach in 2018 before becoming the running backs coach before the 2019 season, but imagine how good Kevin Mensah could be if Terry Richardson was still coaching him. Edsall had to promote several inexperienced coaches to fill out the staff in recent years. Performance has suffered.

• What’s there to play for? There’s no bowl game in sight (or even a conference championship), so players choosing to attend UConn cannot reasonably be told they’ll be lifting a trophy anytime soon. Then again, Edsall didn’t seem to have a problem recruiting players the last two years with those restrictions in place. At least the television contract with CBS Sports guarantees every home game will be on national TV through the next two seasons, and that means parents, even if they’re in Georgia or Texas, can watch their son play.

OTHER THAN THAT, MRS. LINCOLN … Yeah, of course. The names. You’ve read/scrolled this far for the names, so we must give you the names. Here’s what we’re thinking, with an assist to The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman and Chris Vannini. They have already pegged some of the top candidates.

• Oregon offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead. This is probably a Hail Mary given where Moorhead is in his career, but the former offensive coordinator, who was humiliated when he was stripped of that responsibility during Paul Pasqualoni‘s first year, would immediately revive UConn with an exciting offense and bring instant credibility. Since he left UConn in 2012, Moorhead spent four years as the head coach of Fordham, his alma mater; two years as the offensive coordinator at Penn State; and two years as Mississippi State’s head coach. A Pittsburgh native with an outgoing personality, Moorhead, 47, should get a chance to return “home,” but salary may be an issue. He made $900,000 last season.

• USC defensive coordinator Todd Orlando. Another one of Edsall’s former defensive coordinators, Orlando, 50, is in his second season with the Trojans and was previously at Texas for three, so he brings the experience of having been on a big stage. Also a Pittsburgh native, Orlando has no head-coaching experience and isn’t necessarily oozing with charisma, so he’d have to win fans over with his results. USC is a private school, so his salary remains unknown, but it has to be close to $1 million annually as well. His defensive mind is highly regarded, though, and if on-field results are a significant qualification, he’d be able to state his case.

• FIU offensive coordinator Andrew Breiner. A low-level assistant when Edsall left the first time, Breiner, 37, is a disciple of Moorhead’s who joined him at Fordham and then later replaced him as head coach before leaving for a reunion at Mississippi State. He’s in his first year at FIU. Breiner made just $300,000 a year when he was at Mississippi State and can’t be making much more than that at FIU, so he’d come cheap.

• Miami offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee. This one seems unlikely given the manner in which Lashlee left UConn for SMU after just one season (remember, he was considered the dream hire before Benedict went back to Edsall, and then Benedict landed them both). Lashlee, 38, still has yet to prove himself as a head coach, and the connection to Benedict given their time together at Auburn can’t be counted out. But for as much as his name has already been floated out there, it’s a long shot.

• Former Purdue defensive coordinator Bob Diaco. Just kidding. We just wanted to see if you were still paying attention.

• Minnesota defensive coordinator Joe Harasymiak. We’ll break from the Edsall tree to pivot to Harasymiak, 35, who has spent the last two seasons in igloo country. Harasymiak previously spent eight years at Maine, including the last three as its head coach. He went 20-15 during those three seasons and reached the FCS semifinals in 2018 after going 10-4. A New Jersey native, Harasymiak makes $342,000 at Minnesota, which again means he could come cheap.

• Bengals linebackers coach Al Golden. The former Temple and Miami head coach is a New Jersey native who went to Penn State and has extensive ties in the northeast. Perhaps the most important portion of his resume is that Temple went 1-11 in his first season, 2006, and finished 8-4 in 2010 before he parlayed that success into a surprise hiring at Miami. Whether Golden, 52, wants to get back to the college game is uncertain, but he’s been toiling as an NFL assistant for six seasons now and for someone used to calling the shots, being a grunt can be tough. There’s also concern he could bail at the first sign of success, but UConn can’t worry about that now.

• Holy Cross head coach Bob Chesney. He has won at every level, from Salve Regina (2010-12) to Assumption (2013-17) to Holy Cross. Chesney, 44, is from Central Pennsylvania and his Northeast ties are extensive. He can recruit players who fit UConn’s academic profile and, as we saw, runs a modern-day offense. And hey, he certainly knows how to win at Rentschler Field!

• UConn tight ends coach Corey Edsall. Yeah, this is unlikely, even though the younger Edsall, 29, is a dynamic recruiter who knows how to relate to players. He has no experience as a coordinator, let alone as a head coach, and a transition from father to son may not go over well in an athletic department that needs all the perceptions of a clean break. (Remember all the claims of nepotism that went into his hiring?) He has a bright future, but it doesn’t seem like his time is now.

• ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky. Again, it seems unlikely, though Orlovsky’s name is going to be floated out there for weeks — and perhaps even months. Anyone who has watched Orlovsky, 38, break down an offense recognizes he clearly knows football, but how that would translate to coaching for someone who has never held a coaching role is a risk UConn can’t afford to take. There’s no doubt he’d raise the profile of the program as its most well-known former player, and it would be a surprise if he didn’t play a role in the coaching search somehow, but this isn’t a job for him.

OUR CALL GOES TO … Moorhead. Make him say no. (Heck, you might even get Breiner with him.) He’d put butts in the seats, sell the hell out of the program and bring credibility after the two previous new hires, Pasqualoni and Diaco, were met with a whimper. If he’s not willing to do it — and that’s a distinct possibility, given all of the reasons we mentioned — go outside the Edsall “coaching tree” and get someone who will make UConn exciting again. Just hope he doesn’t start speaking in Latin during his introductory press conference.