Randy Edsall is a huge fan of John Dunn. So much so that, with funds in the athletics department lacking, the UConn head coach made the admirable yet alarming move to finance his offensive coordinator’s $150,000 raise from his own pocket.
The 35-year-old had been with Edsall for five seasons at Maryland before re-uniting with Edsall in Storrs, where after one season he merited a raise and an associate head coach title. In fact, the Hartford Courant wrote that Edsall was such a fan of Dunn that he made it clear he wanted Dunn to succeed him:
There’s no coach-in-waiting language in Dunn’s contract but several sources say Edsall’s vision includes the following: coach a few more years, maybe three, get the program headed in the right direction and hand it over to Dunn.
That’s all well and good — as long as Dunn didn’t take another job.
Well, Dunn just took another job.
He’s now the tight ends coach for the New York Jets.
To patch the hole Dunn left, Edsall promoted offensive line coach Frank Giufre to offensive coordinator; Giufre joined Edsall’s staff in 2018 after spending the previous six seasons as a quality control assistant with the Indianapolis Colts. Edsall also promoted UConn quality control assistant Mike Moyseenko to quarterbacks coach. Moyseenko had previously been promoted to running backs coach, meaning defensive quality control coach Kyle Weiss was bumped to the on-field staff to coach the running backs.
While all that is going on with the offense, new defensive coordinator Lou Spanos has been hired to fix a defense that was — there’s no other way to put it — one of the very worst in college football history. The 2018 Huskies were last nationally in yards per play (8.81, more than a yard behind No. 129 Georgia State), last in total defense (617.4 yards per game, 80 yards behind No. 129 Oregon State) and last in scoring defense (50.4 points per game, five behind No. 129 Oregon State).
Oh, and the athletics department ran up a $40 million deficit in 2018 alone.
It’s safe to say there have been better times for the UConn football program.
